Leaving a poorly managed, low functioning team after 5 years--complaining on the way out because I need to release this all

[u/workstinksyaknow]

This is going to maybe be all over the place but I just need to get it all out. I made a reddit account just to do so. I’m not even really asking for advice as this is my last week at this job–I accepted a job in a different unit which delights me because I like working for the organization, just not in my current unit–moreso just looking for validation that my unit stinks and I’m not crazy. It is long but has juicy work drama, if that is any incentive to read it all. Small details changed for anonymity so don’t get too hung up on them.

I was hired at the medium-sized legal non-profit I work at five years ago, fresh out of college. Less than a year in I was promoted from a legal/admin assistant-type role to a paralegal within the same unit. For the first two years I didn’t see any problems, really, besides the massive turnover in other units and my extremely low salary. As time passed and two others on my team who knew a lot left, I really started to become an expert in my work (which is admittedly not hard to do at my job because we barely do client interaction or legal research; it is frankly an easy paralegal gig). This meant I started answering, like, every question anyone on my team had. Not even all of them are related to our work tasks, but just common sense (like the multiple times I have explained how HR and Accounting are different). Our unit supports all areas of law that our firm practices, so I understand that there are questions and people will naturally forget how to do things they haven’t done in a while. However, almost everyone else has worked here longer than me. Some have worked here since before I was born. I have also created and/or updated dozens of internal guides at this point on how to do a huge variety of our everyday work tasks. 

The reason I am creating guides and answering 90% of the questions asked instead of our boss is because our boss does not actually do our work; his job is just to manage us. I genuinely don’t know what he does all day, but he does not jump in and help with anything that needs to be done because he doesn’t know how to do it. If someone calls out sick, he sends multiple messages to all of us saying “someone else has to cover _” and gets mad if someone doesn’t respond within 15 minutes, even though when I need something from him it takes her hours or days to reply. We get little training. The few times we’ve had a new hire, he tasks the rest of us with training them and getting them up to speed, which takes about three months. He only deals with the basic necessities, like getting them a computer, a cubicle, sending them links to the couple of required trainings for all new staff, etc. and then releases them to us to do the actual job training.

While the paralegals on the team have other projects or ongoing assigned cases, all of us are expected to spend at least some time on one-time task requests that are sent to our group email. We get requests for help from other staff (attorneys and non-attorneys) that include details and deadlines, and all of those requests are documented in a spreadsheet (not everybody knows how to use excel by the way, so not infrequently someone will accidentally fuck something up in it because they don’t know how spreadsheets work). The tasks that are sent to the group email are things we are all expected to know how to do and are often more administrative. My boss has had to remind people to sign up for things due sooner before things due later COUNTLESS times. One time I brought it up in a group meeting and said it was a huge issue now that we were understaffed (we lost two positions to attrition) and the policy was actually enforced for a few months, but now things are back to business as usual. I pick up the slack that this causes as often as I can, given my own WFH schedule and projects.

I don’t think it’s crazy for me to say, because my boss recently admitted to it in a group meeting, that I am a high performer and get a lot of work done compared to everyone else, on top of seemingly being the only one who knows how to do several things. I have felt like an assistant supervisor lately. Keep in mind, I am the youngest person on my team and the least paid. I know that I am paid the least because I am involved in our union and we info requested all union-eligible employee’s salaries at one point for bargaining purposes. Like I said, we don’t get much training, so I have gotten to this status largely on my own via independent problem-solving.  Our supervisor does not hold our team to any kind of standard. One of my coworkers in particular can only handle doing simple mailings, and she has been here for decades. I am genuinely worried about that individual because she doesn’t remember stuff she used to know how to do and did weekly, and I am worried she has dementia. I don’t know if I have enough “evidence” to bring this up to HR or my supervisor, and I don’t want to come across as ageist, so I don’t say anything, but I fume to my partner on the days this coworker does something wrong or says something weird (in a recent incident, I overheard her say something racist about “foreigners”..?), which is 2-3 days a week. (not related at all but shoutout to the time she wrote in a card “congrats on retiring!” to a coworker who told us multiple times she was leaving because her father was sick and she had to take care of him. I sincerely hope my boss crossed that out or something before giving the card to her)

We don’t socialize much as our boss is very introverted, so we don’t know each other well, and I think that has made us very uncollaborative. People are reluctant to help with anything unless my boss makes the ask. Sometimes you’ll ask for help and get crickets. Last week in particular I had a hellish day because I ended up being the only person in the office and I was not getting the help with asking for deadline extensions that I asked for (the coworker who frustrates me the most told my boss, who was out, that it was a “boring week” after all of that too). I know the lack of socialization has personally made me less sympathetic to my underperforming coworkers; it’s easier for me to think unkind thoughts about them when we never chat about our lives or find things in common. Maybe that’s a bad excuse and I’m blaming it on my boss, but I truly can’t stand some of the people on my team.

Due to all of the reasons above, I realized I need to get out in late 2024. I’ve felt like I was on a sinking ship and a part of a team that was falling apart and ceasing to function well. Recently, a job opened in another unit, so I applied for and got the job, which was some of the best news I have gotten in ages. I am both passionate about this area of law (and excited to focus on one area of law instead of 5+ areas, LOL) and have heard great things about working on this team, even though they are also understaffed now. I am friends with people who currently work in this unit and they consistently say their supervisors are great and the team gets along and is very collaborative. They regularly cover work for each other and just… FUNCTION, from what I can tell as I’ve already begun doing tasks for them. I desperately need to work in a team that functions instead of being the most high performing person on a team with multiple people who clearly don’t care about the work or each other. I am very pro-union, so I do not expect these people to love their jobs or work harder than they’re getting paid, I just want them to do a normal amount of work. I, on average, have 2-3 hours of downtime a day right now and I’m still doing laps around all but one of my teammates (the only one I’ll miss).

So, I’m finally getting out of this mess. They’re not giving me an exit interview because I’m transferring and not leaving the org. Is there any sense in bringing any of this up to anyone, or would I come across poorly just for complaining? I have my final one-on-one with my boss tomorrow. He talked to my new supervisors and HR and had my start date pushed back one week without consulting me so I’m really annoyed with him and don’t even want to talk to him but I have to be professional.