building manager at work ruining my work life

[Vivbevorcath]

I work in an office of around 250 people in central London. I am in a senior position in finance, being a woman it has not been easy to get here over the last decade and i am performing well for the company and I am a good boss to my reports. So a valued employee and generally believed to have good behaviours (according to my 360 references and good end of year “behaviour” scoring .)

The office is open 24/7 because it is a busy industry, so working in lots of different time zones. It’s also quite an intense job where you burn out quickly. It’s hard to juggle with family life and most people can do it solidly for around 10 years and then need to take a break. I work 90 hour weeks, often work weekends, and have 3DC under 5. I often don’t sleep at night and I try to do my share of school drops and pick ups, so I feel like a headless chicken most of the time. The management team at my company acknowledge that I always go above and beyond, I win them plenty of business and I am a strong part of the revenue line which pays everyone’s salaries in our London office.

There is a man who is the site manager at the office who seems to have decided to make my office life a living hell. The reason is that I have lost several of my office passes to get into the building and have required new ones over the years. OR due to the fact I am always dashing about, I have unexpectedly had to go into the office and collect something and needed a temporary pass.

Over the last two years he has done and said the following which I find disrespectful to me and unkind:

• confronted me in the canteen, raising his voice and standing over me in front of 50 staff about me losing office passes and threatening to “lock me out of the building” if I do not return them
• sending constant emails to the whole office (250 people) telling them that I have lost passes.
• sent me bills to pay for new passes to be made
• followed me into the lift and said things like “I caught you. You were trying to get away from me but I caught up.”
• coming into my office and demanding I empty my bag and show him how many passes I have and which ones they are, while I am in a meeting
• my colleagues tell me he is constantly in and out of my office when I am not there moving things around and looking for things (I understand the office is not my property but if he goes in every day when I am not there, surely that is needless?) he then often sends me an email cc’d into the management saying that I have left a mess or I did not fill my bin properly or my plant is dying end needs watering or I am using an old version of windows that is not compatible with the system!!
• he has implied that he has access to all the security cameras and that he has seen me “up to no good” (I presume he means with the passes again!) he seems to think I have a visitor’s pass from long ago that I secretly use but honestly I have no idea - there is just a pass that I use (it is a plain white card… I don’t know if it’s a visitor’s or not)
• the final straw is I came in today to do someone a favour (some extra work for the CEO) and he has remotely blocked my pass! So I could not get in. The work was time sensitive, I was banging on the door, and had to beg the security at reception to let me in. I will now have to go to him and ask for another pass and be subjected again to all of this.

Anyway. I think I am done with this and might just explode at him. I know workplace safety is important but I think he has gone too far. AIBU?

I have worked for over 30 years and have never lost a pass but you lose yours on average once a year? I'm sorry but for someone in a senior position you need to get a handle on this because you sound like a tit. I would imagine that he has an extremely poor opinion of you over this and I can't say I'm surprised. However, he needs to button it and start acting like a professional.

Aside from that, I would start logging everything he says and does and raise a formal complaint. I'm surprised you haven't done that already.

You would annoy the hell of me if I were the security guy.

But he is getting bit OTT.

Stop loosing the passes. Get a lanyard. Massive major non Problem solved.

This is harassment but in my old workplace we would get put on a serious warning for losing a pass so yes yabu for losing so many passes and expect nothing to happen as a result.

I’m impressed with working ninety hours a week…I wish I could

Based on what you have written, yeah he’s being a twat. BUT I would love to hear his side of the story. You come across as very high and mighty and oh so important and accomplished. I’d bet you look down on Rob and his silly little job, and it’s obvious, and he knows it. So he doesn’t like you. And he is getting his own back. (Im not condoning his behaviour)

OP once a year isn’t a lot.
Are you actually telling the truth? Who can remember someone who lose their pass once a year, with the amount of people getting temp passes etc.

He’s a harassing bully. But the fact that you’re a ‘high flyer’ (yet can’t solve this simple problem with someone easily replaceable), justify it by claiming how ‘busy and important’ you are with your favours to the CEO AND being a mother….

Quite a few people are probably jealous but I think you’re underestimating just how much you lose your pass.

I have ADHD and terrible with losing things. I have put in place strategies to reduce it. If I can do it, you can. You just CBA and see it as an inconvenience.

90hr weeks and 3 kids under 5, sure. 😆

Tbh it sounds like the building manager is perfectly reasonable. Lost passes are a huge security issue and it doesn’t sound like you’re taking it very seriously.

He may well have other security concerns so he will need to check your office and monitor your movements to ensure you are following other procedures.

I think we all know he wouldn’t do this to another man.

You need to raise a grievance.

And get your shit together in the passes front. It just makes you lose incompetent.

@JanuaryJones22

Wow *@NeverDropYourMooncup* I take it you're a vicious, bitter and jealous workplace bully as well then?

Oh, absolutely.

Can't think of anything better to do with my time than attack people less powerful than me. I'm just so very, very important in the great scheme of things that it's an absolute joy to suggest to somebody that there are potentially serious consequences to a behaviour that they may not have thought of, ways to attempt to mitigate and reduce the risk of those behaviours and essentially to be able to defend themselves against twatty colleagues without undermining their entire complaint by continuing the problem behaviour. Not to help them get out of the shit or to look better, mind. Just to make them feel bad.

Same way if somebody were complaining that they were banging their head against the wall and they had a headache, I'd only suggest that they stopped banging their head against the wall instead of complaining that the wall was making their head hurt. Pure, bitter, vicious, malice borne of the fact that I'm jealous I'm not able to bang my head against the wall like they can...

It’s just bullying and I’d put in a formal complaint in mediately. Yes lost passes are a security issue but this is not an appropriate way to react nor is accusing staff of hiding old visitors passes, nor is blocking their current pass remotely!! Plain bullying, use the remote blocking as one reason why you’ve requested more replacement passes than others but the headline reason I would use is that I’m so stressed just thinking about my passes because I’m regularly being abused about them. I am unable to do my work as I simply can’t keep being required to turn up adhoc and then suffer abuse for not happening to have my pass on me at some random day I wasnt supposed to be in the office.

Why you, as a senior professional, has allowed even one of these events to happen is completely beyond me. You cannot be serious. If you are, I think you need to question whether you are coping because his behaviour is extraordinary. Make a complaint and take some serious time off.

If you really are such a high flier it sounds like you are the poster child for the Dilbert Principle.

I'm slightly shocked you lost so many passes. I work NHS we have a pass...it is drilled into us how important it is now to loss it and it has followed me to three BHS trusts now. Huge security risk if lost and I have to pay to replace it. Report the office manager following you etc but look at why you lossing the passes so much. I'd have been up for a meeting with my manager if I'd lost my pass more than once.

I am shit hot at my job (and have never lost my pass) but lose my bank cards all the bloody time so I can sympathise. The difference is in my organisation no one would give a shit if I had to get a replacement pass once a year. They deactivate the old one and issue a new one...for free. Once a year is hardly wild and erratic behaviour. And we work with high profile, confidential clients including government agencies. Do you work at MI5 or something?!

@lissie123

I’m impressed with working ninety hours a week…I wish I could

That's not a serious comment surely? Op's job sounds ghastly.

@Seemssounfair

Sounds like a mountain made out of a molehill due to a lack of understanding and respect both ways.

Look at it from his point of view he is responsible for the security of the building and the safety of those in it. He is probably as passionate about that as your are about your job. The fact you need to write two long paragraphs about your importance, is both irrelevant when it comes to security and says a lot about your over inflated ego.

If you adapt your behavior by not losing passes, stop acting dumb about using a visitor pass, and trying to make out the security arrangements of the building are there simply to make your much more important work/life difficult you are likely to get a better response from him. Work with him instead of against him to prove your importance. He doesn't give a shit who you are, he cares about what is paid to do, security.

Completely agree with this! When people who are very good at their job and know it, they can be dismissive of things other people would get in trouble for. That’s irritating. He might get in trouble for your lost passes.

There’s no relevance that you get little sleep or have 3 young children. You and your partner chose to have 3 children and work in high pressure (and presumably very well paid) jobs.

I was always taught be nice to everyone because those people on little money below you are just as important (as you’re finding out!) as the big bosses.

Stop losing so many passes.

If it was a disciplinary issue then you wouldn't have lost so many.

You literally give zero fucks about losing them. No wonder he is annoyed.

You say he makes your life at work a nightmare. Well you're making his job difficult too.

Stop losing the passes!

Stop losing your passes
Then complain about his behaviour.
I'm not condoning him but continually losing a pass seems very odd. I know to replace my pass at work is £80
I've forgotten it twice in 4 years but never lost it.

He needs reigning in and the issue addressing.

You do need to be more careful with your passes though, I think it's a bit ridiculous to be losing one a year.

His behaviour is inappropriate- you should definitely make a formal complaint.

However, most concerning is the leadership culture in your workplace. Firstly, you seem totally dismissive of this man's role and value compared to you. He may not bring in the big bucks, but it is his responsibility to keep your workplace secure, with potentially huge reputational, financial and personal consequences if that fails. Leadership needs to demonstrate those behaviours too. And appreciate that everyone plays a part of a cog in the machine and treat people woth respect. I'm not condoning his behaviour, but it is probably born out of frustration that you have completely dismissed his concerns and how he enables you to be high flying.

And secondly- this guy is bullying you. Senior management is aware but just eye rolls about it?! They should have been proactively tackling this and nipped it in the bud a long time ago. Sounds like a whole toxic management culture...

@NoLongerTroels

Stick a ring doorbell in your office you can see what he gets up to in there when you aren't in. He's a plain old bully who seems to think a stupid woman couldn't possibly be as important at work as you seem to be. Fight fire with fire. Keep a diary of his bullying and invasion of your privacy.

🙄

Yeah just randomly record people without telling them! Imagine the complaints about that, justifiably.

Would he so this to a male member of staff, especially senior?
If he controls the passes surely hed know if you'd got the visitor pass as well as your own one?

I assume, when you say a pass a year but your OP seems to describe multiple issues with getting access, that you lose a pass a year but temporarily misplace or leave at home or whatever, from time to time as well?

I think trouble getting into the office once a year isn't too bad, but outright losing a pass that often is a bit much and losing a pass and needing other accommodations as well would make it appear as though you don't take office security as seriously as someone in a senior position ought to. So getting your act together over the pass should be high up your list.

Can you find half an hour to go and talk to him? Instead of having him come and find you at some random time. Point out that you don't have other passes, that you don't appreciate the haranguing, etc. that you have a job you need to be getting on with and his behaviour is impeding that. And ask him how the two of you can move forward with a clean slate?

The next alternative is to talk with whoever on you level is his superior. But if you're senior I think going straight to that frequently leads to bad feeling amoungst junior employees.

@Vivbevorcath

When I say a lot of passes, I would say I lose one a year. But his behaviour is based on the fact that he thinks I am hiding a visitor’s pass as well as my own pass. I am not. I have occasionally borrowed visitor passes and given them back (to security) but he seems to have a theory that I am pulling the wool over his eyes or that I am getting one over on him when I am not.

Do you lose your phone or purse once a year? If you're getting visitor passes, I presume you're forgetting your pass? Do you forget your phone or purse that often?

Yes, he is being very clumsy in god approach. But you're not helping matters by fuelling it by forgetting or losing passes.