![\"headline](\"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/images\/businessguy_runs.jpg\")
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Dear Office-Politics,<\/p>\n
11 months ago I landed my dream job. I doubled my salary overnight, and gained a \u201cDirector\u201d title as a 26 year old. Of course, nothing is too good to be true, and at the time I realized I may have made a deal with the devil. I decided I would counteract all challenges by putting in extra hours, being extremely compliant, taking on more than was asked of me, and absorbing everything I could to maximize this incredible opportunity.<\/p>\n
After 6 months, my lone employee resigned, thus, I had to take over her job responsibilities as well. While I was adept at managing her process, I was not familiar with her procedures and the time allocation necessary to execute her more administrative\/procedural job tasks. As a result, my primary role suffered as I tried to finesse her role.<\/p>\n
I continually asked the status of hiring a replacement and was told each time it was an \u201coperational\u201d decision, though there was no mention of a hiring freeze or otherwise. I asked for a non-paid intern, so I could relieve myself of some administrative burdens\/concentrate on business development\/and continue to sharpen my leadership skills to become a bigger asset to the company, and pitched it as such. No dice. It also became evident the CEO (who has a reputation for being very mercurial) had turned against me, as he slammed doors in my face, cut me off when I spoke, and generally began to disrespect me. At the time, I thought he was taking his disappointment of my employee’s resignation out on me…<\/p>\n
Rather than increasing my visibility due to the several hats I am wearing, I have seemed to become an 800 pound gorilla in the room. I have sat in on meetings where age discrimination has been a very open and real discussion, condemning all \u201cgeneration x and generation y\u2019ers\u201d with no disclaimer being made in my direction. I’m ignored and “forgotten”.<\/p>\n
Lastly, I have been under an enormous amount of stress the past month. I stumbled across the name of a new employee in our employee email address book. The kicker? This gentleman holds a VP of Operations title, which supercedes my Director of Operations title. He has been \u201chired\u201d, but I have not been involved in any of the discussions.<\/p>\n
I understand I am \u201cjunior\u201d and have not been with the company for even a year. Regardless, I had to find this information rather than be privy to it. During the past 6 months, I have not been given any hope for any support in the department I have been singlehandedly running, much less the motivation to continue.<\/p>\n
Most insulting? During a leadership meeting 2 weeks ago, the executive assistant gleefully commented she was going to conference in the \u201cMystery Employee\u201d. This individual asked to be taken off speakerphone, and as a result, the \u201cMystery Employee\u201d was never conferenced into the meeting. Clearly, because I was in the room.<\/p>\n
After the meeting I confronted my mentor (4th in command in the company\/offices out of another state) via telephone. I told him he did not need to hide this \u201cnew hire\u201d from me, as I already knew about him. The mentor asked me what I knew. I shared with him how I knew \u201cMystery Employee\u201d had been hired, and was in a position of power above me, and I asked where I fit into the equation. The mentor assured me this did not affect my title or my job, and this was the recognition and answer to my requests for help. The conversation escalated into the mentor asking me \u201cWhat else do you know?\u201d, to which I bluffed and said \u201cI\u2019m not showing my hand.\u201d Clearly, there is more for me to know, notwithstanding an imminent layoff.<\/p>\n
I ask you this: Am I justified in preparing myself mentally for being laid off? Do I have any rights in this matter? Is it unrealistic of me to expect to be involved (at the back end) in a hiring decision that affects a department I\u2019ve been singlehandedly running for almost a year? Everyone else with a director title and above knew\u2026\u2026. but me \u2013 there has been no dialogue, nothing. At the end of June, the mentor visited my office in what I thought was going to be a performance evaluation, but was essentially a 6 hour \u201cinformation gathering\u201d session. Hindsight is certainly 20\/20, as I\u2019m also realizing why my requests for a replacement were dismissed.<\/p>\n
I have lost all motivation to work here. Unfortunately, this \u201cMystery (Confirmed) Employee\u201d does not start (so I\u2019ve been told) for another week. I still need to clock in 50-70 hr weeks in order to maintain my workload, and quite frankly, I have no desire to do a good job anymore, and feel I would be better served working my obligated 40 and funneling the rest of my energy into looking for a new job.<\/p>\n
I am open to the concept of \u201cpaying dues\u201d, but is this appropriate? I just don\u2019t know what to do (other than look for a new job).. How do I handle the day-to-day? Is there any way to regain respect\/dignity, or should I quit(no pun intended) while I am ahead?<\/p>\n
Generation X<\/em><\/p>\n OFFICE-POLITICS REPLY BY DR. MARTY SELDMAN AND JOSHUA SELDMAN<\/strong><\/p>\n Dear Generation X,<\/p>\n We are sorry to hear that your “dream job” has turned into a “nightmare”. There are several reasons why it is probably time for you to move on. We will explain them below and in addition what you can do for the time that you remain.<\/p>\n Reasons for leaving:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) Even without the arrival of the “Mystery Employee”, who it seems is now your boss, the job itself does not appear to be sustainable. This means that even though you are young and energetic, doing two or three jobs at once without support will lead to mistakes or burnout. Help does not seem to be on the way.<\/p>\n 2) All the signs are there that you have been marginalized, meaning that you are being treated as if you have no power or influence. So people who read these signals feel that they can treat you with disrespect with no consequence to them. There are people who won’t engage in this behavior but your letter indicates that unfortunately many people there will. So in these situations things usually get more painful as the examples of being disrepected or being “invisible” pile up<\/p>\n 3) In addition there are signs that your replacement has arrived and being layed off is getting more and more probable.<\/p>\n So what to do: <\/strong><\/p>\n In terms of your rights, it would depend on your contract and the state where you live. An employment lawyer could explain your options.<\/p>\n Definitely, begin to aggressively look for alternative employment, since that is easier while you still have a job.<\/p>\n You could quit if the environment is too “toxic” but if you can stay and leave based on your preferred timing it may be better. If you stay, definitely stop killing yourself for the job since it is not being appreciated or reciprocated.<\/p>\n With these long hours and instances of disrespect you should also pay attention to your physical and mental health. Many people can become ill from these kind of conditions. So the basics of nutrition, exercise, stress management and sleep become even more important when you go through this kind of experience.<\/p>\n To salvage something from this job, we would suggest trying to get feedback about your behavior and performance from someone you trust, because there is always the possibility that you may have some blindspots about your own behavior.<\/p>\n Thanks for writing to Office-Politics.com.<\/p>\n Good luck,<\/p>\n Marty and Joshua<\/p>\n Marty Seldman, Ph.D. and Joshua Seldman ABOUT EXECUTIVE STAMINA<\/strong> Dear Office-Politics,<\/p>\n 11 months ago I landed my dream job. I doubled my salary overnight, and gained a \u201cDirector\u201d title as a 26 year old. Of course, nothing is too good to be true, and at the time I realized I may have made a deal with the devil. I decided I would counteract all challenges by putting in extra hours, being extremely compliant, taking on more than was asked of me, and absorbing everything I could to maximize this incredible opportunity.<\/p>\n After 6 months, my lone employee resigned, thus, I had to take over her job responsibilities as well. While I was adept at managing her process, I was not familiar with her procedures and the time allocation necessary to execute her more administrative\/procedural job tasks. As a result, my primary role suffered as I tried to finesse her role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[468,467,370,469,369,217,665],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climbing-the-ladder","category-office-politics","tag-deal-with-devil","tag-dream-job","tag-executive-stamina","tag-generation-x","tag-joshua-seldman","tag-marty-seldman","tag-office-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"marty](\"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/images\/seldman.jpg\")
\n![\"joshua](\"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/images\/joshua_seldman.jpg\")
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\nCo-authors, Executive Stamina<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"cover](\"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/images\/es_cover.jpg\")
<\/a>Marty Seldman, Ph.D. and Joshua Seldman, are Co-authors of Executive Stamina:<\/strong> How to optimize time, energy and productivity to achieve peak performance.<\/em> In Executive Stamina,<\/a> you\u2019ll learn all the skills, techniques, and positive practices needed to create a sustainable path to achieve your full career potential. Renowned executive coach Marty Seldman and endurance coach Joshua Seldman will introduce you to the revolutionary training system they\u2019ve used with great success on top executives and endurance athletes. You\u2019ll find hundreds of tips and tools that will help you maximize your career potential, while maintaining your health, staying in touch with your values, and avoiding costly tradeoffs in your personal life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"headline](\"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/images\/businessguy_runs250.jpg\")
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