I think I know the answer here but wanted to see what you guys think; long time lurker.

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I just started my 2nd year in a pretty vaguely constructed corporate ladder. I was hired to rebuild a program my predecessor allowed to get out from under them, with management aware of my lack of experience. I have a ton of admin experience in another field, and have 10 years in this specific industry, just never running a program. Management clocked how new I was to this particular part of our industry in my interview but love my admin background, saying roughly 'if you're down to live here [to catch up your knowledge,] we're down to have you.'

Despite my newness when my annual began approaching I began evaluating my numbers, and absolutely knocked it out of the park. While business shrunk I grew the program passing my much more experienced partner by margin, with none of the same reported issues.

So flash forward to now I've noticed a ton of cultural/SOP issues that make it clear why my predecessor got in the mess we did, and clearly an at-large cultural issue coming top down. The most concise example being that our online menus still reflect my predecessor's selection and name, and lead to me getting chewed out regularly by clientele, with the GM aware of all of this. When it came to be GM's regulars being affected by this issue, I was absolutely reamed for trying to point out I have no ability to manage the website, without verbatim saying it was their fault. They were also drunk at this time, and are regularly drunk at work.

The GM is my day to day boss but I have another 'boss,' who is the company's consultant for my section of the business. I report to him with big ticket items, and told him about being worried how this interaction would affect my annual. We are small, so he told me to go directly to the owners, who refused to speak to me. They told me if there were issues we could discuss them, but I was to report to the GM regardless first - even as I dropped language that is pertinent to workers right cases in the state I live like 'I'm worried there will be retaliation.'

Since then, I have been pulled aside and documented punitively for 2 occasions; one being months old, the other having no tangible proof that I had part in the issue. It has not been confirmed for me that these are related, but I still have had no annual despite owners telling her I was due one (let alone the end of annual compensation check that is now 4 weeks late,) and the last time I tried to speak to the owners (with the online menu issue, ironically) I was chewed out then all the same, and that was within my first month.

Besides the two managers that ran the business when I arrived, everyone is told to not speak to the owners about business. Which is why I didn't after the first hiccup in my first month. But it seems like that is so the GM can write the script, as I am on very good repoire with virtually every staff member (except the hold outs all our individual personalities have) as well as the management for our back of house.

The GM and I were even on great terms until I pushed back about the online menu.

I am the youngest amongst management by 6 years, and that manager has worked with our GM for the last 7. I feel like the writing is on the wall that I should quit; I waited a year before ever pushing back like that thinking there was some unspoken tenure requirement, and that my financial success would give some credit to what I would say.

So just looking to confirm that it's probably time for me to go. With getting on their radar, all the silver-linings of the job that made the sort of tyrannical way its ran bearable, and I'm waking up in the morning as though my brain was already arguing with her and I'm late to the convo.

The manager who has been w her for 6/7 years now has told me she paper trails people but if they get their act together she backs off. There are a variety of things I'd like to take on to help our company, as well as some ideas I'd love to talk over w/ them... but it feels like the GM takes everything I say as a challenge. This is my first "corporate" suit and tie thing, so I don't know how much of this is unique to this company, or maybe me being too sensitive cos I don't know what to expect?

Couple references I think help:

Owners are constantly in the business interacting with staff. The 'dont talk business with them,' is not an understood rule, I only heard this one after addressing the online menu the first time

YOY, I grew the program 115k, which is roughly a 2% increase, while business traffic shrank overall. This was my first year in this role, and I have no experience in this prior. I honestly thought I'd found a new passion until the last month.

Thanks for any feedback, and reading my post.

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