Brand new manager is satans spawn, what can I do?? Grab some popcorn and buckle up.

Hey guys. I am in desperate need of advice/help.

A little background: I was hired about 6 weeks ago to basically be assistant catering manager. I was to train with the catering manager for a full four weeks. Problem was, during the first five minutes of my first day, the CM informed me she accepted a new job and would be leaving in 7 days…

Cue them trying to jam pack four weeks of training into one short week. Needless to say, it wasn’t entirely helpful. Now cue four weeks of me being entirely on my own with no catering manager to help. I only have three years of previous catering experience, and it wasn’t a leadership role. I’ve been doing my best.

So now I’ve got 4-5 weeks of experience and I’m finally starting to find my footing a little bit, but have definitely been missing the integral role of having a direct manager.

Then they hired someone!!! Yay!! Lots of unnecessary work that I’m not being paid for off my plate. Hooray!! Right?…

WRONG. This woman is pure evil, y’all. I am not hard to get along with, in fact I’d argue quite the contrary. Almost everyone else at the company, around 30-50 people, adores me so far, and I them. I’m already building really meaningful connections and really enjoy working with everyone so far. Except her.

Now I’m going to share the long list of things I have been keeping track of since her first day:

-she insulted my name the first day she met me. She called it “wonderfully basic.” (Mind you, this is a blonde woman whose name is similar in essence to Emma. Doesn’t get much more basic than that..) In her defense, my name ends in leigh, which I understand is a classic meme name nowadays, with names such as Keyaleigh or McKayleigh being quite popular and easy to make fun of. Thing is, my name isn’t absurd like these at all, and, 25 years ago when I was born, was incredibly uncommon. FWIW, I love my name. All of that aside, what an incredibly rude thing to say to me on your first day.

-constantly undermines my experience and role in the company, I.E “I know you only have three years of experience but I have ten so we’ll figure it out!) Another example: a server asked me to punch in my code for them to clock out after their regularly scheduled time, and as I’m in the middle of doing so, “Emma” pipes in from all the way across the office to yell “she doesn’t have supervisor powers to do that!” …yes, I do, I have been able to punch people out since my first day.

-again on her first day, she took a look at a copy of “Unreasonable Hospitality” sitting on her desk, took one look at me, and said in a snarky tone “you could REALLY benefit from reading this…” (I have been nothing but extremely nice at this point!!)

-constantly asks how long she needs to work in this role before she can move up. Had no questions about her current role during her interview and only asked about moving up. Many managers and executives told my boss during her interview not to hire her because of this, but, here we are…

-talks horribly about other employees that in my eyes are absolutely vital to the company.

-gave me very confusing instructions on her fourth day. I followed the instructions the only way I could possibly understand. Turns out I of course did it wrong. No big deal, catering is all about putting out fires and problem solving. The “mistake” I made was so minor that it really was not a big deal. I was already two steps ahead and trying to offer her very simple solutions to “fix” my mistake. But she was so angry and wrapped around the axle about me doing it wrong that she wouldn’t let me get a full sentence out to explain how simple it is to solve. When I asked her to please let me get a sentence out, she barked “NO. You need to listen to ME.”

-interrupts my coworker who has been at the company for 18 years to tell him he is not allowed to talk.

-gave this same coworker a task that didn’t need to be finished until the following week. This coworker, being wonderful, started the task the same day she assigned it so he could get ahead. When she saw he did not finish the task, she made a very rude comment about him having “poor time management skills.”

This one takes the cake ladies and gentlemen… I found out about this incident only very recently which is what pushed me over the edge and is making me spiral.

-apparently, when I had made this “dire mistake” a few bullet points up, she was bad mouthing me in the office for absolutely everyone to hear. Things such as “what, has she NEVER worked in catering before?” It got so bad that eventually, the executive chef who shares an office with me, Emma, and several other people, chimed in and basically said “hey, she is brand new just like you, give her a break.”

One last thing.

-with this catering company, 99.9999999% of meals we serve is served buffet style. I come from a background of upscale weddings, with the majority of my experience being plated meals for 200+ people. Buffets are a cakewalk to me in comparison. However, we have an event on Monday that will be a plated meal for 12 executives. TWELVE. I offered to do it because absolutely nobody else wants to, them never having done a plated meal before. I went on a short vacation last week on Thursday and Friday, and was informed that Emma was going around saying that if I was to do this plated meal on Monday, I will have to be “babysat” by someone.

Guys. I have never cried at/because of a job so much in my life before. I am kind, patient, and a hard worker. I don’t even begin to understand what I’ve done to deserve this treatment. I want to go to HR, but everyone tells me HR is there to protect the higher up managers, not a mid level one like myself. Additionally, if I go to my direct bosses, I.E the ones who hired Emma, lord knows they will not have my back either.

The pay is good and the insurance is even better. I feel like I got extraordinarily lucky getting this job in a time where there seems to not be a single other job out there for me right now. And I already just spent so much time and energy trying to find my place in this company, I’d hate to have to start all over again. I am completely at a loss as to what to do. 🙁