To tell my manager he is causing me a lot of stress

[Candylovesss]

Hi all,

Just want opinions really on if I'm being a bit precious or if my manager is being a bit much.

I am 28 weeks pregnant. On the whole have been okay, suffered bad sickness until 15 weeks but as working from home never took any time off sick. Haven't had any time off at all in fact during this pregnancy. Stating this now just to show I haven't not pulled my weight.

Anyway, I have found in the last couple of months my manager has been really quite chaotic. It started with asking me to cover multiple people at once at very short notice (literally either the same morning or an email sent the evening before, for me to open the following morning) which has been impossible at some points as the sheer volume of work was just not feasible.

Sometimes, I had never done these people's work before and his response was to just follow the work notes. He never offers to cover himself though or help out with workload.

He is randomly popping up on skype asking me to train new people at the last minute too. If I reply saying I am sorry I am covering people who are off that you have asked me to do he says can you not just show them a bit of that - so he effectively wants me to train on work I have not actually done before and already feel a bit unsure on myself.

He hasn't checked in once to see how I am doing throughout the pregnancy or to ask if I am managing. Someone left whilst I was on annual leave a couple of months ago and he gave me their work - I only know I was given it thanks to another colleague, to this day he has still not told me lol.

Yesterday was the worst one so far. I had some bleeding (still ongoing, looks okay but they can't say where it's coming from) and I had to go to hospital to be checked. The first thing he said when I told him was have you done all the work you needed to do today. I said yes but I really need to head to hospital now.

When I was at the hospital he sent me an email asking me to pick up some urgent work he had been emailed about. I was in hospital having observations done at this point and reminded him where I was. His response was to completely ignore me.

He has also been guilt tripping me in the last month or so. One woman put in a last minute request for annual leave the day before the event and he emailed me asking to cover. I said I couldn't as I was only on a half day that day myself and also had a midwife appointment so wouldn't have time to complete theirs plus my own. He then asked if I could just have my half day another day instead as this other woman was talking about cancelling her annual leave and he didn't want her to feel upset.....

This happened again last week. Asking me to cover with no notice and then guilt tripped me when I said I was already covering 2 other people plus my own work. He said I am struggling to find cover with a sad face at the end.

I really don't know how to handle this - is it enough for me to request a meeting with him and bring it up? I am finding it all really stressful, especially now with this bleeding etc. I just feel like he isn't managing very well?

Start refusing.

I try to refuse and I get guilt tripping messages on skype saying he doesn't want to upset other people and he's struggling to find cover etc.

Let him try and guilt-trip you, don't let it work.
You've become the general shit-shoveller for all the things he doesnt want to deal with so he can be nice boss to everyone else, that wont stop until you start saying no and sticking to it.

You're doing him a favour, otherwise he's going to be royally stuffed when you go off on maternity.

Start saying no and fuck off to his sad face
Whilst he is definitely in the wrong I'd stand my ground and just say I can't take additional responsibilities, hope you get it sorted blah blah blah
Then ignore them
They need to learn to manage not pass the buck

I would ignore the guilt tripping and push back really hard. This is why he’s targeting you, because he knows others will push back and he thinks he can guily trip you.

I’d get signed off with stress to be honest. It’s really not on!

I’d take what you have written here. Put the dates on as to when these happened and approach HR with your concerns:

• Manager is asking you train people on things you are not even trained on.

-Manager doesn’t seem to realise that the workload is that of x people and therefor has unrealistic expectations. -Manager is asking you to do urgent work despite knowing you werevin hospital and incapacitated. -Manager may be discriminating against you due to your pregnancy and is setting you up to fail by overloading you beyond reasonable amount of work and by assigning you work not part of your employment contract.

Ask him why he is ok with upsetting you??? If he's so concerned with not upsetting people...

I'd reply saying he doesn't want to upset others but seems more than happy to upset you. Ask him why this is.

Put EVERYTHING in writing. If he Skyped /calls you, email back “saying “to clarify our call: you asked me to cover/do/train… I will do x/y/z and, as I am already covering a/b/c and I have leave /hospital appointments booked on the following dates (…), I cannot cover the remaining outstanding staffing issues”
He can and will deny everything and blame you, so cover yourself.

I am just really quite surprised because he has always been okay in the past so part of me thinks is it because of the pregnancy? Almost like he wants to make the most of me being here until I leave.

Writing everything down is a good idea. I didn't really think about it too much until yesterday when he emailed me whilst I was at the hospital and I started thinking about the last few months. It made me realise how nervous I get everyday logging on to work as I never know what he might of added to my plate that day.

Write all this down with dates.

If you can, I'd set up a meeting to talk this through. He still might not acknowledge what you say though.

At the least, have a short 5-10 min call in the calendar for every morning to catch up with him on anything you need to know about. He should actually do this, of course.

Do other people ever cover for you?

If it's always you mopping up the mess, is there any scope for some sort of promotion to reflect that? As you're probably finishing in 10 weeks, you may just want to keep your head down until then, of course.

Can you approach his manager or HR if he doesn't listen?

@notasillysausage

I’d get signed off with stress to be honest. It’s really not on!

I was going to suggest the same thing.

My blood pressure was borderline high for my entire second pregnancy and I blame work related stress. Looking back, I wish I'd told them to shove their job up their arse TBH. But I should have gone off at 28 weeks really.

Can you go over his head and tell his manager what’s going on? If this is putting your unborn child at risk then I can tell you NOTHING is more important than that.

Problem with going off with stress is could they start your maternity leave early?

Unless this guy is literally paying you multiples the going rate and giving you a Christmas bonus like he’s Santa, he’s way out of line.

Unfortunately you’re set in a pattern now of him thinking you’ll just pick up any slack. You’ll have to push back forcefully for a while, it won’t be pretty, but don’t let him treat you like a mug. Also keep a work diary in case they cause any issues—of every unreasonable request, of every pushback. And then be assertive.

E.g. at your urgent medical appointment, if he messaged: “as I said I am at an urgent medical appointment and am therefore not working. Please contact me when I am back at work, I need to give my full attention to this medical appointment. I will not be responding to your emails and messages at this time.”

Or: “unfortunately I do not have capacity for x due to the request to cover Y today. I am happy to reprioritise as necessary, please could you let me know which of these tasks are a priority—my hours will only permit 1 to be covered.”

I had a lot of stress when I was 28 weeks from my job . Had my DS two days after my work gave me stress. Go on the sick today. You need to be looking after you both as they don’t care about you.

I'd aslo start to give all your answer by email so you have some trail.
email stating

• what he is asking you to do (eg cover for some else on that morning - keep note of the timing)
• you can't do it w explanation as to why you can't (eg you have a medical appointment - MW- and are on half day. Can't be doing everything)

Btw I think what's going in here IS discrimination aorund your pg seeing that he is worried about 'upsetting other people' but isn't worried about upsetting you. And he was OK before that...

I'd email a list of things he has asked you to do, asking for the priority so you can make sure you are working on the right things.

State in there that there is not enough time to do everything,

I think he’s trying to push you out. Document everything and start considering how you will tak to HR

I'd actually meet this head on.
You've taken on the work of two other staff members (either current or former) but you probably haven't been given a pay rise to take account of this additional workload.
You have done this without complaint...well now you're raising a complaint.
You can only do your job. Nobody else's job is going to be done by you. If they are understaffed this is not your job to resolve for them. They either have to cut back on what they are offering to customers or clients or take on more staff to replace those that have left.
You have to train someone up to cover for you while you're on ML and you need to know who that is so that you can start their training now.

So, you need to have a meeting to discuss this and get it sorted as soon as possible.

Depending on what the outcome of that meeting would be, I'd either be straight on to HR to get the pay increase sorted, be on to HR to arrange to get a full job description and then work to that. Don't do anything more than that. I'd also get in touch with my GP or Consultant who would sign me off work with Stress until my ML is due to begin.

I’d not confront your manager or his manager, don’t give them time to come up with excuses or get to HR before you and poison them against you. Write it all down as it clearly shows a picture of discrimination due to pregnancy and take it straight to HR. Request to be assigned a new manager while they investigate your concerns with your current manager.

Then get signed off for stress as once it hits HR and your manager becomes aware, things will be intolerable for until you are assigned a new manager.

I think you have hit the nail on the head OP. Some people see mat leave as a bit of a skive ( incredibly) and there’ll be an element of him wanting to get his money’s worth. Write to him to explain how the demands are affecting you and that you and your midwife are concerned about your stress levels. Blood pressure can start to rise easily during pregnancy and you want to avoid that. Give him a chance to back off. If he doesn’t go to your GP and get signed off. I would copy HR on any messages. Do not risk your health and your babies for this man and his sad face emojis.

Another thing I'm just after thinking about.

If your mobile phone bill is being paid for by you and not your company, you're allowed to 'un-plug' from the office so you don't have to answer calls or texts or emails from them that come in on it.
If they pay for the phone, I'd consider getting a personal number (i.e. another separate phone) and handing them back their phone as it is too stressful during your pregnancy to be getting emails/texts/calls at all hours, when you're at personal appointments (emergency or otherwise) and you will not be providing them with your new contact number. That way, you can leave work behind when you finish at the end of the day and you don't have to worry about what Awful Manager concocts up for you for the following day.
If you get any emails overnight and when you log back in again, you reply with "I'm sorry but I'm unable to do X, Y or Z. I'm already doing A, B and C. Which of those do you want me to stop doing so that I can take on X, Y or Z? Also, when are we getting the new staff in to replace Anne, Bob and Charlie? I cannot continue to my best if I'm being asked to do the full time role of three former staff members. I await your response."