I think I just need to vent. I’m a highly skilled individual contributor at a big startup company and should have a manager title, but the company has instead been dangling the promotion over my head for over a year now. (I’ve been at the company longer).
I have trained three people in two different roles.
I started in a role, and within two weeks both my manager and peer in the department quit. I quickly took over the functions of one director and one manager — alone.
They told me they couldn’t justify giving me a manager title without a direct report, so I was given a direct report (but no title change). Then within a month the company underwent layoffs (including the direct report). I wasn’t even notified until the morning of, when they asked me why their access was shutoff. I had no idea. My mom died right before this happened.
Six months later someone in a completely different role with a Director title quit, and my boss (VP) asked me to “act as a stopgap” while they found a replacement — alone. I started doing two different roles at the same time.
They hired someone else as a Manager two months later. I trained them by myself so that I could go back to doing my old job, and one month after I finally backed off to do my original job I was hired for, they quit.
One month after that, they hired yet another person but this time as a Senior Manager. I had to hand-hold them, train them and review their work. This time, they asked me to keep focusing on helping with the role.
Last week, they laid off this person for not acting like a manager (while I did). Which leaves me back at square one.
I bring up a title change at every 1:1 with my boss, and I haven’t gotten so much as a plan to show for it. The best I get is more added to my plate because they want me to continuously “prove I can do the job”.
I’ve been having bad panic attacks, not sleeping some nights, and just generally feeling like I’m killing myself for leadership that doesn’t give a f*ck.
I keep looking for jobs, but any other company would start me at or below what I make now because I am STILL an individual contributor.
I want so badly to just drop and run, but I would have to worry about losing my house…and so the cycle continues.
I don’t know how to get off of this roller coaster toward a stroke or alcoholism. It’s toxic.