Reply to Language Discrimination, etc

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "Language Discrimination, etc"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]This is a bit lengthy, but I would truly appreciate some honest advice and insight:

Today, I was blindsided by my current manager at work (large bank headquarter), who forwarded me her comments for my mid-year review, which were shockingly scathing. In it, she suggested that my position has become too advanced for my skill set and that I have taken too long to complete projects and my communication skills are not good enough.

To give you some background, I have worked at this company's headquarters for 8 years and have gone up in the ranks from Accounts Payable to Reconciliation Control and finally Quality Assurance Analyst. I started out when I first moved to the United States, and also went back to school to complete my bachelor's degree in Business Administration and A.S. in Accounting. My department has shifted roles and joined other division three times and most recently (about a year and a half ago) a new manager was brought on and my then-manager became my coworker. I should note, she had worked at the bank for 20 years and only has a high school diploma.

I was one of three people who started out the department, and we had no handbook or procedures and figured everything out on our own. Since then, we have added ten more employees, many of whom are personal friends of the new manager. Things have definitely solidified. As my manager has hired more people, she also put on a lot of extra pressure on me, especially regarding my grammar errors (mostly commas/periods/spaces) and about a year ago she flat out required that I send her every single email I send out so she can check for grammar. Again, my job is in finance not journalism, but I complied because I did not want any headaches.. I should also note, that this very same manager had grammatical mistakes in her mid-year remarks about me today. In it, she also alleges that I am taking too long to complete projects, which is a flat out lie, and as evidence she is referencing two project: one where she changed the entire data set more than midway through and I was forced to start all over, and another when the department was just formed and all of us, my manager included, were figuring out how to work things out.

I have never been written up, and with the exception of her obsession with grammar, spaces and commas, I have never been told that my work was less than satisfactory. Quite to the contrary, my last mid-year review went extremely well and we have weekly one-on-ones in which she has not mentioned anything about my performance that she has brought up in her mid-year review. Our last one-on-one was last week and she said I was doing a good job.

Over these past years, I really have gotten the feeling that my accent/communication has always been a problem for management, and they have tried to single me out by monitoring my grammar for a long time. I should note that all my coworker and managers have been native-born English speakers and I am and have been the only foreign-born person in my department. There is no one else who is targeted so much for grammar as I am. Another important factor is that while communicating via email is an important part of our work, most of the work we do is in Excel. This is a numbers-drive and not an advisory/analytic position.

I am looking for some advice on what to do. I have gotten sick of being singled out and have been looking for a new job for a few months now -- came close twice, but both fell through due to bad recruiters. My current manager, trying to move forward with her plan, has already indicated that she wants to help me find a job that better suits my "skills" (i.e. demote me). Should I file a complaint with the company? Should I just keep my head down?

Any advice would be highly appreciated.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics