This week's my boss has favorites post is sponsored by the budget.

Anonymous

May 10,2023 at 3:28PM UTC

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This week's my boss has favorites post is sponsored by the budget.

I've been coming here to vent for a few weeks, so wanted to get the latest episode off my chest. I get into my 1:1 to get interrogated about why I'm not meeting numbers and what we can do to make it up. It was over a $200k discrepancy between my numbers and my leader's budget; super confusing since we just celebrated that 90% of my caseload made a purchase this year. I was completely blindsided by this, only to find that her numbers came from a "not a secret" dashboard that my coworker (her favorite) and I put together months ago for a different purpose that does not take into account that the tracking was built around team performance, not individual contributions, but was easy to fix. I told my boss only for her to say "Well, that doesn't help the bottom line!" I'm livid as fixing this will tell us where the lag is in our sales pipeline. I do the work anyway so I'm not mistakenly cornered again. Turns out I hit the goal, and that my coworker (the favorite) didn't. Now we have to have a team meeting on what we can do to support her. The inequity is astounding. I know this is not a race issue, but it's hard to ignore that I'm a woman of color and the favorite is not. I'm at the end of my rope with this. Last week, I get a snarky "I didn't have to get masters to get my job." I was floored and hurt by this comment. I work really hard and I'm not in a position to switch jobs at the moment. Just venting to get me through my contract.

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AnonymousMay 11,2023 at 12:34AM UTC
Suffering is a choice and if you’re posting the same sort of complaints week after week, it begs the question why you choose to remain in this situation? If you’re not taking active steps to change it, it sounds like you’re choosing it.
AnonymousMay 11,2023 at 12:35AM UTC
I'm locked into a contract.
roseMay 17,2023 at 1:00PM UTC
Your boss is right. Regardless of your performance, the team needs to meet the target. Above all, your boss needs to reach the target. Take the high road. You know you're pulling the weight, you know you're reaching your targets... so act like it! Don't be snarky or over explain the facts. Stick to your narrative with the confidence of a winner, then offer to help the rest of the team level up. Share your top 10 tricks to close the deal, set up a workshop to rally around a big win and help close it. Your boss is not dumb (not a great leader, but not blind to the reality). If you were the boss you would like to have, what would you want you to do? Do that.
Best of luck. Stay positive. Own your strengths!
<3
BethBMay 18,2023 at 3:53PM UTC
If the responses to me not making my numbers was to be threatened and the response to someone else not making their numbers was for that person to be given help, I’d be mad too!
Start by assuming that this isn’t racial. It might be. Or it might be that they clicked for whatever reason. It doesn’t change anything, but it allows you to come across in an incredibly professional manner.
It sounds like there is a disconnect between what you think the important metrics are and what your manager thinks is important. I know it’s annoying to change a dashboard, but it does need to track what management is looking for. In my organization we track overall sales and then sales by rep. It is easy to see at a glance where any issues are.