Sorry this is longer than I thought it would be. I feel like I am burning out because of this manager but I don't know what to do.
Some background:
- I work as an analyst/consultant for researchers doing studies with human participants. My job is half reviewing studies for ethics, and half consulting with scientists to help them design ethical studies.
- I started 2.5 years ago and got promoted in December to the senior role (right below the manager).
- I have a manager who supports our office, and we also have a Chair (plus 3 vice-chairs) of the ethics board that approves the studies.
- On a daily basis, I work very closely with the Chairs and our junior analysts – in a way, I consider the Chair my boss because she guides a lot of our day-to-day work, more than the manager, and has the final say on what the Board does.
- The manager's role is different – she helps support our unit in front of our bigger office, really – the Board is kind of an offshoot of the office.
- When I started we had a different temp manager, who was amazing, but she retired. Current manager has been with us for about a year.
- I love this job because I have a science background and I love this field – it is intellectually stimulating, I can indirectly help participants, and the work we approve can ultimately help very sick people (i.e. getting an experimental drug that may be life-saving)
Recently (since February), my manager shifted in her style and has been micromanaging like crazy. She goes into the reviews I or some other analysts do, picks out certain questions/recommendations we logged, and emails why we are “suddenly” asking this question
She'll say something like, “please help me understand when this changed”. Then I gotta go into my history and show her examples of when similar questions were asked, why it is relevant to ethics, and why it isn't a “sudden” change, but how I was trained when I started. The other junior staff is newer than me so they might not know the answer. This has been happening like every 2-3 weeks now.
She claims our questions have been causing delays in approving the studies, but has no evidence to support that claim. There is no transparency for why she is micromanaging suddenly – are researchers complaining, are the execs complaining, etc? The analysts are all getting nervous about their reviews because her eyes will be on them.
We talked to the Chair recently, who is great (hence why we could go to her). She said this is unusual – the manager has historically (for the last 15 years she has been the Chair), never gone into the reviews we do. She said she will talk to the Director about this, but the Director had a family emergency last week and is indefinitely on leave, so that is up in the air now. The Chair also said next time this happens we should just ask the manager to speak with her directly.
I'm struggling because I loved the job but I don't think it's worth it anymore. Us directing questions to the Chair will help, but I don't think it will change the problem at hand. Help me realize I can find something better.