You know those days when you cry at work? Yeah one of those today.

I don’t think I’ve actually been as close to resigning for a very long time. Nothing specific, but the accumulation of a whole lot of stuff. 

I’m under an incredible amount of pressure for the success of a lot of things – and the list of these things keeps expanding seemingly hourly. These are surprise things that are only tangentially within the scope of my role. Every time I turn around there is something else being dumped in my lap – fairly big scary projects with lots of moving parts (not a problem in and of themselves, I like a challenge) – which have people who are allegedly already responsible for them (which is a problem – because do something about those people if they are not delivering!). “It’s your job to make this work carolbaby”. 

What doesn’t help my psyche is Bobs frequent dismissal of me in public forums when it comes to certain topics – primarily technically related. When I state “this is how x works” or “this is what we are trying to achieve with y” Bobs will respond with “that’s your opinion carolbaby, what do you think, [other person]?” To which they respond that I’m right. Or I’ll assert something, he’ll contradict me, ask someone else and that someone else will agree I’m right. He does not do this with anyone else. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean it maliciously, but it is completely exhausting and demoralising.

In the last couple of days I’ve been excluded from project emails by EnemyConsultingFirm (formerly referred to as Toddler Consultants**). Colleagues will copy me into a chain and I’ll miraculously fall off EnemyConsultingFirm’s response. Repeat. Everyone has noticed and has separately drawn my attention to it (I would be none the wiser if they hadn’t). Bobs thinks it is my imagination, that I’m being hysterical and that “not everything is about me” – ouch.  He’s incredibly dense at times. 

I don’t think Bobs actually believes I’m useless or stupid. Most people in the organisation would say I’m his right hand. But his has all become really too much – so I yelled at him today, cried and then told him roughly what my issues were. He agreed to sit down and discuss the scope of my role tomorrow. Either rein it in or give me more cash and resources. 

xxx

** back for a small gig. Like vampires – once you invite them in, they’re back when you least expect it to suck the life out of you. This is the small firm who fought so hard to prevent me getting my current role, because they wanted the lucrative contract to do it – and used every opportunity to question my skills/abilities/competence (behind my back to senior management of course) and were absolutely ruthless about it. This is not the Actual Toddler from that engagement (thankfully returned to the UK) but his boss.