I made another post in a different subreddit the other day but here's the TLDR. I left that meeting clinging to my last iota of self-worth and confidence.
“Still reeling from finding out that I’d failed my first CPA exam from last night.
I don’t need extra salt in the wound like “You’re not adding much value to the team” and “This is not what I envisioned when I hired you as a senior accountant” despite shortening process time and catching errors from old bookings.”
I walked out of that day, feeling God awful. Then felt even worse that late afternoon when she comforted me out of the blue for me failing my exam. Told me not to get discouraged and that there's next time.
……………….
Today, I had another row with my manager. Please note, I've only been here for two months and spare change. It's been a nightmare. It has made every toxic job I've ever had feel like unicorn land, every toxic boss I've ever had like saints compared to my current job/boss.
Today, I asked my manager a question. I get it if she's busy. Just do what my old managers do “[Name] did it for us last month. Can you ask them to explain to you?”
I asked her twice, that if she doesn't have time to explain (because I have the gist of what is happening but don't know for sure if I have it down pat) if my booking is correct. A yes or no question. A whoooole back and forth later, she gets angry and tells me I'm wasting time and she needs to get back to what she's doing. Fair enough, she has a trillion things under her. I ask her one final thing, to confirm. To JUST confirm, if it should look like [below attachment in the message]. Clean. At a glance easy to read picture. Ignored
The initial confirmation question btw? She never answered me. She in fact answered everything around it, then when I asked again, she deferred again, and finally sent me an (unhelpful) email as reference and then brushed me off. The question never got answered. Actually, none of my questions actually got answered.
Between two months of her telling me I don't ask enough questions (and I ask TONS. My one boss ages ago joked that I was made of questions and that's why she chose me to lead that project) only to turn around and either ignore, brush off, or deflect to “read old papers/emails” or straight up get pissy, it's a wonder that I don't just stop asking questions all together.
Then there's the whole vibe of “I hired you, why don't you know this immediately” or “just because I said there's a learning curve and I expect mistakes doesn't mean you should perform anything less than perfect on the first try!”
Then that whole post of me talking about how she essentially told me I'm not adding value to the team, that I haven't lived up to my use, that they could make do without me if all I'm doing is [xyz] despite not training me, and now, to tell me I'm wasting time.
I need this job. I left my old job for a multitude of reasons including the new and constant need to travel and I can't travel for health reasons (although, it was a temporary position in the first place). I left my old toxic job for the temp job of 8 months and then left that job for this job.
I get that it's a funny joke about how bad managers are at uh, well managing people. But this? This has been more toxic than any job I've ever been in. My references already knows I job hopped out of the old job (the 8 month one). My family knew I scadoodled from there. I honestly thought this job would be amazing. HR and my boss's boss talked about my manager like she's made of gold. I was excited to have a great manager for once.
Only to turn into rotten meat. HR loves her. Her boss loves her. The team, I'm not sure about, but seems to like him enough. My team was in crisis short-staff mode when they were hiring me. Then a month after I started, another staff accountant of 4 years left. Now we're buried in work. I get she's stressed. I've been stressed enough to nearly end up in the ER, but I always dropped my stuff to help my [prior job's] mentees. I never tsk'd my way through a conversation, rolled my eyes, or got frustrated if my mentees didn't understand something in the first 2 seconds. In fact, if anything, I considered it as “oh shit, I suck at teaching!”
I never scoffed through a lesson.
I never made my mentees feel pathetic.
I never told my mentees “you should be lucky I'm teaching you at all”
I definitely never threw old paperwork at my mentees and had them “figure it out”
I can't afford to jump ship. Again. Got all my contacts judging me. I don't want to be viewed as “the hard to please employee with high standards of workplace toxicity levels” but every conversation with my boss feels like knives in my ears.
It's an OK paying job too. 80K in the cities, HCOL.
I intend to stay the full year and half (through next year) and start looking again. I won't know how to explain two jobs in a row less than 2 years in an interview. I just have to survive to next December. But I don't even know if I'll survive today.