The days after being put on a PIP (1)
12 October, Monday early AM
I pulled myself out of bed, despite not wanting to, because it’s too early for me. I knew I didn’t sleep enough, because I was struggling to fall asleep from my fever and headache last night. I knew I’d be put on PIP today, because my manager based in Zurich had already told me the previous Monday. There would be no surprises.
Since 5 October Monday, after my manager shared that he intended to put me on PIP, I had not slept well. I struggled to fall asleep every night. Even if I fell asleep, I struggled to stay asleep, because I would wake up so easily. The chronic stress from work, coupled with me realising that I was completely unappreciated, have completely demotivated me. However, I needed to see the PIP doc.
I turned my work laptop on, saw his message from Sunday where he shared the PIP doc with me. He had told me the previous Monday that he’d let me set my own PIP goals, because my case was different from other people’s. However, he had ignored my communication on the goals, so I knew there might be surprises.
I opened his doc up, gave it a quick read though. I had already known on the 5th that he’s not able to keep promises, but now I realised that he’s also full of lies, and he’s perfectly capable of putting blatant lies in writing to serve his purposes. In his doc, he said we had discussed my various "performance gaps" on October 5th, and that’s completely untrue. When I broke down on October 5th, challenged him on the unfair decision, shared that I was already constantly overworking, and demanded explanations on the decision of my PIP, he kept looking left and right, trying to come up with reasons for the decision. Despite taking time to think, all he came up with was that “I’ve not heard anything bad about you”. This was also why he said that he’d let me set my own PIP goals, because my case was “different” from others’. What’s “different” is that my PIP was completely unfair.
I went through the PIP goals, and they were not all perfectly contained. I could see him arguing in various ways to claim that I didn’t meet the goals because some minute details were not taken care of. At least one goal stood out to me as completely impossible to meet within my regular working hours. In addition, he expected me to continue to perform at the same level after the PIP was closed. That also means that, I’d be expected to continue to overwork myself after the PIP, despite me already constantly overworking, which he already knew clearly from our October 5th conversation.
I realised then that, I’d have to dispute this officially.
Tbh, I had considered, maybe if my manager stuck to what we had agreed, set the goals according to my suggestions, as agreed, I could potentially stick it out and proceed with it, despite it being unfair in the first place.
However, after reading it through, I realised that I really did not deserve this crap. I deserve more than a lying manager, who’s putting blatant lies on an official, written document, and who completely invalidates our verbal agreements from months ago on my work expectations.
I had a fever the previous night, and I was still struggling with a headache and an aching body. I needed advice on officially disputing this crap. I reached out to someone I trust, scheduled a meeting in to discuss the situation in the afternoon, and I went back to bed to rest further.
Naps had been what kept me going lately.
12 October, Monday PM
I had a chat with Gael. His face immediately tensed up after I told him about the PIP. He knew about my work ethics, so I didn’t need to justify anything. He actually thought from my perspective, encouraged me to dispute it. We looked through the document, look through the internal instructions on disputing the PIP, which suggests to negotiate with the first-line manager first, and then the second-line manager, but we both agreed that HR needs to be involved if I’m certain that the decision is wrong. Gael also suggested that it might make my case stronger if I created metrics to evaluate myself against my peers and provide that in my dispute.
There is a problem in disputing a PIP. On my employer’s official internal documentation, it kept saying that it’s not punitive; it’s there to help us; and if there were dispute on the PIP, we'd have to report it to our first-line manager first, which I find it to be absurd. If there’s a dispute between me and another person, I report it to the person I have the dispute with???? What??? And my manager had told me on the 5th that the push to scrutinise performance came from above, which was very likely communicated by my second-line manager. This means that, according to our internal procedure, if my dispute with my first-line manager could not be resolved by the first-line, we’ll escalate the issue to my second-line manager, the exact person who encouraged him to put more people on PIP in the first place … What?????
None of these made sense to me.
Gael recommended that I also speak with my in-country manager as well, since my in-country manager might be experience in this. And tbh, procedurally, I was supposed to speak with him rather than a third person. As a result, I contacted my in-country manager and asked to speak. I never had real problems with him, but I had heard various anecdotal examples about him not being the most human. My 1:1 with him was set for Tuesday morning.
I was so exhausted, so might have went back for another nap.