u/Sharp-Television8304

I'm a director about three months into a new job. Our business unit has lost revenue for four years. The company recently laid off several people and changed the sales commission structure. Leadership is also new: my VP and the head of the unit are both about five months in.

My analysis of my area found broken processes and inaccurate reporting after multiple reorgs, plus industry headwinds. I think it takes 6 to 12 months to rebuild the infrastructure before a real turnaround. Revenue is behind last year, and my function drives about 10% of it and we're also behind.

I raised this on a recent one-on-one call, including the areas I want to diagnose further and what we would do to improve it. My VP seemed anxious and could not even listen to the "what we would do" part. She moved quickly to a different goal that I'd understood to belong to another team and almost started pointing finger at me. This isn't the first time she's moved off a conversation about declining revenue. She also did have a habit of blaming the team even on staff that are much junior.

I'm worried that she wants good news only and not reality/challenges/areas we needed support. I believe the first 3 to 5 months are the right time to surface problems, since we're all new. If I only talk about activity, I'd still be accountable for revenue at year end.

Given this is the environment and leadership style I'm dealing with, I feel like they don't like "reality" or "bad news." so I'm going to change my approach to focus on "progress" only, but I'm worried when the year-end report comes out, I'd be questioned "why didn't you raise the issues earlier?" How do I balance this? What's your experience in handling an anxious upper management and business unit that's just not winning?

Back in my 20s, friends were an important part of my life. We shared our confusion and lessons about life, dating, and work. I was lucky to have close friends living in the same city, and we kept each other company on weekends, during hurricanes and other emergencies, and through some of the worst breakups.

Looking back, I think we all overshared at times. We probably judged one another at times too (we all did). Eventually, our lives went in different directions. Some focused more on career, some on family, and some (like me now) started to enjoy spending more time alone. Many of us drifted apart like most people do.

My closest friend from that period gradually became MAGA and increasingly anti-immigrant (this is not to say all MAGA people are bad, I believe some of them unintentionally followed a false vision and didn't expect things to turn out this way). In my friend's case, at one point, she only had immigrant friends, now she didn't. I couldn't tell whether it was because of the family she married into (she said her mother-in-law was xenophobic when she was engaged) or whether those beliefs had always been there and only surfaced later. As an immigrant myself, that discovery really hurt.

She and I were incredibly close in our 20s. I was her Maid of Honor at her wedding. Today, we've completely lost touch. More than the friendship itself, I think what shook me was realizing how wrong I had been about someone I thought I knew so well. It made me question my own judgment and, in some ways, lose my desire to form new close friendships.

Now, I'm not sure if this is normal, but I don't have much desire to make new friends. To build close friendships, I think we need to share parts of our lives and our values to at least know who we are and how we experience the world. The problem is that I don't really want to do that. I prefer to keep things to myself now. If I need to talk something through, I'd almost rather come to Reddit and talk with anonymous strangers.

I have people I do hobbies with, but beyond the hobby itself, our relationships are fairly surface-level. We meet like once a quarter or twice a year lol kind of sounds like retreats at work. I don't have a strong desire to make them deeper. And honestly, in our 30s, even coordinating schedules can feel exhausting no matter who was reaching out.

Do I like the idea of having close friends, the kind you see on TV, where your kids become friends and everyone gets together for Fourth of July barbecues? Absolutely. But the reality of sharing more details about my life or knowing about their lives, inlaws or kids is just exhausting to me right now. And what's the point if we're all just friends for certain phases in life?

Has anyone else gone through a phase like this? Did it last?