I've been a long-time lurker here and never thought I'd have content of my own to post, but here goes.
I've been working for a relatively small company for over 5 years, in a position that is considered to be a project manager but without the title or the salary. We hired someone a few months ago as a COO and they've been nonstop pitching new clients, and signing new clients, while the company hasn't bothered to really add employees in order to both support our existing clients, and to handle the increased workload that the new clients bring.
I wear about 10 different hats in this role and do the job of at least 4 people. My coworkers have told me multiple times that I need an assistant, and I agree. Our team is too small for existing colleagues to pick up the slack for me. A month and a half ago, I pitched the idea of bumping me up to the PM title and bringing a Jr. or admin assistant onboard to directly report to me and work with me, taking a lot of the admin things off my plate that I just don't have the bandwidth to continue handling. The president and COO readily agreed, and I was told toward the end of August to draft a job description, and once it was posted, to go ahead and vet the applicants, pick some good ones to talk with, before moving on to setting formal interviews, and then informal team chats with a few colleagues.
So… I spent the month of September doing just that. I talked to 10 people. I narrowed it down to 4 formal interviews. I had 3 of those move forward with team chats with a few colleagues from different departments this past week.
I had noted to my higher ups that I wanted to get someone hired by the beginning of October as I had a planned absence in early November that I need coverage for, and a full month of training should put the person I hired in a position by then to be capable of covering me while I'm out. They fully agreed with this plan.
So I'm gathering feedback from colleagues, I'm spending 2 hours calling these candidates' references on Thursday, and I'm preparing to recap with my COO in a 1 on 1 meeting Friday, to then move forward with making the job offer to my top choice. I'm excited about this, and excited to hit the ground next week running with a new right-hand person to be my work partner.
Well… got a text Friday morning from the COO asking if any of the candidates are bilingual. No… they're not. Bilingual wasn't a requirement we talked about this role needing. I'm not bilingual, and it's not hindered me in my 5+ years in my current role. COO responds with “we need to reframe the search to focus on admin skills & bilingual”…. uh… I'm in disbelief, realizing that this means the process has to start over, and my top 3 candidates then are automatically disqualified because they aren't bilingual.
I express my concern about this, and I'm told it came from upper management. So I call the president and raise this question. They dance around a direct answer, have to end the call to take another, and then they call me back 5 mins before my 1 on 1 with the COO… and tell me: “COO has reposted the job. They will make the first pass of applicants with the Founder. You'll be asked to sit in on formal interviews.” And when I express my concern for this change setting everything back by at least 2 weeks or more and also my disappointment at the situation, president says “I understand”. Yeah. I'm sure they do.
When I had my 1 on 1 with the COO, they repeat the same thing. When I again express my concern for how this affects the timing of hiring someone to be able to be adequately trained in time for my absence, and also that it would have been nice to know that being bilingual was a requirement a month ago when I was vetting applicants, and also that I felt like a month of my time – and the initial applicants' time, plus my top 3 candidates' time – had been wasted in light of this last-minute change the day I'm ready to offer the job to someone, I'm told “let's not look at it like a waste of time. Let's not be upset. This happens all the time in recruitment. Let's not focus on getting someone in ASAP, but focus on getting the RIGHT person for the role.” I am in complete disbelief at this point and so livid that I can hardly speak. I ask, what am I supposed to tell these 3 candidates then? And I get told “tell them we haven't made a decision yet and we'll get back to them”… yeah. We made a decision. YOU (upper management) made the decision for me, and you took this process out of my hands when you put it in my hands over a month ago because this person is supposed to be working with me… and I need to make sure I feel 100% confident that they're a good fit.
I ended the call and burst into angry tears. I've witnessed these people pull things like this on other people. I've seen them give no regard or respect for other people's time, energy, and input into this company. I had hopes that by being given the reigns to manage the recruitment process for my own assistant, it meant that yes, I was valued enough to be in that position. I get told the company can't run without me, you're so valuable, etc… and then this happens.
That was the line in the sand for me. This situation doesn't affect upper management. They do not care how much this affects me. How EMBARRASSING it was to call my top pick on Friday and have to explain this to them (I am NOT feeding them the BS the COO told me to say). The final straw broke for me Friday. I realized how disposable I am and how much my input really doesn't matter.
Why do they want someone bilingual now? Because they claim we're a bilingual company… we have 1 person on staff who is bilingual, and they don't offer to pay that person to translate and quality check things for us. So they don't want to keep paying a 3rd party for translations nor hire someone in a different role where bilingual skills fit better with the role responsibilities… so they hijack my assistant position and change it to fit their needs, not mine, and remove me from the equation, yet I'm expected to interview with new candidates, and then to train the person they pick.
I'm done. I'm tired of the games they play. I'm heartbroken over what happened. I'm angry, disgusted. I'm fed up with being given crumbs. The COO thinks that if we aren't working 12 hours, 6 days a week, then we have bandwidth. They assume we can take on more than we actually can. Many employees are burned out and fed up.
I've been offered jobs already… and they may soon realize the gravity of the consequences of their actions, when my resignation letter hits their inbox. They can throw more money at me and beg me to stay, but it doesn't fix the foundational problems that they've caused.
Sorry this is long, thanks for reading.