New manager put long time employees on unrealistic PIPs.

I apologize for the long post, but I am looking for some advice, similar experiences, or just tell me what on Earth is going on.

I live in a state that is "at-will" employment. For those that are unfamiliar, this means that either side can terminate the employment contract at any time-- managers can terminate without needing to give a reason, and an employee does not need to give two weeks’ notice if they wish to leave. Companies and Agencies can have in their employment contracts that "at-will" does not apply, but that is not the case with this Agency.

So about 3.5 years ago, at the beginning of 2023, I got a job at a Nonprofit Agency. I was a data analyst on a team of 9. The nature of this position, there are 4 data analysts on the team, but each analyst covers a different set of departments and the reporting for each department is different since it is tailored to that department's needs. This is to say that I do not know how to do the reporting for the other 3 analysts, and they do not know how to do mine (at least not without a little effort and guidance).

When I started, the team was:

• Director - we will call her Laura.
• Team Manager - we will call him Wade.
• Data Analyst 1 - we will call her Jess, 5-6 years at the Agency.
• Data Analyst 2 - we will call them Riley, 5-6 years at the Agency.
• Data Analyst 3 - we will call her Mary, 2-3 years at the Agency, but had been recently promoted from a different position within the team.
• Data Analyst 4 - myself.
• Others on the team are not relevant to the story.

Everything started out great! I enjoyed my team, Wade was supportive and helpful, and I worked hard with my departments to make improvements. The analysts would have weekly meetings to give advice on each other’s work, but often the meetings were to decompress from stress and talk about our fur babies, TV shows we had been watching, and the new video games that we had been playing. No managers allowed in these meetings, as they were for just us analysts to have an hour a week just to ourselves and discuss whatever we needed or wanted without prying eyes. Some of us had admitted to each other that we would watch TV/Movies while working or to take a break in the day to play a video game, but it was a safe space with no judgement.

In mid-2024, Wade and Laura announced that they would be reopening a Team Lead position. With this position, the person would still report to Wade and would eventually oversee all the data analysts, and this would also allow Wade to free up time for more pressing projects. They announced to the team first as they would prefer to promote from within. As I had only been around for a little over a year and was still working to make sure that I was able to fully support my departments, I opted out from applying for the position. Mary did the same as we both agreed that Jess and Riley deserved the promotion more and we would be happy with either of them as our manager. We later learned that Jess had got the position and we were all super excited for her!

Starting out as Team Lead, Jess got to be the one that hired the person to replace her as DA1. For the foreseeable future, Riley, Mary, and I would continue to report to Wade, while Jess focused on getting her new hire trained and learned more and got on her feet with the position. Jess was removed from the weekly analyst meetings, and she hired our new DA1, we will call her Nora.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2025. Wade announces to the team that he would be leaving as he had accepted a position at a different company. We were all in shock. He had been there for so long and he was such a great manager! He said that he was just looking for a change and wanted to advance his career and skillsets more. We completely understood and were incredibly happy for him, even if our hearts were breaking a little bit. Laura and Wade had announced that they had also decided that Jess would be promoted again to the Team Manager position, and for the time being they would remove the Team Lead position. Again, we were happy for Jess as we felt that this was a deserved promotion and a great/obvious choice for the position.

Shortly after Jess's promotion, Nora went on FMLA for maternity leave (the Agency does not have actual Mat Leave, so employees must do FMLA). Since Nora is DA1, and Jess had held that position, she was able to cover the work with ease. Jess handled all of Nora's reporting and department meetings while she was out. Nora did not have to worry about anything while she was out and was able to come back without any makeup work.

I began meeting with Jess to explain my departments, the reports that I do for them, and my reporting processes. She instantly began nitpicking everything I was doing. Things like "why are you using this program and not this one" or "why don't you just use Pivot Tables for these calculations". The honest answer is the way that I was taught the position, and I honestly just didn't think about changing those processes. It took me some time, but I had begun doing the analysis the way that she had been suggesting. Reports were taking me longer as I was checking through both the new way and the old way to make sure that everything was adding up correctly. At the same time, the Agency had also switched up database platforms which meant that I needed to edit all my queries to match the new syntax. The work began to pile up and I was getting behind. Every time I met with Jess, she had more things on her list that I was doing wrong. I kept trying to meet her standards and expectations, but nothing I did was right. She started to harshly criticize me in my monthly evaluations too. On one evaluation, Jess mentioned how much time I had spent on updating my queries to the new syntax and said, "I do not feel she is qualified enough to do this work and suggested she get back to working on normal job duties." It was demoralizing reading that.

Around mid-June, my entire life started going to shit. My marriage was falling apart, so we decided to separate and I moved in with my parents an hour away from my office (I worked remote, but I liked to go in sometimes since it was easier for me to focus). Shortly after moving out, Jess told me she was putting me on a 60-day Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). I had 60 days to meet the lined-out expectations, or we would have to discuss next steps. My first check-in with Jess after the PIP did not go well. I was still not meeting expectations like she had hoped, so I made the decision I would go into the office every day (an hour there and an hour back). I wanted to show her I was dedicated to the job, and I would be able to focus more to make sure I was doing better. Even this was not enough for her. I still could not do anything right in her eyes. After being at my parents for a month, my husband told me he just couldn't do it anymore and asked for a divorce. The next day, I met with Jess and Laura, and they told me that since I still was not meeting expectations that they were escalating my PIP to a 30-day one or I would potentially be let go. I broke down in tears. I said how hard I was working to meet expectations while also being told I was not good enough for my husband to try and work things out. I was in the lowest mental state I had ever been in.

Escalated PIP Expectations:

• Normal Job Duties - continue completing reports as they are due and facilitate meetings with my departments.
• Work on communication - more detailed and thought-out emails to departments, answering emails within an hour of receiving them, sending out meeting agendas a week before meetings with departments.
• 2 Report Training Guides a week - detailing how to do each report, so anyone on the team would be able to replicate.
• Makeup Work - get all overdue reports turned in and make sure I had meeting notes for every meeting that has been held (I had gotten busy and forgot to do minutes for a few meetings).

I was already driving into the office every day. I began working anywhere from 10-12 hours a day, sometimes longer. I spent more time on the emails I sent out to departments, making sure that if there was a report attached that I spelled out details of the report-- including highlighting key metrics, changes between reporting periods, etc.-- and basically making sure that no follow-up questions would even be necessary. I kid you not, at least one email I spent over 2 hours on... I got past meeting minutes updated and sent them out to make sure the departments had them. I cleared my backlog of reports and kept up with my current reporting as well. I was even working on a huge new project with a department that was to create a new report that met their changing needs.

I turned in my first two training guides at the end of my first week. Jess created a rubric to grade my training guides, that she did not give me until after she graded the first two training guides. Based on her rubric I got a 1 and a 6 out of a total of 108 possible points. I was honestly astounded by this. Anyone on the team would have been able to replicate the reports based off what I sent to her, even the non-data analysts would have been able to do it. As I read through her rubric and what would meet her standards, she could pull someone off the street, and they would be able to replicate the report. This is when I knew...there was nothing I could do, and she was having me prep for my own replacement.

Despite the signs, I still persevered through those 30 days. I continued my 10–12-hour workdays. I continued trying to meet the impossible standards. I even got done as many training guides as I could, only a few as they were extremely hard to create and took far too much time. At the end of my 30-days, I was let go. I expected this and had already been interviewing at other companies but had not gotten a job.

I was in Therapy for the divorce and the struggles with this job. After a couple months of unemployment and job hunting, I got the job I have now. I started seeing someone. I finally moved out of my parents’ house. I have been working so hard to get my life back on track and I am finally doing so much better and have been able to put last year behind me...that is until last week...

Out of nowhere, both Mary and Riley reached out to me. They told me how horrible the past year has been for them. Jess had been setting the same impossible standards for them that she had set for me. They started getting negative monthly evaluations stating that they were not cut out for the work, even though they had been doing it for years. They explained that they had hired someone for my position and she was gone within 3 months and the position is still open (so only 3/4 data analysts are working). Mary experienced personal hardship that sent her on FMLA for 3 months (now 2/4 data analysts). In the middle of Mary's 3-month FMLA, Riley's mental health severely declined, and they ended up needing to take a 1-month FMLA (1/4 data analysts). The team was understaffed. Riley comes back from their 1-month FMLA and must make up all the work they missed in that month. Their most recent evaluation from Jess threatens a PIP is in order if there is no immediate change in meeting the expectations. Then 2 business days after Mary gets back from her 3-month FMLA, Mary is served with a 30-day PIP. She is expected to have detailed training guides like I did, continue with reporting that is due over the next 30 days, and make up the 90 days’ worth of reporting that she had missed. I have told them to GTFO!!! This job is not worth the money and is not worth their mental health decline.

These are some of the questions I now have:

• If 10-12 hours a day is not enough to fully meet expectations for a salaried position, how can you continue to impose those expectations?
• Are the Execs the ones that are pressuring Jess to be so harsh and push for these impossible standards, or is she just a tyrant?
• Did Wade see something along these lines coming and decided he would rather leave than push these ridiculous standards on the team that he loves?
• Is Jess retaliating against us since she knew from our analyst meetings that sometimes not 100% of our day is dedicated to work?
• Why is Nora getting her work taken care of while on FMLA, but Riley and Mary must make theirs up?
• I feel that Mary may have a case for "Retaliation" towards the Agency since the PIP came so close after her return, but would suing them even be worth it?
• If this is an "at-will" state, why are we being put through this stressful and demoralizing process? Just let us go if you don't want us.