u/Outrageous_Hour_2408

I joined this brand new startup (like 10 on-site people). They were the ones who approached me and chased after me, as I already had another job where I was the senior and was very well respected.

This new place offered me a major pay increase and a Lead title. I have it in writing from the co-founder that I'm getting the lead position, not senior. Eventually, I chose to give it a go and was excited about the prospect of building something from scratch.

The whole onboarding was super messy, there's no HR (obviously), and I was the one who had to keep reminding everybody of basic employee rights.

Got off to a weird start with the ceo who I report to directly. Istg I get along with everyone, but for some reason it seems like he never felt 100% content with me. It became evident when this week he told me that I was the only one out of the entire team that he didn't manage the process of / didn't bring me into the company (also bs bc I sat down with him twice before signing).

I made it clear wfh was important to me and the cofounder said ofc and that he doesn't mind, now they told me that's not allowed, and the cofounder lied saying he made it clear during the process. Every time I try to start a new project I'm told it's "not a priority". the ceo went over my calendar saying he wanted to set up a time for us but saw I put a task for myself and told me not to do the thing without speaking to him first.

Today, at the all hands, they showed an org chart and next to my name was 'senior x', where in the original org chart i was shown week 1 of the job it said lead.

I haven't even been here for 2 months, but this is all getting to be a bit too much. Leaving my old place after years of working there was a rather dramatic event and a very big decision that struck waves in the company and for me personally.

I have no idea what to do, I don't want to confront anyone and I'm tired of playing games that seem to be mostly centered over ego. I just wanted to do my job that i was brought in for. I was promised that they would beed guidance from me on what to do, that I could build, and that I'll be in charge. It just somehow keeps getting worse. Help lol

I try so hard to be calm and collected, friendly and kind in every workplace environment. An avid believer of keeping the peace and making sure professional relationships always have a positive feel to them

However, there's this one company that we work with (they don't even own a share or something, we just help them out with a part of their ops) and one person there is so incredibly insufferable. She's so unnecessarily aggressive in every single communication, lies constantly saying people from my team have said things that never happened, called my team liars and just overall there has not been a single even slightly amicable interaction with her.

She talks to everyone as if they owe her something, lashes out unprompted and gets even worse when confronted. Every interaction is aggressive. I've spoken to my direct manager about it, and he said it would be handled but it just keeps getting worse. He, himself, refuses to speak to her or have her speak to him.

Literally everyone is aware of it and keeps telling me "just ignore her" or "give her what she wants, it's less energy than arguing" but I feel like that just reinforces that behaviour and I cannot accept that when it comes to my team, or myself. There's a way to work in a collegial manner without acting like this. Any advice on how to handle this situation?

I need it to end without losing my patience and lashing out myself and I'm at my wits end here lol