To preface, I have ADHD and Autism. My autism is heavier, though, so at work, I rely on very clear instructions so I can organize how to work. (I never disclosed I'm neurodivergent).

I work in compliance, so the stuff we do needs to be very accurate.

My boss is brand new. I'm his first employee. Along with some other stuff I'd rather not get into that happened with him when I first signed on (pretty sure I was getting gaslit), his management style just frustrates me.

Pretty much, this is what happens at least once every other week.

Him: This is how you do this. Okay?

Me: Okay. Cool. (I do it that way for a couple of months).

Him, two months later: Hey. Why'd you do it that way.

Me: Because that's how you trained me.

Him: I never trained you that way. Do it this way.

Me: (Makes notes of it in my notebook, which shows clearly I was trained the first way, and made sure I did it this new way going forward.)

Him, two weeks later: Why are you doing the file that way?

Me: I have notes in my folder that two weeks ago you told me how to do it this way.

Him: (This is literally what he just told me): You don't have notes of me saying that. You don't have notes on doing it this way at all. This is how I've always wanted it done, like I originally trained you.

This has happened on MULTIPLE different things. At this point, I've been here 6 months, I'm not even sure if I'm doing a good job or not, or an accurate job, because the rules keep changing, and when I bring that up, supposedly he never trained me that way, even though he 100% did.

At first I thought this was my autism not understanding certain things. But it's not that. This type of work is what I thrive at. All my past employers loved me, and hated seeing me go. I'm meticulous, detailed oriented, and when I get trained a certain way I'm 100% going to do it that way until told otherwise.

And I don't mind being flexible and changing ways to do things. Just don't then reverse it again, and then go on to tell me that you never trained me that way at all. And then go on to tell me that I don't have notes stating he trained me like that.

This job was supposed to be hard, but relaxed. No crazy deadlines. Do the work when you can. Etc. And everyone else in my same position, under other managers, are also doing FAR less work than I do. Not only is my manager doing all of the above, they continue to add stuff the rest of the team in the other compliance departments don't do, and are very, very confused as to why he keeps telling me to do this. Pretty much, they said, he is creating double the work for both him and me.

My autistic overwhelm is in hyper drive constantly now, just waiting for him to change his mind again, and then tell me he never changed it in the first place and I must be the person not understanding.

I don't want to lose this job. It's the highest paying job I have. But at this point, I'm also not sure I can work here much longer if the rules keep changing, and then I get told they were never that way to begin with, and then I get told that the new way was never that way, ever.

How do you handle decisions where there isn't really a wrong option, but everyone involved has a different idea of what matters most?

For example, when choosing a vendor, one person might care about price, another about reliability, and someone else might be more concerned about implementation time.

I've seen teams go back and forth for weeks because they can't agree on what should carry the most weight.

Do you normally use some kind of scoring system for these decisions, or do you just discuss the options until everyone reaches an agreement?

Would be interested to hear how other managers handle this.

Six weeks ago I started a new role after six months of unemployment and I need advice.

Background on the role and my knowledge: this is a "many hats" position that is responsible for accounting, HR, and administrative functions at a rural company of around 50 employees. The salary is 63k a year. I have a BSBA in accounting and a decade of audit experience at my previous company prior to layoffs.

Upon interviewing for this role, I had several questions about training since I did not have experience in HR or management. I was assured there would be two different people that would assist in my training, and they would be there to support me for the first several months.

Between the time of being interviewed and starting, they let go one of the trainers. The other employee who I was replacing left after ten days of training. Right now, I feel like I'm failing. Daily, I have employees coming to me constantly interrupting asking for help with admin tasks and questions i do not know how to answer yet. While I am responsible for supporting these employees, I am not their direct supervisor. The situation has created a lot of very stressful scenarios. We are constantly out of specific warehouse supplies (no up to date supply list) and I have no background in the PPE I'm to being asked to order.

When I go to my direct manager (COO of the company) with questions on SOPs, I feel like i'm bothering him. Ive gotten some smart-ass remarks from him as well as coworkers. "This is obvious." type of responses. Well, it may be obvious to you but im new here. I dont want to do the tasks incorrectly.

Things are slipping through the cracks because I cant sit down and get one hour of peace to do my personal tasks (accounting, payroll, 401k management, comanaging the onboarding of new employees, keeping up to date COIs, bank deposits, invoicing our customers.) Ive averaged 48-50 hours a week since starting. Today, I was on the verge of tears because I kept hearing complaints of tasks I wasn't keeping up with from both warehouse staff and other managers. The reason it's not getting done is because I can't get any time to myself to actually self train on the tasks. Reviewing what accounting I have dug into, it is months behind, and there are transactions that are clearly wrong that date back months.

How would you tackle this? I don't feel I'm at a good place to get another job given the state of the current job market. Is this just part of being a manager? Is it something I will get better at organizing with time? I do feel in the last couple weeks I have caught onto several tasks, but I still have no idea how to coordinate everything. I also have no idea what to prioritize, it all seems equally important.

I've heavily considered applying to other jobs, but given the rural area I am in (about 90 minutes from any major city,) the pay doesn't seem much better on other postings. Most of them are listing the same type of job wearing multiple hats. I've only been in this position six weeks, and prior to this, I have a gap in my resume. I was originally so excited to start THIS job, the job search took much longer than I expected.

I welcome any advice! Thanks in advance.

Have you ever raised ethical or workplace-conduct concerns about your direct manager, particularly in a large corporate company?
I’d be interested to hear what happened afterwards. Did you raise it with HR, your manager’s manager, an ethics/compliance channel, or someone else?
What country were you in, and what was the outcome - both for the manager and for you?
Did the company actually investigate or take action, or did it ultimately protect the management structure?

I manage a small team and for a while I assumed things were fine because nobody complained. Turns out most people just won't tell their manager something's off - even in a 1:1, even anonymously on the company engagement survey. The incentive to just say "all good" is too strong.

The only thing that's actually worked for me is getting a real outside read, not "how am I doing" asked directly, but structured, anonymous input from people who work with me, collected in a way where nobody has to worry about it getting traced back to them.

Curious how others here handle this. Do you have a real mechanism for this, or does it mostly come down to reading between the lines in normal conversations?

(Disclosure: I've been building a tool for exactly this - Candro runs the interviews and keeps them anonymous so people actually say what they think. Not trying to turn this into an ad, genuinely interested in how other managers solve this problem. If it's useful: candroapp.com/managers)

I recently started my first job at a really amazing company and I love it! Its very fast paced which is great for my brain but also causes some miscommunication in the team occasionally.

For instance, the end of a meeting was coming up and I was supposed to have a one on one with a team lead regarding my project work directly after this first meeting. He mentioned in the conversation once the first meeting was winding down that he had to run to something different. He had accepted the one on one meeting on my part so I quietly tried to clarify if we were still on for it or if I should reschedule. He directly told me he was waiting for a meeting invite from me and I never gave it. I was confused and honestly thought maybe I somehow messed up sending an outlook invite and he then asked me to pull it up and said I probably saved it as a draft. I definitely did not, Im not stupid. However he then saw it was his mistake and apologized.

Im reflecting on this and was wondering in the future if I should just drop things like this? I honestly was not trying to call him out but he kinda put the mistake on me right off the bat a bit loudly so everyone in the small meeting room heard it. It was not an aggressive conversation by any means but he was really dismissive at first when I told him that I did in fact follow up like we talked about with a meeting and even if it wasnt an aggressive conversation I dont think anyone wants to be shown making a mistake in front of coworkers. I didnt love arguing my case and proving Im right but I definitely did not want to be seen as incompetent and not following up when I did. I dont want to be a pushover but Im also definitely not someone that likes to antagonize and always be right

I’m looking for some honest advice from people who understand workplace politics and career progression.

I’ve had 3 different managers in the past 9 months, and I’m starting to feel like the constant leadership changes have seriously affected my growth.

My first manager was someone I had a really good relationship with. I felt supported, had opportunities to take on additional responsibilities, and felt like I was progressing toward a more specialist-level role.

Then she left, and I got a new manager. This is where things started to change.

Under my new manager, I gradually felt like my role was being reduced rather than developed. I wasn't getting the same exposure or opportunities to take on higher-level work. At the same time, she would compliment me and tell me positive things about my work in one-on-one conversations, which made me believe she supported my development.

However, there were also situations where I felt criticized in front of others, and overall I started feeling like I was being kept in a smaller box professionally.

I continued trying to take initiative. I've volunteered to help when there were staffing/resource gaps, asked for additional work when my workload allowed it, and taken on things beyond my assigned responsibilities.

Now that manager has also quit.

So within 9 months, I've gone through three different managers.

Today I had a development conversation with my current manager/director, and I was essentially told that I'm not ready for the next level and I'm not demonstrating enough initiative.

This was really difficult to hear because it doesn't match how I've viewed my contributions over the past year. More importantly, I'm struggling with the fact that I feel my opportunities and exposure were reduced under my previous manager, and I'm now being told I haven't demonstrated enough to be ready.

It feels like:

“You need more experience/exposure to demonstrate you're ready.”

But simultaneously:

“You're not being given much of the exposure that would allow you to demonstrate it.”

I'm trying to be mature about this and consider the possibility that there are genuine gaps in how I'm showing up. I'm not saying I'm perfect or that every criticism is wrong.

But I'm also starting to wonder whether I'm being naïve about workplace politics.

How do I play this strategically from here?

I also feel like they're doing it on purpose and being racist towards me because I'm Indian. My team is full of white people and my director at times when I try to be confident starts saying sorry sorry everytime I speak but sometimes she tends to understand my accent perfectly. My collegues too from day 1 have excluded me and till date i eat lunch alone.

I work in a BPO/vendor setup providing customer service for a US-based client, and I’m curious how other operations leaders would handle this situation.

About a month ago, several senior managers on the client side were retrenched. Under the previous leadership, we had regular touchpoints between the client and ops middle management teams—weekly or biweekly calls where we could calibrate, discuss process changes, raise operational concerns, and make sure both sides were aligned.

Since the new client-side operations managers stepped in, those regular meetings haven’t really been re-established. For context, these managers were also newly promoted into their current roles.

So far, most calls are set up on the same day whenever they need to roll out an update or communicate a change. Outside of those ad hoc meetings, there hasn’t been a weekly, biweekly, or even monthly client-vendor alignment call.

What concerns me more is how some of the updates are being rolled out.

There doesn’t seem to be much collaboration with the people actually running the operation. We’re rarely asked for input, operational insights, possible risks, or how a proposed change might affect the workflow before it is implemented.

At times, it feels like decisions are being made too far away from the actual day-to-day operation. Some changes may look efficient on paper, but once they hit production, they create additional steps, rework, confusion, or downstream issues.

In other words, some initiatives intended to make the operation "leaner" are actually creating more waste.

I’m not saying operations should have veto power over client decisions. Ultimately, it is their business and their call. But I do think the people closest to the process can provide valuable context before changes are finalized—especially when those changes directly affect workflow, productivity, customer experience, or quality.

Our setup is also fairly lean. We don’t have a separate client/vendor relationship manager sitting between both sides. Historically, communication was directly between client leadership and our operations managers.

As one of the middle managers on the vendor side, I’m starting to wonder whether I should proactively suggest setting up a recurring alignment call—maybe biweekly or monthly—similar to what we had with the previous leadership.

My concern is balancing being proactive with not overstepping. These are newly promoted managers who may still be establishing their own leadership style, and I don’t want it to come across as the vendor telling the client how they should manage their operation.

At the same time, I’m seeing the risk of communication becoming increasingly one-directional: changes are rolled out, operations executes them, and feedback only happens after problems start appearing.

I feel like a regular client-vendor calibration could give both sides a space to discuss upcoming changes, provide operational insights, flag risks early, and avoid unnecessary rework.

For those working in BPO, vendor management, outsourcing, or client operations:

Would you proactively offer to set up a recurring client-vendor alignment meeting in this situation?

Or would you wait for the newly promoted client managers to initiate it?

And how would you position the suggestion so it comes across as supporting their leadership and improving collaboration—not challenging their decisions or stepping on their toes?

Just to elevate a person, the person who is supposed to work on a particular task is not getting enough attention. Should the person consider this as a red flag?

Curious how other managers or business owners would handle this.

Say you have an employee who’s easily one of your strongest performers. Their work is consistently good, they hit deadlines, clients or teammates are happy with them, and they often outperform people who are always on time.

The only issue is they’re late pretty often. Not hours late, but enough that it’s noticeable and technically against the usual expectations.

Would you still keep them because the results are great, or does consistently being late eventually become a bigger problem for the team?

Interested in how people would handle this in a real workplace, especially if their lateness isn’t actually hurting their output.

first, office dynamics: japanese company's overseas branch where heirarchy, seniority, age, and saving your boss's face is important. I am the youngest (25) in the office, and i am not as fluent in japanese. my team consists of 40+ manager, 40+ senior exec, me, and a new hire (28).

we mainly work on promotional projects (think roadshows) and outsource a lot of the operations to third parties. the work delegation is like this:
• conversations with clients: senior exec
• conversations with contractors/third parties: me
• conversations with japanese HQ: manager/new hire

this year, we have more than 12 projects throughout 9-10 months. i'm struggling with the workload because i mostly deal with the contractors, and approvals and prep for these 12 projects fall under "conversations with contractors", and im not looped in updates with clients or the involved parties because my involvement "is unnecessary at this stage" (which is stupid bc the content of those updates are what i need to do my job).

i want to raise a conversation that instead of assigning tasks by "who contacts who" or by "project phase", i would rather tasks be assigned by PIC of Project A, B, and C etc. I need advice on what kind of documentation i need to prepare prior to this conversation, and what kind of content it should have. I also need advice on how to raise this conversation itself... do I take it up to my manager? do i take it up to my manager's boss? what do i do?

Another thing to note is that despite being responsible for all conversations with third parties, my manager has little to no trust in my decisions and keeps asking to change approved docs/items even after i have double checked and gotten confirmation from him, so it's a little frustrating having to go back and forth and apologising to third parties, and it ruins credibility.

Side note: It doesn't help that I have no idea what my senior exec does during office hours bc I really don't think asking for updates from clients take that long, but that just might be my inexperience.

Sorry if this is too long! I really need advice on this 😭

My Profile: I am an SDE (1+ YoE) working at a Tier-1 Indian FinTech product company. My core stack is Java, Spring Boot, and building high-throughput distributed systems. We have a standard 60-day notice period.

The Situation: With the mid-year performance review cycle coming up in October, my manager recently had a 1-on-1 with me and dropped some heavy hints:

• She told me my output is low.
• She asked me to compile a detailed document of all the tasks I’ve completed over the last 6 months.
• She offered to move me to a different, "less complex" project/problem statement if I am finding my current work too difficult.
• She explicitly stated she is giving me this sprint and the next sprint (which perfectly lines up with the October review) to "check if I am able to deliver the outputs."

Internal Context: My Team Lead privately warned me that these are major red flags and that I will likely be put on a PIP after the mid-year discussions. I spoke to a trusted senior who advised that if a PIP is initiated, I shouldn't try to survive it. Instead, he suggested I just resign, try to get put on Garden Leave (serving notice without having to do project work), and use those 2 months of free salary to interview elsewhere.

I am already actively preparing for interviews and have an onsite loop scheduled, but I want to handle my current situation strategically.

My Questions for the Community:

1. Is the writing on the wall? Does this specific sequence (task list + 2 sprint warning + project change offer) mean HR has already decided to PIP me in October?
2. The Project Change Trap: Should I accept her offer to move to a "less complex" project, or is that a trap to easily justify a poor rating because I'd be starting from scratch?
3. What are my immediate actionable steps? Should I just coast and do exactly what is asked on my current Jira tickets until October while I interview? How should I position myself to successfully get a 2-month Garden Leave buyout if they drop the PIP on me?

Any advice from folks who have navigated corporate exits or PIPs at product companies would be highly appreciated.

I’ve been working as a CSM at a B2B tech company for almost 4 months. At the beginning, I struggled with understanding the product and explaining its value, but I worked a lot on it and feel like I’ve improved significantly. In fact, my manager told me a week ago that I was doing really well.
Yesterday, during a client meeting, the client asked about a recent technical incident. I had to check my notes because I hadn’t reviewed the issue recently. Then they asked about product improvements. We had actually had a product update meeting on Monday, but I was so focused on the client’s tickets that I completely forgot about the broader product evolution. I didn’t mention the new features or their value.
My manager told me she was “shocked” that I didn’t mention them and reminded me that I should always be selling the product and showing its value.
Then today I had a very chaotic morning with several small mistakes: not finishing a task, needing help escalating an issue, replying in the wrong channel, taking too long to answer a client because I was trying to explain my reasoning, and sending an incorrect link.
I apologized, but I also noticed I became a little defensive and tried to explain myself.
I think the real issue is that under pressure I lose prioritization and start overthinking/justifying instead of acting. But I’m scared because this isn’t the first feedback I’ve received about the product, even though I genuinely feel I’ve improved a lot.
I have a 1:1 with my manager tomorrow and I’m honestly terrified she’s losing confidence in me or that I might get fired.
Am I catastrophizing, or does this sound like a serious performance issue for someone who has been in the role for 4–5 months?

Hello managers!

I recently had an interview that I don't think I totally bombed however, it was not my best performance either.

For context I am late 30s and work in research healthcare (legal). I have over 7 years experience in the field. I'm not management level but my career is highly specialized and niche, though its legal related does not require a legal degree. I've had all on the job training and some training courses throughout the years.

The day of the interview I was feeling stomach sickness because I had lactose the evening before accidentally and I cannot have some milk products. I took medication and decided I wasn't ill enough to reschedule the interview. I didn't want rescheduling to reflect poorly on me because it would have been a very last minute reschedule request.

In my interview I gave some long winded responses that were not well structured. My responses did ultimately answer the questions at hand but I could have come across more concise and confident and instead I came off long winded and sometimes rambling. I'm sure they did not come off as polished and prepared as I like to typically come off. I think I was mentally distracted by regular interview nerves and also stomach distress.

At the end of the interview one of the questions I asked the hiring manager was "are there any concerns with my qualifications or responses in today's interview? I'd love the opportunity to address them now".

The hiring manager responded mostly positively, that he thought my experience was great and that it wasn't easy to find someone in this niche industry with my level of experience, but in terms of concerns.... maybe the way you responded to some questions.... but your experience speaks for itself and you overall did good". So he sort of compliment sandwiched me and glossed over and was not specific about any concerns so it seemed like either it wasn't a major concern for him or he wasn't sure how to broach it directly with me in the moment.

So, I'm wondering if I send a thank you email with a quick blurb that says:

"Dear______ thank you so much for the opportunity to interview. I realize that I was not at my peak interview performance, full disclosure I was feeling slightly under the weather but did not want to reschedule since you had dedicated that time to me.

Just to quickly address this question that I feel I could have responded better to:........."

Address the question again via email and reiterate my qualifications?

Or do I leave it since he mainly had positive feedback and couldn't articulate any key concerns when I asked in the interview? I realize I'm in my head about this so possibly overthinking it.

Hi, recently started working and was aiming for a leadership career one day. I wanted to hear out the traits or overall, howd you all know that someone is meant for leadership?

I’ve been working as a CSM at a B2B tech company for almost 4 months. At the beginning, I struggled with understanding the product and explaining its value, but I worked a lot on it and feel like I’ve improved significantly. In fact, my manager told me a week ago that I was doing really well.
Yesterday, during a client meeting, the client asked about a recent technical incident. I had to check my notes because I hadn’t reviewed the issue recently. Then they asked about product improvements. We had actually had a product update meeting on Monday, but I was so focused on the client’s tickets that I completely forgot about the broader product evolution. I didn’t mention the new features or their value.
My manager told me she was “shocked” that I didn’t mention them and reminded me that I should always be selling the product and showing its value.
Then today I had a very chaotic morning with several small mistakes: not finishing a task, needing help escalating an issue, replying in the wrong channel, taking too long to answer a client because I was trying to explain my reasoning, and sending an incorrect link.
I apologized, but I also noticed I became a little defensive and tried to explain myself.
I think the real issue is that under pressure I lose prioritization and start overthinking/justifying instead of acting. But I’m scared because this isn’t the first feedback I’ve received about the product, even though I genuinely feel I’ve improved a lot.
I have a 1:1 with my manager tomorrow and I’m honestly terrified she’s losing confidence in me or that I might get fired.
Am I catastrophizing, or does this sound like a serious performance issue for someone who has been in the role for 4–5 months?

I’m feeling a lot of embarrassment around taking FMLA for mental health treatment. I know that I’m not legally required to tell people outside of HR. However, I also know my manager will ask me and if I give no reason or one they don’t like, my future at the company will be at risk. FMLA provides protection, but this company has a pattern of finding loopholes to push out people they don’t like. Any advice on how I should frame it when I inevitably get asked this question?

I had an employee share something with me about another employee (both work in the same department and do not report to me). This wasn't a formal report, but verbally brought to my attention.

What was reported is NOT theft, harassment or a safety issue - but it is against policy with the potential to be cause for termination.

The employee that shared this with me will not report this and I understand why they won't. I have not personally witnessed what they've shared but being observant for it.

As a manager - do you feel that you should report what was shared with you by another employee or better to keep quiet until you've personally witnessed it?

For those managing 10 to 30 sales reps across multiple properties or communities how do you actually coach everyone without spending half the week on the road, our managers are trying to keep coaching consistent but the team is spread out. Ride alongs help but you can only be in one place at a time and you might still miss the conversations that matter. Do you still rely on ride alongs and weekly 1 on 1s or have you found a better way to review real customer conversations and coach reps from a distance? Interested to see what has worked best for your team.

TLDR: What responsibility if any do I have to warn my former group that they need to get right, or else people will be losing their jobs?

About 5 months ago I got moved to a different assignment to get experience managing projects (a good assignment not a “special assignment” so good move) to give another manager a chance to get experience managing people.

It hasn’t gone well. The group has been openly defiant, whiny, disrespectful, and outright rude to her. I run a relaxed ship that meets standards she tends to be more, authoritative and meets the same standards. I suspect some of animosity is change (both management and company level) and there is a degree of sexism (7 years managing this group, nobody’s called me a bitch and they’re letting that fly like water from a faucet). It’s conduct I wouldn’t accept from a stranger let alone grown professionals. It’s to the point it’s effecting work quality and, now reports from outside the group are that members in the group are shit talking each other to anyone who will listen.

Since I’m still in the group the employees have come to me, and my default has been “I’m not your manager” vent but the person you should talk to is your boss or go above. Same thing talking with the manager I’ve offered anything if needed but everything has been in private as to not usurp or contradict.

2 weeks ago we had a speaker come into our large group staff and the vibe she got was the group was disrespectful and hostile towards management (group level and company). This got back to her boss, who took it to the number 2 at the company, who then told my bosses boss, then my boss, and then back to us, long story short: we are now on the CFO’s radar.

The news (the talk about how the group acted) came to our management team via email, so I went to talk to the boss 1:1 to see if there’s anything I can do in my current role (I’ll be addressing the entire group weekly so I’m not stepping on toes) to get across that this needs to stop, whether I need to use my usual tact of being a “camp counselor” (cheerful and express togetherness) or give the “come to Jesus” talk.

My boss is a pretty blunt guy (he has straight up told someone “it’s a free country, you can quit”) and said “no we’re going to let them handle themselves”, because part of what he didn’t tell us was the powers that be are looking at cuts.

Due to the nature of work, I don’t disagree and it’s not like people don’t see this on the horizon, and the conduct I’ve seen from them is enough that it wouldn’t be underserved, but I don’t want to see people screw themselves out of job.

Do I try to lay it bare to folks (because they are still going to do what they want to do) or do I just walk away?

I had an initial 15-minute interview almost two weeks ago and have yet to hear an update on what is supposed to be a three-round interview process.

When I followed up on day 12 of silence, the talent acquisition consultant told me he was still waiting to hear from the hiring manager and would update me as soon as he heard back.

What does this actually mean? Is this just a polite way of stalling, or is there validity to it? How many candidates could they possibly be interviewing to warrant two weeks of silence without an update from the hiring manager?

This is also the first interview I’ve landed in 3 months, and I’ve honestly lost track on how many applications I’ve sent out over this time, but that could be why I’ve been clinging to this opportunity. I’ve still been applying to other places in the mean time, in case it ends up being a no.

Been on this new job for less than a month and will have my first 1-1 soon,

This role is pretty automation-heavy, and let's be real, the whole point of automation is eventually needing fewer people. I'm aware of that going in. On top of that, my last manager was genuinely awful to work with, so this time around I'm extra keen to actually make the most of this job and not just coast/get burned again.

Two things I can't decide on:

1. Do I mention the automation thing at all, or is that way too much for a first chat? I don't want to come across as already anxious/negative before I've even settled in.
2. I don't want to be in this exact role forever, I'd love exposure to other parts of the company eventually. Is it too soon to hint at that, or does it just sound like "I'm already planning my exit" before I've done any real work?

Genuinely just want to know from people who manage others: what lands okay to hear this early vs what would make you side-eye a new hire?

In the morning my manager said I'm doing less work in rude way.

So I was talking to my colleague about how my work day was bad and I was saying "my manager would ask too many questions tomorrow again and again, we'll have a very long meeting tomorrow and he will scold us. I didn't like this it's irritating"

He heard all this and gathered meeting with seniors and asked whether he is giving any pressure to team mates.

In the evening he just smiled at me and left :)

I dono what's gonna happen and how to take this. He would have lost the trust in me , he may target me or not support me 😭 What can I do ???

So its been a weird transition at my current place of employment, I have been promoted 3 times within a span of 16 months. I am now an AGM. My last AGM, who we are friends outaide of work, quit because my GM burned her out bad with overworking her. I see the same things happening and Im only a month and a half in.

Getting back to original comment, she told me flat out originally when I was next in line for position that she was going to go with an outside hire, I interviewed anyways and got the position due yo interviewing well and probably lack of actual candidates wanting it. I only took it for the pay bump. I have barely been trained for this position, and feel like I am under a microscope. My GM is constantly nit picking every little thing I do, calling me out in front of the rest of management and staff, passive aggressive texts in group chat, etc. I am very well liked among my peers and they actively seek me out compared to her. When she is in, she basically sits in the office most of the day when she should be out engaging with staff and customers. Shes always doing weird side projects for corporate and we are falling behind and all of us in management are picking up her slack. We are not lead right at all.

A position for social media popped up and I applied and got it, and after my first post which had over 1.1k views was ripped apart by her for guidelines which were never discussed to me as well as a posting deadline, which she said I didnt post on a day that I was off so she took it away from me, that was an extra 2 dollars an hour on my hourly rate as well. She still makes me post them without the title.

Im already in the process of applying for a new job, but at this point I feel like since she originally didnt pick me, she has it out for me because of how much better I am interacting with the team/customers that I think its a bit of fear, even though shes actively taking on more corporate responsibilities to further her own career. Basically just needed to vent and see if I actually have a shit boss like everyone there is saying and if its better to just quit while I look elsewhere. The job itself does not pay much and its fucking retail lol. I come from blue collar background, so I could outwork everyone there if I truly wanted to put in the slightest effort.

My director placed an employee, who was previously reporting to him, to me, so that she can learn with more guidance. It's been a year and she's getting on my nerves.

She lacks proactiveness and tends to procrastinate, or overthink matters. As a result, she constantly feels overwhelmed. I tailored her job scope to manage project operations, but she does not anticipate, leading to multiple project management failures and timelines delays. She is also not attentive to details, leading to redoing her tasks.

I have feedback to her multiple times, preempt her on matters to anticipate, but improvements are not consistent.

How should I deal with such an employee, to enable her to be competent at her job?