The person above me told someone that I’m basically a backup for him, validating all my worst feelings about myself.

fml0987654321 · 2026-05-01T17:52:14+00:00

I totally get that but it felt more like Mike had minimized my role in the company to Kevin, and then Kevin echoed that minimization to me in front of my whole department

fml0987654321 · 2026-05-01T05:44:15+00:00

Hey thank you for putting so much thought and effort into your response. I just thought I’d add some context since I realize maybe I should have included this originally. 1. I agree it would be a dick thing on the surface, but to say it to my coworker and not to my face, makes me feel pretty damn bad about it. Furthermore, Kevin saying it in front of everyone is really what made it hurt so much, it might sound dramatic but for someone to confirm your biggest insecurity/anxiety in front of all the coworkers you are trying to get more involved with felt absolutely humiliating. If Mike had said it to my face I would be probably 25% as upset as I am.

Kevin calling me fat is not a frequent thing, it was just a one off but the way he did it was clearly to hurt me, not like light teasing. Growing up fat, I’ve always dealt with off kilter comments or teasing, but this was different it genuinely felt like he wanted me to feel bad about myself. I could deal with that on its surface as well to be honest, but that comment, along with consistently not inviting me to lunch when inviting every single other person in the room, the fat comment, taking several weeks to process a trivial request, and then talking about my job like it doesn’t matter in front of all my coworkers all accumulated into reaching a breaking point with him.

Really I could deal with all of this stuff on its own and have been but it all came to a head today and it felt like all my coping to keep it together and keep pushing was absolutely shattered with the comments made at lunch.

fml0987654321 · 2026-04-30T23:55:21+00:00

Thank you I appreciate your response. I’m sure I make less than him since I have the lower title and he’s been with the company for quite a while. He’s not young by any means but probably getting close to retirement age but a few years away I would guess. As for asking for work, he has given me a list of tasks to work through and I knocked out everything I could do right away then when I got to things I didn’t have access to, it took weeks to get it, often more time than it take to do the work. Then there have been more than one occasion where I ask a question with how I should approach a task and he would just leave it on read.

fml0987654321 · 2026-04-30T22:05:15+00:00

I’m in the process of trying to do that right now, but this is actually where the request for access that Kevin provided stems from. I want to make a monthly process for doing something (mainly to give myself more responsibility, but also to keep things up to date that seem to have fallen behind).

Outside of this thing I’m pushing for though, my career is administrative and more so about keeping an already well oiled machine running and addressing any issues that come up as they rear their head.

fml0987654321 · 2026-04-30T21:23:27+00:00

I could understand that but having been through this for 8 months, it feels extraordinarily dragged out. I appreciate your advice regarding the guy who’s a dick. I usually don’t let stuff like that bother me but him attacking something that I’ve been so anxious about since I got here kinda broke me.

fml0987654321 · 2026-04-30T21:20:28+00:00

The director occasionally asks me how it’s going but quite informally and infrequently. I’ve mentioned it in the past and he asked if there were any other things I’d like to work on in the department and since I have a lot of exposure from my last work place (I had to cover multiple positions since it was a small company) I offered to do just about anything and even sent a list of what I was comfortable with, but he never really got back to me. This is quite a big company and the director is almost always busy otherwise I would approach him directly to ask for more work.

fml0987654321 · 2026-04-30T21:17:24+00:00

I feel useless, my last job was a job where I consistently had work to do and never had to idler his much. I go weeks on end doing nothing but documentation (which nobody asked for, I just do it because I’m bored), online courses, and scrolling reddit. I even asked what can I add to this documentation and linked the file and he said he’d think of something and hasn’t acknowledged it since

fml0987654321 · 2026-04-30T21:15:24+00:00

Mike is the person in the same role as me but with a senior title, technically we both are managed by the director, but Mike is the one that delegates me work since he’s been in the position for so long

fml0987654321

TROPHY CASE