Do managers ever just tell someone to crack on anymore?

I would be so cross at someone using the team admin's time like this!

The problem as a manager is that the people who most need to be told to crack on are also the people who are most likely to feel very slighted indeed by being told to crack on, and to see it as something larger.

I am really struggling with a member of staff who gets upset and writes formal emails about the most ridiculous things, but she is very clear (some might say strategically clear) that this is related to her neurodiversity so the instruction from our HR function is more or less that I must pander to it (obviously this isn't how they put it) and I must try and move mountains to stop her encountering molehills so that I am not discriminating against her and failing to take account of her specific needs. The time and energy this takes me appears to be entirely irrelevant, and the impact on the rest of the team is only a marginal consideration.

In my old office, the donut person got the team admin to send a teams message or email to the old office with a note saying basically first come first served.

I think it really depends on the size of the team or office as how well that might work for you.

So you know every single thing every other colleague does and experiences and every other report that's gone in?

I found as a junior manager that the 20% who took 80% of the sickness and absence leave were the same people who would be the doughnut-aggrieved.

This is why I don’t ever want to manage people again.

It could be all or nothing though. I had a similar experience (not food-related) where someone complained about lack of personalisation in a service a staff member was unofficially providing to others. It did not affect work, and enhanced morale. Because of the complaint, managers banned it completely. Once they had to manage it outside their workload, it stopped.

Don't be so patronising with your severance comment, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Sounds like you have bigger issues if all you can care about is this doughnuts nonsense, who cares.

It’s not clear why you were singled out to me. Should have been a full staff meeting really!

Our manager has so little actual work to do this is exactly the kind of micromanaging nonsense she'd stick her beak into. Never lifts a finger to help with any actual work of course - she might break a nail. She claims she was a teacher and treats us all like six year olds even though not one of us is under 45 and we all have decades of experience. It's infuriating and undermining.

Exclusion is often used as a synonym for bullying which might have made the manager feel obliged to say something.

It is a totally ridiculous situation though.

my sympathies, OP. i once received a complaint for doing a similar kind gesture involving food. I had offended someone's dietary sensitivities when I left post-holiday treats for staff in the breakout area.

whilst your manager might have been obliged to do something, i now think giving oxygen to this sort of pettiness is a sign that the culture isn't a fit for me. sadly it's becoming way more common. i wish more people felt able to tell people like this to stfu and do the job they're paid to do instead of moan

Rather than telling the Doughnut Lady 'that next time she should go round the office telling everyone so no one felt left out.' the company should do two things;

1 Install a Tannoy system in the building so that the Doughnut Lady can announce the arrival of doughnuts.

2 Put a camera in the staff room, focused on 'doughnut donation area', to provide a live picture of the doughnuts to all desktop computers to save people working in the office the disappointment of finding that that the pink one with coloured sprinkles has already been consumed or, worse, that all the doughnuts have gone.

(See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot ).

People like this tend to ruin it for everyone, but equally they tend to work off low resilience themselves and may not actually have the capacity to 'crack on' the way that most other people would know to. I think that creates a hard balance for managers to follow because a) it's their job to support ALL their staff including the ones they secretly dread coming to their door b) they are bound by the expectations set by HR in terms of how any complaint is followed up and handled c) they ultimately want a functional team who get on OK and have low rates of absence etc but equally d) they don't want their team to feel like they don't have their back. The problem is that if someone has felt 'left out' that can quickly escalate to a complaint of bullying or intentioned isolation and that does need to be addressed by a manager even if they know that's not what's happening. If it wasn't addressed then the manager is leaving themselves open to a grievance. So it's really a no win there. Which is why some people are just extremely difficult to manage such as your doughnut lady. I would have empathy for the manager who is dealing with this headache.

It's possible that the complainer has either been raising a lot of "microagressions" recently as so the manager spoke to you to show something was being done before it escalated higher

The person complaining, for example, might have felt that the way you said about hearing about doughnuts meant you'd been told specifically and that it was felt they were not being told specifically so they didn't get any doughnuts. Maybe someone conscious about their weight saying it was just another way they were being picked on for being fat or maybe a slightly lonely colleague who feels left out. It might be they've spoken to the manager before about how they've felt other incidents have reflected this state - a chair swap meaning the overweight colleague feels they are being set up to break the slightly rocky chair they now have, a coffee run the lonely colleague didn't hear about, a conversation that ended when the lonely colleague approached, a lift not being held as they rush towards it, an innocent comment about pigs being misheard etc

Saying "oh but I might have had anxiety which was set off by being told off" - if you have that level of anxiety then your manager should be informed anyway because they need to know how to approach you with any criticisms about your work, they could then have approached this differently too. If that was the case and not you making statements to try and shame them

Do some of these people need more actual work to do?

I wonder if your manager has actually thought that pandering to this ridiculousness is actually unfair on you? Because you and donut person are now being accused of excluding people when actually the intention behind it was kind and generous.

I consider myself a sensitive person but I find this very petty.

That is ridiculous. Who has time for that nonsense. Whoever made the complaint needs a shake and the manager shouldn’t have given it the time of day.

The advice from HR in the situation where someone feels ‘excluded’ would have been to ‘speak to the team about how we are an inclusive workplace’, regardless if how the complaint came about (or how ridiculous it is!) The manager had to tick a box, they also probably had to document it and file it with HR…as per pp above, it’s all about being able to prove the company did everything they could when the ‘stress’ absences start and the complainer pursues an unfair dismissal/discrimination claim. Manager will be fully aware of how daft it is!

Triggered by doughnuts! Thank God this kind of petty nonsense didn’t happen when I managed a team.

The one that complained is a bit silly, manager had to respond somehow but I think telling them its a non issue and doughnut lady didn't intend to leave anyone out would have been better. No one should be complaining about something free that someone did to be nice.

At my workplace the treats brought in are mostly boxes of liquorice, which I can't eat because they have gluten in. I wouldn't dream of complaining to my boss about that, I just thank people very nicely when they do bring in something gluten free.

In a few years' time, this episode will be in the annals of history at your workplace as 'doughnutgate'.
A new colleague will innocently ask why no-one ever brings in snacks etc and the reply will be 'oh it's because of doughnutgate...'