Employees everywhere know that whether or not they end up with a good and knowledgable manager is pretty much a crapshoot. People get promoted for all kinds of reasons, and some of those have nothing to do with how good they are at their job.

OP left a toxic work environment and, at first, was sure she’d chosen well this time around.

I recently resigned from a toxic workplace as a data analyst at a start up.

It was promising at the start, but not long after I noticed many red flags, including the fact that my manager had absolutely no data analysis or management experience prior to being promoted.

How can you manage analysts without knowing basic excel functions?

I ignored those red flags and trusted her leadership because I liked the company’s goals (little did I know this would be the worst decision ever).

She quickly realized that her boss didn’t have any experience actually doing her job, so when technical reports were due, OP did them and then “dumbed them down” for her boss to present to the higher ups.

I basically did all the work for the team for the whole year I was there. When I ran the numbers for reporting and analysis of team performance, she always asked me to dumb it down so she can present it to high level management.

I thought everything was going well because I only got good feedback from her and the rest of the team.

Still, when a disgruntled coworker made a complaint about OP’s work, the boss didn’t stand up for her, instead putting her on an improvement plan.

About a month ago, a coworker who I don’t get along with made a complaint about me which was absolutely untrue. Manager believed it without investigating and all of a sudden I was placed on a PIP.

She spouted all types of lies to HR, and when I refuted those claims with written evidence, they doubled down and started gaslighting me (“you’re just too negative”).

HR didn’t back OP up, either, so she started looking for a new job.

I refused to sign and was threatened with termination, so I complied and started building a case against them. I knew she was doing the PIP to terminate me as she looked for internal candidates to replace me in secret because she was dumb enough to set the meeting up beside me.

Once I signed my contract for a new job, I started working from home.

After she’d found one and while she was finishing up at her current position, she sent raw data to her boss. She should have known how to parse that into a report, but was forced to admit she didn’t understand what it all meant.

Before my resignation, she asked me to do some reporting for her so I ran the numbers and sent her the raw data, told her where the files were located and that she can analyse the data and make the presentation herself.

Since she’s the data analyst manager she should know how to do it. She tried reporting me for that but ultimately backfired because they asked her if the work that I did was actually wrong, and was forced to admit she didn’t know what she was looking at.

Now, she’s being investigated by the higher-ups, and OP felt vindicated on the way out the door.

Everything else in the team was questioned and I believe they are now being audited by an external investigator.

Credibility destroyed.

I’m now working for a manager who is competent and has clear goals for the team, but that was a hell of a ride.

Small win against toxic management – but a win is a win.

Reddit is reacting to this story below!

They say the data never lies.

And they had bad manager jokes for days.

She probably managed to make the data lie somehow, though.

They manager clearly couldn’t even be bothered to learn the job.

No one is putting much stock in the woman’s intelligence.

I’m glad OP seems to have finally chosen well as far as a job.

That seems to be quite the trick these days.