Is this out of order

[LadyRussell]

Colleague who is same level manager as me asked our joint boss if someone I line manage could do a task for her (small admin task not strictly in her role but it’s quite a flexible role).

Line manager (micro manages everything) agreed it and my colleague ran it past me and told me after boss had ok’d it.

Employee then emails me today cc’ing in my manager saying X has asked me to do this is this in my job role? Line managrt then enails her back CC’ing in me explaining she had already ok’d it.

AIBU to think if a manager (sane level as her own) has asked her to do a task (if she had the time if not don’t worry) she should be then checking with me and certainly not cc’ing in my line manager?

Bibesia

We have a spreadsheet which is a shared document with everyone’s workloads on are a smallish team (15).

LadyRussell

Stop making excuses for your balls up, you could have rung her, written an email, or put a post it note or other on her desk.

All this could have been done in the time that you have spent on this thread.

As for the @I think that she is dropping the other line manager in it' Lets be honest its because she is your mate.

you need to separate your friendships and get on with managing your staff properly.

LadyRussell
If she doesn’t have time to do it colleague will have to do it herself.

Its small and irrelevant, yet she can't be arsed to do it herself, she can't even be bothered to ask a member of her own team to do it.

She has as much respect for your staff member as you do or even less.

In the nicest possible way, I suspect you've given this legs by spending more than about 10 seconds thinking about it, which is all it deserved.

If you leave this alone, she looks like a petty jobsworth.

If you make a fuss, you look needy and insecure.

(This is why I don't work in an office any more.)

This thread has to be a reverse or a troll.

Your colleague goes above you to allocate tasks to a member of your team and only tells you as an after thought later and that's ok ?

But it's not ok for your report to ask whether they are ok to do this by cc'ing in your manager who is in the office and able to respond whilst you aren't contactable. I wouldn't contact my line manager if he was on annual leave even if he said it was ok.. I'd go to the next manager above!

You are a bully plain and simple and you are taking out your own frustration on this poor person.

SERIOUSLY YOU NEED HELP

Stop making excuses for your balls up, you could have rung her, written an email, or put a post it note or other on her desk

We don’t have desks.

I wasn’t on AL I was elsewhere.

We’re a nightmare at my work. If another manager asks us to do something that’s not strictly our remit, we go straight to ours and kick off 😂
To be fair I’m in a sales role and doing ‘tasks’ stops me earning commission so they can get to fuck

LadyRussell

We don’t have desks.

Doesn't mean that you couldn't have rung or emailed her. Hell you could have even texted her.

Its no longer the century of the Fruitbat

I was on a course all day and didn’t have access to my email (I normally do but they weren’t coming in on my phone) I didn’t need to speak to her about it immediately imo as it’s not unusual (and since she has started) to be asked to do small tasks by other managers and that manager would have told her they had okayed it with me.

annual leave issue or not you were not there.
You failed as a line manager to communicate a task required to your direct report and place the blame on them.

What exactly have they done wrong . It's not against company policy clearly.

And you can't see you're in the wrong .
You're a bully and you need to be told

I don't know what your direct report is like or if they will be able to stand up to you. You are in the wrong.

LadyRussell

I was on a course all day and didn’t have access to my email (I normally do but they weren’t coming in on my phone)

Your problem not hers

I didn’t need to speak to her about it immediately imo as it’s not unusual (and since she has started) to be asked to do small tasks by other managers

It is poor management to require other people to do things that you do not ask your team to do first.

and that manager would have told her they had okayed it with me.

And any employee worth their salt will question that as she will be the one taking the flak if they are bullshitting her.

And it would all have been prevented if you had spoken to her and not just gone home.

I had been in the office since 8am yday morning, I was due to leave at 5 but could not.

I left at 6 and was late to meet my son.

Employee finished at 4 and would not have appreciated me intruding on her family time to phone her to ask her to do a small admin task and yes her particular role is essentially admin.

We have a great deal of trust within our team and it would be very irregular to think someone was “bull shitting” you.

Colleague asked if it was okay to to speak to employee yday about it.

I don’t know how I am bullying anyone when I haven’t spoken to the employee about it.

LadyRussell
I had been in the office since 8am yday morning, I was due to leave at 5 but could not.

Another excuse

I left at 6 and was late to meet my son.

Another excuse

Employee finished at 4 and would not have appreciated me intruding on her family time to phone her to ask her to do a small admin task and yes her particular role is essentially admin.

Then text, but another excuse

We have a great deal of trust within our team and it would be very irregular to think someone was “bull shitting” you.

Someone asks you to do something outside of your team. It is OK to question it.

Colleague asked if it was okay to to speak to employee yday about it.

And you didn't pass it on to them.

WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME TEAM!!!!

She is the one person in the team who has an admin type role.

I line manage her and others with different roles.

Joined just to reply to this!

I've had managers like you. You have no idea what the "little people" do. Your mate asks if she can get someone from your team to take on additional work, and you're fine with this. Don't ask employee if she can manage the additional workload. Don't care about the impact on her. Just doing your mate a favour, yeah? Your employees are not "favours".

So now employee is informed by someone else (not you) that she is being expected to do something additional to her role, that will impact on her time management. She's aware that all the people who currently expect her to do stuff are going to get pissy with her because things are not being done as efficiently, but that's not going to affect you, is it? It's just her that's going to be yelled at.

I always cc'd senior management into these things, because I wanted to make sure that a) they knew what you and your good mate had been up to and b) any reduction in my performance was your fault, not mine.

On one particularly memorable occasion, I got an extra 12 hours pm for the "little job" they had decided that I could just incorporate into my work.

I see it differently. Someone who isn't her direct line manager asked her to do something, and she - knowing you were out of the office and might not have access to email - checked with you to make sure she should do it, copying your line manager in so s/he could make a decision in your absence. I really don't think it was malicious.

LadyRussell

Three line managers, one team, no communication. Except that you are her manager but the others are as well.

Managers that are mates and passing around work like favours.

Sounds like chaos. It is no wonder that she cc'd in your manager.

How ever many excuses you want to try, this still would have been sorted if you had just communicated the information to her.

MANAGEMENT 101 COMMUNICATION. If you don't do that its your fault.

Wow, just wow. You're not fit for management and I completely agree with pp you are a bully. I say this as someone who manages two teams, you can't treat people this way and expect them not to contact/check with a more senior manager. I hope this is a reverse, if so... Get out fast!

She did the right thing. You don't sound like a great manager, more hung up on your place in the hierarchy than supporting the staff that work there. I expect she can see that. I would have done the same in her position.

The task was so irrelevant and minor I didn’t think it warranted me leaving a meeting to email her about it
Any yet you resent her communicating by e-mail and ccing tge Big boss who has form for being shitty I cover herself? Can you honestly not see how you sound?
Then, when she does even task well and gets a little recognition for something that didn’t involve you, you don’t like it? Can’t even feel pleased for her?
I work in a very hierarchical place where I have to task people senior to me to get the job done. We are all under pressure and there are real people who are at risk/suffer/loss confidence in our organisation if it doesn’t get done. Then I chase them up and cc in their superior all the time. Mine is a serious business, I am probably one of the lowest of the low in terms of pay and recognition and what we do is important, so fuck stroking the egos of those several pay scales above me. Your attitude would really piss me off. Leave your ego at home and give your willing, flexible and eager employee some credit. Start any shit with her and she’ll be asking to transfer to working under your management pal before you can say “micro manager”.

I am supportive.

My manager expects her to be flexible with her hours but she pays for a nursery place and I have told my manager that this is not fair to expect her to do this and have told her to say no family she can’t.

When her kids have been ill I have put it through as sick leave.

She was asked to type up some minutes - IF she had time which she has done before.

Another HR issue she had I encouraged her to join the Union which she did.

Then, when she does even task well and gets a little recognition for something that didn’t involve you, you don’t like it? Can’t even feel pleased for her

What? She hasn’t done it she got asked today IF she had time.

Ours is a pretty serious business too.