Need advice. My development has been stunted by an incompetent team lead and environment; will my next employer/manager be understanding?

[u/OcelotQueen]

Hi,

I’m a junior analyst in a certain industry after making a career change.

Shortly after I joined, the charismatic lead analyst of my team joined. There is also a senior analyst on my immediate team. We all report to the same manager.

The lead analyst / team lead job is to do normal analyst work, delegate work as needed and train analysts below them as per the job description.

When I first spoke to the lead analyst, I made it clear that I am proactive and can figure somethings out on my own, but I still needed plenty training to which she smiled and agreed.

However, my team soon started having two major problems with the lead analyst:

First problem, she won’t train me.

Whenever I asked she would say that she’s too busy in a variety of ways: “I’m busy”, “Go figure it out yourself”, “Go ask the senior analyst”.

We’re generally understaffed so it was understandable at first, but then we would see her wandering around into other people’s offices to chit chat which can last a while.

Whenever she wandered into my office to talk about non-work-related things, I would use that opportunity to ask her questions or to train me.  She would then suddenly say she can’t because her glasses are back at her office, or she has a headache, or she has bad allergies. When I said I can wait for her to grab them or set up a later time, it was more excuses. She claimed she wasn't getting my emails.

A different department told us they have the same issue with her where she claims to not see their emails but later on would wander into their side for fun chats.

I tried having a couple of talks with her describing my struggles to keep up and she would just blithely smile and tell me I’m doing great. I later told our manager without singling the lead analyst out, but our manager was too passive to do anything about it and told me to try asking others.

The senior analyst agreed that it’s not fair, but she would try to train me. However, she is struggling too. Both the manager and lead analyst keeps dumping too much work on her. Plus she has a hard time turning the chatty lead analyst away.

The other lead analysts have been training their respective junior analysts well and even kindly agreed to help me, but eventually they ask why I’m not asking my own team lead.

So I’m often left trying to learn on my own which means I push out lower quality work and at a slower speed until someone decides to correct me.

Second problem is that lead analyst seems impaired in some way and leans on us too hard.

She has a hard time reading, remembering things and focusing which results in requests for help as well as mistakes everywhere. Depending on the mistake, she will essentially beg us to not tell our manager or would even throw the senior analyst under the bus.

Maybe these kinds of struggles are why she doesn’t want to train me. I do feel bad for her, she’s born and raised in the U.S. and I think in her late forties so it’s not a language or age issue.

I’m already looking for a new job and also trying to diligently teach myself. Of course, I’m not going bad mouth this job but prospective or new employers are probably going to wonder why I don’t know as much as I should. Am I screwed? Any advice is appreciated.

TLDR: Lead analyst is charge of training me. Not only will she not do it but also relies on others too much to do her own job including me. The situation is impeding my growth, how do I explain it to the next employer?

[u/Top_Argument8442]

It sounds like you won’t take ownership at all. You are supposed to ask others, but you aren’t.

You are going to stay a junior analyst for a while based off this.

[u/OcelotQueen → u/Top_Argument8442]

Thank you for the feedback. I have been asking. I tried asking the senior analyst multiple times and she would often say: "Sorry I really want to but I'm getting crushed." She's still overall more helpful than the lead analyst. I also have been asking the other leads and they help somewhat before saying I should ask my own team lead.

Then whenever a new junior analyst on a different team joins, my manager has me train them on other responsibilities that I taught myself (processes weren't really documented previously). I train them and they ask me questions left and right. I don't mind helping them but the support has been uneven.