so pissed off and worried about meeting tomorrow at 9am

[Sarah510]

so we have a big work meeting tomorrow. I've done loads for it, data, spreadsheets, etc. But my team leader refused to check it (although yesterday she said she wanted to go through it to check the calculations, which I was glad about cos it's easy to make a mistake). So she 'wasn't available' all day today, there was a short meeting on teams around 5pm and she was at it too, so I tried to catch her after it, but she left really quick, and when I emailed her saying I was here, did she want to check stuff with me, she replied to say I was to 'forget about it'. Am so pissed off. Feel like she's going to probably throw me under the bus tomorrow morning if she does check it and find any errors, or else, if anyone else finds errors, I will be shown up in front of everyone. So I'm sat here going through it all one more time. I think it's really mean of her not to even talk to me. Don't know what I've done except work my ass off.

[iMatter]

Sorry to hear this OP.

Would you feel ok replying "This is why I emailed you last night, so we could avoid any last minute issues"

This is her failure, not yours, even if if doesn't feel like it now.

Does she really need to wake another colleague?

I hope today goes ok

[LakieLady]

I think it's hard to see your own errors. You sort of see what you expect to see.

She sounds like an unsupportive bitch, frankly, and waking a colleague up to sort it is just bonkers.

If I was that colleague, I might have just told her to go fuck herself.

You've got your paper trail, OP, try not to stress.

[CloudsCanLookLikeSheep]

I have a micromanager boss who constantly interferes in my work and would love to have a boss that just lets me get on with things. Can we swap?

[fartyface]

I agree with pinot, unless there is something else going on it sounds to me like she is just very busy. It is not uncommon for managers to say they will do soemthing and not get to it, certainly not in my area of work. It wouldn't mean we would throw the team member under the bus in the meeting.

It sounds like she worked late and started early.

[SionnachGlic]

OP,

Did she email you only but telephone someone else to wake him/her? I would be furious esp if she is a gloryhound & has form for 'can't rely on anyone' & 'had to do it myself' comments. If you sent it at the earliest possible opportunity to her & asked for input /approval & she left it til 6AM to review, then it is bad mgmt especially given it is your first time doing this piece of work.

Altho how to get that across w/o getting her back up is another matter? Maybe call her out on it when things are a bit more calm & you feel less stressed.... if she is throwing you under buses, it can hardly get worse with her. Is it large organisation, is there a HR Dept? Log your interactions with her from now on, times things sent & when you got her response...just in case you need to address it head on.

So what happened since?

[LannieDuck]

Hope it went ok this morning, OP. I work with data, and I understand why you wanted someone else to cast an eye over it.

[Grandmi]

The general gist of your comments suggests to me that you are very wary of your manager generally. She sounds very unsupportive and you are more likely to make mistakes whatever your job is if she worries you. I hope today went ok 💐

[Sarah510]

so she sent me one email around 7.15 saying she was 'fixing' my spreadsheet. I emailed her about 5 times saying 'let me help', what are you doing, no reply. So I nipped into the shower. When I got back down around 10 mins later, I emailed her again saying what are you doing, let me help. So she was changing all these formulas, and I was so panicked at this stage, I could hardly think straight, and could hardly work out an average, I had to write it down. I was so embarrassed and panicked as it was coming up to 8am. Other colleague didn't respond to emails/calls until 8am. Then other colleague came on, and she said 'no no Sarah510 is right, you don't need to change that'. So luckily I had my original version. I couldn't even think straight. I said we needed to postpone to make thorough checks as I was doubting myself in everything. In the end boss came onto teams and said 'no no sarah is right'. So we went ahead. But... in the first 5 mins another colleague - invited, don't work directly with him - pointed out another thing that was wrong - something that team leader and boss should have picked up on - I couldn't have known it as it was something that applied from 4 years ago, and it wasn't included in any of the reading material they gave me when I started. So big upset. Luckily not my fault. Team Leader made a point of asking about the thing she wanted to change though - just to make a point I think - though everyone agreed with the way I had done it, so that was a relief. OMG what a morning. I'm still working flat out correcting the other thing now. I appreciate she is busy, but that's why you have to stop and check - even a 5 min check last night could have thrown up the supposed error. Anyway, I still think she is quite sneaky. If she wants to work early, fine, I'm more a night owl, but I think her communication is very poor. If she had just said to me last night, look I'm tired out, I haven't had time, lets meet early in the morn. Anyway, thanks everyone!

[Tablefor4]

Glad your part was fine. Boss does sound a bit sneaky with her "What does everyone think about Sarah's point?" question. Might start quietly job hunting if I were you. In the meantime, plenty of emails in good time asking for slots to review etc.

[BlingLoving]

Aaah, the bottleneck boss. Who, funnily enough, is also often the, "throw the team to the wolves" boss. I know the type well.

Had a boss who we would send stuff to asking for comment/review/check etc as per policy. We would email/phone/pop heads round door. He'd say he'd get to it. I lost count of ho many times colleagues and/or I were sitting around late into the evening because he wouldn't prioritise it and we needed his thoughts before we could finalise.

Or version 2, we'd leave for the day eventually and he'd then decide at 7pm he wanted to review it and would call because he wanted a NEW version sent because he couldn't be bothered to search for the version sent at 14:00.

Or he'd get all patronising and say, "I think you should be perfectly competent to do this yourself and make this decision without me," but then, obviously, would have a total go when pier of work rolled out.

Or, personal favourite, due to situation such as the above, when an internal client called to complain, he immediately took the internal client's side because he hadn't bothered to actually check or read anything. Our team was 100% in the right however as we'd spent weeks working on this and so what landed up happening was a fully bloody internal investigation that wasted everyone's time. If boss had just bothered to listen to any of the briefings/read any of the emails, he'd have been able to nip it in the bud when the original complaint came in.....

[pinotgrigio]

She definitely doesn’t sound like a great boss and I’m glad that everybody backed you up. Is it worth considering a move? Your spidey-senses were right.

[cstaff]

It sounds like you need to watch your back with this boss. Is there anyone else that you could ask for help that you could trust, who won't throw you under a bus to make them look good.

[Gannicusthemannicus]

I reckon you need to be careful with that team leader, they sound awful and like they are exacerbating your worry with their lack of support to you. On the upside, from your description of the meeting it sounds like boss has noticed team leader was the one who dropped the ball and was messing about creating issues.

[IntermittentParps]

She sounds like she's trying to deliberately sabotage your work. She's also very melodramatic –she woke up another colleague to help 'fix' it?
I'd be very very careful around her.

[bumblingbovine49]

The posts on this thread are what's wrong with the modern workplace. No collaboration, no "two heads are better than one". Of course you have the skills to do your job well but if it's important, you get someone to look it over for you because once you've looked at something a million times you will miss things

This is so true. I work with large spreadsheets of data and I am pretty accurate and spend a lot of time checking stuff but in my experience a second set of eyes is invaluable as you are often to close to the data to see the more obvious mistakes. This is normal for most human beings and at my work we have policy of a second person always to have a check certain complicated data sets. We allocate that person for every project, it is part of their job too

[Sarah510]

yeah I'm really really fed up. The error that was pointed out in the meeting, I spent the whole morning correcting it, and just got an email saying uh oh, sorry, no you were right originally. Have been in the job 6 months. It's so funny really, that it was really really hard to get this job, involving 2 interviews, and role plays and tests, and i'ts the most badly organised team I ever worked in. Team leader is not responding to any emails again - not just mine. I think I'm going to close my eyes for 10 mins. I'm boggle eyed at this stage. No apology or thanks or anything. Still feel like I 'let her down'. That's the very big message she's sending out to me. I don't think I'm being over sensitive.

[SamanthaStripyPants]

From the last post I would say you should take away two points.

You need to stop second guessing yourself. You were right and everyone saw it. You did a good job.

Your team leaders a dick, one to watch.

It does sound like the boss has your back a little? Possibly more after seeing this. Who interviewed you?

I wonder if she is working if she's not answering emails. A lot of people slack while at home.

[SionnachGlic]

OP,

I am glad it wasn't too bad for you...it sounds like it went fine if only issue was around something agreed historically & you couldn't have known about. But hugely stressful for you dealing with her.

Hopefully the Boss in the meeting is her senior & understood the spreadsheet discussion & who is right & wring...i.e, not you!

Her last point was probably just deflecting from the error, moving the conversation on so last impression is of something else portraying her positively.

I can't stand those sneaky types who always are in it for themselves, ready to take credit for someone's work & the unwillngness ever to admit their errors & would literally lie. They depend on people staying silent & not challenging...like bullies! I have worked alongside many in one job...it was like being in a viper's nest. Everyone had a title (alot of them total BS) there were more wannabe chiefs in the middle & the knife your colleague culture was unsupported in theory (so all literature, client facing interactions came across very collaboratively on mood but behind closed doors it was cut throat & encouraged. I met & kept good friends from that job but those with integrity are no longer in those roles... we laugh about it now, how much we put up with, saw & heard...but it was an awful place to work. We were lucky a few of us had each others backs. Once a colleague got an instruction to do something early one morning, I was in early also, saw the instruction because we discussed it generally. She carried out the instruction, it was released too early & had major reputational & financial implications. Within abt a half hour floor was swarmed & high drama ensued...next thing she was called in...she came out upset & said that when she was asked to explain, he downright lied about his instruction & contradicted her entirely. She was so rattled she had forgotten talking it through with me. We went back in...head honchos told almost the wording of the instruction & himself glaring redfaced & saying that did not accord with his recollection. It happened prob an hr earlier. And this wasn't 80's lad culture (I was only in early primary then)...this was only a few yrs ago in a major corporation. He had already been tapped for greatness by the Old Boy's network so was not challenged whilst rest of us scurried off to undo & save the day. It couldn't quite be undone but he has steadily climbed the ranks since. Sorry...bit of a rant...

See if things improve OP... thank your colleague for having your back & agreeimg with your version. Ask if s/he might be able to help in future if you felt you needed a steer as you familiarise yourself....you won't feel so at sea then or dependant on a TL whom you can't/don't trust.

[Sarah510]

thanks SionnachGlic for your long reply ; and others thank you for the support. Yes I know what you mean about the culture, it's often those with a little bit of 'power'. I have been leaning on v helpful colleague, but she's said to me that it's not really her job to 'help me', its the Team Leader's job. But I can always ask her especially when I cant get a response from TL which is quite often now that I think about it. I'm glad I didn't make a big mistake today, cos I tried really really hard to do it well and get it right. It's when you care that it gets to you doesn't it.

[Swimmingwiththebees]

@Sarah510

yeah I'm really really fed up. The error that was pointed out in the meeting, I spent the whole morning correcting it, and just got an email saying uh oh, sorry, no you were right originally. Have been in the job 6 months. It's so funny really, that it was really really hard to get this job, involving 2 interviews, and role plays and tests, and i'ts the most badly organised team I ever worked in. Team leader is not responding to any emails again - not just mine. I think I'm going to close my eyes for 10 mins. I'm boggle eyed at this stage. No apology or thanks or anything. Still feel like I 'let her down'. That's the very big message she's sending out to me. I don't think I'm being over sensitive.

So does that mean you were right all along with all of it? If so, well done! It sounds like Team Leader is very difficult and, if anything, bringing up where she thought you were wrong in the meeting (after boss and colleague said you were right) wouldn't have reflected well on her to the boss!

You say you're close to another colleague who you can ask for her, do they have the same Team Leader? It would be interesting to know if the issues you are experiencing are just impacting you or whether she's like that with everyone.

Unfortunately if she is just incompetent and not a great team player, there probably isn't a lot you can do unless you're willing to complain to her boss (she's your superior after all). As others have said, maybe time for a new job....

[VodselForDinner]

Oh OP, that’s sounds horrific.

Actually, the whole environment sounds awful- you’re stressed and not feeling supported, it sounds like your manager is working mad hours and is either a very poor manager or under extreme pressure and dropping lots of balls, and your poor colleague is get 7am wake-up calls.

Can you get out of there?

[Cakecakes2011]

Did you give her enough time to check it, or just drop it on her today / yesterday and expect her to check it all over for you in time for the meeting?

I guess you’ll know tomorrow whether she’s either just busy or a backstabber out to show you up.

I wouldn’t worry...just do your best and chill out about it. I’ve had situations where my boss has reviewed my work, said it’s all fine and then pointed out issues with it when I’ve been presenting! To be fair I know him well enough to know it’s not malicious it’s just what we do is complex and it’s sometimes only when you go through things a few times that you can identify problems.

Also remember if you mess up it’s not going to look great for her either...so I’m sure she wouldn’t want that.

[VodselForDinner]

@Cakecakes2011, have you read the thread beyond the first post at all?

[managedmis]

Anyway, I still think she is quite sneaky.

^

Yup, and low on the old communication skills too. You know what you need to do, right? Adopt the same working method as her. You can be buwy/unavailable whatever too.

[copperoliver]

If you have made a mistake just laugh it off and say this is what happens if no one checks your work lol.
So everyone knows she didn't do her job and check it. X