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Themadcatparade
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Unhappy Jan 07, 2022 at 07:09 AM
  #1
I’m stuck in a rut with my job at the moment, so I’m looking to leave but I’ve been kept down by my manager over the years that I feel like I’m now worthless. Job hunting has given me massive anxiety and made me feel very imposter-y.

A bit of background. I am a data manager, but being here in this role I don’t have the usual data manager skills that come with what is needed to progress or even leave. I came in to my job for a bit of a step back (I was in research before) but to learn some new skills as well. Over the last three years I’ve got to the point where I feel if I stay any longer I will be deemed unemployable. Over time, my job has been manipulated and I’m not even really doing the role I came in for. This has happened slowly. I feel like a database because I am manually holding the place up because of the bad decisions my manager has made for the department. I also feel like I’m being made to come on site (my job can be fully done from home) because my manager will not rehire a secretary position since hers left in April. So she has no office cover some days and I come in the office to unlock a door, put a projector out and be on guard to divert calls from the PA’s office phone.

She has not been onsite since last April.

The staff I am supposed to ‘supervise’ are not excel trained and she keeps brushing this aside - they need training but will not put anyone through because she does not see any value in investing in her staff. Some of the training is free. I have just encouraged, on the sly, one of my team members to take it because she will not find out! She has often made comments about one of them not having a degree - she looks down her nose at them quite often and the team know that she gets treated differently over other team members because of this, however it is subtle. I have also had to do my GCP training without her knowledge, I have redone this training since the beginning of my career, it is critical in my career development if I ever want to progress (I needed it for this job!!) but when it came down to renewing it she told me I did not need it in my current role and discouraged me from updating it.

When I say ‘supervise’ the staff, it’s part of my job description but she has so much control she does not let me make decisions for these members of staff.

In the first 6 months, she would not let me send an email by myself - she had to answer it for me. However she would regularly duck out of meetings and let me ‘take the fall’ for it last minute, often not showing up and leaving me unprepared and out of my depth. My first meeting I had I felt like I had lead the session and built a rapport enough with the team to sort some serious issues with our stakeholders who were fully on board. I walked in on her afterwards and overheard her saying to them ‘not to listen to her because she’s new and she does not know what she’s talking about’. Which was not only embarrassing but upsetting and crashed my confidence. That decision for her to block my attempts to fix these issues was a critical moment in the departments business because 3 years down the line we are finally fixing these issues with major financial consequences - it has been left too late and I’ve taken the fall for it.

Another example of how controlling she is, one of our team members asked me to help her do a favour as she needed some data which only me and my manager have access to. I was happy to do it, it was a 20 minute job and she has the right to this data (she just can’t extract it without our help). My manager found out she asked and lashed out at this (senior) colleague, who was left confused and like she did something wrong. My manager then lied to me on the phone and said the reason she said I shouldn’t be doing it is because she was already half way through the task. She had not been asked to do it. It is a typical tactic for her to lie and twist stories to validate her control.

A week later one of the Dr asked me to do the same task, because what my manager had provided to them wasn’t creditable enough to use. It put me in the position where I had to say ‘yes I’ll have it to you in 20 minutes but please don’t mention this to her’. This is a frequent happening in the workplace that i have to do things and send things out in secret. Which shouldn’t happen. But to get my job done I feel like I have no other choice. Other people have felt the same.

This week she had a go at me for not copying her in to an email when she was off over Christmas (to ask external advice about a minor thing), even though I had just been on the phone about it and she knew why I was emailing. She often does this so she can take over the task, and sometimes it’s much more straightforward not to copy her in.
She will often overtake jobs off me, take control and then not finalise them or she will forget about them which means it comes back to me later on. If not, she will just create an issue that isn’t there.

I was struggling financially over Christmas and had an opportunity to take some extra hours over the weekend or evening but it needed my managers signature and I knew she would have a lot to say about it and put me down (it’s happened frequently with other staff) so I never went for it. It’s ridiculous I feel this way.

I have been trying to look for other positions (in data management) but because I have not been provided with the training and skills I feel a strong sense of imposter syndrome like I am not qualified or worthy for a better job and it’s holding me back. I’ve had to emails off recruiters asking me to provide my number for a chat but I’m frozen with fear over it. Even I don’t know what I do as a job anymore, I really struggle explaining my role to people. I need to break through this but I just feel so unworthy and useless. I have recently been accepted for a coding scholarship for the end of jan (evenings) which I’m having to keep from my manager, but I’m freaking out about doing it because I don’t feel like I’m clever or confident enough.

I’m an anxious person anyway so I have to fight and really push for confidence (most of the time I can get past it people think I’m confident naturally) but I feel beat down with this. Any advice or encouragement will be appreciated.
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Default Jan 07, 2022 at 02:15 PM
  #2
Sounds to me like you have a lot of good skills. I would emphasize on my resume that you are basically doing your boss's job - supervisor, ad hoc requests, etc. - you know, emphasize the positive aspects of it. Thats what i got from reading your post. She will be lost without you, not vice versa.
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Default Jan 07, 2022 at 02:59 PM
  #3
Have you tried using agencies like headhunters or temp agencies?

Have you considered getting a few business mentors to help you improve your new job/career prospects? Some might require payment (such as those who are career or life coaches), but others may just offer you free advice as mentors. Both, together, might be able to assist you with your job-hunting strategies and your anxieties surrounding impostor syndrome. Therapists might help a little with your anxieties, but you might need an actual hands-on coach (at least for a short time) to help propel you in the right direction, and with enough self-efficacy, mastery, esteem, courage, and confidence to get you to where YOU want to go (not what others see in you, not what others expect or demand of you, and certainly not from guilt trips others may place on you). Your career/job is your life! The great walk-out is now being discussed among the masses, who are fed up with being mistreated or undermined or underpaid or overworked or endangered. They are now reinventing who they are, following their own dreams and passions, and not going by political economics. Instead, they are following their dreams and sticking to their own self-boundaries. The days of finding a job for years-worth of stability and biting your tongue for the sake of not burning bridges is over, or at least it is changing. From what I hear, there's a revolutionary approach afoot for finding new jobs and demanding the pay and work conditions you need and deserve and want - all three in combination and unison, not just one in sacrifice for the other. This revolutionary change - most likely stemming from this pandemic, but also for many years prior to that - is changing the ways in which employers are managing their subordinates, are hiring, are setting salaries, are being more inclusive, are being more open and fluid to applicants with new types of interview answers, are understanding of many different generations and backgrounds, are understanding of those who want both short-term and long-term work experiences, are understanding of those who require more flexibility with families and work-from-home job requests, and are more flexible in terms of past job experiences and higher education accomplishments. Many employers now understand how expensive it is for some to achieve higher education, so they are willing to conduct on-the-job training, which might work to your advantage, depending on how you present yourself. Because the old-school way of interviewing and resume-writing has changed (as I sorely found out when I attended an undergrad college in my 40s just a few years ago), it might behoove you to find a mentor or other resources to help you.

You have many skills that you can use to find another job or career. You can also do some things in the meantime to add on your skills, such as taking a free MIT courseware class online and getting a certificate (they offer some new programs, databases, and other interesting courses for free or at low cost). There are also similar courses offered online through Harvard. My mentor and friend, who graduated from Harvard, showed me their website. Having accomplished those in lieu of getting more hands-on experience or another degree might actually improve your resume and your chances of advancement in your field or in a different field. For disabled persons or those who need rehabilitation in order to get back into either grad school or the workforce, these are excellent options to demonstrate your motivation to move ahead and learn while also being thrifty about how you spend your money and time in advancing your skills. It shows your good economic and business sense doing that, which puts less pressure on society in some ways, which could be an added plus to mention in interviews - depending on the political nature of that particular company.

Doing research on the company you are applying to also helps in this day and age. If you know the heritage and even political stance of the company, or even its nonpartisan stance, and you agree with its operation standards, work culture, and political leanings (including contributions it makes to certain venues in society and even certain charities), that would be an excellent talking point in your interview as well, given that values are being taken into consideration for hiring these days, unfortunately and fortunately - depending on how you view this and what your views are. And herein lies the importance of finding mentors and even paid coaches to help you.

Overcoming impostor syndrome isn't easy, but it truly does take more than talk therapy and coping skills when you need that extra coaching or that extra mentorship to guide you in specific arenas, and to streamline your success in much quicker ways than psychotherapy alone can offer. If you can afford it, do both psychotherapy and coaching (both at-cost) while also finding mentors (professional or personal or both).
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Default Jan 08, 2022 at 08:08 AM
  #4
I would look into networking with people in a similar field. This is often done on Zoom nowadays due to Covid, but you can still meet people who could help you.

Also, Coursera has courses available on many subjects that you can take for free if you don't need a certificate. And the certificate courses tend to be a lot lower cost than a traditional university degree. These courses are taught by professors from these same universities (such as Harvard) but are at a fraction of the cost. If you pursue something like this, I bet it would impress potential employers.

I struggle with confidence too. I often have to fake it when I don't really feel it.
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