I feel like a fraud.....there.....I've said it.
I had an amazing response to my blog post written on Friday; and I was very proud of myself for writing it without making it into a rant. I've had some wonderful comments about how positive I'm appearing, how professional I've acted....I've even had the word inspirational attached to me!!!
The truth is......I drive into work every day feeling sick, sweating, dreading walking to my HR office and having to face someone who has made me feel useless for the past three months.
I sought advice from several angles on how I should deal with this, and took some action on Monday. This action involved a strongly worded email to the offending boss; detailing how she had made me feel, examples of when she had done it and basically my refusal to allow her to 'appraise' me without prior knowledge of how she was planning on doing this in a balanced way given her previous behaviour.
Now.....the response I received (as expected) was one of denial, an accusation of me being ill informed, confused and the accusation that I don't want to progress in my career - hence why I have 'refused' to have a performance review with her.
I only have to deal with this person for 7 more days.....but....then comes my new boss. And this is where my current dilemma comes into play. Do I tell them what has happened over the past three months? Do I protect myself and withhold my trust of them? Do I act like nothing has happened and see if they bring anything up?
How do I protect my personal brand? I didn't even know I had one until someone pointed it out to me. The idea of someone judging me for wanting to be treated fairly never entered my mind. Am I naive? Will I come across as awkward and hard to manage?
I am now not only anxious about dealing with a boss who is in complete denial about how they have treated me, I am now anxious about a boss I have never even dealt with!
Once of my favourite Twitter pals wrote about confidence this week, and how important it is in HR. But what happens if you've lost it?
Katie, I know exactly how you feel although we have reached the same point from different places. My stomach starts tightening just thinking about opening my work email account let alone planning my return after maternity leave. I also have a new boss and I have no idea what he has been told as to my previous performance (I can guess but that would be all negative given m paranoid state). I too have lost all confidence in myself and my take on the situation so have no way to read how I should proceed from here.
ReplyDeleteSo if I can help someone else deal with a tough situation, perhaps I can listen to the wisdom I know in my heart are true. So for what it is worth, I would say do not withhold your trust but don't act like nothing happened. You have been through a tough time and your new boss will no doubt know a little (you don't mention if your new boss is from your internal move or that of your old boss). You should show that you are mature enough to have learnt from the last few months and be able to move on and put the demons behind you. Your new boss will no doubt make up his/her own mind up about you based on your skills and how you perform with them.
Wish you all the best for these last few days with the old one and hope you can keep the faith in yourself until things seem brighter.