When I started with my company I loved it. I had a boss who thought I was awesome and was very pleased with my performance, and while my job is nothing to write home about it is (or was, at least) a foot in the door to potentially great things. My boss had me enrolled in several training classes over the last year with the plan to start moving me up in the company in the next 6-8 months.
Then a woman from another department got promoted to a supervisor position in my department. Our department had been split into two teams, each about 40 people, and with the new supervisor we now have three teams of about 26-27 people each. Names were essentially drawn out of a hat to decide who would make up her team and my name happened to be one of the ones pulled. Unfortunately for those of us unwittingly chosen for her team she is a terrible, terrible supervisor. She was my boss for a full month before I finally got to meet her, at which point she made it clear she was unhappy with my performance. After speaking with several other people on my team it turns out she gave everyone the same speech about how poorly we were doing and recommended ways for us to improve our output (my favorite of her suggestions was to just skip taking our afternoon breaks and use those minutes more productively. :dubious:) But because she is my boss and I want to do well by her standards I sought out some of the top performers in our department and asked how they keep their numbers up and applied their techniques. By doing this I more than doubled my numbers and have gone from being 15th in our department to 2nd in our department. Once my numbers came up I asked her to continue my training and was told no, that would not be happening.
I went to my old boss and politely asked if it would be possible to transition back to his team but was told that it isn’t possible. He encouraged me to speak to my new boss about the situation and to discuss with her any problems I might be having, but it is very clear she doesn’t give even the stingiest of fucks about the problems people on her team might be having so I haven’t mentioned anything to her about how unpleasant it has been since I got moved to team Slytherin. After I hit that dead end I applied for a few positions internally with the company and each one said the same thing, that I needed more training before I would be able to move into another department and that I need to work with my supervisor because helping me get where I want to be in the company is her job.
Since she refuses to allow me to take any additional training and I can’t move back to my old team or to another department I have two options, either wait her out and hope she gets moved somewhere else/fired/quits or quit my job and go to another company. I can also continue to interview with other departments in my company as well in hopes that I find one I am qualified for, so I guess that is three options. In either of the interview paths I am going to have to explain why I am looking for a job and I don’t think “fleeing my position like a rat from a sinking ship” will go over very well internally or externally. Is there a good explanation I can give in an interview that will let them know my boss is just awful without badmouthing her or my company at all? Or, better yet, is there an option I haven’t considered for addressing the problem internally and being able to make it work where I am now?
In your position, I would respond with “seeking greater training opportunities.” It emphasizes your willingness to learn new things.
The part that disturbs me is her suggestion that you forego your afternoon break for higher production. Are you hourly? If so, take a look at federal and state labor laws. You truly have a greivience to take to HR.
First, when looking for another job, it is perfectly reasonable to say “I am looking for growth opportunities that my current company does not offer” or something like that. It has the advantage in your case of being the truth.
It sounds like your boss is only concerned with getting her own promotions and growth, and not with being a mentor or with helping anyone on her team (especially one who is now performing very well) to move on and up. Bear in mind that, in your boss’s eyes, her techniques have paid off, in that she caused you to double your performance in order to please her. She is never going to believe now that her approach doesn’t work. And now that you are performing so well, you are too valuable to her for her to help you to leave her team.
What you do about it can only be decided by you. It sounds like you might wait her out, but in the meantime you could also feel out the job market and see what your prospects would be. If the prospects look good, not only for the immediate new job but for the growth prospects in that job, then I would go ahead and jump ship. I would say that both your supervisor and her boss are failing you right now.
You know that you don’t have to tell the truth at interviews, right? All you need to say is a platitude about “I really enjoy working at company X, and I’m hoping to build on that experience at a larger/smaller/whatever company like Company Y.”
Never say anything even mildly negative at an interview. It won’t accomplish anything, and it will make you look petty or difficult to work with. Just resist that urge.
As for your position, is this a company where you have real long term growth? If so, you need to start networking internally, while building a contingency plan if you have to wait it out. Can you obtain any of these trainings on your own? Is there anything else you can do to make yourself more employable?
If you don’t see much long term growth, and were primarily excited that they were going to fast track you, it’s time to look elsewhere. A job that you aren’t growing is is worthless.
Try to reshape your thinking about your boss. It’s easy to see her as a villain, but she is a human, too. What are her priorities? What problems does she have? Are you in a position to solve any of them? One of your secret objectives at work is to make your boss look good. Are you able to do that?
Everyone faces challenges at work, and everyone thinks they are badly managed. You need to stop playing the blame game, and need to start hustling.
I will keep this particular phrasing in mind for potential interviews.
As far as the break thing goes, I am hourly but our break set up is weird. We get a 10 minute break in the morning, a 40 minute lunch, and then a 14 minute “floating” break in the afternoon that you can use however you’d like, whether that is a 14 minute block of time or 2 5 minute blocks of time because you didn’t need the whole 14 minutes or whatever. She has stated that we shouldn’t be using our afternoon breaks if we don’t “need” it and if we do we shouldn’t be taking more than 5 minutes or so if we want to keep our numbers up.
This is sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing. If my numbers stayed the same I wouldn’t be showing any initiative and they would have no reason to give me further opportunities. If my numbers go up I’m too valuable to lose.
This is a company with serious long term growth. One of the things that most impressed me about it when I got hired was the fact that everyone has been there for years. I get more emails about “so-and-so retiring after 30+ years” or “so-and-so passed away this weekend and was survived by their kids and grandkids” than I thought possible based on previous places I’ve worked. And they only promote from within except in the very highest positions - if you work for my company and you aren’t the CFO or something like that you started in the position I am in now (or the equivalent in another department) and they immediately start training you to move up in the company if that interests you. People that were hired in my same new hire class have moved into other departments and supervisory positions at this point.
This is how the training works: You get hired on in the widgets department and they train you on red widgets. But then you get into the position for a few months and they start training you on blue widgets, then whatsits followed by fobs and then dingles. Once you’ve learned about all the different widgets, whatsits, fobs and dingles you might get the opportunity to move to the Fob Department or be made a Subject Matter Expert in Dingles if that interests you. I got trained in red and blue widgets and then my new boss came in and shut down any attempt to learn about dingles or whatsits at all. The good thing is that even though they tend to go through this process pretty quickly there isn’t a schedule for it or anything, so if I am in my position for 3 years before I start whatsit training instead of 18 months that doesn’t reflect poorly on me or stop me from being promoted, so I could theoretically wait her out and then get back on track once she is elsewhere.
As for making my boss look good, I’d love to do that. I can’t think of a way to do that other than what I’m already doing but I will keep my eye out for opportunities to do so in the future.
I would request further training again via email. When she refuses in her responding email you have something in writing that you can show to her superiors to prove that she is not nurturing her team as she should. Play the game for a bit and if you get nowhere, approach her superiors and/or start looking for another job. Best of luck
Before you do that, it sounds like you had a pretty good relationship with your old boss? Why not go to him for advice? Don’t ask him to fix things for you, just ask him for advice on what you can do. Tell him that you’re frustrated that your boss doesn’t seem interested in training you; ask if he knows a better way to approach your boss, or if there’s an alternate way to get approval for more training, or if he has any other ideas.
If the conversation goes that way, you might ask whether it would work going over her head to her boss, but make it clear you consider that a very very last resort and you are extremely reluctant to go outside of proper channels (which is why you’re making a point of not asking your old boss to do anything for you; you’re just getting personal advice).