I am close(ish) with someone who works in the “office” part of my company and they deal with the CEO and head of HR daily.
Recently this person has given me the heads up and told me
“you have a target on your back, they have essentially said it in every way but plain english that if you were to mess up they would want me to come down on you harder than if someone else did the same thing”
now while that is incredibly messed up it isn’t out of the norm for the owner of this company based off past reviews and just hearing everything else that goes on in the company.
but while telling this story to a friend of mine they mentioned that this could be seen as “retaliation” for me turning down a promotion during the probationary period because i didn’t feel like i was ready for the responsibility.
is there anything i can do to protect my job?
Edit: this is a relatively small company (9 stores) so the owner/ceo is around more than much larger companies