Bring Kids to Work (every day)

Hi everyone! I was recently mistaken for an admin by one of my newer colleagues and it got me thinking about whether that is a problem for me career-wise or not. For context, I am an associate director at a pharma company, and while a PhD was required for me to get my (non-research) program manager position, many of the colleagues on my team come from more communications or event planning backgrounds. I think the confusion comes in because there has been a lot of changeover and medical leaves over the past year or so, so I have ended up pitching in to pick up slack that is decidedly more in the "getting stuff done" category and less in the providing expert insights category. I am highly visible in the organization, including to the leadership team. I love what I do, and I have gotten a lot of positive feedback for my contributions. I'm just wondering if I am doing myself a disservice by doing tasks that provide value but could be done by someone with fewer credentials, or if I should be somehow working more of my educational backstory into my intros. Has anyone out there had a positive or negative experience being a work horse?

System Design questions can be tough for me sometimes. It's something I haven't had the chance to practice on and was wondering if anyone has advice on what topics they study. Or if anyone is willing to schedule a mock interview with me on SD that would be great too.

Since she’s been director (hasn’t even been a year), 6 people have quit and left and now I see why. She can be sweet infront of people that she needs to act professional with but behind closed doors, she can be very condescending and manipulative. Not a lot of people in the department find it easy to get along with her. I will share my 3 experiences with her. 1) when one staff quit the day of his last day, there is an off-boarding procedure to follow. Removing them from all systems after submitting the termination form is one of them. When I removed him from our chat group the day after he quit and left, she pulled me to the side and asked why I did that. She said no one in the department knew he left yet and her boss was questioning her why that person left so abruptly. She said next time she’ll appreciate if I check in with her first. 2) she requested a meeting to be scheduled with all recipients in an email except one person. When I clicked on “reply all” to provide meeting dates and sent to everyone, she quickly messaged me and said “next time, do not include that person in the email. Makes sense?”. 3) I have been so swamped at work so I made a suggestion to take some workload off me and share it with a team of 6 who should be handling their own schedules instead of me. They’ve been trained to work on their own schedule yet not everyone has been doing it and I was still being asked to update their schedule. In a meeting when we were talking about schedules, I brought this up and she said “what does that have to do with what I just asked you?”. I had to turn off my audio so I can lay a heavy sigh. I have another manager that I report to but I’d hate to throw names around if I bring this up. Should I just keep working with a smile on my face or have a really difficult conversation with a director that no one likes?

Or am I overthinking this. I’ve been in my position for almost a year. It’s an entry level position. When I first started, she was pleasant but as time progressed she seemed to turn a little cold. I have made minor mistakes in my work in the past, which I’ve taken accountability for and have since corrected by taking my time and triple checking my work. My direct supervisor commends me on my improvement however, I only hear from my director when I make a mistake, which has been once in a blue. I’ve noticed that she talks around me and doesn’t really acknowledge me when I talk to her. She’s not rude or anything, it just seems passive aggressive. I really love my job but I get instant anxiety when I see her name pop up in a chat or email. Any advice on how I should handle? Thank you.

To all of the legal professionals in the HR space, Is it legal for your organization to ask you to reinterview for your existing role? I have heard this being done years ago, but not sure if the times and laws have changed as I am not an expert in labor laws.

At the beginning of my career, I made some strategic mistakes that resulted in me not being where I wanted to be. I was very intentional in my last job search, knowing I needed time and space to learn and prove myself, so two years ago I landed my "dream job"; I like what I do and I have a supportive boss in an industry I worked really hard to get into (tech, but a non-tech job), however, I'm starting to wonder about my next move. I took this job precisely because I saw, and was promised growth, however, being in tech, the last couple of years have been difficult, and while I've been lucky enough to survive multiple rounds of layoffs, the growth potential has disappeared. I've been doing the same job for two years, and when I'm assigned new projects they tend to be tangentially related to my JD (just barely to justify me doing them), I'm starting to not enjoy it. I know my boss has made the case for my promotion and a pay rise, and has been turned down due to budgetary constraints, so two years later I'm still an individual contributor when I do want to move into management, which was one of the things I was really looking forward in this position, the learning, and increasing level of responsibility into management. I was recently approached by a recruiter, and I will hear her out. I am not actively looking for a job, but it got me thinking, when should I start looking for my next job? I took this job because it sounded great, and it has been, but it was also a strategic decision for my career, and it's not resulted in what I thought. I don't want to keep making mistakes career-wise so any advice will be appreciated