So, my company suffers from a very severe nepotism problem. And to an extent, I get it: You want to hire people that you know are reliable. But we had one C-level executive hire his son as a director of something or other, and then hired all his friends to fill out the finance department. And NOW, the CTO hired HIS son as director of engineering, and is steadily hiring "people we know" to fill out their department.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. My problem began when my manager put forward her previous contacts as potential vendors to develop our new website, a project that I was leading. Which I thought would be great at first: we hire someone she likes, so if the project goes awry, less blame on me. And it was going fine initially, because they were doing ok. I started noticing small things come up halfway through the project, but with massive projects like these, it's expected. What started happening is the vendors would miss milestones, and when asked about them during the weekly meetings, would tell me oh we didn't get XYZ done because waiting on ABC from you. Ok, then why wouldn't you email me instead of missing the deadline. (BTW, from the way they phrased it, it sounds like I messed up, but they never mentioned that they needed that ABC thing at the onset). So ok, whatever, I make a habit to ask if they need anything from me at the end of every meeting and it sort of solves the issue but still have some hold ups. I just want to get this project finished on time. And we do. Yay.
Until my boss gives them a massive one year contract to now do our digital marketing. And it starts all over again - except it's 5 times worse. Because now, I have to use them to deliver leads that my sales VP is expecting, and they are absolutely horrid. I give them everything they need, check 5 million times before leaving for the holidays, and they wait until I come back to turn on the campaigns. "We thought it would be better to wait till everyone is back". OK, but then tell me you're making these executive decisions. I've run one campaign with them and I'm at my wits end. They refuse to take tasks ad hoc, insist on only discussing tasks at weekly meetings, but my company flies by the seat of our pants and my boss knows that. I went and talked to her about my concerns with their how they are handling projects and how to fix it and she took me off the project. Gave it to my coworker instead.
I need to know how to manage this situation without making things worse for myself. My boss has adopted the attitude that I'm the incompetent one when I'm not emailing them 3 times a day begging them to do what they are paid to. They asked for a brief to put a tracking code on the website! IT's a simple piece of code!! I could do it myself, but I just thought it better to go through proper channels.
I've started sidestepping them wherever possible, and make no effort to hide thats exactly what I'm doing. Looked for developers inhouse to add the tracking code; started running social media campaigns so I can use a different vendor. I'm afraid I've also adopted a resentful attitude. Please let me know a better way to navigate this. I feel like I'm sabotaging myself.
