Will try to make this as brief as possible...
Started new job in May this year, at first all was great. Line manager started picking on me in July - constantly finding fault and criticising me for really minor errors (making a huge deal of it as well - telling me first thing in the morning she 'wanted a word', then waiting till 2pm before hauling me out into another office and shutting the door to carpet me over something so insignificant it's ridiculous), giving me all the crap jobs to do, deliberately excluding me from jobs I enjoy, being nice as pie to everyone else but blanking me, the list goes on. I got very stressed and depressed, had to see a counsellor, had trouble sleeping and was constantly on the verge of tears. Bearing in mind I've been working for 10 years and have never had an issue with a manager before...but this person is well known for bullying and at least 3 members of staff have left in the last year because of it. But because they left instead of making their grievance official, nothing was ever done (however it is well known in the office why they left).
I kept a log of all incidents and just as I was about to make an official complaint, she got moved to another team for 6 months. The timing was deeply suspicious - no secondment vacancy had been advertised, the team in question clearly had no idea what they were supposed to be doing with her, indeed for the first week she didn't even have a desk allocated! Her new role does not involve line management, which also makes me suspect that something has been going on behind the scenes (her closest friend in the office is also the IT bod who has been disciplined twice for snooping on people's emails, and I'd been discussing this situation by email with colleagues and ex-colleagues - wouldn't put it past him to have read my emails and warned her what was going on).
I was going to leave it, but in her last week in our team she became even more unpleasant to me until I'd finally had enough and asked to speak to her manager in confidence. I took my diary of incidents with me and left it with her: she promised to investigate and get back to me.
Things have improved immensely since she left - I'm enjoying my job again, my new (temporary) line manager is lovely - supportive, encouraging and everything this woman wasn't - and the atmosphere in the office has improved beyond recognition.
When I next met with her (line manager's manager), she advised me that Personnel had told her that she had to consider the complaint 'official' as it was in writing and that I would have to either take it forward now or withdraw it in writing.
Now I don't want to do either of those things: it's quite unlikely this woman will come back in spring (although obviously it's a possibility) and I don't want to drag everyone through the unpleasantness of a grievance procedure when the bullying is not currently an issue. However, I also don't want to withdraw the complaint because the matter has not been resolved and also because if she returns and if it happens again I want it on record that I'd complained about it before.
I asked if I could put the complaint 'on hold' and refer back to it if she returns and if the bullying starts again but apparently this isn't an option - I need to either put up or shut up basically.
Sorry, this wasn't at all brief in the end was it? Basically just wondered if anyone has any advice - it's an odd situation as I'm feeling a bit like I'm in limbo - if she'd left permanently it would not be so complicated but I have to factor in the possibility that she may come back. I'm worried that her manager (who is well known for burying her head in the sand) is hiding behind Personnel's advice and am sure that if she wanted to, some other route could be found to try and sort this out. Would be very grateful for any ideas/advice!
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Bullying (sort of ex-) manager, grievance procedure etc
11 replies
hellsbells76 · 30/11/2007 15:55
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