July 10, 2026 at 3:48 am

New Hire Thinks Her Manager Is Targeting Her After a Rough Start on the Job

by Matthew Gilligan

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Starting any new job is tough.

You have to learn new skills, new systems, new routines, and you have to learn to get along with brand-new people.

And if a new gig comes with a rough transition, that makes an already stressful situation even worse.

The woman who wrote the story below has a feeling that the manager at her new job has it in for her…

And she’s not sure how to handle it.

Let’s take a look at what she’s dealing with.

I feel like my direct manager doesn’t like me and is building a case against me.

“Just as the title says, I (32/F) feel as though my direct manager doesn’t like me and is slowly building a case of incompetence against me for HR.

Let me explain:

So I just got a new job at the end of April. I’ve effectively been with this company for only 5 whole weeks. I was hired with two other people, we all started on the same day and had 3 weeks of training.

I was very transparent during the interviews that I didn’t have a lot of experience with direct sales, which is what the job entails. The other two hires have about 2 and 5 years of experience in sales.

Training ends and we’re expected to hit the ground running on the 4th week, as in, actually doing the job.

Tell me how you really feel…

My direct manager tells me in an 1 on 1 weekly meeting in the same week, that he, and I quote “doesn’t think that I’m ready for the job,” and plans to make me and me alone, do an additional week of training.

Under no basis does he know that I’m incapable of doing the job, aside from me saying so. I haven’t even had the chance to try my hand at it.

I also want to note that I am a Black woman and the only Black woman in the entire department and perhaps the entire company (it’s a small start up).

The other hires that started with me are a white man and a white-passing person of color and my direct manager is a white man.

We went through some practice exercises during my week and he claimed that I was making progress. Then he put me through the same practice exercises a second time the following week with another manager and all of a sudden, everything I do is wrong again.

This is getting pretty old…

No words of encouragement, he just continues to point out everything I do wrong… I’d like to note that I still haven’t been able to perform my actual job tasks since I started 5 weeks ago.

Is it weird for me to assume that he could possibly have it out for me?

I just have such a strong gut feeling as this all happened under no basis of me not knowing what to do.

I also want to note that my colleagues were not required to show their work and are not being closely monitored throughout the day.

Is this all in my head?

I’ve already updated my resume and begun to look for other work…”
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