AIBU to think I am going to get fired?

[Croissant7]

I don't even know where to start because there is so much background to this situation.

The bottom line is that I love my work- I enjoy it, I know I am good at it and I want to keep doing it. Unfortunately, my boss is a nightmare who has made it impossible for me to work in peace.

It's come to a point where I am suffering from severe anxiety. I get cold sweats when she returns to her desk because I know she will start bullying or nagging me over something.

I've stopped eating and I'm down to one meal a day because work is so stressful. I've started smoking because I can't deal with the anxiety and insecurity.

She openly smirks at me, rolls her eyes at me, texts while I am trying to talk to her about something urgent and criticises me even for things that are not work-related. She'll roll her eyes at me and make me feel incredibly small while I am talking. She forgets what I say and then develops her own 'version' of things. When I am explaining an issue to her, she'll cut me short and deliberately look confused and irritated and then she asks me to repeat stuff. I hear comments like "I have no idea what you're talking about to be honest", even when I know that she is familiar with the issue because she recognises it when other colleagues bring it up.This makes me feel less and less confident about expressing myself.

Her latest is that I make 'excuses'. There have been occasions where I have been blamed for something that hasn't been my fault or something that was non-urgent and had a valid reason for not getting completed. When I explain or defend myself, she laughs (yes, laughs in a really nasty manner) and smirks and gives me this really derisive look and goes "Please spare me. I have no patience with excuses and you seem to be making them all the time".
The other day she insisted I had not completed a piece of work even thought I had evidence that I had- she did her laugh and smirk thing. Turns out she was looking at something another person was responsible for. Instead of admitting her mistake, she still found a way to blame me.

She's overloaded me with work. I am responsible for an entire department's work alone. In addition to this, I am being forced to take on ad hoc tasks and train on new stuff as well. I am also expected to run around and do secretarial things for her. There is never a mention of the good stuff and the multitasking I've been doing, only constant criticism over the occasional minor/non-urgent task that is put on the back burner on a busy day.

She blamed me for being a poor communicator when I was being yelled at and spoken to rudely by a colleague (this colleague was not told off). I was called "aggressive" for simply standing up for myself and walking away from the unpleasantness. I have made an effort with my team mates and I get along with all of them now -even the one who was rude to me. BUT this issue is brought up by her in every meeting we have and she keeps blaming me for it and insists she doesn't see 'improvement' effectively ignoring the fact that I am actually getting along very well with most people.

There are colleagues who are leaving the team because of her even though she is nowhere as awful to them as she is to me.

I do not want to leave this job because of her

I also don't have a way at this point to really switch jobs.

Given how she is acting, I naturally feel that she wants to get rid of me.

I have not completed 2 years with this company

Can someone please enlighten me on my rights? Can I be fired just because my boss absolutely hates me? Even if I am getting good feedback for my performance at work from other, more senior sources?

What are my options for dealing with this if I stay with the company? HR? Speak to my boss's boss? Can I get fired for complaining about her?

Please help me out here.

I haven't slept all night and it's the weekend.

Have you documented all this bullying behaviour?

Dates, times, what actually happened, who was there?

Once you have one months worth, and your two years employment, you could go straight to HR with a grievance. Until then however, yes they can dismiss for virtually anything. How far off are you?

around 9 months into the job and I've documented the behaviour (it happens 10 times a day anyway)

I am not the only employee who feels she is awful.

You poor thing.

Document everything.

Keep copies of any evidence where you have received positive feedback from others.

As far as possible, try to communicate with her via email so that you create an audit trail, and so you can couch things appropriately to prove you are keeping her informed e.g. "Following on from the conversation we had when I advised you about X, I have now completed Y."

Are you on probation? Do you have a training / development plan? If she has criticised you for certain aspects of your attitude or performance (whether justified or not) has she agreed with you, in writing, improvement measures that are attainable? Have you been set appraisal objectives?

Gather your facts, make notes about what you want to say in preparation and then report her to HR for bullying. Because that's what this is. If you have a company policy on bullying and victimisation, read through it and highlight all the instances where she has contravened it and take that to your meeting.

passed my probation long time ago by the way.

I have good feedback from senior management in writing as well as written stuff from other colleagues that proves I am doing a good job.

It started off with personal attacks where I was criticised for things that weren't directly work related. Now it's getting to a point where I am being criticised about my work.

She is overloading me with work and then when something small and non-urgent is missed out on a busy day she'll use that as a way to bully me and claim I am doing a piss-poor job. She'll blame me for stuff that was out of my hands and insist I could have done something about it. So she's now bringing it to a stage where she is trying to attack my performance.

You might find this link useful, OP:

www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=306&p=0

Yes, there is a training plan. I was actually training other colleagues 3 months down the line because I learnt the work quite quickly.

The training plan indicates that my scores are high for most tasks and procedures. No appraisal objectives really but on my probation review I was told that I need to work on some aspects (I didn't agree but was asked to sign anyway). The overall review was actually quite good.

I have a few emails where she has categorically asked me to do stuff that I am not comfortable with. And some messages where she has been quite rude.

For some reason, I don't have faith in HR because I feel they're there to protect the company and not employees.

I was thinking of speaking to her boss (who is way more approachable) but the only thing that concerns me is that they are friends.

You poor thing, that sounds awful. You are being bullied and shouldn't have to put up with it.

I've asked MN if they can move your thread to employment so you can get advice from the HR specialists there

Definitely take everything to email.

If she mentions something to you or berates you for something, simply smile and nod, tell her you will see what happened and go back to your desk and email her 'the reason X task was not completed was because I was busy doing the more important/close to deadline task of Y'. Continue that calm and reasonable responses to her emails stating what she has said and so on.

You need to start throwing the decisions for prioritising back at her if she is overloading you.

"Okay, I already have A, B, C and D to do. Where does E fit in in terms of priority? It won't be possible to complete everything today, what do you advise can wait until tomorrow?" And if she says it all has to be done, then follow up by email CCing in her boss e.g. "Following your request for me to complete A-E today, the volume /complexity / whatever means this will not be possible. I have checked the relevant deadlines and C is marked as non-urgent so I propose to leave this until tomorrow. Please advise ASAP if you would rather A, B, D or E be given a lower priority instead."

Thank you!

Would also appreciate advice from anyone with legal knowledge just so I know my rights.

SignYourName- that link is very helpful, thank you. All the things on it describe what I am going through.

croissant my friend is very senior in HR so am happy to talk to her about your situation on Monday but she's at a wedding in warsall this weekend so it can't be today, I'm sure someone else will come along and support you in the mean time.

Follow procedure and put a grievance in with HR and speak to acas. Going above her head to her boss will cause you way more problems in the long run

You have my sympathy as I have had this at work for the past 6 years and have finally resigned as I just cannot fave going to work anymore

TBH if you have the direct boss from hell, her manager is her friend and you have no faith in HR (is that justified from past experience, or just gut feeling?) then regardless of how much you love the job, I'd be getting the hell out of Dodge because how are things going to improve otherwise? She's not going to wake up one morning with a personality transplant.

HR are there to protect the company, but this also includes protecting the company from employment tribunals! You are being bullied and harassed and need to speak to HR re your grievance procedure.
I work in HR and would be appalled to hear that one of our managers is behaving the way yours is.

I used to keep verbal communication to a minimum until she started telling me in our meetings that it annoys her how I can't be bothered to just come up to her and say what I have to given that she sits right in front of me.

But I have started sending emails to let her know that X, Y Z tasks have been completed.

To be fair, I haven't given HR a chance. I am going by hearsay when I assume they won't help.

Here are my concerns about HR-

Since most of my manager's bullying is verbal, wouldn't it be her word against mine? She's senior and has been there longer, she can just deny it and say I am lying. What will I do then? I am worried this might backfire.

You need to be really clear in your emails

'During our conversation earlier when you asked for x and y...'

This book might be worth a look. I know it helped a friend of mine.

That's why you need to document everything. Bullying includes being set up to fail by being given too much to do, so that aspect should be fairly easy to prove especially if you start asking for help with prioritisation over email, outlining how much she has given you to do each time and why it is unachievable.

I never usually suggest this but in this case I'd go straight over her head.

The trick with HR is to be very to the point and completely act as if they are entirely on your side.

HR usually go with 'there is no smoke without fire' rather than getting involved in he said, she said.

If other people are leaving it is unlikely they haven't already had feedback about her.

Do you have a union?

I've experienced this and it was horrendous. She did this to me and several other employers, things that were completely out with HR policy but she got away with it. It's not easy, there are things in place for an employee but, if you raise a grievance, it will make things very difficult for you. It shouldn't, but it does.

She's probably done it to countless people before you and someone should stand up to her but I can understand if you don't want it to be you.

I don't have any useful advice I'm afraid, I eventually left although she ended up begging me not to hand in my notice!! And I nearly didn't until I remembered the countless times she'd had me in tears and made me feel stupid and worthless. That was a few years ago now and I love my job now and everyone is treated with respect by the managers. Shock horror.

I know you've said you can't really leave but to save your sanity maybe you should start looking, that will make you at least feel like you're doing something.

I joined my union and having someone to speak to about it made me feel a lot better even though I didn't take it down the formal route. It will give you options and you'll have someone definitely on your side.

Good luck.

You mean to her boss's boss?

Yeah I really want to do that. Especially because we've got some formal reviews coming up and I don't want anyone saying rubbish about me to her (since she is the ultimate head of our department). I don't know her that well, but she's a lot nicer than my devil boss.

Yes, I suspect HR has already heard (or will soon hear) stuff about her.

She's unbearable and I don't know anybody who actually likes her or even thinks she's a competent worker. She actually asks us the most basic questions- sometimes the same thing more than a couple of times. She doesn't assist or help out with any daily tasks and spends her day, surfing the internet or answering emails.

i would also go to hr.

i have been in this situation and i left. but when i left i didn't say anything about this woman to hr because i was leaving. my boss knew how much i hated her though.

i'd document everything. i don't know if this is legal but i'd be tempted to put my phone on my desk with the camera running and just see if you can capture some of her crap on video.

this is probably illegal. but you'd have proof then.

this is so horrendous and i really hope it gets better for you.