To tell my manager in no uncertain terms to fucking stop

[Lagjet]

Texting me the day or evening before I'm due back at work after a holiday just to say 'hope you've had a great time, just checking you are back in tomorrow'

I'm not a fucking child, I book my holidays with you and you put them in outlook, also I set my out of office with my return date so don't pretend you don't know when I'm coming back.

Ive worked there 26 years, her much, much less. Ive never, ever not gone back to work when I'm meant to but two years on the trot now she's done this.

It's not just checking I'm coming back in, it's a PA way of bringing me back down to earth and reminding that tomorrow I'll be back at her beck and call.

She's meant to be a 'friend' too but I know there's an undercurrent of something that she feels the need to remind me where I am. There's definitely an element of jealousy about my family (I have kids, she doesn't) and my lifestyle.

So bloody annoying, Ive not replied. I'll go to work tomorrow as I'm meant to!!!

If you have a samsung phone you can schedule a text to her for next time you're off "hello boss, yes I have had a lovely holiday, and yes I will be back tomorrow at 9am, no need to reply, see you then xxx" - set it to send the morning before you go back to work. I'm sure she'll find it very reassuring

YABU It's just a text calm down, I don't see how complaining to your manager will solve the situation?

Yikes. It wouldn't cross my mind to take this so personally. I'd just think there she goes the bat, and if I didn't like it if cheerfully ask if she thought I was a flight risk.

That would piss me off too. I wouldn't expect a text unless I didn't turn up on the day I was due back.
I manage staff and I would never send them a message like this. In fact I don't contact them when they are not working at all because it's intrusive.

Sounds like there are alrwady issues with her and therefore you've reacted to it in a way that you wouldn't if you liked and trusted her.

If someone has been there for 26 years and has not become the manager in all that time, I would absolutely expect them be need managing!

Some people don't want to be managers, I know I fucking don't.

I don't want to be a manager either. It's a shit job and I earn nearly as much as them with zero responsibility. You would need to be on crack to be a manager these days.

Don't reply OP and tell her to stop doing it. It's ridiculous.

Managers who are unable to value the skills of the people they manage (after all why would anyone want to be an engineer, an IT specialist, a nurse or teacher when they could be a "manager" instead ) are a special kind of useless.

I understand your frustration. Just change your private mobile number or block her, if you don't like her contacting you on private devices. I would not tolerate anyone from work phoning/texting/emailing me on private devices. Only HR have these contact details for emergencies.
But if you also have private contact with your manager, the boundaries are not as clear as that and therefore this can be interpreted as a 'welcome back' message too.

Sounds fine to me, just be polite, its does not cost you.

If someone has been there for 26 years and has not become the manager in all that time, I would absolutely expect them be need managing!

WTF, so a senior surgeon or a Maths professor needs a bright eyed bushy tailed manager to come and manage them because they didn't become the manager . You'd be a hit at my university .

you could always reply
'Of course I'll be in tomorrow just enjoying my final x hours of holiday before I have to think about work!'
See if she takes the hint...

I'm a teacher, so we all go back to work on the same day. We get a mass email the day before.

My department including the "boss" (HOD) also text each other during the holidays, but we are actually friends, not just "meant to be a 'friend'"

As a line manager this is weird
I just wouldn't do it. If we have a really great friendship I'd genuinely text and said that hope they had good holiday and all that but dumping the 'just checking you're in work tomorrow ' sounds so corporate.

I feel your pain OP. I have a micro managing manager and it was seriously making me ill. Constant text messages with action or stupid stuff to my personal phone! I then started ignoring them but it would make me very very annoyed with her. 10 years later it finally got too much for me, her treating me like a PA when I have my own job I need to be doing! It was really messing with my mental health, took it further to her manager (which took some guts for me to do I may add) and an opportunity came up for me not to be managed by her. So now I have another manager and she's still trying to get away with the same stupid stuff! Her response 'it's easier to give you work as I know it will get done' ARGH

Oh and just to add, when I did take it higher, the senior manager told me this was bordering on harassment and I was well within my rights to take it to the union and the manager would probably get a telling off! I didn't do that, but the option was there for me.

I've been reading a book about PA.

Apparently she did not have her voice heard as a child and this is the result (summarising) - You can try to score points by being PA back but imv the best thing is to be nice 'Don't worry bossperson, I will be there as always smiley face' (maybe a touch PA hidden in there).

Being PA is trying to pass on your stress/anger to the other person so by replying totally unstressed and unangered she has failed in her attempt so hopefully won't bother to try again to PA you again (or not often).

You did the right thing: a deafening silence.

Just don't mention your holiday and how great it was to spend quality time with your family, or anything of that nature.

Keep to business topics!

Good luck on your first day back.

Can't get all uppity about anyone doing this. There may be something on when you return to work and may well just be checking you will actually be in e.g. not sick, stranded somewhere.

I'm convinced she just wants to ruin my last few hours of not thinking about work.

I think you're right. You were still on holiday, she had no justifiable reason to send that text. Really poor management. And crappy behaviour from a so-called friend.

Well while you are an adult and manage things so many people seem to fail. This is something that managers sometimes do.because staff do fuck up their dates. Or somehow catch a tummy bug on the last day. Or somehow miss their flight but get home just at the time work was supposed to start.

It's the same reason that schools sent reminders home with kids for things. Cause some parents are basically useless and need reminders. It's like the hospital, doctor and dentist reminders for the multitude of adults who constantly fuck that up.

You may be switched on OP but experience suggests you are a rarity. So get of your high horse and relax.

I wouldn't answer. It's passively authoritarian and you're technically still on holiday!

YANBU

I had a manager who used to phone me if i took the odd day off, she once joked that she was checking up i wasn't going on a job interview!