how to tell my boss his second-in-commands are making it impossible for me to do my job — Ask a Manager

I thought this saga was over, but I have yet another, now definitely final, update to this mess.

YOU WERE ALL RIGHT AND I WAS WRONG BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS YOU MIGHT THINK.

Long story short — I’m no longer working at that company. I was white-anted and thrown under the bus, but not by either of the Goons, in fact, Goon 2 reached out to me after I resigned to send his well-wishes.

The Judas among us was my admin. Who I had hired, trained, and covered for countless times whilst wondering how on earth she was so “overwhelmed” with her workload whilst I was trying desperately to take things off her plate to lighten her load whilst drowning under my own workload. Well, it was because she was spending all her time actively subverting me to my peers and my director.

I could never understand why it was that despite my work being of a high quality, a proven record of saving the company tens of thousands of dollars in my first few months there, and external counterparts singing my praises, I still persistently was being undermined, not listened to, and generally bullied by a few of my colleagues. I then started being “performance managed” by the director, despite my work quality staying the same and still garnering praise from other colleagues. The director could never explain exactly why he was performance managing me, and I was never placed on a PIP, he just made it exceptionally difficult for me to do my job effectively.

It was because my admin had been spreading abhorrent lies about me in an effort to find herself in my chair, without understanding exactly how uncomfortable and soul-sucking that chair was.

I had been asked to find a confirmation email in the inbox that I shared with my admin, but when I searched for it, another email popped up from my admin to my director which was filled with accusations about me which were either greatly exaggerated or outright lies. An example of an exaggeration was her assertion that “MyName demanded I tell her whether I’m planning to have another baby and when, which made me feel intimidated and is illegal to ask.” What had actually occurred was that she told me one day that she was thinking of having another baby, and I had made a joke that she should let me know when so I could get pregnant at the same time and we could have maternity leave together and have a break from work. She laughed, I laughed, I thought that was the end of it. An example of an outright lie was that she said that at an industry awards night, I had gotten so drunk that I attempted to proposition her husband. In reality, I had two glasses of wine that night, and I’ve never met her husband.

She also accused me of taking credit for her work, which had absolutely never happened, in fact, I frequently, in a misguided attempt to help boost her confidence, gave her credit for my work.

The email was about 3 pages long, concluding with, “I don’t even know what she does, but you’re paying her a lot of money to do nothing all day.”

As I finished reading it, everything made sense. I decided then that if she wanted my job so badly, she could have it, and typed out my letter of resignation with immediate effect.

The reason she didn’t know what I did all day was because it was way out of her scope of understanding. I didn’t tell her what I was doing because she was not capable of assisting me with it. Whilst she was dressing up as an office mascot and writing the office newsletter, I was desperately trying to fill all the compliance gaps that if discovered would have the company shut down.

So I left. I told a few of the office big mouths what had happened, and I’ve since heard that the story has gotten out, they have indeed lost an important accreditation (that I initially secured for them), and that their financial situation is not great. Meanwhile, I’m now working in consulting, and am slowly but surely recovering from the horrific burnout and depression that that company left me with.

I never realized just how toxic that workplace was, but your readers did. I should have listened then, and I would’ve saved myself much heartache and ill-health. But things are looking up now, and I hope that if I ever find myself in an environment like that again, I’ll spot it sooner and GTFO.