update: are there red flags I’m missing at my new job?

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer wondering if they were missing red flags at their new job since their coworkers kept expecting them to be miserable? Here’s the update.

I’m still in the job! My boss is still a stickler, that hasn’t changed, but I’ve adjusted to him, and things have stayed pretty stable overall. I’ve now been here about nine months, and I’m hearing a lot less about the dog (thankfully) and a lot less doom-and-gloom about how the job will “turn nightmarish any day now.” It hasn’t.

My team lead and colleagues are good people, and I get along with Jake, the manager. He can be very particular, but once I figured out how to accommodate that, we’ve had no issues.

That said, I’ve learned a lot more about the backstory since writing in. A lot of commenters questioned whether this involved gender or ethnicity or expat/local dynamics, and while they were sort of on the right track, that isn’t the whole story.

As I mentioned, the office is about 60/40 local residents vs expats, with the C-suite being mostly expats. Jake was the first local of his background to ever hold his managerial position, and to hear it told, when he was first promoted, handled it terribly — badly micromanaging, giving himself grandiose titles, even firing a well-liked employee just to flex his authority (which was not only poor judgment but technically illegal in this country). The staff basically had to band together and go to upper management to push back, and he was forced to eat a giant slice of humble pie. That was a few years ago, and while he’s apparently improved a lot, the resentment has lingered. So now it makes a lot more sense why some of the longtime employees are still bitter, and why there’s still an undercurrent of distrust.

I’ve had a few frustrations of my own, mainly that the company really dropped the ball on helping me find housing in a tough market where I had no connections, which made those first few months harder than they needed to be. I’m also just generally burned out on this field; it’s more the industry itself than this particular job. I’ve been trying to pivot into a related area for a while but haven’t quite broken in yet.

As it happens, I’ll be leaving early next year anyway. I’m moving back to my previous country to live with my partner and work with him on projects that are much closer to the kind of work I want to do, as well as growing my side gig.

So, all in all: imperfect but fine. The job never turned out to be the horror story everyone warned me about, and I’m glad I didn’t let their cynicism scare me off.

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