spoke up for myself,

[Zoe Girl]

and so far feel okay about it!

Had my bi-monthly check in with supervisor, he wanted to meet in person which is generally a bad sign. It was okay until he brought up one thing he had asked me for and it took awhile to get it to him. It is a brand new thing to me with no direction or template, but should be simple. So he started to suggest a write up and I was NOT okay. I pointed out how I had set up my payment tracker sheet, submitted all my payments correctly with documentation, set up the online system, and btw had been asking for months on how to do this, but I handled it between us and not his supervisor. The only thing is that I apparently did not send a balance sheet. At some point I mentioned that the giant list of tasks that our camp days require are nowhere on the bi-monthly check in, that my data and tracker I have been primarily accountable for over the last 5 years are nowhere on our check in agenda. These are things that are 100%, every month. Then I told him I have insomnia and regular 10-12 hour days (salary not overtime). My mind does tend to get fuzzy after 9 hours, go figure. However I still had tears, I will probably regret something however I just really needed to stand up for myself. I said at the end that I had some positives to share but we were out of time so I needed to go.

I saw my old supervisor in the hall, I had asked her for a reference. She asked me how the job search was going right there, and no one was around so I answered. I need to do more but I spend most weekends sick half the time. My work friend let me vent on the driving back to site. How hard would his job be if he actually had to teach any of us our jobs? We are all very experienced so all he has to do is check lists on us. If I left tomorrow there is a list of 10 things he would have to teach my assistant to get through the first month. There are just so many tasks that he can take for granted we have handled very well. There are so many articles out there about not being perfect, yet when it comes down to it the 100 tasks are not balancing out what he feels is more important. As a boss that is his right, but it is also my right to leave. Considering how amazingly low his survey scores are I can't imagine I am the only one feeling similarly.

Good news is that I saw if I quit they pay out my 30 days of vacation time if I leave the district!

[Chicken lady]

ROAR!

good for you Zoe Girl.

(I am in a very stand up to authority mood today)

[Zoe Girl]

Thank you. I am sure that I will question what I did many times, it reinforced my 'get out' urge, but with my self esteem affected by this I am struggling to apply.


Meanwhile I have a friend who just got blindsided, the non-profit she built up just fired her after years of barely paying her while she built it up. She has legal advice at least. It was my backup plan to work for them when they got bigger, so I am not feeling like that is a good idea anymore. Part of the conversation we had included many times when she said that she was not sure how she would be handling this if she was single, her husband is a major support. It makes me feel a little better for what I went through.

[razz]

When a supervisor is that quick to do a write-up it is a sign of his/her inexperience, IMO anyway. Most supervisors will work with a willing employee to make things work because it is very costly to develop new staff. He may have no idea of all this due to being ill prepared to supervise.

[sweetana3]

I think it is very clear you are having to deal with a very inexperienced supervisor. My best ones knew that their employees did the work and had to be supported. They filtered the info from upper management and made it clear to us what was important.

It is very important to ensure that what you do is clearly known or it will be overlooked. You are your best advocate. You go girl.

I had tears several times in my career.

[Zoe Girl]

Thank you all, I am better but still on the edge of tears like how that happens after an emotional release. I really cried after I left, like big sloppy tears. With the not sleeping, 13-14K steps a day, 10 and 12 hours on a regular basis, and still getting in trouble for the one email that is late.

We have a goal tracker that is due every month. It is a big deal, however many people don't do it or do it halfway. I am super good at it, I have been trained well on data. So there are records of what I do EVERY month. Maybe all I need from him is to tell me what are the most important things, or to look at the information I have tracked so that he can help me manage my work load. He said he would at the beginning of the year.

I like what you are saying about inexperience. It is very true. Just a basic knowledge of how many things we do, or a basic knowledge to help me set up new programs, or a basic knowledge of the workload associated with certain programs or tasks. Even this stupid payment tracker, he ran a program with parent payments and he didn't have a balance sheet already? And his program he fed snack to 25 kids, I am serving from 50-100 a day, and all the resulting paperwork.

[razz]

I am going to offer a thought to consider and hope that others will evaluate and modify or correct as necessary.

It strikes me that you are too emotionally dependent on his opinion. I was really pleased that you asserted yourself this time. Rather than letting an inexperienced individual (supervisor does not describe what he is doing based on your posts) determine your sense of success or failure, can you define for yourself what the definition of success would be according to the organization goals and your job description? You will need to do this wherever you are employed, BTW. If/when a supervisor has a different view in a meeting, you can share your definition and see where both yours and his do not align. You are not powerless.

I had to do this once with an employer who was trying sneaky mind games. When we eventually talked things out, I was very calm and very clear what my terms of success were according to the legislation with which I had to comply. He totally backed off. Try it and see.

[Tybee]

I am going to offer a thought to consider and hope that others will evaluate and modify or correct as necessary.

It strikes me that you are too emotionally dependent on his opinion. I was really pleased that you asserted yourself this time. Rather than letting an inexperienced individual (supervisor does not describe what he is doing based on your posts) determine your sense of success or failure, can you define for yourself what the definition of success would be according to the organization goals and your job description? You will need to do this wherever you are employed, BTW. If/when a supervisor has a different view in a meeting, you can share your definition and see where both yours and his do not align. You are not powerless.

I had to do this once with an employer who was trying sneaky mind games. When we eventually talked things out, I was very calm and very clear what my terms of success were according to the legislation with which I had to comply. He totally backed off. Try it and see.

I like this advice, about trying to become less emotionally dependent on his opinion, and defining for yourself the definition of success, and it made me think about a situation in my own life that this could apply to, and I like it.

But in this case, I wonder if it needs to be modified a little, since Zoe is in this catch-22 situation where if she follows this advice, then she sets herself up for further abuse by the supervisor, such as when he put in her review that she went her own way, or wouldn't take feedback, or whatever it was.

This is like my situation, where the abusive person defines what "not taking feedback means." IN my situation, I am dealing with a narcissist, and he interprets anyone disagreeing with him as disloyalty and betrayal, and then cuts off all communication.

So while I agree completely with the advice, I am not sure how it will work with someone like the supervisor or someone who is a narcissist. Yet sometimes all you can do is follow your truth and try to wait out the situation and be free of the narcissist or the bad supervisor.

[Zoe Girl]

Wow thank you, I was kinda expecting a different response to this. I went to my meditation group last night and something about the topic really made it clear how much I am associating this job with my identity. I can understand why, when I started this job I was lower than I had ever been in my life. I had also been applying for jobs like crazy and getting nothing. So I have been able to work my way up into some confidence and a decent paycheck. However I wrote in my notebook, 'it is only ONE job'. That really helped. Besides I have applied for 2 jobs and got one interview, that is pretty good. I am much more marketable than I was 8 years ago. I will also have the ability to move starting in June if I choose.

I don't think this boss is a narcissist, however I do think he is very inexperienced and when he feels at risk he lashes out which is dangerous. Pretty much anyone with a high workload who is under a microscope can be found at fault at some point. Right now I need a staff for spring break,

I went to Starbucks at 5:30 this morning to work on applying for jobs. and I have a call with my job coach later tonight after a camp planning meeting.

[Tybee]

Nice--I really respect you for how you are working on getting a new job--I need to do this, too, Zoe, and I draw inspiration from your journey. I feel like we have been in similar circumstances, and it was inspiring to see you work on moving upward to a better job situation.