They did it. They finally did it. Newish Leader and the mini-me’s have gotten rid of Manager!
Newish Leader scheduled an impromptu conference call for my team today. As soon as I saw the meeting invitation, I knew. I just knew. I started stressing and couldn’t focus on anything until the meeting started. When I heard it with my own ears, I just started sobbing. Read More
Newish Leader is now surrounded by mini-me’s as a result of recent hiring. The office has changed so much. A few of the mini-me’s have knives out for our team. Not in an overtly dramatic way, but, mostly covertly, as it has become apparent that we’re not what Newish Leader and the mini-me’s want and the clock is ticking. Read More
About a week ago, my Manager got chewed out admonished, again, by Newish Leader for my team’s output not being of high enough quality for Newish Leader. In recent weeks, Newish Leader has been putting extra big-time pressure on Manager to ‘raise the bar’ for our team and to do it NOW.
I don’t know if this was triggered by one (me?) or two of us on the team whose work Newish Leader saw recently and didn’t like, or if it really is the whole team. I know Newish Leader likes some people on the team more than others, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it were the former. Read More
Look at this picture. Do you see a young woman or an old woman?
At work this week, I was talking on a conference call with teammates and the banter led to a conversation about people’s ages. They each said the year they were born. (I didn’t volunteer mine.) I found out that the people that I’ve been working with on this project are ALL younger than me! Even the two leads who are 2 levels above me who I thought were years older. My jaw silently hit my desk. Read More
I had my annual review meeting with Manager, who apparently, and miraculously, has no plans to fire me, despite what I perceive to be recent decreased performance. I’m getting a small cost of living salary increase of 1.7% and my annual bonus! I’ll be getting my bonus soon. I was really nervous going into the meeting as I didn’t know what to expect or if I’d have a job coming out of it, but was relieved that it went as well as it did. I have improvements to make, but I still have a job.
In fact, I’ve been assigned two new projects. Thankfully, these projects will be in line with the old workstyle, so I expect I’ll feel comfortable running them. I’m planning to stay where I am for the immediate future. It won’t be easy at all, but if I can somehow grind it out here for one more year and pay off / down this debt, a lot more avenues will open up to me starting next year. Newish Leader (my manager’s manager) has been more hands-off lately, and this trend should continue. I plan to stay under Newish Leader’s radar as much as possible.
I just need to be able to survive for one more year before I can escape for good. Read More