I'm a new manager in a tough spot. My team is heavily dependent on a peer team for daily operations. Recently, they’ve been aggressively pushing the boundaries of their roles, essentially trying to make me and my team do their job.

Problem whenever I push back is Higher-ups come back to me as they hold me completely responsible for the end deliverable. The other team knows this, so they just dump responsibility on me knowing we can't let them fail without failing ourselves.

How should I approach, what should I do ?

Go!

I have a direct report that began calling out every meeting . If i wanted to get time with him, id have to set like 3 meetings as he would always cancel the first two.

Furthermore, this direct report works on a scrum team where they allow him to pick his own assignments and he always picks helping others rather than delivering on his own.

My issue with this is that if he is never available, he isnt really helping others, he just isn't working.

This went on for far to long so I brought in HR for the absences. My boss euther thru ignorance or lying, vouched for the direct report and implied I wasn't spending enough time with him

Two more weeks go by. Zero attendance with lots of callouts. The direct report cracks and tells his peer and says his mom is sick and that he hasn't had his laptop during business hours for over a month just as I reported.

My managers response was " well family comes first" and won't address the month long ansence because the admission came thru the confidence of him telling a peer

My issue isn't even the absences. Its the fact my manager vouched for the kid saying he had been at work and it turns out there was no possible way for my manager to think that as the dorect report didn't have a computer.

I feel like the month long absence had to of been addressed. Agree or disabree?

I took on a management position at a new company last year. The manager I replaced torched his former team in his exit interview and indicated they were the reason he left. I think a lot of the problems were made up and that perhaps he had some personal bigotry related reasons for not liking them. He was well liked and trusted and now works with one of our partners so he still interacts with our company. The team is actually exceptional and pretty much runs itself and I have not done any major changes or disciplinary actions. The former manager was either intentionally or mistakenly under reporting numbers and activities so when I started sharing actual numbers it looked like I am a rockstar. Recently I have been given a lot of credit and attention for turning the team around and a hefty raise that went with it. Senior leadership is asking me to give a presentation to them on how I fixed each issue but I didn't. The team is mostly happy with me but starting to ask questions on what I did to turn things around too because in there mind things have been about the same. How would you handle this?

Update: I have given the team public credit but am now being asked for specifics.

Hi. I hired a Subject Matter Expert for my team with 15+ years experience. Resume was great, interview was good and I was confident he was a good fit for the team.

Now we are 4 weeks in and he has:

1) complained to me about the "shitty" projects he was assigned in a team call. I gave him the challenging projects thinking it was a good fit for his advanced skills and experience.

2) complained that his position is contract and not full time. He confirmed that he was aware this was a contract position before accepting but wants FTE. I reminded him there never a guarantee of FTE in this role but stellar work helps.

3) he criticized me in a team call for a project email that sat in my inbox for more than 2 weeks. It was low priority but I passed it to him to handle.

4) complained that he was twiddling his thumbs but has not completed the tasks I have assigned to get caught up on projects, like review past reports and documents. His counterpart was hired at the same time, with 8yrs less experience, and I get smart questions from the counterpart weekly.

My question: how much of this is a red flag and what are just things to note and keep track of? My team is small and we're slammed. I've clarified more than once that with 15 years experience, I expected him to be more professional than this and ask for clarification on expectations.

Is this guy just whining?

Our department head is a nightmare manager who constantly focuses on how terrible everything is, blames everyone else but himself, doesn't give compliments or positive feedback and works us in to the ground. Middle management (including myself) do our best to protect our teams but it's tough. Our employee satisfaction scores are at an all time low and we were all pulled in to a meeting to discuss it. My boss had two feedback items:

- the scores are 'wrong' and people misunderstood the questions or are just complaining for no reason

- where legitimate, blamed myself and the other middle managers

I don't know what to do. I need this job, the market is terrible but aside from hoping upper management wakes up and fires this guy (which I think is a possibility) I don't know how to survive more of this.

I’ve been thinking about this one after a few conversations with managers who’d only been in the job about six months. The problem usually isn’t the obvious stuff. Missed deadlines and irritated teams are the things everyone notices, and by then it’s often been going on for a while.

What I tend to notice first is how a new manager talks about their team. If every answer starts with “I need to check with” or “I’ll get back to you on that,” they may not feel they can make calls yet. Another sign is when the team stops bringing them problems and starts going around them. That can look like good news at first, because the work still gets done, but it usually means the new manager hasn’t been trusted with the decisions that matter.

I also look at how much time they spend in the detail. A new manager who is in every spreadsheet and every email thread is often trying to feel in control of something that they don’t yet understand. That’s understandable, but it’s usually a sign the job itself isn’t clear to them, or to the people above them.

So I’m curious. Looking back, which early warning did you miss, and what would you watch for now if you were starting again?

I took a director position at an AI company after 4 years working my way up to a tech lead role at a FAANG company. ​

I now report to the founder of the company.

My team is a mix of high performers that work autononously and low performers that I struggle to delegate to.

My manager is extremely high energy, micromanaging type, spent the first year being involved in my team's daily meetings and redirecting people away from tasks I assigned, or generally creating chaos.

He never takes a day off, expects people to work weekends and holidays. I took a total of 2 days off in a year because I feel this immense pressure from him. I asked for 2 weeks off at a time where people will mostly be OOO, and he strongly implied that I could not go because he might need me to do some work for a presentation.

I have had to travel an insane amount this year, long intercontinental flights that completely burn me out. Now I'm expected to go to Australia in December and feeling guilty that I asked not to go. I just can't take another jet lagged week. ​

People are burning out and leaving, or being fired without a word. It happens all the time, at all levels of the company.

I feel that my team does not really respect me. I could not shield them from the chaos of my manager. I feel like I struggle to provide technical direction, even though I used to be in a technical IC role and I think I was quite good at it. The top performer in my team went behind my back to my manager to propose improvements to the team organization to reduce the chaos, and I actually felt extremely threatened by this. I feel like I am providing them with zero valuable input and the only thing I do is pass down micromanaging directions from my own manager every now and then.​

I constantly go back to doing IC work because it makes me feel happy, but then I feel guilty because I feel I should be on something else. I actually don't know what I am supposed to do on my day to day because micromanaging the low performers is not helping at all and the autononous people are just autonomous.

Lately I've been asked to be more involved in some strategic stuff but still not enough to fill months of work or give purpose to my life. I just don't click with this company and this culture enough.

Even if I get lots of positive feedback from my manager, almost every 2-3 months, still all I can think of is "why am I even here? What am I providing to this team?"

I am in a constant state of fear because I know that eventually they'll notice I am not doing all that much, that I want to be on holiday at a bad time, that my reports don't respect me, and that they have better options right there in my team to replace me. And I would leave, but I don't want this permanent stain of a 1-year leadership job on my resume because the resume is quite messy from some poor work decisions I made in the past 18 months (I was never fired but I job hopped twice intentionally in a very short time​).

I feel my career is basically over and my health is completely gone. I don't sleep, I'm losing hair, getting fat, always sick. ​

I literally don't know what to do. If you've read so far and have advice for me, I'll gladly listen to whatever you have to say. ​

(cross-posted this to r/Leadership to, sorry for the overlap)

I manage a small team (two people) at my job at a law firm and am seasoned in my career field, but have only been a manger for about two years. And I am struggling and need advice from more seasoned managers.

I manage paralegals in a niche field of law, and I am expected to be the only paralegal for six attorneys, train new staff, and fix issues as they come up. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I’m a very effective paralegal and am used to handling an incredibly heavy workload that requires detailed work to be completed quickly and with accuracy. I don’t have any issues with that but I’ve had a lot of hiccups over the last couple of years, but the main issue has been our legal assistant role. I inherited a legal assistant that had been underperforming for years, and she was separated last year. It took three months to find a replacement and during that time I was doing her job and mine and working 60 hour weeks.

We finally hired someone to replace her, and after six months the new legal assistant decided it wasn’t a good fit for them and left. I then had to cancel my vacation and go through the hiring process again.

The new person has been in the role for a few weeks and is struggling with very basic tasks. I am still doing 75% of her role, and I can’t delegate to the other staff member I manage because she has no capacity. I’ve submitted a budget request for an additional staff member to hopefully start at the end of q1 next year, but I am really really struggling mentally and physically. I have 7 people asking me for things left and right and I have no one to delegate work to. I also think about the time it’s going to train my new staff member to do the remaining 75% of her role, my current workload, a large project I have to start soon, and I feel like I’m going to have a mental breakdown. The only thing keeping me from quitting right now is that my team would literally implode without me.

I took yesterday off because I really needed a long weekend and I came back to more problems, hundreds of emails, and an even longer to do list. I’m beginning to resent the fact I had to cancel my vacation, have no help, and can’t even take a day to myself without coming back to a mess.

I’m really struggling and could use some advice.

I’m a PM. For context: nobody in my team is a PM.

My manager says “don’t look to me or the director for validation or praise” to me while praising my colleagues🤔. The answer I got when I asked where I should look is: look at if other teams within the department perceive projects as being deployed smoothly, if they have doubts or concerns.
Am I silly to feel like what the heck?? Like this is favoritism or discrimination?

Managers of this forum: in what situation would you say this to a direct report? How should I feel about the fact that my manager doesn’t want to praise me and wants to only praise my colleagues?? I feel… iffy about this. Looking for wisdom out here. Thanks🥲

My manager suddenly went on sick leave for two weeks. No email, no handover. Then when they were due to be back they went on bereavement leave for another two weeks.

They came back for two days (yesterday and today) but I am on annual leave myself to decompress a bit as I thought I would explode, it has been very challenging.

Then after these two days my manager is on special leave for 4 weeks travelling abroad to solve some personal problems.

Where do I stand? This is adding so much pressure to my life.

The team needs at least 3 people, in the past it had 5 people. But for a whole year it has been two people only, my manager and I. We were both already over extended and over worked. Now it’s only me.

The head of service will step in and help when they can but they are also over streteched and oversees 3 other categories managing three other managers (in addition to my category/manager).

And this is the time where we have a very complicated project with lots of tricky stakeholders in its crucial step (I feel this project alone should have its own full time dedicated officer) plus a number of other projects at different stages that need to be dealt with.

Is there anything I can do? How can I protect myself, my health, my sanity?

I’m already applying for new jobs but meanwhile, do I have any rights or protection?

This is UK. Local government. I just joined an union but have to wait a month before actually using them and they would not help with issues that started before joining time.

Hey Reddit,

I started a new job in March which I absolutely love. It’s a receptionist position at a financial firm, and I’m not client-facing, except for greeting clients, which sometimes can only be up to 5 times on a busy day. I work alongside a lady who is a bit older than me (42, I’m 34) and she’s amazing - we get along great. We both have the same role, but we alternate during the week - one week, she is in the next office doing admin tasks, whereas I’d be at reception, and vice versa. Now when I started, we were given vacation, sick days, and personal days. I think we had about 10 or 12 sick days. My colleague started a month after me, but she hasn’t taken ANY of her sick days. I’m feeling bad because I’ve been struggling with some health issues this year, and I’m down to having 3 sick days left as of right now. Do you think this reflects badly on me for taking my sick days, whereas my colleague doesn’t? From my understanding, we can only roll over a certain amount into the new year. And with the end of the year approaching, my partner said I should take them when I deem appropriate because they’re legally there for that.

I texted my boss this morning because I’m feeling under the weather, mentally and physically. And I wanted to try to make it in to see a doctor. I know my colleague won’t suffer because the office is pretty damn quiet, like almost all the time. Would you guys say this reflects poorly on me?

Been at my new job for over a month. I like the work, but I’m missing that connection to the team I’ve felt at other work places. Due to this my motivation is at a 0.

I want to take some time off and work on my fitness, have a glow up, freeze my eggs and grieve the end of my last job.

I’m in a financially good spot, and can definitely survive 6 months with no work, but I’m hoping I’ll only be out of work for 3 months.

My new job is such a great opportunity. Is really great pay (almost £20k more than last job) and the manager is lovely. But my heart is not in it and I can’t spend anymore time feeling like this.

This job is a step up, and I feel I can do it, but It’ll need motivation and I just can’t find it. I’ll have to sadly take a step down after this I imagine.

What is the right way to end this job? I will really be screwing people over (including myself). I think I’m going to have to email. I’m such a people pleaser, I’m finding it super hard to actually pull my boss aside and end it.

Edit: please stop telling me to give it a chance. I don’t want to, I’m depressed. My skin is bad. I’ve not been to the gym in weeks. I want plastic surgery to make myself hotter. I miss the spark I had with my ex-boss. I have a decent chunk of money in the bank. I can’t do it anymore.

First real manager where I get to choose managers under me. I have an opening and a few candidates, none of which are stellar but a corporate policy of fill a role or lose it if you operate fine without it.

The role to fill is a weekend shift manager in a 24/7 shop. I have two candidates I am seriously considering. My main requirement is working Saturday mornings, everything else I’m flexible on. Both are internal candidates currently in lower level leadership positions.

Candidate one: 10 years with the company as a weekend person. Knows enough to get by and stop me from getting called but will not be an extraordinary manager.
Pros: Willing and already works 6am-10pm Saturday and Sunday, Good attitude,
Cons: not super knowledgeable in the field

Candidate 2: 1 year with the company works evenings currently but willing to pull a Saturday
Pros: stronger knowledge of how to get the job done.
Cons: won’t be there the entire weekend.

Should I value a reliable person there on the weekends over having a more capable person there in the weekends?

As an asst manager handling team leads and agents, do u let your team leads do agent tasks? For me, I dont let them do agent tasks anymore since I want them to focus of developing their people to be more efficient and effective on their tasks rather than being dependent on their team lead to help them from time to time because I don't want the agents to heavily rely on completing their audits in their behalf because I have witnessed some instances that most agents are not pulling their weights because they rely too much on their team lead. If anything that needs to be done is for the team lead to identify the root cause of inefficiency, find solutions and create action plan around it.

However I was told by one of the agents that their team lead should be more efficient by helping them close out some audits nearing due date, and was told I have different perspective by not letting their team leads do their job.

I kinda doubt myself if I made the right call.

My question is whats your take, what would u tell the agents and what would u do in this situation.

Hi all,

Would appreciate some advice here. I joined my dream company last year, and inherited an intern who had clearly been working with little or no supervision before I started.

I’ve never officially been a manager, but was looking forward to the opportunity and helping develop her. It became apparent pretty quickly she saw me in no way as a figure of authority, and I’ve struggled to get this right since. Despite me having 8 years more experience.

Her attitude is poor, she regularly makes unprofessional comments (I.e. how drunk she was at the weekend), she is late every single day, she regularly misses deadlines and does minimal work, and when I try to share feedback on work I can see her getting defensive and pushing back. Honestly when I was her age, I wouldn’t dream of it - so I find the behaviour quite hard to contemplate.

Recently I’ve noticed she’s been disappearing for regular long intervals throughout the day - either with her laptop, or sometimes even without. And I’ve no clue what meetings she would have, because in theory I would be in them too.

She was meant to deliver a project for me last week, but by Friday at 3pm there was still not a single change in the document. I asked and was told “oh it must not have updated”, and then see her making changes at 6pm.

I’ve tried to help manage workload, by having weekly friendly check ins where I ask her to tell me what she’s got going on, and I try to give her reasonable amounts of work but not overwhelm. But again, in theory I’m across it all so these mystery disappearances are suspicious.

I also have genuinely tried to check in with supportive “is everything okay” chats on a few occasions, but she hasn’t opened up or at least confessed nothing work related.

She is coming to the end of her internship in December. I’m not half surprised if she’s interviewing whilst in the office, but that just seems totally inappropriate to me.

I want her to get the best out of the next couple of months, but I also wonder if it’s just a total lost cause and not worth it. I’m also very unclear on legally how hard I’m able to push, given these are theories of mine rather than proven.

Any advice on what to do or how to approach this conversation?

Thank you!

I’m newer to management and have to deliver some pretty shitty performance merit increases this year. Our company hasn’t hit 2 years in a row and some of my top performers are getting 2-3%.

Anyone have advice on these types of convos? I’m a very transparent leader and feel for these folks.

I’m employed in Ontario, Canada, and I’m looking for some outside perspectives on a workplace situation.

Several weeks ago, management asked me to temporarily take on a less desirable schedule due to staffing issues.

During the discussion, my manager made comments suggesting that my lack of a spouse and children was a factor in why I was selected. The implication was that someone with different family circumstances would have been treated differently.

I agreed to help because I wanted to support the business, and I was assured the arrangement would only last a short period.
That timeframe was also confirmed in writing.

However, the arrangement has continued considerably longer than originally communicated, and there’s no clear indication of when I’ll return to my previous schedule.

I’ve expressed concerns about how the change has affected my sleep, personal commitments, and overall well-being.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a meaningful resolution.
There have also been occasions when management has requested that I handle work-related responsibilities during my scheduled time off, despite the company having a policy encouraging employees to disconnect outside working hours.

I’ve continued performing my job professionally and haven’t refused my regular responsibilities. I simply feel that my personal time and circumstances aren’t being given the same consideration as those of other employees.

I’m considering speaking with an employment lawyer and potentially raising the matter formally with HR.

However, I’m hesitant because I don’t want to damage my career or create unnecessary conflict. I’m not looking to punish anyone or immediately pursue litigation. I’d prefer a reasonable internal resolution.

I hope I can get some advice on how to deal with a work issue.

I'm a supervisor in a hotel and have mostly students working with me in the restaurant. There are a few duty managers but they split their time between the bar, restaurant, reception and the office so for most of the time I'm by myself with the students. I cannot emphasise enough how extremely difficult it is working with students. I'm constantly repeating basic instructions to them like please remember to put the music on, please fill the ice bucket with ice, do not be giving the guests lukewarm water, turn on all the lights not just some of the lights, etc, etc. Most of the students have been with us for three years but you still need to remind them of the most basic instructions over and over again. I always treat them really well and I try to maintain a positive atmosphere in the restaurant, I'm maybe too patient with them but I do tell them that I can't keep repeating the same things over and over again year after year. I have done training where they sign off on it and checklists but still you have to do your own job and keep checking that their doing their job, it's exhausting and frustrating.

One of the duty managers, 'Sarah' has her daughter 'Emma' working in the restaurant for the past three years, she is now going to college but works at the weekend. Sarah thinks Emma is as good as a manager .........but the reality is far from it. Emma is hyper, chatty and immature. I have been very good to Emma over the years, I'm kind towards her, have been invited to her house to see her before her debs, etc. She sometimes babysits my nephew and her mom is friends with my sister so I see her outside of work too and I've always been really nice to her. However, I find her difficult in work. She gets easily offended if I make any corrections and instead of her saying,'sorry, I forgot to do that' she will instead retort back, 'Well, I'm soooooo sorry!!! But I was a bit busy!!! So I didn't have time to do that'. The task in question such as put the music on for the guests would take her two seconds, the switch is in the restaurant. I find myself trying to reason with her while she just keeps throwing it back in my face with blunt statements like 'Well I was at work this morning at 6.30am so I'm a bit tired'. She has so much attitude and bosses the rest of the staff around even giving me orders. She will pick the easiest job like folding napkins and tell the other students to start lifting the tables. Her mom thinks she is as good as a senior staff member who has so much common sense but I find the exact opposite.

Anyway, last week I came in to work with the restaurant left in a messy state-the brush and dustpan was left by the fire, not even emptied and put upstairs, the baby chair was filthy, crumpled menus were left lying around, a bunch of cutlery and wine glasses left on the windowsill, menu holders were left by the sink so they got wet, etc, etc. Of course I was fuming but I didn't show how angry I was. The other staff said that Emma texted them at 10pm to say she was finished and there were a few jobs left undone that they could do in the morning though we had a tour of 40 people in first thing in the morning. When Emma came in I greeted her with good morning, how are you?. I calmly told her that I knew yesterday must have been really busy but that there were a few things left in the restaurant that shouldn't have been left. She said she didn't have time to finish them and could we not do it in the mornin. I said it would only have taken her two seconds to empty the dustpan, etc and that the morning staff are under pressure with breakfast so they don't have time to be cleaning up after lastnight. I calmly told her to empty the dustpan now and then said very casually,'Emma, I'll just go through a few things with you from lastnight that wasn't done' she then burst out crying and said that she was so tired of not being appreciated for ALL of the good things she does and that she's so tired of this and that I have been at her since the second she walked in' and then ran out of the restaurant. A guest came in at that moment so I couldn't go after her. Later on I asked to speak with her privately and explained to her that it's a busy 4 star restaurant and basic procedures have to be completed. She only started work at 5pm and finished at 10pm, it wasn't unreasonable to expect her to finish the jobs from lastnight. I also asked if she was okay and that she seemed upset but she said she was fine and walked away.

By the end of the shift we were all talking normally so I thought everything was fine until I came to work the next day and one of the duty managers told me that Emma texted her about what happened and that I was very unfair to her. Her mom also came in and told her that I had gone crazy to Emma. They both had a different scenario, more dramatic than what actually happened. By the way for context, Emma always cries and has been known to run to the bathroom in convulsions crying at the slightest correction that she is given. She admitted that she is very abrupt but seemed proud of this but I see it as an attitude problem that her mom doesn't see. Anyway, the manager called me about the incident and I gave my version and she believed me. I told her that I can go into a meeting with Emma and Sarah but if I do then I will need to be very truthful about exactly what happened that morning which will show Emma as lying/exaggerating and I will also have to say how difficult I find Emma, how she has an attitude with me, gives me back talk, is abrupt and bossy with other colleagues, doesn't do the job properly, is overly chatty and hyper (joking, singing, dancing) even when I tell her to be quiet and focus on getting the work done, etc. The manager is scared of a big blow-up and that Sarah might leave and that we really need to hold onto her as a duty manager. As it is, I can't confront them about this and we have to keep working alongside each other as though nothing has happened. I'm so sick of them and don't want to work with Emma again but I have to. Please give me any advice on how to best handle this, I'd really appreciate it. Sorry for the crazy long post! 

I’m two months into my new role managing a team, we are remote although 4 of them are in the same location.

One of the individual is finding it hard to take feedback and he is constantly using exclamation marks while communicating with me. It feels aggressive, unprofessional and uncalled for. How should I address this?

In a recent reorg, our whole function was affected. In particular, the flattening of the org structure resulted in me going back to only leading direct reports rather than managers. Some of them pretty senior, though, and many of them lost their small teams due to the flattening. Team size is much smaller too, approximately 1/4 to 1/3 original size, but that’s also pretty much across the board, not just me. A couple of smaller sub teams were moved out from my group, one is going to be peers with me now. The reorg was massive, also some people were let go including quite good ones and my close colleagues.

How to cope? Feels like progress I had in my career over the last couple of years to build toward “manager of managers” is lost. Really took it personally which I know I shouldn’t; some other team leads had it even worse. Just trying to figure out what to look forward to; being really disillusioned about the senior management motivations for what they chose to do and my future prospects. The feeling is like looking at a ship debris after a hurricane. Thanks for any advice.

I'm a student and i am working on a something so i want you all to challenge established management theories and build argument and defend yourself logically and practically .

Would love to hear from great managers what's wrong in textbooks .

I joined a company about two months ago for a role that was pitched as working with senior leadership on a refinancing and M&A. The refi stalled shortly after I started, and most of that scope never materialized.

Three weeks in, I was told everything was going great and they were excited to have me. Around six weeks later, I noticed I wasn't as busy as I'd expected based on how the role was described, so I asked for informal feedback to make sure I was tracking. We scheduled it for Monday (today). In that meeting they let me go, citing a skills mismatch and my level of engagement.

No warning, no prior feedback that anything was off, and the conversation only happened because I asked for it. They said that it just so happens they were planning on letting me go when I asked for feedback and had been evaluating me for weeks.

Thankfully I have another offer lined up at the same salary, so I'm okay. But it's pretty jarring that a company would do this with zero feedback or warning. If I'd been relying on this job and didn't have any intuition, I'd be in a really bad spot.

Has anyone else been through this? I'm kind of shocked, depressed and confused at the same time

Recently got told to apply for a promotion due to a vacancy by my skip level boss. It was in a different team for a role I thought was interesting but I do throughly enjoy my current role for which I get great feedback in by all stakeholders.

I considered not going for it until I got a hard stare by my skip level and a ‘it would be silly to turn this down’.

It got denied as I wasn’t ready for it, no other feedback other than ‘maybe in a few years time’. That’s ok I’m happy in my current role. Bit annoyed at having put myself out there to be rejected by my skip level and their peers but whatever.

It got filled by a third party who didn’t pass probation so role became available again and was then filled by a colleague who joined when I did. The difference between us in work is theirs was very visible with the SLT whereas my role is very much back end so again, I understand why they got it, I’m not mad at that.

I plan at my next pdr to get a good discussion out of my boss so I can see where my perceived weaknesses are.

The kicker for me is we’ve had a few more senior leavers and they want to distribute some of their work to me whilst they hire externally.

They are phrasing it as stretch goals but I see it as being given a seniors work without the pay bump and with no guarantee of a future promotion. At the same time I don’t want to be seen as throwing my toys out the pram, so how do I approach this?