Advice please...

[GreatSpirit]

Hello,

I have a problem and I just couldn't find a solution so it occured to me to ask you lovely people.

Ok so we had our yearly perfomance meetings last week and mine was awful. I got ripped to shreds. According to my manager I'm weird and talk about topics people cannot contribute towards, I'm in the wrong job, I'm pretty shite at what I do, I'm a loner and snob and a whole lot of other things which made me very depressed, and I was a complete mess with tears running down my face.

There were some blatant lies in there as well which I disputed but I was told it would remain on the record.

Frankly alot of it was complete fabrication and just plain aggressive. There are various reasons they did this , but mostly I believe it's because they think I'm a snob and that I ignore them and feel I'm better than them. Introverts are often mistaken for snobs and I've been called a snob many times when people have misinterpreted my shyness. Over the weekend I repeated "I love myself unconditionally" at every waking moment to attempt to neutralise the negative judgement thrown at me.

I just can't understand this sort of bullying behaviour.

So now I've come in and my managers manager has sent me a request to rate/judge my managers performance including their sensitivity and empathy and understanding of staff.

As I didn't want anyone else to feel as horrible as I did, and I don't think we should be 'judged' by anyone else, I just went through and gave them top marks for each. Then I realised I was lying. But I want to forgive and be compassionate....

I'm confused. I can't pretend I have uncondtional love at the moment. I'm very hurt. But I don't want to hurt back...or judge....or lie.

What should I do as I really don't know...any advice would be good. You guys are amazing at throwing different perspectives on things. Thanks

Hola. That sucks man. I'm going through something similar at my work too. I've only been there for about 8 months and I really don't talk much myself (I'm shy and introverted too) and I know people talk s*** on me because of it...so thanks to media conditioning, unless you're not an obnoxious loudmouth in the workplace or part of a clique, you're a weirdo and a potential shooter and liability.

My advice (this may sound generic but bear with me) is to just duke it out because causing "problems" in the workplace, [although you may seem justified in questioning and being pissed off at your managers], will only make it worse..TRUST ME!! If the pay and working conditions are worth what you went through in the evaluation, then just stay and brush it off.

Short story, when I started my current job, I had a misunderstanding with an employee that I used to work with in the past, and him and his female friend were talking smack and the girl was doing it right in front of me too and I'm staring at her the whole she's doing it! I'm like "umm girl...it's not really wise to do that knowing how much physically stronger I am than you". I wanted to beat these 2 people up so bad. If you live in a ghetto, people get shot over that crap!! Point being, I was going to quit over it and I didn't do anything about it. But you know what? I duked it out for a only a couple weeks...and they both ended up leaving the company!! Proof that patience pays.

Ask yourself if your manager is loosing any sleep over this or if they just really care at all. Remember, you are only there for paycheck. Have you ever been brought in to HR because of your "problems"? Hell, if they fire you because of it, you'll probably be able to collect because they won't be able to provide proof of misconduct.

Also, have you considered just looking for a different job then? Having lies in a performance review is pretty serious stuff. Most people would flip $hit because of it, so be proud of yourself for keeping your cool.

I'm sure a performance evaluation of your managers don't affect them they way you may imagine (I was a low level sup before). Just be honest about it because you don't want any karma coming back at you because of retaliation, even if it was a misunderstanding.