Hey all,

I know it's not triathlon related, but I was wondering if you all have any advice for someone (me) who is dealing with a really unhealthy work environment. The main issues:

1) Management structure is very top-down with little to no regard for people who work front-line (directly with clients). It is a mental health and addictions office where if managerial decisions don't factor in the workers/clients, it can lead to degradation of the services offered.

2) My supervisor/boss is kind of a bully, and has passive/aggressively called down the fact that I am going to graduate school in a staff meeting, etc. She believes that she is approachable, but her actions say otherwise. She is new to her managerial role, and I know she is stressed and has a lot of people to manage, but she recently began a meeting with me with "So what's the problem?" when it came to light that I felt I needed additional training to take on different types of clients than before. Then she said that she doesn't have time to "babysit" us and we need to be responsible for our own professional development. Of course, I do take responsibility for my professional role, but I felt like the employer had partial responsibility to train me in how they would specifically like their service to be run. I am pretty new to the field and just want some clinical supervision, etc.

She may feel that since u r in grad school u ought be able to direct ur own development, I never go to my boss with a problem that I don't have at least 3 thought-out of solutions before hand. In other word, u don't ask the boss with an "essay" question , but u ask them w/ a mutliple choice question. And the solutions to whatever those questions she decided need to be self-tracked and self monitored by u. She being new to the role has nothing to do w/. Somebody thought that she was good enough to supervise u. Also I don't see how someone who is new to the field is already justified to critique how managerial decisions can impact frontline services, one false move in mental health field can bring on legal liability issues given the population that u are working with. Also were u working with her before she was promoted?

I am getting really stressed out and feel like I need to bring a list of my main problems to her, otherwise I will likely quit (even though there are no other options for me to work in my field, unless I take a 50% pay cut). I know this post is turning more into a bitch session, but I am really getting a lot of anxiety as I don't deal well with conflict particularly when I am one of only 4 full-time and 1 part-time clinicians. It is so easy to be singled out here and vulnerable to further scrutiny. I know I need to confront her but am so anxious about the fallout.

Any advice on how to approach her?