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I just think he doesn't like me....

Posted by: Doogie
Date: 11/5/2005 3:36:44 PM

A little History: I started this job after spending 10 years with a company and boss whom I respected and admired. They wanted to relocate me and I could not for family reasons. He provided me with 6 months pay and 100 personally signed recommendation letters.

I met my current boss during my job interview. He was in town with others in his position doing other work when he was interviewing for my position and one of his peers sat in during the interviews. I am a very good interviewer and during this one I felt I did a great job...in fact, I really hit it off with his peer. We were bouncing ideas off one another and i noticed that after some time that the man who was actually conducting the interview seemed bored with the topic and was atempoting to scurry me along. I didn't think I would get this job as I realized I impressed the wrong person. Much to my surprise, they offered it to me.

I started out great, though I had many misgivings about the managment style of my new boss. I had been a manager for many years and I kept seeing him fail at a lot of the "Boss 101" stuff (failing to pass along positive feedback, talking about the bad things he did as a former sales associate, passing along criticism of other supervisors). I kepy my mouth shut. I didn't think it was my place to correct him. Besides, the sales force was only a portion of his responsibilities and my dealings with him were limited.

Then he got demoted to just sales manager ( I was shocked by this....he was awful at amanaging us...how bad could he have been at his other duties?). Now, he gets up in our business daily. His (now former) boss was known as someone who played favorites and he took his lead from that example. I realized early on that I was not one of the favorites, and though it didn't bother me, I realized that this could limit my career potential. I know of a few occaisions that he went out of his way to deny me and praise and even damned an opportuniy for me to be switched to a different department. Others in the sales force have experienced similar problems with him yet to our knowledge this has never been made known to his superior.

Recently it has become obvious that our department is going through a major reconstruction, and as usual we were not being consulted for solutions. Using the proper channels I, along with another team memebr who was one of the "favorites," took the lead into coordinating a proposal to redefine our position and to add substantial value to the company. We contacted all the sales members and recieved input and developed a fantastic proposal that has won praise from anyone who has seen it. The one problem with the proposal is that it puts this boss in a situation where his position offers less value and he finds it very threatening. Because of the method we used, it is impossible for him to use it as a negative and impossible for him to keep important eyes from seeing it. This proposal wopuld increase productivity, lower costs and reduce turnover. It was win-win for the company. We have recently been informed that we will be discussing it in detail at our upcoming sales meeting.

On to my problem....yesterday I received my annual appraisal. I figured that my improvement in productivity, coupled with the initiative and work I put into this proposal would result in me coming out looking like a star. How wrong I was. He cited me as "negative" and that I had a poor work ethic. Under the section marked "Intiative/Work Ethic "[Anticipates what needs to be done and does it. Willing and able to take risks. Looks for ways to do things better.] he writes:

"I would like to see ***** be a leader and take the initiative to get things done without being told."

The over reveiw wasn't dead awful but it definitely came off making me look like a middle of the road hanging on type of employee. I am not that. I am a visionary who can have a very infectious enthusiasm. This review will be going into my permanent record and I am not sure how to proceed. Any advice would be appreciated.

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