2 months in a new job - company lied to me, what would you do?

Posted by majkkali@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 377 comments

I’ve been employed as an IT manager in September. Got contacted by an external recruiter and he said that this XYZ company is really interested in my CV. So I went through the 2 interviews and I mentioned that I live far away (to get to the office it takes me around 2 hours each way) and that I also care for my father and need to be home a lot and that therefore it is absolutely crucial for me that they agree to a hybrid working model. I had other offers on the table at the time and the only reason I chose this company is because it was the next step in my career (Senior IT engineer —> IT manager) and I could really develop professionally and also because of the hybrid model. The recruiter said he confirmed this with them and they they are fine with me working in the office 3 days a week more initially (during the first couple of weeks) and then moving to 2 days in office / 3 days wfh. I happily accepted those terms even though it wasn’t stated in the contract but I had an email trail. Another important thing to mention is that my role here is IT manager. And they clearly said during the interviews that they absolutely do not want me to pick up any 1st/2nd line support stuff as an external MSP company handles that. I am to take care of the it budget, it strategy, implement new systems, improve cybersecurity and in the future manage the team of in-house it support staff they plan on hiring (when they get rid of the MSP in a year or something like that). First couple of weeks were absolutely fine, no issues whatsoever, though I had a lot of people coming to me with desktop support issues. I helped with some of them but ultimately my manager said to refuse those and focus on more important - IT manager - stuff. So I did that. Fast forward to 2 months in and I get called into a meeting. Apparently my manager (CFO) is super unhappy that I’m now working only 2 days in the office. I’m like wtf you agreed to it?? And he keeps going on that they aren’t an established company they are more of a startup and he is really sorry but things change rapidly in startups (they never mentioned anything about a startup during interviews, the company was actually founded a couple of years ago, and went through major restructuring a couple of months ago). He then says he wants me in 5 days a week because apparently the CEO is really fussy about his laptop and he needs IT support on-site (even though MSP guy comes over once a week and we have a dedicated remote helpdesk which people send emails to every single day). He also said that unfortunately he didn’t realize how much he values having some IT support every single day and that he would like me to do that from now on as well as the sysadmin and IT manager stuff. I said absolutely not, this is not what we agreed on and you are being really unfair now. I said I can come in 3 days max but that’s it because the commute (4 hours a day) is going to make me hate this job. He apologised again and said that he can’t agree to anything less than 4 days in. He wouldn’t accept any other outcome. So I didn’t want to lose my job and I said ok let’s try 4 days for a couple of weeks, if it turns out I really can’t stand it I’ll tell you about it. What would you do in my position now? Would you quit immediately because the company treated me unfairly? Would you start looking for a new job quietly and then hand in my 2 weeks notice when I find something? Or would you just push through despite horrible commute times. 4 days a week is one thing but me essentially doing a job of an IT manager, a sysadmin and helpdesk is really pissing me off.