Management expects you to be mind readers.
I get told by my manager that other stakeholders in management have told this person things that aren’t going as expected ... so, I have to hear things second hand because, for whatever reason, they don’t want to approach me, which is confusing.
I approach them to discuss some of these things and I get told by the person that I was told had the issue either that wasn’t their intent, what was comminuted was wrong, or some other miscommunication.
Communication is never clear.
Regardless of the work I’ve done, the program that I built, and the massive improvements that happened because of my work - I can’t seem to make anyone happy. I felt like my job is in constant jeopardy.
Due to the way I felt, I reached out to other managers and they felt I was overreacting and they felt the work I had done was excellent. I felt that eventually I’d be let go due to these concerns I had - they felt there was ‘no way that will happen’ and pointed out the great things I had done and perhaps this was just my managers way of trying to get me to do things more quickly or motivate me....
Still, my manager couldn’t be satisfied and all the feedback received was negative. It made me go from loving the company to hating my job. I dreaded work daily. I’d cry in the bathroom because of how awful my manager was.
Eventually, I just decided that I was going to start looking for a different job outside of this company. I’m lucky I did because despite my double and triple digit growth in every single metric we had for my program, I was still let go because of not performing up to expectations. Never mind there was never a goal set for me to perform to.... but to be honest, when I found out that I’d no longer be employed- I was relieved. It felt like a weight off my shoulders.
I’ll also say, the company gets these awards and positive reviews because they try to encourage all employees to write reviews while they are doing “fun” things. They remind employees that this award thing is going on at the moment... and try to be super nice and positive, I’m sure hoping for positive feedback. Nothing wrong with that I guess... but just understand, they have groups of people who are trying to frame how the company looks. So, the reason there are so many is the company directly asks employees to go in and leave the feedback, regardless of tenure (1 week, 1 year, doesn’t matter).
For me, when looking for a new employer, I was looking at the good and bad feedback. The company with the most good feedback made me feel more comfortable looking for a job there. Relativity had lots of good feedback. But I didn’t know at the time that much of this feedback could be delivered by anyone.
I feel that the fact that after being there for weeks, giving feedback on various websites helped paint Relativity in a good light. But I didn’t really have the tenure or perspective yet to really deliver accurate feedback. So, take the feedback you see with this giant grain of salt: the company focuses on this and encourages employees to give feedback. Granted, they don’t tell you what to say - but everything is generally rainbows and unicorns when you are new. So, it was all good at first before I really had to start really working and interacting with my manager.
