Colleague keeps changing my work

[Stopitjuststopit2018]

And it’s doing my head in.

I work closely with a colleague who isn’t my line manager on paper but who I report to and work on projects with day to day, I’m like his 1-2-1 support manager. I have been doing this job for 10 years (although only working directly with him for 2yrs), and of the other 6 or so “support managers” in our division, I hold the most senior status out of all of them and often get rewarded/recognised for my work by the company on a national level - not bragging, I’m just trying to add some context to show that I’m not a newbie to the role.

Anyway for the projects we work on, we write tenders, sales pitches and have to do fancy presentations, which he will always delegate to me (it’s expected of our role) and which im more than capable of doing, yet no matter what I produce, he will always change things!! it’s always something small, and that’s what pisses me off.

Eg I could write “the boy sat at the table and ate sandwiches” and he’d change it to “at the table, the boy took a seat where he ate some sandwiches”. That kind of thing, nothing ever revolutionary

I’d say that 99.9% of the time his changes will make no difference to our clients who read it

Last week I made key words bold in a PowerPoint to make them standout. They were also blue. He changed all of them to italic and a slightly darker shade of blue. It made fuck all difference. One time I wrote the word “Euros” several times in a doc and he changed them all to EUR. But in a subsequent one where I wrote EUR instead, he changed it to pissing Euros!

I I find it so undermining and I’m starting to resent doing things for him, or i’m spending even longer formatting and re-writing things and trying to second guess how HE wants it to look/read rather than using my own creativity and having free reign. It’s denting my confidence really.

Apart from that he’s a really nice guy! How should I address with it him without making it awkward!

@kmmr It’s about asking for and receiving constructive feedback which my boss cannot get his head around. If he gave more comments about content and context then fine. But it’s the inane need to change words into waffle that boils my piss!

And I’ve told him the feedback that I want - he still fails to do it! Waaaah!

Maybe write something really rubbish to see if he notices? And if he does say 'oh well you always change things and I have no idea what you like me to write these days'

And do the bare minimum for him if he doesn't appreciate it

This thread has just reminded me if when my new manager started. He tried to sit with me and go through the whole of my board report getting me to change font sizes and whether I had put monetary values in thousands or decimals of millions, etc.

I shut him down several times and refused to discuss particular sections which I had already told him were totally pointless, shouldn't be in the report anymore and he was supposed to be speaking with the department the report was for and get them to agree to have those sections removed.

I think he hadn't worked up the courage to speak to the director of that department yet and wanted to feel like he was making progress by making these pointless changes.

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but are you certain that he isn't making changes to correct grammar or for consistency in presentation? Even though I've written more formal documents than had hot dinners, I - like everyone - occasionally make errors and always ask someone else to proof read for me if it's going somewhere important.

string that's exactly what I do with clients like that. I put an unimportant error in or a couple of things that I know they won't like, and that distracts them from the bits I really really don't want them to change because I know I'm right . It's win win- they get to feel that they've made a useful contribution and added value, and I get the finished article pretty much as I want it.
Having said that, I'm working on a massively valuable project at the moment and the client seems to have lost any fucks they might have had to give. It's unnerving. It's hugely important to them, the work needs close attention and the only changes I've had back have been of the "can you check the spelling of so and so's name". No comments about that £14m budget then? No, just that typo on page 3...

I think it's very easy to say just let it go. The point is, when it keeps happening time and time again it does dent your confidence and demotivate you. I really think you need to have a friendly, calm word with him. It would be a different thing entirely if he was making fundamental changes but just changing font and moving the order of words around...well, it speaks for itself. I think people do this because they have to justify themselves and be seen to be proactive. Anyone can look at someone else's work and find fault with it or aspects to change, it's really not hard. Seriously, I would have to speak to him.

I had a boss do this many moons back. Got totally fed up with it so one day he scrawled over a letter with red pen. I took it away and said I would update and give it back to him.
A couple of days later I took the letter to him and said ' here you go, i made all the changed you want. He read it, signed it and said ' thanks blah that reads a lot better now'.
Of course I never changed it. After that made the odd token change.
I did tell him when he left. He laughed. Bloody irritating though.

I’d suggest an agreed house style, highlight the inconsistent variation like the Euro example. That along with colour guidance etc should help tighten things up.

I agree it’s a power thing, change something to claim it as their own. I generally wouldn’t kill myself pulling something together that I knew someone was going to alter substantially. It’s more difficult when it’s so subtle though. Trying to second guess them will erode your confidence more though because you can never win.

OP I think we must share a line manager. It drives me up the wall. It’s when he starts editing his own edits that I want to pull my own face off. The issue is that he doesn’t understand the content so messes about with the way the sentences are constructed to detract from the fact he brings absolutely nothing of any substance.

I’m looking for a new job, I can’t work with micro managers.

Jesus we have one of these. Whatever you present to him isn't quite right. Not enough documentation, too much documentation. Just sign the damn thing, it's not rocket science, you signed off the exact same thing last month.

Insecurity? Control freak? Shit manager? I don't know. I just hope every sick day he takes is really a sneaky interview, which he'll get, and we can get back to efficiency.

This kind of shit happens more often when you aren’t being line managed by the person you support. The person isn’t as invested in your mental wellbeing.

I personally would have it out with him

I hold the most senior status out of all of them and often get rewarded/recognised for my work by the company on a national level

i rely on him to recommend my appraisal grade to my line manager.

I suspect his ego doesn't like you being more 'successful' than him, so this is his passive aggressive way of having the 'upper hand/last word' and 'taking you down a peg'....and maybe an excuse to sabotage your next appraisal?

Keep copies of your work in case he tries to mark you down claiming he did the work

I lock my presentations as "read only" to prevent any alterations.

Sounds like hes just justifyin his seniority

My ex boss used to do this, every policy, procedure or presentation I wrote would be returned, covered in changes in red pen like a fucking school teacher. I’d leave it a couple of days, then resubmit the work, completely unchanged. She’d declare it “much better” and sign it off. Twat!

When he makes even a minor change, the document will register him as being the last 'author' and whoever wrote the bulk of the document (you) gets wiped.

We once had a marketing person who was responsible for producing our quarterly magazine. As the clinical lead I would occasionally write a medical piece which she would then proceed to amend which invariably resulted in incorrect info being given as she didn’t know what she was talking about. She left it alone when I stamped my feet very loudly and told her to stop fucking changing my wording as I was the expert and she had no medical knowledge whatsoever.

Make two copies and booby trap one of them. If he makes any changes the whole thing 'messes up' and he'll have to spend ages sorting it out..Bwa,ha,ha!
That will teach him.

He's probably doing it to justify his position and his time. It's so much easier to nitpick somebody else's work than to actually produce it in the first place. Maybe try to leave a few unimportant slides off your presentation next time and ask him to write them as in 'I'd like your input on this'. He might realise how much more difficult it is to do some real work. And it will keep him occupied so less time to change other stuff. I sympathise completely though. It's fucking annoying! Been there before and should probably get the t-shirt

I am a control freak and so is my manager, we are forever doing this to the presentations! We used to drive each other crazy until we had a chat about it and now we look at it as a 'collaboration'.
The thing is, it is not personal, it is not you, it is him. This is not to undermine your work or anything, this is only so that he has a feeling it is in his control.
You cannot change it, it is a character trait, you won't change him. The only thing you can change is your reaction to it.
It really, really, really is nothing to do with you. But I know how annoying it is :-)

IJustHadToNameChange is right, it makes him look like the author. so make sure you put your name as the author in the properties, back up your docs to the server before you pass him a copy - not the original.
And make his copy read only.

Also, someone posted recently that their boss always changed one thing as a way to show dominance and control.

You could always try the Dilbert technique

My boss also changes everything I do, and in my opinion makes it worse!

All I do now is not spend ages doing anything any more because I know it's just going to be changed anyway.