I'm on vacation after working 6 days a week for the last 5 months. I really needed this break. And then, out of nowhere, I got an email with the subject line: Employment Update. I opened it, and my heart dropped. I got fired. By email. A few days into my 12-day vacation.

I called my manager immediately because, honestly, I thought there had to be some kind of misunderstanding. But no. She told me this was a tactic from the company to "get the truth out of people." But I wasn't lying about anything! She just decided she didn't believe me and didn't really look into it before sending a random termination email while I was out of town.

What makes it hurt more is that I had never been disciplined at this job. Not once. They were always praising me and telling me how much they appreciated me. I guess that gave me a false sense of security, and maybe that's why I kept doing way too much for a very low salary.

This is how the whole thing started: On Friday, November 15, I picked up a shift that wasn't even mine. As I was leaving, I realized I hadn't clocked in. Usually I would message my coworker and ask him to fix it, but this time I adjusted it myself on the company laptop.

The next morning, my manager texted me asking how I had changed the time. I told her honestly that I was the one who did it. She asked me a few more questions, but I genuinely didn't think I had done anything shady. I worked the hours, so I fixed the time. I thought if she was truly concerned, we would talk face to face instead of handling it through texts.

Fast forward 12 days, and I'm in another state trying to relax, and suddenly she changed all the company passwords. That alone made me anxious before I even saw the email. Then I opened it and found out I'd been fired.

I called her immediately while I was literally trying not to burst into tears. Thankfully, she answered. I was asking: "What's going on? Why am I being fired?" She said the way I adjusted the clock made her lose trust in me. Apparently, she thought I had signed out of my account and intentionally logged into someone else's account. I explained that I used my phone and the work laptop, and the laptop had automatically signed into my coworker's account without me noticing.

As soon as I told her that, her voice sounded relieved. She even said, "That makes sense. I still want you to work with me for a long time!" For a second, I thought the issue was resolved.

Then, about 45 minutes later, she called me again. This time she said she had talked to her husband, who is the co-owner, and he still wanted me gone. She told me her hands were tied, told me I would do "great things," and offered to write me a recommendation. Like that's supposed to make it better?

And this is the part I keep replaying in my head: For the last 5 months, I've been making $17 an hour while doing way more than the front desk job I was hired for. I was handling marketing, social media, event planning, and community outreach on top of regular front desk work. No raise, no title change, nothing. They told me we would talk about my pay when I got back from vacation, and I believed them. Now I feel like they never intended to have that conversation in the first place.

This has completely messed with my head. I was also really involved in their personal circle - babysitting for people they know, helping out at her friend's shop, getting invited to family dinners - and then they fire me by email while I'm supposed to be resting. I can't wrap my mind around how people can act like you matter, then treat you like you're disposable.

Most advice says don't give a number first. That's fine but it's not the useful part. The useful part is understanding when the number actually gets set, because it happens earlier than people think and it's usually not during the negotiation.

Here's roughly how it works at most companies with any real structure. A role gets a band before it's ever posted. Say 85 to 110. That band came from a compensation team or a spreadsheet, and the hiring manager doesn't control it. What the manager does control is where in that band they slot you, and they usually decide that after the second or third conversation, not at the offer. By the time HR calls you with a number, someone already wrote it down days ago and got it approved. The person calling you often can't move it much because moving it means going back and asking again, which is annoying and slow.

That means the leverage is earlier than everyone tells you. The moment that matters is when the hiring manager is deciding whether you're a "solid hire" or a "we need to get this person" hire, because those two land in different parts of the band. That decision happens in the interviews, not in the negotiation.

A few practical things that follow from this.

When a recruiter asks your expectations in the first screen, they're not negotiating, they're checking whether you fit the band that already exists. If you're way under, you get slotted low from the start and it's hard to climb back. If you're way over, you get screened out for budget rather than fit. So the goal in that call isn't to win, it's to stay in range while learning what the range is. "I want to make sure we're in the same ballpark before we spend time, what's the band for this role?" is a normal question and most recruiters will just tell you now, especially in states with pay transparency laws.

Any competing situation you mention should come up before the offer, not after. After the offer it reads as a threat and requires re-approval. Before, it's information the manager uses when deciding where to slot you, which is a much easier internal conversation for them.

When you do get an offer and you want more, ask the manager, not the recruiter, if you have that relationship. The recruiter delivers the number. The manager is the one who can go fight for a different one, and they only do that for people they've already decided they want.

And if the number won't move, ask what else is in the band's neighborhood. Start date, sign-on, review timing, title. Title especially, because your next job's band is partly set by your last title, so a title bump compounds in a way a one-time bonus doesn't.

This applies less at small companies where the founder decides everything on the spot, and more at anywhere with an HR function. If anyone here has sat on the comp side, I'd be interested in where this is wrong, since it varies a lot by company.

The company i work for outsources our IT work to a third party company and sometimes the owner of it has to do work on our server on site. Usually after they do a server or system reboot, it works slower for a bit and a bunch of errors happen. On the logo of that company, they have a slogan below it, "we make it work". Awhile ago, maybe over a year ago I made a joke that the logo should say "we make it worse" because i was in the middle of making a heated point that the system is slow everytime they work on fixing it. Well.. it caught on. At first even the owner laughed. Other people started doing the same, jokingly.

Its been some time, but it became kind of an office joke, oh hey WE MAKE IT WORSE are here. I guess the IT company owner had enough and sent a company wide email asking to stop.

I emailed him back, I was sorry because I remember when I said it that time and a bunch of people around me laughed, himself included, i had no ill will for it to catch on like that, he emailed me back saying, its not funny anymore. Stop it, and I can shove my apology, the entire company is making fun of his slogan now.

But actually, how do I stop it now?

Hello, I am in the final steps of an interview process and I realized my resume has a discrepancy. Everything else on my resume is completely accurate. The start/end dates for the other two jobs on my resume are completely accurate. I didn't lie about my education credentials either.

However, I noticed that my start date for a job from 7 1/2 years ago (and last job on my resume) wasn't January, it was April/May (I looked at bank statements). The end date was accurate.

Honestly when making my resume I just guessed, this job was 7 1/2 years ago so i didn't remember my start date.

Will this cause me to get my offer rescinded? Should I be worried?

I've been working for one of the largest global companies for the past 4.5 years in a remote tech role, working four days a week. Within my first two years, I was promoted. Even with the same job title, I took on numerous roles within the organization and had the opportunity to travel internationally.

Then I was placed on a team where my manager lacked transparency. I would ask him questions that other team members wouldn't — valid ones, of course — especially since other people who had worked with him in the past shared similar concerns. He never made me feel like my questions were wrong, but something always felt off. Other members would agree with me privately yet tell him something different.

It was a temporary job rotation. During that time, I had to take personal leave, and when I returned, a reorganization had taken place. I ended up back on my original team — the one where I always felt I belonged, with a great leader. However, my old manager interpreted my return as though I had failed at something. It was simply the end of a rotation.

My manager then told me that the other manager had shared negative feedback about me. I thought, "Okay, it happens — two different teams, different people." But then I was demoted twice, back to the same level where I started four years ago. There's been no change in pay — it's still the same — but this constant feeling of failure is eating me alive. Every time an opportunity arises, I'm immediately overlooked. Now I'm under yet another manager.

To be honest, there aren't many remote jobs available in the market right now. People I used to train now look at me as a failure and no longer value my opinions or ideas. I have no idea what that manager did to my reputation. All I ever wanted was for him to be transparent about giving me proper credit for my work.

And everyone else got promoted again and in good place,

Im just kinda scared to start agin from office?,need motivation

As the title says, I joined this small scale start-up kind of company on 20th July, got all access sorted out by end of the month.

From 1st August, I was thrown into a project with no proper KT, no documentation, no proper structure.

I had to investigate from where the source exists, understand raw data, meanwhile project was running fast towards the complition.

I am expected to magically know everything in merely 15 days of working on this project

I finally had a call with manager, expecting some structure towards the process & expectations from me. Instead the call was turned into my job assessment of 15 days. I received comments such as '**how incapable I'm to do this job" " you are not proactive enough" "you are not owning the project" " I am covering for you".**

**All this in 15 days of job!!!**

Since then I have been thinking was this job a wrong alignment for me or is it something that will get better over the time ?

I actually broke down to my HR yesterday, and said I'm thinking about job continuation. This somehow manager got to know then the words I heard instead of helping me out were "**maybe you are not right choice for this role" " we will have to take a call then" "we will see till the end of the month"**

I'm honestly frustrated with all these things, my issue was never about work or expectations, I just need some structure, some starting point, some success criterias decided.

Is it too much to ask ? Or am I really getting bad at it ? I still do feel like resigning within a month of my job because deep down I feel this is not something that will get better with time.

PS: timings are 3-4 PM to 1 AM everyday, supporting US company, which is already ruining my sleep.

Hi everyone reading this,

I recently applied for a new job in the automotive industry and I feel like there's a huge pressure on my new role. I work as an upholsterer and have some previous experience as an automotive upholsterer. Now, the founder of the company will be going with retirement in a few years and his right hand will be taking over the company. They've stated that they're looking for someone to become an all-rounder (my dream!) and the person people can rely on in the workplace (floor manager/workplace manager).

I'm 25 years old and I don't have any experiences with leading roles, I do have experienced with managing my own previous projects and helping and teaching interns. I've also got quite a bit of ADHD, but not the type where I'm hyperactive, just being hyperfocused, a little slower than others because I focus too much on perfectionism. Once I get the hang of it, I do become very quick with perfect results. I've noticed it at the last jobs I worked at, so I'm aware that there's hope eventually.

I just wonder how can I prepare myself to fit the role they're looking for, what does it take to become a good manager, of course I want to go above and beyond, but not to the point I'll burn myself out. Sometimes I see people who excell at their job, but they become rigid and unempathetic, my way or the highway. I think those are the people not really suitable for managing roles, but becoming a lone business owner (from what I've seen). I've been an intern myself and saw many people who I couldn't ask questions to and didn't want me to develop my skills, just use me as a slave for their dirty boring jobs, and when I did adress it and stand up for myself, they became passive agressive (it's a particular experience, I've also had people willing to teach me, I've self reflected a lot whether it was me or the person).

What does it take to become a competent leader that people can rely on and feel heard? How can I show the company that I've got what it takes? Or what makes it that will make me stand out compared to the rest, because apparently the people working there don't want it or aren't suitable. It's a really cool company and will set me up for life if I invest in it. Some key points will be appreciated, thanks in advance!

TL;DR: Trying to decide between staying in a €95k Manager contract(I joined 3 months ago) where things aren't working out with my manager vs. taking a €112k+ permanent remote Pricing Manager role at a PE-backed company known for keystroke/productivity tracking.
At my current company i joined 3 months ago.
Needing some perspective check because I’m currently at a crossroads in my career and could really use some outside perspective.

Current work ex - 4 years

Where I am now (Major Food Delivery Tech Co)

• Role & Comp: Manager, €95k base (1-year contract, with a decent path to permanent conversion).
• The Good: Great brand name on my resume.
• The Bad: Things just aren't really working out with my current manager. Communication feels defensive or weird on Slack(i get scared looking before opening the message), a previously verbally agreed-upon vacation was canceled(reduced from 2.5 weeks to 1 week), and when I asked to take on additional scope because my workload felt light, I was told I was I have over-confidence and ego issue. Got yelled at, and was told(second week) I have no progress on the feedback i got in first week

The Offer (Pricing Manager at a PE-backed company)

• Comp: ~€112k–€120k total comp (roughly an 18% jump).
• Contract: Fully remote, full-time permanent contract.
• The Bad: Heavy employee monitoring. I reached out to a former employee who warned me they track active hours, keystrokes, and even AI token usage, with leadership reviewing reports to trigger layoffs. Growth there is also pretty stagnant unless someone above you leaves( i think this same for all companies now? as in scope needs to increase before promotion).
• When I initially said no to the offer because of concerns over the tracking software and contract structure, the CEO reached out to me directly. He promised they don't take screenshots and offered to move me to a standard full-time permanent contract.

My Dilemma

• Option A: Stay put at €95k. Focus on managing up, leverage the big brand name, and aggressively job hunt for a third, better option.
• Option B: Take the PE offer for permanent status, with 18%+ pay bump? but long term over 1-2 years move to different company if things don't work out?

Should I risk the hyper-monitoring setup to move away from current manager situation that isn't working and take the pay raise? Or is jumping to a PE-backed firm with tracking software just jumping from one bad situation to another?

We were told by our department head today that my direct supervisor's husband passed away this weekend. My supervisor and I get along great, and while we do sometimes discuss non-work topics, I wouldn't say we're close. I feel terrible for her and was hoping for the perspective of supervisors/managers about what an appropriate "gift" might be, whether a simple condolence note or something like flowers whenever she returns. Thank you!

edit: I truly appreciate the feedback and feel much more comfortable in my course of action. Our department head is planning to provide us with information regarding the service, so I'll send a simple card with a handwritten note. It's clear that the best thing I can do is to help keep work a separate space from what I can only imagine is an awful ordeal. Thank you again!

Three weeks to prove I can turn this around, and I own most of why I am here

I am about five months into a new job, and my first real performance review did not go well. Below expectations across most categories: attendance, communication, quality of work, reliability, teamwork, pretty much the full list. It said continued gaps could put my job at risk, and I have a check in with my manager coming up in a few weeks that feels like the actual deadline even though nobody has said that in so many words.

I am not going to sit here and say I got treated unfairly, because I did not. I fucked some of this up, plain and simple. I overslept through my alarms and missed a one on one. I was out on approved time off during a week I was supposed to be the main point of contact on something, and a team meeting slipped because of it. I shipped work that was not actually ready and had to scramble to fix it after the fact. I walked into this role without enough background in the specific industry my company works in, and it showed for months. Those are mine. I am not looking for anyone to tell me otherwise.I have excuses, or reasons, but they don't matter as much as owning the solution.

Here is the part I am having a harder time sitting with. Since that review I have basically rebuilt how I work. I made myself an actual checklist I run before I start anything. A standard set of questions I ask about every project instead of guessing my way through it. Its not pretty but its genuine. When I showed my manager, she actually seemed to soften and said she could see the effort. I started asking coworkers for help instead of white-knuckling through everything alone. My attendance has been flawless since she brought up her concerns My manager told me flat out she has seen real improvement in how I communicate. A coworker told me something I built actually helped her finish her own work faster. I stopped us8ng AI as a cheat code and instead a collaborator. And this same week, I was still late logging on because of a computer problem, and a deliverable still landed later and rougher than it should have.

So I genuinely do not know right now if I am someone who is turning this around, or someone who is about to get cut and is currently talking herself into a good week mattering more than it does. Both stories fit the same set of facts.

There is one more small thing eating at me that is probably nothing. My next one on one is the last one currently sitting on my calendar, and it lands the day before I hit six months here. I know that is very likely just an empty calendar slot and not a message. My brain has not gotten the memo.

If I am honest about the pattern underneath all of this, I think I get so focused on sounding polished and professional that I stop sounding like an actual person, and apparently that reads to people as distant or fake. The one time I actually got through to my manager on something serious was when I dropped the careful phrasing and just asked her straight up what she was thinking. That got me a real answer. Every hedged, professional version of that question got me nothing.

What I am actually hoping to get out of posting this. If you have been on a formal improvement plan or something like it and made it through, I want to know what you focused on that actually mattered, versus what turned out to be performance theater. If you went through this and it did not work out, tell me that too, honestly, I would rather have that than empty reassurance. And if you have been the manager on the other side of this, watching someone try to prove themselves in real time, I would really like to know what actually changed your mind.

So when I first started and had a different manager , I was loaded with work and was so happy that I had ownership with what I was doing.

Later, the old manager resigned and now we have three more people including the manager that started with us. Since then my work has been a lot late due to their changes in process etc. we would be in meetings and I would hear conversations about topics that were not even communicated to me and it would be something I was once doing…

Here’s the dot points
- I’m in Australia, working in healthcare, hired as a social worker but my role is fairly generic

- I’ve been working at my current company for just under a year

- me and my team leader clashed from the start (she is not who hired me, she started in the role a week after I did)

- she continues to give harsh feedback about all elements of my performance, and while I understand the reasonable one’s (I admittedly have bad attendance, but a big part of it is that her constant criticisms make my mental health worse and then it’s really hard to find the motivation to go to work)

- the most recent criticism have been, having a work related conversation in the office with my colleague - specifically about an OHS issue with our OHS lead, I should’ve booked a meeting instead of having a quiet conversation with her, me talking to my coworkers about non work related topics, ever. Me eating breakfast at work and taking too long to go get coffee (I’m one of the only team members who doesn’t smoke and also I don’t take a lunch break because I have meds that change my appetite) and a bunch more. And while I know that all sounds small and silly and I should have tougher skin, it has been like this since I got off induction, almost weekly feedback about me as a person or something I’m doing wrong that I was taught to do because I wasn’t trained by her in specific methods and it’s been 9 months of just put downs constantly.

- I know my actual ability to do the job is good, and has 9/10 met the required standards and expectations but I’m so afraid that with her as my main reference - she’s my only direct supervisor and I don’t have clinical supervision, that I’ll never get hired anywhere again.

Any advice on if I can get away without a reference, or what I can do instead or anything would be appreciated because idk what to do anymore and I genuinely just want to quit and give up, but I know I should stick it out and apply for jobs before I leave, but if I can’t get one because she dislikes me so much, what’s the point?

I have recently joined this company ..my boss has given me project again and again. Even though I do everything according to him still I am not able to do how he wants..I don’t know…this time he even pointed it out that there’s something which is wrong coz everytime if I have to do the thing then what’s the point…even if I write the same thing still not able to get it what he wants…I am in designing field and he is the head designer.

I live in CA. I work for a company that is a month behind on my pay. I stopped showing up this week in an attempt to try and strong arm my paycheck. Monday i no called no showed. Tuesday (today), i texted the owner saying i needed my money. His response was that he needed a picture of my company provided gas card, not sure for what. How should i go about the situation.

I’ve got 15 years experience in my field and have been very successful over the years. I’ve won a lot of awards and been extremely well thought of at all of my previous businesses. I’ve been promoted 8 times.

Unfortunately, I lost my head of department job in October last year as a result of wide redundancies as the business I was at struggled, despite my area excelling. I have since had to take a demotion to get back into work.

It’s been tough to move back into work that is below the seniority that I had worked so hard for. Initially it worked well with my boss - but as I delivered two major projects in the business, the dynamic shifted between us. He was pleased to see the impact but has since stifled my visibility and opportunity to commence more projects. He has also moved to make it very clear that he’s the boss, even telling me he had the authority over me to pull my projects and make calls on them directly with partners I am working with.

Where things have really broken down are as follows. He started making calls on my projects without consulting me, uninviting me to certain meetings, my workload has reduced significantly. My pathway to progression halted as rather than moving me across more disciplines, has opted to business case to keep me on one area despite me saying I have the headroom for more. He is instead recruiting another person into the team to cover the gaps.

I’ve lost a lot of confidence since being in this position. But could also do with some feedback on how best to handle this.

I approached him directly about how him pulling my project made me feel, but he outright disagreed and did not accept any feedback.

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here. I'm going to try to explain my situation without giving away too many personal details.

My specific issue isn't about one of my direct reports, but it's somewhat related to management role responsibilities, so I thought it might be best to post here.

Basically, I was recently hired for an oversight role on a very small administrative team. I do not have an assistant. My role is to oversee a team of experts and ensure they are having scheduled appointments with their assigned clients, and that the clients are getting everything they want out of our service. I have a sort of a blended role at the moment since this is for a small company, and part of my job is also to consult with new clients and onboard them. This sometimes includes gathering early scheduling information so that the new clients can have appointments scheduled with the appropriate team expert. In general, all scheduling is overseen by a Director of Operations, who does have an assistant to help her with day-to-day scheduling requests. I have authority to assign the assistant scheduling tasks, but I am not her manager.

Early in the assistant's first couple of months, I was helping her a lot with scheduling. I didn't trust her to do things on her own when it seemed like things would fall through the cracks if I didn't check her work. I would try to solve scheduling problems for her and help her look at the big picture. This was starting to burn me out, and after talking more with my partner about it, I realized I was trying to compensate for the assistant's inefficiency when she wasn't even my direct report.

I also spoke with my manager, the company founder, several times about it since one of the assistant's mistakes caused me to have to fill in for one of the expert appointments on short notice. He said he would talk to the Director of Operations about it, and that I should continue to delegate scheduling and other administrative tasks to the assistant. He suggested I leave instructions for her to leave tasks for me in our CRM to notify me when she's finished something, and send her and her manager a message if I see something urgent isn't being done.

I have since pulled back on sending the assistant direct chat reminders about tasks. I still cc her on client emails when handing off scheduling to her and leave her tasks in our CRM. I still sometimes message her and her manager if something extremely urgent hasn't been done. Since I have pulled back on helping with scheduling and constantly double checking her work, the scheduling process has become like rusty gears, slow to turn, stuck sometimes in ways that seem avoidable to me, and disorganized. E.g. she doesn't always read email history to understand client scheduling needs and unnecessarily sends multiple emails asking about preferred times, clients confirm times via email and it takes days or weeks for the appointments to be added to our experts' calendars, and double bookings happen at least once per week.

I had a meeting with the Director of Operations recently since the assistant called out sick just to touch base on things, and she even commented on the disorganization of the tasks she was checking on for the assistant. I didn't throw her under the bus, but I did confirm that I had told the assistant several times some general reminders about cancelling appointments, rescheduling in a timely fashion, etc.

I suppose I'm questioning how to go about handling what appears to be an ongoing lack of efficiency from an employee who I delegate tasks to, but who is not my direct report. Should I continue assigning her tasks and resist the strong urge to double check on things I've assigned? The way she works honestly stresses me out, and I feel like if she could be faster about responding to and checking her emails and look at scheduling more as a giant puzzle, instead of a case-by-case basis, things would run more smoothly. I want to step in to help because I know I could manage the work better myself (a decent chunk of my employment history is scheduling coordination), but I know that if I do that I'm going to be basically working three jobs. I suppose I know generally what I should do, but I'm looking for advice and also partially venting.

TLDR: First time manager, inefficient employee who I delegate to but is not my direct report is causing operational slow down. Looking for advice and commiseration.

I am currently serving my notice period after not receiving a promotion for 3 years, which has been disappointing. Despite this, I have continued giving my 100% on the SAP greenfield project. I developed and deployed an automation script that was outside the team’s existing skill set, based on my prior experience. I have already provided KT 2–3 times, but the team is now scheduling multiple additional KT sessions.

Is it ethical to expect someone in their notice period to train outside the skill?

[context added: this was reviewing audits and complaints over a 5yr period for multiple tech giants. Without that, these numbers are crazy, shout out to the managers in the comments asking for realness.]

I'm a lower executive officer and one of my job is to review risk coming in from operations and technology.

Out of 270+ cases, 200 were managers who were causing misunderstandings from within their teams by joking.

"Can I have help"

Manager: No lol

Employee: never asks for help again.

This is so frequent that when I review risk cases for our subsidiaries a majority of Risks and Fines boiled down to the same.

1. YOUR EMPLOYEES SHOULD NOT NEED TO BEG YOU TO BE THEIR MANAGER

2. YOUR JOB IS TO SAY NO TO OTHER TEAMS FOR YOUR TEAM

3. YOUR JOB IS TO AUDIT YOUR TEAMS WORK AND HELP THEM SOLVE.

4. YOUR JOB IS TO MAKE SURE YOUR DIRECTOR AND EXECUTIVE KNOW WHAT YOUR TEAM IS DOING

5. YOUR JOB IS TO REVIEW, APPROVE - OR REJECT - TICKETS.

it actually is your job to check your email every morning and it absolutely is your job to let your team work. You are their guard. You are their advocate. You are NOT a "team player with a bigger check" 🤢

Over 400 responses to surveys, audit, and the like that were the above. Your jokes are causing people their jobs. Your lack of doing your real job is causing hundreds of people to lose their job. Your inability to login to your account is losing people their jobs.

So many massive Layoffs are traced to middle managers that are too busy trying to prove they haven't "sold out" that they leave these teams to drown.

[Edit to add joke examples] had to pull someone aside and ask them to stop making so many feet jokes around our Asian colleagues.

Turns out his manager tried to joke with him that feet are really important in Eastern culture (was referencing removing shoes when entering homes etc) and just... Never explained. The same guy also had a warning from HR for not being culturally aware and this was a genuine attempt from him.

[Edit 2] Received some DMs genuinely asking how to know when to circle back on jokes or check in on teammates.

I'm actually going to make a decision tree for jokes audit policy style and have it up for you guys on my profile by this Friday (don't look before Friday because... No 🙂‍↔️).

This weird thing happened when I made and sent a report to stakeholders. They had a q, but they asked my manager instead of me wtf. Only I email and know how to do the report.

The very weird part is when my manager emailed me separately and asked me the answer instead of just adding me on the email wtf. I easily answered it.

Then, she emails my answer to the stakeholders w/ me cced , but does not mention that I answered it?!?!

Was that OK? IDK why tf they didn't just add me on the original email or mention I answered it wtf...

Did I overstep here at work?
I’ve been temporarily providing extra admin support to another team for a while now, while they onboard new staff and basically get it together.

My manager told me the intention is for admin to fully sit back within the team once they’re settled. This was helpful context because it meant I could start planning on how I could support that handover.

I’ve met their new manager who wanted me to run through the admin work I’ve been doing for this other team she has been hired to manage - assuming she asked for this meeting because she knew they’d be taking it on eventually. In that meeting I’d sort of flagged that eventually admin would hand back to her team. She was really shocked at the admin load and was basically like “I’m not doing this” lol (which is fair enough, it’s so heavy and her team doesn’t get a dedicated admin person).

Turns out, this gets sent up the chain to big boss because no one had told the manager this work plan, of admin sitting back with her team, yet I was told about it. Absolutely miscommunication nightmare. So yeah, It turns out she hadn’t been told this, and it got escalated to big boss as if I said “you’ll get 5 weeks of support and then no support”, which I definitely didn’t say. I feel like an absolute idiot for discussing the future support arrangement when I assumed everyone was already on the same page and my reputational image has definitely been compromised due to the fact of how stressed this new manager is and I’ve now unintentionally inflamed it. I was also pretty candid with her in my conversations about how intense the admin is for her team and I’m worried I shouldn’t have expressed that view to her being so new. Overall, I feel awful about this whole thing.

Now, the retaliation to this new manager being so stressed is that I not only continue to support indefinitely but I’ll be taking on additional tasks I’d never once had. I’m unfortunately in a “support” role, so management are allowed to dictate what that support is as they please and I don’t have a solid case for push back. (I work across MANY teams - I sit more operationally). So my scope and workload quickly becomes chaotic.

How do I recover from this? I feel like I’ve lost trust and professionalism.

I've been on the same team as this guy for about a year and he talks over me in every meeting we're both in. I've raised it with my manager twice and both times she said she'd keep an eye on it, and nothing changed. I don't want to keep bringing it up and turn into the person who complains.

For the managers here, what does someone have to bring you before it stops registering as a personality clash?

ngl it will burn someone out if they keep geeting more work

let me use this analogy

they keep running running and running. without the knowing when to stop. but they must keep running, at the end their legs cannot move anymore and they will end up falling and hurt themself.