I can’t believe what I’m about to write.
Anonymous
I can’t believe what I’m about to write. This is long so I can give accurate background. Please bear with me: I’ve recently rechanneled my career, and in doing so, needed to take a somewhat backwards move with hope of moving up as I learned. I’ve always been a team player, and when I was in leadership roles, I treated my team like the true professionals they were.
In my current role, I’m on a pretty dysfunctional team where “colleagues” compete with each other and some managers compete with their subordinates. A lot of needless office drama—for what gain, I do not know.
My problem was that, despite having tangible proof that I was solving problems (often not able to be solved by anyone else on the team), the competitive nature of these gossips led them to try to disparage me in meetings (and I later learned, behind my back). Again, I don’t know what anyone stands to gain by this, but it has interfered with me being taken seriously when presenting work and, ultimately being an effective member of the team. (I can’t be effective if I am dismissed by people who can’t even understand when I am correct—with proof). I have been extremely careful for over a year, but finally when the behavior continued when the new (good) manager is not present, I went to the Director, keeping my manager in the loop the entire time.
Here's the issue: I asked for a meeting just to ask for help (since my own efforts failed)to somehow be viewed as a valid, contributing member of the team on equal standing. The director chose to make a formal complaint with HR (FOR me?). I told her twice I wanted this to be handled within our team, but she did it anyway.
Question: What do I do about this? I asked for the help of team leadership so I could do my job effectively, nothing more. Now, I’m forced to deal with HR?? (Side note: the team leadership seems to want to clean house and get rid of some if not all teammates, not for the reasons I describe, but because the new manager knows how to improve work and the Director said none of us would have been hired based on prior work experience had she been involved. This was said all while reassuring me that they see the work I am doing is very good but, apparently, I should not have been hired in the first place). I don’t even know what to think.
Share your insight
Join an authentic community that helps women support each other at work. Share your professional experience or ask for advice — you can even post anonymously.
6 Comments
Join the conversation