Bringing up sensitive issue with management

So, something has had me frustrated at work. Basically my department researches/prepares write-ups about four different investment sectors. We are judged on numeric production (updates and new projects), although two sectors are much more rote, cutting/pasting information from press releases and new projects that you can research once and then cut and paste into 10-20 different templates. My sector and one other are much more involved. Nearly every project is distinct so we can't copy and paste and we have to do a lot of searching on government websites, looking through huge government contracts (often poorly scanned so you can't search), etc.

I was talking to the woman who does the other, more complicated sector today. She and I are very stressed this month because the list of projects we have been designed to create is garbage, things with very little information available and where calling the relevant government agency isn't likely to get results because they aren't helpful. So we are both behind on our stats.

We really want to find a way to bring up the fact that there should be a different treatment of the sectors as far as production, but our boss is kind of unapproachable. She has in the past said she thinks the minimums are fair, despite the differences. At the same time, the other sectors also are always congratulated for their higher production, when we'd probably have the same if we could just cut and paste most of the day.

We discussed the two of us seeing if we can meet with our boss the next time I am in the office. I hate doing this kind of thing, but I really think it needs to be brought up.

I guess I'm just looking for a bit of moral support and advice from people who have been in a similar situation.

Well... you posted this a while back. (I'm sorry you're only now receiving your first reply.) So perhaps the meeting has already occurred. If so, hopefully it went well. I'm not sure what I could offer in the way of advice anyway. I think the main things are, first of all, be as specific as possible & have as much data as possible to back up your argument. And, second, stay focused on the concern at hand. Avoid allowing the discussion to veer of onto tangents. It's easy for something like this to deteriorate into a general gripe session. I'd have to say this sort of thing never really produced much of anything in the way of positive results for me. But, hopefully your experience was, or will be, better.

Thanks for answering. I haven't gone into the office, so we haven't met with her yet. My co-worker was asking me today if I can try to find a time in the next few weeks to come in.

The stats for June came out and for new projects they were low, if you average over 4 people, they are about half what we are supposed to do. My production was about 1/3 of that total, so better than average. It gives me the impression that it's not just the two of us that are having issues.

I did the calculation and under the current production minimums, a new project in theory should take 1.6 times the amount of an update, which doesn't compute with me. Creating a new project is really more like 2-3 times the work for those of us who aren't able to just cut and paste, and can be more if it is something already advanced, since you have to find all the historical information and input it with sources. Plus in some sectors like both of ours, we often have to add something called risk analysis, which is time consuming.

An update is just a recent news item, looking over everything and making any changes that might be required by the news item. It's way less work, so I think we need to focus on that.

The worst thing is that they want to base incentives/potential bonuses production, so the same people with the easier work assignments are always going to benefit if things stay this way.

Well, this sucks. I got an email that we need to discuss my low production last month. The same for the other woman, we'll call her F, (hers was a bit worse). F thinks for now we should each make the same case individually, as we have the same point of view, and hopefully that will make the point. Unfortunately, our boss is kind of hard to approach and who knows if she might take both of us together as an attack. If not we'll have to try together.

The thing is that the whole team was below the goal on new projects - even the cut and paste people. Between she and I we did over half the total, so the other two people clearly had low figures as well. It makes us wonder why does our boss not even seem to be entertaining the thought that the goal is not realistic and instead blaming everything on us?

We went over what we both are going to say individually. I did a little write-up. Both of us were out of work for a while before we found this job, and aren't looking forward to job hunting again, so hopefully we can make our case for a more reasonable goal.

If they fire both of us, they lose the two most senior people on the team. So many people have been absolute disasters, making a mess of things and didn't work out. They should be happy to have people who know what they are doing. We know our industries, our work is good quality, it's just that quality research takes time, and that is why it is hard to meet the production targets they want.

The target for updates was originally developed by that worthless efficiency expert who came from the banking industry, so he had no idea about editorial work nor did he want to learn. I'm not sure who decided that 80 updates was equivalent to 50 new write-ups; when my boss announced it she said she was open to feedback, but in practice it hasn't played out that way. She has insisted it's reasonable in team meetings.

Well, I guess no one seems to care, but I do have an update. F met with our boss yesterday and it went terribly. There was no attempt to understand her points by our boss, she was just told make the numbers or you’re out. Poor thing is really stressed.


I work from home, and my boss hasn’t gotten in touch to schedule a time to talk. I am kind of thinking that she may ease up on me for the short-term at least. The other woman that shared the sector I work with is quitting effective tomorrow. Her replacement just started and may not work out. Even if she does last, she won’t be fully functional for 3-4 months. So in a way they need me around for a while. I sort of think that is why she hasn’t spoken to me or issued an ultimatum.


I really wonder what is behind it at all, when I started it was much more relaxed. There was sort of an expectation for productivity, which was lower, but no threats of firing. Maybe upper management started it.

The thing is that since this was implemented, turnover (already high) has increased, so you always have people that are being trained/not fully up to speed/prone to mistakes on the team. I have noticed that other departments do not have anywhere near the level of turnover as ours. To me it would make more sense to stick with the people that are trained, even with a slightly lower output than desired, than to have a revolving door, which pretty much guarantees that there are people not fully up to speed all the time. Plus, the error rate with new people is higher and not all the errors get caught by our editors.

So, here I am, waiting, with a knot in my stomach.

On the one hand, I won’t be so bad off if I get fired between severance, vacation time and unemployment I would get over three months of pay if I were let go. Plus, I have income from freelance work. My husband and I can get by on his income okay. However, we are in a situation where we need to buy a house soon and me having a work contract and having held the job for over a year will help the mortgage application. Even when I find a new job, I would have to wait a year for my income would count to our application.

imagine she’s feeling like a victim because people keep leaving, instead of realizing why people would want to leave. Interestingly, I have not heard a peep out of her wanting to have a conversation about my performance.

I have a mid-term strategy in mind is to stick it out for now and apply for an internal transfer, there are areas in my wider department I would be well qualified for and I seem to have a good rapport with the people that do the hiring. In general it is a decent company for this country, good fringe benefits and taking another job in the same company won’t negatively impact a mortgage application.

Hopefully your talk with your bosses goes better than your coworker?

Can you discuss the problem with your skip-level manager? Some times the lowest level boss doesn't have the power to do much so they inflexibly demand whatever they're told their employees have to do. A really good manager will advocate for their employees and try to insulate them from unreasonable demands by upper management, but too often managers have little training and inadequate skills.

I’m sorry you haven’t had much feedback on this. I’ve been away for a while... Too tired at the end of the work day to do much. Honestly... I think that you sound very diligent in your work and very intuitive - you’re ahead of everybody else probably... and I have found that bites me in the butt.... I think you should put your energy into taking care of yourself as best you can and limit what you go to your boss about. Sounds like your boss doesn’t care who does what and she just wants it done. It’s the same at my work so I keep many of my observations to myself and try to do the best job I can. Good luck. 🍀

I'm on my phone and can't edit, but the first part of the text got cut off. Basically, yet another person quit after only 6 months. So, for the time being, I don't think she's in much of a position to fire either F or me. I wonder if her bosses are eventually going to question all the turnover!

There is the underlying common known that high levels of turnover indicate trouble at the top. Hopefully, that gives a sense of job security, for you? Sometimes loyalty can work in ones favor in such environments. Sometimes it can have the opposite effect as seen during the recessions at the turn of the millennial, but my fingers are crossed for you.

Let this all work in your favor. Perhaps watch and wait. I’ve been burned from speaking up too much better but I’ve also made the mistake of not speaking up when I should. It’s tricky to find the right balance so I’ve become very careful about what I say and do.

Thanks. That's the thing, I am diligent and work very hard, I'd say from everything I see, F is too. It's just that the nature of what we do makes it hard to make a target that is, quite honestly, arbitrary.

I mean I deal constantly with one of the countries that is the most complicated, because I am fluent in the language. My boss isn't, and it's not really her area of expertise, so with very little help, I taught myself how public contracting works in that country, how the courts that regulate these projects function, etc. I also help co-workers by making calls there since they don't speak the language. But, it seems like those sorts of things are less valued than the almighty numbers.

If she were to fire F, given her track record, would whoever she hired to replace her be better? Probably not, given all the people that have cycled through.

I am nervous about what to say. I mean, I thought I was prepared to essentially defend myself, bring up cases that showed where I worked hard, but it took a while to find all the information, to demonstrate the quality of information I produce. That is what I am feeling gets lost in all the focus on numbers and not quality.

However that did not work for F AT ALL! So I feel like it's back to square one.

In the end we spoke yesterday by phone and I lived to tell about it.

Overall, she was more conciliatory than with F. She overall is happy with the quality of my work and my knowledge of the sector I cover. Yeah, she does want to see a higher production rate, but at least she didn't just say it, she offered some ideas she had as to how I can do that. And, she even said that if I feel stuck with trying to find a piece of information at times to let her know and maybe she will have some thoughts to help me.


She also said that she is going to be leaning on me more in the short-term because she is training the new people so she'll be sending me more client questions, for example. I told her that was fine and to let me know where I could help out.

In the end, it is pretty clear that she does need me around, so at least my job is safe for a while. She seems to be making some effort on her part to discuss things too, which was lacking in the past. I will keep what she said in mind and hopefully it will help.

Ugh, well I'm back to worrying.

I work from home. One of my notebooks mysteriously crapped out on me after only having it a bit more than a year. I have a backup, but I recently had it fixed up and windows reinstalled and I needed for IT to reinstall the tools I need to be able to make phone calls.

So, I have various things that are almost ready to send to the editor but need a phone call to confirm a contact or ask a question. I have been advancing well researching/writing, but can't send things to the editor because our IT department is so slow. I requested help with this probably 5 times, and after over a week they only did it yesterday.

Now she's on the warpath with me about the whole issue about how I needed to find a better way to handle the situation. Our IT guys are notoriously slow for these things. I made the effort to follow up with them, but it is not something I knew how to configure myself, so I don't know what more I could have done honestly.

I now have it installed/configured and am working on making calls and sending things to the editor. They will all be sent and published.

According to F she has been going around with a grouchy look on her face all morning, so maybe she wanted to pick a fight with someone.

Well this is garbage. The editor has been overwhelmed and our boss who sometimes helps with editing was out sick. So, there is a huge queue of projects that did not get edited before yesterday, the end of the month. They have hired more researchers but we only have one full-time editor and two freelancers and one of the freelancers has not been working much lately.

I had hoped, since this is not the researchers’ fault, that things we had sent to the editor before the end of the month, would still get counted towards our monthly stats. But, we were just informed that they won’t be. According to F, she has 32 projects (of 87) that are not edited and I have 39 (of 93)! The boss’s pets have 10 or less. It’s pretty clear that things are not being handled fairly and the editor is focusing on editing the things the boss’ pets send her and not our work and it is going to screw us over. There are projects I sent over a week that haven’t been edited yet.

I saved a copy of the editing queue to have proof all the things I sent but that weren’t edited by the end of the month. It has the dates I sent so it is clear that these were sitting around for a while. I am not going to sit down and take it if they try to question my performance this month. If it comes to escalating to her boss, I am going to have to consider it.

And now the main editor is out sick for a week!! This has disaster written all over it.

Hello there,

I’m not sure how big this company is but is there not an HR department? With a lot of the bigger companies there off site and if you go to the company website you can get there number.

Hi Coco! Thanks for your thoughts. Unfortunately, it is a small company, under 100 people. HR is three people and as often is the case, they seem to just want to cover the company's butt.

I haven't seen any indication that the high turnover in my team is of concern to upper management. I've been here about a year and a half and the typical department staffing level should be about 8 people. In my time, 11 people have been fired or have quit!! I guess they just see it as the cost of doing business, although I find it terrible for morale and productivity since we never have a situation where everyone is fully trained. Also, new people tend to make more mistakes, which the rest of us have to spend time fixing.


Here, if a company wants to let someone go, they usually cite needs of the business and pay severance based on the time the person has worked there. This avoids wrongful dismissal lawsuits. Our boss has been there 11 years and obviously makes more than us, so they'd have to pay her a lot. I guess they figure it is more cost-effective to make smaller severance payments to people with less seniority. However, the money adds up and there are costs associated with constantly hiring and training new people, so, in the long run it seems like a bad idea.


I asked her what is going to happen with calculation of monthly statistics due to the editing problems last month. She said the same thing as the editor - if it didn't get edited it doesn't count, although she said the problems "would be taken into consideration". That is pretty vague and does not put me at ease. It sounds like she has a lot of leeway of how to interpret our numbers and still could give us a hard time. She hasn't addressed the issue with any comment to the group at large, which I think is very poor leadership.

Well, things got worse again. My boss flipped out about something I did today, although recently the editor asked me to do exactly that. Unfortunately, communication with the editor was on slack and messages get erased pretty quickly, so I can’t document it. I had no reason think it would be an issue at the time. Our boss loves the editor, so I can’t win in a “she said-she said” against her, clearly. Then she said we need to talk about my supposed lower work quality lately next week when I go into the office.


I was honestly surprised by her comment, so I looked over some of the things of mine that were published lately and I really don’t see where the editors have changed anything to be honest. I’ve received a few requests from them but they were really minor, almost nitpicky. Things that were okay a month ago but now suddenly aren’t, with no warning.


I don’t know, after the editing debacle where much of my work was not edited last month, while that of others was, I have to think they are looking for anything to criticize my work. It wouldn’t be the first time from what I have heard. In the meantime, I continue to find major errors from the boss’ favorite pretty much every time I work on something she last updated, which the editor didn’t correct either.


I guess I should just start to realize that she wants me out. I am trying not to take it personally. The woman I do freelance work for is very happy with the quality of my work and has been sending me more things these days. Even the sociopath owner at my last company sent his minions to beg me to not leave several times after I announced I was quitting. Meanwhile, my current boss has a major turnover problem.


If she wants me gone, she will have to fire me. If she does that I get 2 months of severance pay along with my vacation time and a small unemployment payout. At least I will have that if I am let go, and hopefully the extra freelance work that has been coming my way recently will continue.