Been on the ambitious and non-ambitious side before, and for the most part can attest to this. In my current role I have to pull it back and play it safe, which I've found does get me on the right side of my Manager and as a result life is easier.
I've also had amazing Managers that are true leaders and legit just want the best out of you.
I've worked with amazing Managers too once, and they've loved me... and then there are the rest...
If there's one thing I can attest to, it's being struck with the 'short-blonde' curse. This is something I am definitely luckless with, and something that I have. Now what this is, is a category of 'power women' who have short (no longer than shoulder length) blonde (or fair) hair in a position of power that I report to. In fact, I can count a total off 12 of these women who I have reported to over the last 7 years... and in some cases I was reporting to 2 of them at the same time. I mean less than half of them were ok... the others though... so here goes...
While I have been reporting to them since 2013, and they've given me my share of grief since then, the worst 2 by far are the one(s) I reported to from 2015-16 and also last year, 2019. I really really really don't like talking about people, but it's good to get these things off your cheSt.
So in 2015, I started working for J (short blonde). J was an Executive Director. Now, people think that corruption exists in Government. They think this... but I KNOW for a fact that is does exist and it's bad as I've been on the receiving end of power trippers time and time again. When I started working for J, a former nurse, I thought she was easily the most professional executive level Public Servant I had ever come across. At the time, a Director who reported to J (who I also had to report to) was M. M was also a short blonde... and a pom... but she was a single mother, and the father of her child lived interstate, meaning she would often be under stress and so there would be constant commuting between her and her daughter between states. This is understandably very stressful, however for a Director earning $200,000+ per year, her behavior was something I couldn't stand, She was demanding and short-tempered, and would blame me for things that were out of my control. For instance, the teleconference system we have didn't work once. She blamed me (and let me have it). My job is to report and arrange these things to be fixed, not take the blame for a technical error. After that hiding, I went to J and told her. J was someone who I was comfortable talking to about shit I would cop, and she would generally pull M into line. Now after that incident M toned it down a lot and would never dare speak to me like that anymore. J also gave me praising reviews at performance review meetings.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, J would constantly have meetings with other departments counter-parts - basically ED's in the other departments. Constantly meeting every few weeks not to mention regular emails would mean that she would grow to become friends with these other people - which is natural as you can almost classify them as colleagues - I'll refer to this again. Now in June 2016, M announced that she was leaving and going to a separate department, getting a promotion to Executive Director. When it was announced in a team meeting, I acted shocked and sad... when inside I was throwing a party, so glad she was going to be gone. So for the final 6 weeks from then that M was with us since that announcement, I kept my distance from her. There were still some things I needed to do for her, but mainly I wouldn't engage with her because I just wanted her to be gone. On the Friday she was leaving, we threw her a celebration/going away party and there were good vibes all round. Then Monday morning I came into work nice and cheerful... happy... then (I knew it was too good to be true) it was almost synced to tag-team perfection. M leaves, and now J out of nowhere started giving me a hard time... over things that were not in my control, like changing a temporary employee to permanent. What happened is N (another short blonde... although one I didn't report to) was on secondment to us from one of those agencies that J had regular meeting with. It turns out J worked with N in the past. As our entire team was temporary, I wasn't sure how we could change her status to permanent. One of the Group Managers said positions are always coming up and it could easily be done as by the time our project finishes, something will be there for her. There was more to it though. I found out that J wanted her to become permanent because the department she was on secondment from was going to be shutdown. So... J who was a squeaky clean public servant suddenly had done something unethical (strike 1). I didn't say anything, but now I knew there was more to her than meets the eye. This comes AFTER hiring a guy on a temporary contract who was studying at uni to become a doctor. She hired him during his Summer holidays so he can earn some money. Now temporary or permanent employees NEED to go through a recruitment process. She didn't do that with him. That was strike 2 for her. Now from that Monday morning in July right until early September, J would constantly rip into me - and I had no one to go to. I could have tried her boss, but that would've looked very bad... and it's an unwritten rule to never go that far.
Anyway in September, J put me on a PIP (as stupid as that sounds, it stands for Performance Improvement Plan) and the idea was that I had 6 weeks to improve my performance, or my temporary employment, which was due to end in January (or should I say... extended in January), would be terminated in October. I had a set of tasks I needed to do. I thought to myself "if she thinks I'm not proactive enough, I'll show her" - and I did. Every single email I sent out I CC'd her in so she knew I was doing work. I mean... common sense says you don't do this, but considering she thought I wasn't proactive and was fighting for my job, I had nothing to lose. In early October we had another meeting, and she said while my performance has shown improvement, they wouldn't terminate my employment in October, but at the same time they won't renew it in January. I said to her the only thing that's changed is I'm cc'ing you in on everything. What you see now is what I've always been doing. Basically, she made the message clear that I wasn't going to be renewed even though I was right. That was strike 3 for her. I started looking for jobs in a hurry. Looking for a job in October isn't exactly easy, as most companies round up recruitment for the year around that same. I really didn't care though. I had 2 interviews and also a few meetings with recruitment companies. They were good but didn't work out for me. Then in November, an EOI was sent across the department. Basically, it was a position that was the same as mine except in a different division. Who did this position report to? You got it... 2 job-sharing short blondes. *Face Palm* - and although they were demanding, they were fair. Nothing bad to say about them. They were Directors, but the Executive Director, B was an awesome guy as well who I got along with. Anyway that got me through the 2016 shutdown period and employment running into 2017 - which is what I needed.
Now the team I worked with was great, and it was in the same building... just 26 floors higher - lol yes, so now I had access to lots of natural light and dizzying views. Now being the Government, I applied for an EOI and was technically a temporary employee, and they had a displaced employee list, meaning they needed to take care of their permanent employees. I left, but I left that team on good terms knowing it wasn't in their control. I finished there on a Wednesday, and started my next role the very next day - Thursday - and there we have it - another short blonde was my manager. *Face Palm* H - and so was her Director who was also another one of my managers *Double Face Palm*. She was ok though, a nice person. She had her moments but she was all round a nice person who I still respect. And her deputy, the Director, is by far one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. To this day, both of them are still my job referees. Anyway while I was working there I found out what happened in my previous team. Remember how I said that J was meeting with other departments and they were closing down? Well fuck me Freddy... one of those women who J was good friends with had applied for a job in a completely different department and landed it, meaning she was safe from being unemployed. However she asked J for a favor... if she had something (a vacant position) for her lovely assistant. Now her assistant, C, is someone who I spoke to a lot as J relied on me to speak to her to get these meetings organised. I wasn't an EA, but this is something that I did anyway. It seems that before the agency that C worked for closed their doors, they got rid of me not because I wasn't performing well, but to make way for C. Strike 4 for J.
J got a promotion in another Department now, and was ranked even higher. Now as I came over to my role which I was in last year, we had access to their org chart as we're on the same IT network. I found out that...
J hired MM (not M the lady) to work with her. MM was with us in our team when we reported to J. No doubt he was good, but J would've been on the recruitment panel meaning her selection was clouded and biased when hiring MM - strike 5.
She then organised N and C to come over (2 more strikes) and took on another staff member from the department that closed to be her own EA - another favor for a friend who had also moved on. That's 8 strikes for someone who I thought was clean as a whistle... boy was I wrong. And that's just the stuff I know about. Goodness knows what other corrupt stuff she's done. These are the people who are high up in the public service. The power gets to their head.
