Have you actually talked to your boss about this or possibly talk to someone in HR or upper management about moving to a different group that aligns better with your skills?
When you say “PIP memos” what do you mean exactly? Like she is trying to correct how you are doing something so you do them better or is there a threatening undertone? Sometimes people are bad at giving instructions or providing coaching.
People in this thread seem to be focusing on emails and job descriptions, but none of these are legally binding documents. At best they are helpful for stating a case “you said to do this so I did it”. I really think you need to have a frank discussion with your boss and understand what business problem she is trying to solve and how she expects you to support that. And perhaps more importantly, understand where she may be having trouble trusting you to do this (which may be due to her own insecurities and lack of knowledge regarding your particular skill set).
I guess what is not clear to me (not having read your other posts yet) is if the situation is just you have an overworked boss relatively new in her role who hasn’t quite figured out how to best utilize you. Or if this person actively has something against you and if so, why.
A classmate of mine who has been head of HR for many very large companies of divisions of companies (tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of employees).
He says the only way to survive a PIP is if your manager leaves for some reason and the person replacing them likes you more.
Because once you are on a PIP they have already decided they need to get rid of you, and are just going through the motions.
A lot of the other stuff you’ve mentioned suggests this may not be the case, but is there a possibility this person has ‘email disease’ where she is just unable to communicate effectively, civilly and coherently in writing?
(The more likely interpretation for ‘not adversarial in person, horrible via email’ is cowardice, of course)
That doesn’t contradict what I said. And senior HR executive your classmate may be, but his experience and POV is not necessarily universal to all of Corporate America.
In any case, you didn’t say you were on a PIP. You said your bosses emails were “PIP-like” whatever that means.
Either way, it sounds like you don’t mesh well with your new boss. It happens. Bottom line is you need to either figure out how to work with her or find a new boss to work for (either within or outside the company).
Also keep in mind you may need to change your own behaviors a bit. Remember that the boss isn’t always right but they are always the boss.
Two words: malicious compliance. She wants you to email her about everything? Email her about everything. If she is out to get you fired, you don’t have much to lose by being a headache to her.
It seems to me that the best thing you can do is start looking for another job outside your organization right now.
Yes, you want to stay in your current position until September, but we’re coming up on the second week of July already. What makes you think you’ll be offered a new job before September? It could take that long, or longer, just to be offered something you want. And you can always mention a start date of September 1 (or whatever) if necessary.
At this point it doesn’t even sound like you know what’s available out there.
This is decidedly untrue. I say this as someone who survived a PIP by meeting all of the required improvements,and continued employment for several more years.
The thing is, most PIPs give you 60 to 90 days to show improvement, so if you just want to stay for 2 or 3 more months, my advice is to… Stop caring so much, fulfill the letter of the requirements asked of you, and focus on your life outside of work for fulfillment for the next several weeks until the situation either resolves itself or your tenure ends.
Yes IME, PIP stands for Performance Improvement Plan. The ones I’ve been involved with include a complaint about performance, what deliverables need to be completed, and a deadline. I’ve had to put a couple of people on one, and if the deliverables aren’t met on time the employee can be let go.
This thread is TLDR. I only read the OP so forgive me if this has already been said.
I’ve never been on a PIP myself but I was in a similar situation as the OP. I had a sudden, new boss and he suddenly and very surprisingly gave me a terrible performance review at a company I’d been with for close to 20 years. Without going into details he listed several accomplishments from the prior year but with major surprising flaws in them. It was all hogwash but I could see the writing on the wall. Total bullshit. I surmised that my RIF was just a matter of time so while my job didn’t really tax me in terms of time and effort, I continued doing my job but also found critical tasks that needed doing and that my boss didn’t care about. I cleaned up some major messes that would have cost the company in penalties if they hadn’t been addressed. I cleaned them up and closed those out. My boss didn’t care but I knew they mattered significantly.
When I did get hit (RIF’d; with a nice severance pkg), those cleaned up messes became feathers in my cap at subsequent interviews and significantly helped me in securing my next job.
So OP, maybe that’s something you can do in the next 2-3 months.
Performance tracking at most companies is inconsistent at best and at worst is total bullshit used as a mechanism of control.
I was was put on a PIP program at a company I worked at about ten years ago where I was a senior project manager running a PMO for our largest client (a Fortune 500 insurance company). For whatever reason, our VP (my bosses boss) decided to put my on a PIP because a couple of my projects went over budget / late. This wasn’t particularly unusual at this company as most projects tended to run late or over budget because they were often undersold and inappropriately staffed. My boss (a director) didn’t agree with the PIP so I was just like “whatever” and continued on with my work.
Months later I was having drinks with one of our HR leads (who was a friend of mine) and she asked me whatever happened to that PIP. I assumed she would know better than me, but apparently they all just sort of forgot about it.
Now a year or so later, I did get laid off with like 20% of the company when we got acquired. But by then the place was in such chaos it didn’t really matter.
For anyone who’s late to the party and needs a TLDR summary, the problem I’m trying to solve is, my chaos demon boss is trying to make it so I don’t have any work to do. For reasons that aren’t really negotiable, I need to stay at this job until at least mid-September, so I need to figure out how to make this work.
I think I mentioned before that I’m meeting with an upper management person, and I’m going to do that on my day off because she will have a problem with it. Yes, it’s ridiculous. There’s more to that story, but I’ll save it for later.
I think her goal from the beginning has been to get rid of me. It is true that she is overworked, but she brings that on herself. She will not listen to anything I say, so I’ve given up on trying to explain anything to her. Maybe that doesn’t sound good, but I’m astonished by her total commitment to not hearing a word I say. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. And she’s trying to micromanage a job that she doesn’t know anything about.
I have thought about this. I probably shouldn’t poke the angry bear, but she did ask for it.
She’s not like this in other emails. The memos have a very different tone. She is taking normal parts of my job and trying to make it look like I’ve done something wrong (also a good chunk of these memos are outright lies). She knows what she’s doing.
I think that will take care of itself when I’m out of there.
Bullitt, I would like to be able to do extra projects, but the only thing I can do is cleaning out old files. I think she’ll probably complain about me doing that at some point, in which case I’ll be happy to leave those for someone else to deal with.
Cleaning out old files sucks. I wouldn’t do it. Hang in there, @MagicEyes , I hope it goes well (enough) for you.
I’m reminded of another story at that company I worked nearly 20 years. Near the end of my run there my former boss became one of my reports. We knew each other very well and when she reported to me we had a very honest discussion. She was going to be laid off but my boss and I talked about her and we agreed she’d be of great value in our department. She said to me, “Honestly, I’m just trying to last another year here so I can retire.” It became my mission to make that happen. She didn’t really need protecting, as she had great value in our department, but I was able to position her in critical functions to increase her great value to us and decrease the likelihood she’d get RIF’d. Fortunately, it worked out well for her.
What utter BS. Unfortunately what may have happened during the acquisition, and this is clearly a guess on my part, is that the acquiring company was looking for any reasons whatsoever to trim the staff and your PIP on record was enough of a reason to cut you. You say it didn’t matter, and that’s fine, but still if one is to leave it’s usually better when it’s your decision, not theirs.
@MagicEyes if you have any friends in management there, maybe see if they have any critical tasks they need doing that you can do? That might help your cause and keep you off of the RIF sweeps between now and October.
OP, IIRC the Chaos Demon has only been your boss for a relatively short time. But I don’t have any picture of what became of your previous boss. AIUI (probably imperfectly), any subordinate’s top priority vis a vis any boss is to do their job in such a way as to make that boss look good. Does Chaos Demon not understand this? Does she need to be reminded of it?
Maybe just allude to it some morning while you’re exchanging pleasantries.
Also: do you have any leave time banked that you’re in a position to take? Maybe a week or two without you will help her see that underutilizing you is NOT in her best interests.
kaylasdad99, My former boss left because of chaos in upper management (it really does come from the top). Long story short, our department got split, and it was messy. It was months before we got information about what department we were in and where our offices would be. It was astonishingly disrespectful to the head of our former department, who wasn’t even told that half of her department was being taken away until it was announced in a big meeting.
Chaos boss isn’t concerned about doing good work. She only wants to do things that are spectacular and impressive. She has quit doing things we used to do because they aren’t new and flashy.
She is underutilizing me now, and it will take some time until other people realize it’s a problem. She has given the regular weekly work I used to do to a coworker. I work on projects for other departments that aren’t ongoing. Some of them happen every year, and some of them are only one time. I don’t think she will hire someone who has the skills to do these projects.
I like this idea. I’ll see if I can do a little networking and come up with something.
I know this is very long (and it’s only part of the story!). Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting.
