u/No_Wedding_1825

I was manager-less for the first 6 months of my job. When the new CFO joined he immediately hired an FC. Between the time the new CFO started and the new FC started, I got fairly close with the CFO and earned his trust (or at least I thought).

New FC has been here for the last 2 months now. In that time, I’ve behaved badly.

To give some background, I moved someone great into managing a function before FC arrived, but as soon as FC got here they wanted a new person in to do it instead and for them to oversee it instead of me. The FC wants me not to have a relationship with the CFO and the new hire who was to report into me now is going to report into them. So, as you can see, I’ve been massively disrespected in a short amount of time.

Because of this, I’ve complained constantly about not wanting to be managed to my CFO and wrote an essay to his personal number saying how miserable I am. Which he responded to with “we will talk during work hours”. When the CFO told me my person wouldn’t be managing the function, I was incredibly angry and even said “you’ve shat on me and shat on my person”. He said he was shocked at how badly I acted.

We had an hour long conversation about how I need to accept the new FC and she’s now in charge. I said I will try.

I’ve complained less but I still have flare ups here and there. I ignore a lot of the FCs check-ins and the CFO did tell her to stop checking in as much due to my complaining and she has calmed down (which has been massive in improving my mood).

I am defensive over her requests and standoffish. I find she doesn’t add any real value and actually creates more work for other people (when we were already overworked).

Initially the CFO was working more with her, but he’s come back to working with me and she doesn’t like it and is trying to stop it despite me saying I like working with him. At the end of the day, the CFO is going to ask for help from the person who can help the best.

I am probably close to being fired. It’s a shame a great job has disintegrated this quickly.

I’ve recently got a new boss, but was previously reporting into her boss. I don’t feel like she’s been supportive thus far, actually it feels like my workload has increased, but it has only been a month.

We had an audit meeting and it felt like they want me to do all the work; the books are a mess and it’s going to be a real slog to solve it.

I came over to my boss’ boss after the meeting and got up real close to his face and asked “if I don’t do the audit, who would do it?” And he stuttered and said “it has to be you” and I said “what if I said no, who would do it?” And he said “you can’t say no” then we stared at each other for a second and I walked away.

If you were him, how would you have interpreted that interaction?

I’ve recently got a new boss, but was previously reporting into her boss. I don’t feel like she’s been supportive thus far, actually it feels like my workload has increased, but it has only been a month.

We had an audit meeting and it felt like they want me to do all the work; the books are a mess and it’s going to be a real slog to solve it.

I came over to my boss’ boss after the meeting and got up real close to his face and asked “if I don’t do the audit, who would do it?” And he stuttered and said “it has to be you” and I said “what if I said no, who would do it?” And he said “you can’t say no” then we stared at each other for a second and I walked away.

If you were him, how would you have interpreted that interaction?

I’m attracted to him so I frequently overstep.

I know comparison is the thief of joy and, all things considered, I’m doing well.

But I find myself in this frustrating position where I have a lot of life skills, 8 years of experience, and feel like I’m ready to take charge and lead more but I only have 1 year of PQE.

This means I’m stuck in senior accounting roles when really I want to be managing a small team and be starting to explore FC roles.

So my question is, where would you like to be at my age? I wonder how far off I am to the “normal” accountant’s career journey.

I can’t tell if I’m imagining this, but I feel like my boss is nicer to me when I’m wearing a tight top / low cut top. It’s hard to decipher a pattern just yet because I wear tight tops all the time…

Do you ever feel like you’re more helpful when a woman is wearing tight clothing? And then not helpful if she isn’t? Does this mean he doesn’t actually like me, because if he actually liked me he’d want to be helpful no matter what.

I just want to know how you feel about these women?

I was managerless for eight months. My new manager joined 1 month ago. So far everything she does feels performative; there’s no real sense of wanting to understand the team and what we do. She asks a lot of questions that feel unproductive. It feels like she does everything for the CFO to see.

Today my subordinate asked me a question that impacted a piece of work she pulled together so I asked him to ask her. There was no clear answer; it was a lot of waffle and more unnecessary questions that ended up with him having to do more work. It showed me that she’s faking it til she makes it, which I despise. My subordinate messaged me after saying that he regretted asking her.

She’s also stopped a lot of my progression. We were supposed to have another person join and report into me, but she wants them reporting into her. I was working closely with the CFO and now she wants everything to go through her. I pulled together all the numbers and I sat down and talked with her for a few mins then she got up to go talk to the CFO about the numbers without me. Weird. CFO asked us to go through as a 3 and I did all the talking - obviously!?

The annoying thing is the CFO appears to be backing her. He agreed to the new person reporting into her, and he’s told me I’m not giving her a chance. He said I am lucky that I have the opportunity to learn from her…

I mistakenly played my hand too early and told him I’m not sure about her, so now he thinks I’m out to get her.

We had an audit meeting and it became clear I’ll be doing all the work. I realised that they needed me more than I needed them. I don’t know if it’s worth sticking it out to see if 1. She gets better or 2. She’s exposed as being useless. Or should I just cut my losses and run?

I’ve updated my CV and contacted my recruiter. He’s put me forward for a job that’s more money so we’ll see if I get an interview.

I had no manager previously and progress was strong. Things got done and we actually made it to a half decent spot.

New manager arrives and instead of seeing progress she just sees the mess.

I used to have trust and now it feels like constant questions and catchups. Why do I need to catch you up with every little thing I’m doing? I was doing it before you came!!

I feel there’s no trust.

She’s not a doer so can’t actually step in and help. Her version of helping is constant check-ins.

I want to be left alone! I’m trying to stay strong but feel the 7 month journey has all been for nothing. It’s been fun, but it was not to last!

I’ve been at this job for 7-8 months. I’ve had a couple of CFOs in that time. The first one - we got on really well! We worked together for 6 months and he was very hands on. The new one has been here for 3 months (1 month overlap), and at first I didn’t like him but we started to get on really well as well; he said I earned his trust and he leaned on me for a lot. He couldn’t do what the old CFO did so I was expected to take on some of his roles.

Due to this, it meant I could own the month end process from start to finish. I have one direct report and the new CFO suggested getting a new person to report into me plus he wanted my junior colleague to start reporting into me (but she wasn’t keen as we started at the same time and felt more like colleagues).

I should preface this all with, when he started he immediately hired a head of finance but it took a few months before she started. This was part of the reason why I didn’t like him - it felt like he didn’t care to know us as a team before hiring a manager. He also brought in his data guy. He essentially put a layer between his team and the legacy team (us) straight off the bat.

She’s joined and she’s lovely but not very hands on. She has 100 questions a second and ideas that she wants us to implement rather than her implementing them herself however we are all incredibly overworked. It feels like she joined and our workloads increased. She wants to start doing weekly meetings etc. to track month end because we are still working towards a quicker close, however this does nothing but slow things down.

Me and team have so many ideas that we’re working on, but now we need to stop and follow her ideas. It feels like all the progress has been stopped. When we started it was a mess and we’ve now got it to a decent place, but to her all she sees is mess and thinks we’re to blame.

She told new CFO that she wants an AP person reporting into her instead of a new direct report for me which he agreed to, stunting my progression. She wants me and new CFO to stop interacting as much and he appears to be listening as well so I can’t say I work closely with CFO on my CV either.

I messaged him today to say I wanted to chat about month end as I don’t feel any decisions should be made without my input (as I’m the only one who knows everything) and he ignored me. I asked for an update and said I would like to discuss this. He said he can put a meeting in with us 3 to chat. I said I wanted to talk to him directly and he said no.

I am so upset. Everything I’ve built feels like it’s crumbling down. I decided to leave early today because I was “sick” but I worked from home. I don’t see anyway back and feel absolutely demoralised.

What should I do? The bare minimum til I find a new job? Annoyingly I’ve only been here 8 months so it looks terrible on my CV.

I’ve been at this job for 7-8 months. I’ve had a couple of CFOs in that time. The first one - we got on really well! We worked together for 6 months and he was very hands on. The new one has been here for 3 months (1 month overlap), and at first I didn’t like him but we started to get on really well as well; he said I earned his trust and he leaned on me for a lot. He couldn’t do what the old CFO did so I was expected to take on some of his roles.

Due to this, it meant I could own the month end process from start to finish. I have one direct report and the new CFO suggested getting a new person to report into me plus he wanted my junior colleague to start reporting into me (but she wasn’t keen as we started at the same time and felt more like colleagues).

I should preface this all with, when he started he immediately hired a head of finance but it took a few months before she started. This was part of the reason why I didn’t like him - it felt like he didn’t care to know us as a team before hiring a manager. He also brought in his data guy. He essentially put a layer between his team and the legacy team (us) straight off the bat.

She’s joined and she’s lovely but not very hands on. She has 100 questions a second and ideas that she wants us to implement rather than her implementing them herself however we are all incredibly overworked. It feels like she joined and our workloads increased. She wants to start doing weekly meetings etc. to track month end because we are still working towards a quicker close, however this does nothing but slow things down.

Me and team have so many ideas that we’re working on, but now we need to stop and follow her ideas. It feels like all the progress has been stopped. When we started it was a mess and we’ve now got it to a decent place, but to her all she sees is mess and thinks we’re to blame.

She told new CFO that she wants an AP person reporting into her instead of a new direct report for me which he agreed to, stunting my progression. She wants me and new CFO to stop interacting as much and he appears to be listening as well so I can’t say I work closely with CFO on my CV either.

I messaged him today to say I wanted to chat about month end as I don’t feel any decisions should be made without my input (as I’m the only one who knows everything) and he ignored me. I asked for an update and said I would like to discuss this. He said he can put a meeting in with us 3 to chat. I said I wanted to talk to him directly and he said no.

I am so upset. Everything I’ve built feels like it’s crumbling down. I decided to leave early today because I was “sick” but I worked from home. I don’t see anyway back and feel absolutely demoralised.

What should I do? The bare minimum til I find a new job? Annoyingly I’ve only been here 8 months so it looks terrible on my CV.

I’ve been at this job for 7-8 months. I’ve had a couple of CFOs in that time. The first one - we got on really well! We worked together for 6 months and he was very hands on. The new one has been here for 3 months (1 month overlap), and at first I didn’t like him but we started to get on really well as well; he said I earned his trust and he leaned on me for a lot. He couldn’t do what the old CFO did so I was expected to take on some of his roles.

Due to this, it meant I could own the month end process from start to finish. I have one direct report and the new CFO suggested getting a new person to report into me plus he wanted my junior colleague to start reporting into me (but she wasn’t keen as we started at the same time and felt more like colleagues).

I should preface this all with, when he started he immediately hired a head of finance but it took a few months before she started. This was part of the reason why I didn’t like him - it felt like he didn’t care to know us as a team before hiring a manager. He also brought in his data guy. He essentially put a layer between his team and the legacy team (us) straight off the bat.

She’s joined and she’s lovely but not very hands on. She has 100 questions a second and ideas that she wants us to implement rather than her implementing them herself however we are all incredibly overworked. It feels like she joined and our workloads increased. She wants to start doing weekly meetings etc. to track month end because we are still working towards a quicker close, however this does nothing but slow things down.

Me and team have so many ideas that we’re working on, but now we need to stop and follow her ideas. It feels like all the progress has been stopped. When we started it was a mess and we’ve now got it to a decent place, but to her all she sees is mess and thinks we’re to blame.

She told new CFO that she wants an AP person reporting into her instead of a new direct report for me which he agreed to, stunting my progression. She wants me and new CFO to stop interacting as much and he appears to be listening as well so I can’t say I work closely with CFO on my CV either.

I messaged him today to say I wanted to chat about month end as I don’t feel any decisions should be made without my input (as I’m the only one who knows everything) and he ignored me. I asked for an update and said I would like to discuss this. He said he can put a meeting in with us 3 to chat. I said I wanted to talk to him directly and he said no.

I am so upset. Everything I’ve built feels like it’s crumbling down. I decided to leave early today because I was “sick” but I worked from home. I don’t see anyway back and feel absolutely demoralised.

What should I do? The bare minimum til I find a new job? Annoyingly I’ve only been here 8 months so it looks terrible on my CV.