I think I'm being bullied?

samfan121

I have been in my current job for a little over 2 years. I have stuck with it because I like my job, the company and I like my colleagues, but I am reaching the end of my tether with my line manager. I need some advice. This is long, sorry.

Before I took the job I was working in a related department that was coming to the end of it's funding. As work was winding down over a period of about a year, I started to pick up extra work for the lady who is now my line manager. It was interesting, it was an area I wanted to move back into, having had some experience in it at a previous company, and I got on really well with the person concerned. She worked alone in her area and was someone I felt I could learn from. She seemed to value my help and my opinions and ideas and when she obtained permission to take on a member of staff to work with her she asked me to apply. As it turned out, my contract was ending at the same time because of the funding cut and HR decided to move me across into the position as it was sufficiently similar, it was the same grade and I was partly already doing the job. However, a grading panel within the organisation then set the new job as a grade higher than I was currently on. This meant the job had to be advertised and I had to apply. This lady encouraged me no end to still try out and I was successful. I was excited to start this new chapter with the company.

However, her personality immediately changed. She micro-managed, she found something negative in everything I did, she didn't say a single positive thing to me. She was abrupt and heavy handed, gave ambiguous instructions for everything which meant it was hard to know what she wanted. If I made a suggestion, instead of welcoming it, she shut me down without hearing me out. She told me I was on probation for the first 6 months, which I wasn't - I had to check with HR because she tried so hard to convince me. She instigated frequent formal reviews lasting up to 2 hours each, saying they were company policy when they weren't, and she seemed completely stuck on the fact I was on this higher grade (only one below her rather than two) and the job had been changed somewhat by the panel from what she had first requested. This was completely out of my control but she held it against me and still does. She repeatedly said 'you're not on your old grade anymore, I expect more', but has still to this day never said what that 'more is'. I do everything in my job description and more. Senior staff praise me and there aren't enough hours in the day to do any more than that. I work so much overtime as it is.

At a review after 6 months she offered me the opportunity to say how I thought the role was going. I said that honestly, I was unsure why she gave me the job because it seemed like nothing I did was suitable and she no longer trusted me to carry out the simplest tasks. I didn't understand what had had happened because i wasn't aware that I had changed my way of working, other than to take on more projects, I didn't think the quality had changed and i had done everything I was asked but it seemed like she simply didn't like me. She seemed genuinely shocked, apologised and admitted she hadn't managed anyone before and she wanted to make it clear the relationship had changed. She was my line manager now, not my friend. I said that I understood that, but it was making me demotivated and I simply wanted to do a good job and have a good working relationship. If there was something I needed to change then she needed to be clear about what that was. We had a pretty good discussion and she eased up for a couple of months. I also told a senior colleague about this because he was a sort of mentor to me. He mentioned it to my boss' line manager and I know that he told my line manager to ease up on me, she was taking it too far.

However, over the past 2 years she has become worse than before. The team has now expanded to another full time colleague a grade below me, and another part time junior admin role. We get on pretty well amongst ourselves and share an office. My boss is next door. She tries to play us off against each other and play favourites. She will also call us out for something however minor in front of the others, or even in front of external customers or partners. People have asked me what her problem is and I see people rolling their eyes. Colleagues in other depts who have to deal with her often complain to me, which is awkward, but at least I know it's not just me. These same people often come to me rather than deal with my boss, which is also awkward. Asking for time off turns into a powerplay. I make all my dentist or dr's appointments for 8am or evenings (which is really difficult!) because she is intolerant of us coming in late or leaving in the middle of the day. She allows it (she has to) but she makes snide remarks, even though she makes her own appts in the middle of a Friday afternoon so she can leave early. Trying to book holiday is worse. Last January I went to her with a date in July that I wanted to take a holiday. She told me she was thinking of taking a trip in June or July but hadn't decided yet as her friend was looking into flight prices. I was forbidden from booking holiday until she decided what she wanted to do. She made me wait until March, and then booked something for August, so there were no problems with my chosen date at all. She reserves whole chunks of time in the calendar for when she is considering a holiday and we can't book anything until she makes her final decisions.

A couple of weeks ago I was working in another office and over the phone she mentioned her many possible holiday plans for this year. I had a 2 week holiday I was thinking of booking and decided to put the request in then and there as it didn't clash with her 'options', she said yes and then I confirmed it with her by email and checked she had put it in her calendar. I booked the trip and the next time I was in the main office I gave her the form to sign to record the time with HR. She sucked through her teeth and said 'oh dear, hmmm, ummm I'm not sure now'. I told her I'd booked it and she'd confirmed in writing and she said 'ok, I guess it will be ok, ummm, yeah, ok. I need to update the team on something but I need to speak to my boss first'. We all wondered what could be happening that may have been worth cancelling my holiday. Over a week later, we found out there might be an event at the company that month which she wanted us to volunteer at as stewards on a weekend. This would be purely voluntary as it does not fall under our responsibilities, anyone could have done it and the dates didn't remotely clash anyway.

She gives me a lot of her writing tasks to do telling me I do it well, yet then she decides she should correct it. Her corrections mean changing sentences around so that the grammar makes no sentence and putting in typos what I have to fix without telling her.

If I ask for her opinion on an unfinished piece of work (explaining that it is unfinished) because I have a question about a certain part of it, and she leaps on it asking why isn't this tidied up, why have you done this, I would never do that, red pen everywhere. If I try to explain she shushes me and then tells me to sort it out. She does the same with anything my colleagues show her as well. We decided to just only show her things we felt were finished, but that backfired because she accused us of completing tasks without consulting her.

She has had two minor operations, one each year, on her foot which lead to her having 8 weeks off each time. For both of these periods I have covered both her job and mine. It wasn't easy and her boss and others thanked me and remarked that I was doing well. When my line manager came back she thanked me and told me I'd done everything she would have and she knew she could trust me to fill in and do the right thing in any situation. Both times, a week later, it was back to treating me a slightly slow child and trying to flex her muscles in front of other people. She never lets us know the full picture, withholding information that we need to do out jobs effectively, but bombarding us with irrelevant info. People commented on it to me and asked how the team puts up with it so I knew I wasn't imagining it.

The reason that I have stayed is because I love the job itself and I get on well with almost all of my colleagues. The company have paid for me to study for a postgraduate professional qualification and I hope to do the next level later this year. My boss's boss has been really supportive. My line manager has never so much as asked how it's going and when I said that I'd passed the exams etc she just said 'great' and changed the subject.

Now to the current problem....

10 days ago I needed to work from home due to serious car issues. A part needed replacing and I checked my calendar, found the first clear day that week and went to find my boss to approve it, knowing it would lead to 20 questions. We are allowed in such circumstances but at our manager's discretion. She wasn't around and so when I ran into her boss later I asked if it would be ok to request to work from home. Her boss said yes, not a problem, go ahead, just let line manager know. I finally got to speak to line manager in the afternoon and explained the problem, that I would take home project C to work on, that I would be on email and would have my mobile etc and that I had run into big boss to check it would be ok as line manager had been around and i needed to confirm with the garage. However Line Manager did not appreciate this at all. She felt i'd gone over her head, which I guess i had, but not maliciously. She asked why my car needed fixing, suggested the garage were cheating me, asked why the garage couldn't drive me to work etc etc and then simply said 'fine' and turned away.

After that she didn't say a single civil word to me. Barking questions, berating me for things that were beyond my control, slamming her office door, snapping at other people. A lot of people noticed. My two colleagues kept well out of her way.

5 days of this later, she phoned me to ask if I had free time after our scheduled catch up meeting on Monday next week. I said yes and she said 'good, because I've reported you for your timekeeping and there will be a meeting with my boss.... anyway, how's project y going, can we discuss it in the catch up and I have to let you know about a couple of events coming up, thanks'. That was it. I was shocked, and then scared. Was it a formal disciplinary thing, was it just a talking to by her boss, was she going to haul me over the coals for anything else? Should I be afraid for my job?

The thing is, I freely admit I am often 5-10 mins late in the morning. But as I work largely on my own, split my time between 2 offices, I don't have a client facing role, and I work way more than my hours anyway, I never saw it as a problem or a least, not a major issue. Most of the staff work a variety of hours and many people come in after I do. However my two colleagues have earlier hours than me, leaving before I do. I think this makes my 5-10 minutes look worse because they've been there a while already. My boss has mentioned it maybe 2-3 times over the past 2 years but it never seemed serious unlike the deal she makes about other things, especially as one time, she arrived 15 minutes late the following day after asking me why I was late, and that's not a rare occurrence and no one else ever said a word to me.

What is ironic is that I haven't been late in the 10 days before she reported me as I got fed up of feeling stressed in the traffic. I created a spreadsheet and have been recording my time to monitor myself and it's helped enormously to see it written down and feel like I am controlling it. However, I think this has come about as she's peeved about me asking to work from home. The timing is the same and I think she wants to reassert her authority.

After she told me she had reported me, I went to ask the advice of the guy I think is like a mentor. He said she had phoned him that morning to ask him to monitor me for my timekeeping and said the situation of lateness made her very angry and she was going to do something about it. He told her I hadn't been late that week at all and she was annoyed. He also phoned her boss to find out if this was a formal or informal meeting so I would know how to prepare. Luckily it seems it's an informal telling off and big boss doesn't expect it to take more than a few minutes but because I really should be in on time and line manager has brought it up, she has to get stern with me.

I admit I'm at fault, I just think it's some sort of revenge thing and I feel like however much work I do, however well I do it and however much extra work I take on, it's the negatives that are valued more highly to my boss. I plan to acknowledge that I was at fault on being late but I wasn't being intentionally disobedient, and say I hadn't appreciated how much of a deal it was as I felt that getting my job done, working more than my hours etc would outweigh it, but I had already sought to fix the problem, had changed my morning routine and had started a system of self monitoring, if they wish to see it.

My two colleagues say they feel she is being petty and other people will see that, but if she wants to make a point of it, she's within her rights and I should just stick to her rule and let her calm down. They advised me to not say anything that could inflame her and to keep calm even though they would be totally peeved as well because they know she isn't whiter than white.

So, I will do that, I'm ok with doing that. I know I'm guilty of the particular charge. I know that her boss knows what she is like and I know a lot of people have complained about her so I trust this big boss to be fair and I respect him.

But, I can't see an end to this feeling of being undermined and cut down and feel that she just out to get me. I don't feel secure in my job, I don't understand why she has issues with me, aside from arrival times, because I have done everything she has ever asked, I try to get on with her and others tell me I am really good at my job. All I want is to do a good job, have good working relationships with people and go home at the end of the day without feeling like I haven't succeeded, again. I have been having anxiety attacks, trouble sleeping, mystery headaches and aches and pains, I've been driven to tears a couple of times (in private) but I am damned if I will let her force me out.

I want to speak to the big boss confidentially to explain that there are issues and I feel insecure in my position and that her general behaviour is bullying, because this person knows my boss better than anyone and could advise me. But I don't want it to become formal or get back to my boss as it would make things worse. They will never fire her and I don't think she will leave, but it might help me to cope better if I got some advice. I wouldn't try to demonise her or go into every tiny detail, but I would say that she can be rude and abrasive to me and to others, that external people have commented on it that I feel that I cannot satisfy her through no fault of my own and I don't know what to do. However, I am afraid it will look like a retaliation for her reporting my lateness, or that I can't cope....

I want to stay longer to take the next level of professional qualification, get a bit more experience and then apply for a promotion elsewhere in the organisation. If I quit now, I stand to lose a lot. Plus I've got a mortgage and live on my own. I need to keep a job.

justjohn

ooh ...looks like your boss/line manager likes to flex there muscles.
In my experience, I have found if the supervisor has a better target they will leave you alone. The more you put yourself out the better you will make them look.
I have been in a similar situation. After complaining to my supervisors superior, they naturally supported my supervisor. I kept my head down and did my job to best of my ability and played within the rules with no extra effort. No overtime and no helping the supervisor out , outwith my job description.

Very hard to sack you or give you major grief if you are doing your job and turning up on time.

Your line manager can give you grief about time keeping because you have gave them the opportunity.

my advice is head down get what you want and need then transfer.

mattcanary

Why should she be allowed to get away with this crap?

Acas are an organisation that can help with work-related issues. Maybe look at their website : https://www.acas.org.uk to see where exactly you stand legally?

sew109

I am sorry that you are going through this and it does seem unfair if you feel that you are being bullied then you need to address it with HR this is taken very seriously.

She has in guess had no training in management and May people who get thrown in and just expected to do it and regardless of what many think they can't !

I would make some notes of what she does and then lodge formal complaint.

You need to get in on time there is no excuse for this ignore what others do you have a start time and you need to be there and ready to work at that time, you need to ignore what she does she is the boss and you don't know what else she is doing and anyway it's her call. Some of my staff started regularly coming in 5 mins late and I stopped that even though other staff in the department who did not answer to me were coming in later.

badskindollheart

I'm so sorry you're going through this; I was in a similar position last year, resulting in me going off with stress. I am in the middle of the grievance process now - my advice is to keep a diary of what's happening and raise a grievance. I was scared to do this initially, as it felt so serious and I didn't want to hurt or get anyone into trouble. However, I see now that the process is useful and people can learn from it.

It sounds like you have lots of witnesses to inappropriate behavior and this is important. It's hard to admit you're being bullied, as an adult, especially if you are known as a well performing employee. It's embarrassing; but it's not your fault. I found this website really useful at identifying myself and my bullying manager : http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/amibeing.htm

It is a horrible experience, my self confidence has taken a massive knock and my mental health has suffered - you can't let this continue, you shouldn't be made ill by work. Please take action to stop this before you end up going off sick.

I promise that when you come out the other side you'll feel stronger, you'll have learned many valuable lessons that will help you become a good, effective manager. You mustn't let someone else's inadequacies or poor skills ruin your career. Be brave, know that you are doing what is right.

"Bullying may be unwittingly provoked because the target is competent, popular, successful, has integrity or otherwise characteristics that the bully perceives as a threat to their own status, fearing that the target will - inadvertently or deliberately - expose some negative aspect of their activity."

FBaby

What a horrible position to be in. I have known bosses exactly like her, totally insecure inside and only getting their confidence from belowing everyone else. They are calculating, keeping any valuable information for themselves to gain power, and are particular talented at charming people higher up and totally hiding their games. They are nightmares to work for.

Saying that, you say that she would never get fired. Maybe not, but people really do get fed up with these people once their true attitude comes to light.

My advice would be, don't do anything at this stage because it will be seen as a reaction to her informal chat. I would spend every day recording every single thing she does to undermine you. If you do take a grievance against her, do it at the right time and make it productive. Don't make it a moaning session, just hightlight clear issues, what you've done to try to resolve them and why it is still a problem (very much like you have in your post above, just shortened with specific examples), and then make it clear what you think needs to happen to resolve the problem (beside them firing her!).

I suspect things are brewing for her and it is a question of time before matters are dealt with higher up so try to hold you breath as much as you can. Meanwhilst, try as much as possible at let it go over your head (which I guess is what you've done so far however hard it is). Ensure that you don't give her reasons to get at you (as much is possible, but the time keeping is essential as easy to challenge).

All in all, record EVERYTHING.

Good luck, I really feel for you, so frustrating to know you could be so happy at your job if it wasn't for one person making it a miserable experience.

mountainofdebt

How long would it take / cost you to get the next qualification level ?

Whilst I totally agree that this woman shouldn't be allowed to bully you out of the organisation, only you can decide if you can stick it whilst you get this qualification.....more to the point, if you feel this crap could you do the necessary work to achieve it?

I'm in a similar sort of situation where you never know what sort of mood the boss is going to be in, and if someone has annoyed her there's a lot of door slamming and taking out on the next person she speaks to.

But if as you say everyone knows what your boss is like, my question is why hasn't anything been done about her in the past?

theoretica

I agree that it sounds to me like your line manager has never had managing people training (or ignored it) and it doesn't come easily to her. Further, the rest of the organisation has a fairly good idea what is going on. It would probably be a good idea to get her sent on a managing people course - but you are not in the best position to suggest it.

I think in your positon, I would ask HR if they could find and send you on a course on how to cope with a stressed manager as you are finding that the hardest part of your job. It will get the message across and they might look at courses for your line manager too.

If you are having a chat with HR I would also ask if the company has a policy about how rapidly holiday requests should be approved or denied in normal circumstances.

AcidHouse

Hi OP,

This manager will never change. Start looking for another job externally and internally where she is not line managing you. When she's not managing you again, she'll be a different person.

I don't think that raising a grievance will get you anywhere because she just can't help herself from her own behaviour. No amount of training would change her. This is not an issue that can be resolved with effective training. She simply has no people skills in business. She doesn't know how to communicate effectively to staff. If she ran her own business, nobody would work for her.

Her managers will already know what she is like, and won't know how to get her to stop behaving in this way indefinitely. I bet if you were to say something to them about her, you won't be the first that has.

Just get yourself out of this toxic situation before your health suffers, she is nothing but a walking pile of staff stress.

Bennifred

Can't help, but just wanted to say I really sympathise with you. I have been in your position and it's really horrible.

I ended up in the big boss's office sobbing my eyes out after one particular incident (not like me at all!) - this is after working with her for 5 years - and he was so horrified (he was aware what she was like from other people, but not quite how bad) that my line manager did receive "training" in managing people. Worked for a little while - she barely spoke to me! - but the atmosphere carried on until I left........

Good luck!

makeyourdaddyproud

Dump the job and become a writer, you have a good aptitude for writing ... in enviable detail.