Just received this email from boss

[Briocche]

Forward of another email re something which has gone wrong whilst I’ve been on annual leave

Then her email to me “this has REALLY PISSED ME OFF - very disappointed”

That old annual leave anxiety is back in full force

Thats unrealisable isn’t it? The email?

Quit. Look for something else.

Shit jobs like to convince you your role is so specialised that they will treat you like crap but "you'll never leave me, you'll never find anywhere as good as here", like an abusive relationship.

I've quit jobs that were a bit slow, a bit quiet and went for more exciting opportunities. I've never EVER been spoken to like that in the workplace! Most people quit jobs for far, far less than that.

People need to get more confident and tell these shitholes where they can shove it. There are plenty of industries where they bend over backwards to treat you like royalty to try and stop you leaving. Complete opposite of these shitty jobs.

Your emotional,mental and physical health are more important. Time to look for a new job.

That's outright bullying, to contact you while on leave, and to make you feel bad for taking leave. Is there someone you can escalate to?

The biggest regret in my life is the time and energy I put into a nasty multinational who couldn't even leave me alone when I was on sick leave. My little girl didn't get a choice. She got films to watch as Mummy was working.

Don't do it any more. Just don't.
I worked with the US markets so they were still at work when I was home from work. I thought that I'd keep ahead of the workload by working from home. I simply couldn't sleep at all as I no longer had a workplace and a home. I was constantly in work-mode and my dd didn't have a Mum.

Please leave. I spent 4 years in a similar situation and I can well remember that sick feeling of your stomach tying in knots, then you have to keep checking to see if it’s resolved/got worse, panicking about whether there is anything you can do. It’s horrible, it ruined many a “relaxing” break and it wasn’t worth it.

The feeling of liberation after changing jobs was immense. I recently went on holiday from (new) job and there was no expectation that I’d be in contact at all (although I checked emails once or twice out of habit). The weekend we got back I actually found myself looking forward to going into work the next day and catching up on things, it’s a completely different way of being. Please don’t waste any more of your time being belittled and beaten down, life’s too short and there are much better employers out there

Senior executive/boss of around one gazillion people here:

1. No, you'd never get that email from me! As PP have stated, it's unprofessional (and, even if that is not what was meant - see below - I wouldn't put it in an email).

1. Bosses are only human, too, and intent matters! While, see above, I would not put this in an email, just like everyone else, I do have my moments and I do sometimes vent!

You state that the fuckup is not your responsibility - any chance your boss is just at the end of their tether, is not actually blaming you, but is using you to air their frustration at a "neutral" party?

While I'd never do this in writing, I'll freely admit to having vented to uninvolved managers as well as my peers and bosses - not naming names - about "fuck my life, I'm the empress of Idiot Empire here, it seems!" Or similar. Never in writing, never to someone on the team, but over a drink when I was about to lose my shit over something.

It's a "self-management; blow off steam" technique. Better tell an uninvolved party or, if needs must, your dad who's in construction and has no idea what your on about, what an insufferable moron everyone is before you tell them that in those words!

Since you're saying it's not on you, OP, any chance this may be happening?

If so: still a stupid AF idea to do it via email!

If not: what PP have said: inappropriate and unprofessional!

To clarify, are you in charge of the team that made the error or just part of that team?

Do you work for my supervisor?

nothing worse than sitting around the pool on holiday and my what’s app pings.

He’d screenshot the number in the overflowing work inbox and and said ‘Fucking holidays’

So for the last 4 days of my very much wanted break I was thinking of the shit that was awaiting me on my return.

Sickening. I wish to god I’d reported it as he’s worse than ever now but very clever to hide it all. Our team are all women and we are treated like skivvy’s

As others have said, look for another job.

Unprofessional both in its wording and timing. Even if you were not on leave. People who send unpleasant emails or requests at the end of the day not during the middle, because they are intemperate or cannot plan their workload, are not people anyone should have to work with.

Time off work/holidays with pay is a legal requirement since the 1930s and so there should be no implicit assumption you will read emails during holidays. Nor should you, auditors and those investigating fraud see a red flag if people are not doing so.

I had a manager like this. I eventually learned before I went on leave to send her a lengthy email telling her what instructions I'd left with the team in my absence, my suggestions for what should be done if thing A was to happen, who I'd asked to look after task B in my absence, and so on. I would ask if that seemed OK to her, and if there was anything else she wanted me to organise so things would run smoothly. It made it very difficult for her to criticise me on my return when she'd agreed to it all beforehand.
Obviously it's a bit late for that now, but remember you don't have to allow her to just to criticise you unreasonably and without offering constructive advice. You are entitled to ask what she thinks you could have done differently to prevent whatever went wrong, and to defend the actions you did take. Good luck.

My manager speaks like this constantly in a medical setting. It's so unprofessional. It's drives us all insane and makes us cringe.

Outrageous conduct on her behalf.

Nothing is worth this. Work is literally making you ill.

She could get into a lot of trouble for workplace bullying.

Leave and sue

Ooo is on and has been since I left, she is in charge if I’m not there.

I wrote an extensive handover email before I went off.

The “issue” isn’t in any way calamitous, financial or otherwise, it’s a fuck-up by a relatively new member of staff who is still in training. Note worthy yes, should it have happened? No. End of the world? Absolutely not

There was zero point in the email - it had happened and couldn’t be fixed. It was literally an email to let me know how pissed off and disappointed they were

Id read it as a criticism of you either employing the wrong person to the team (if that is within your remit) or not training the person sufficiently. It can’t be just venting.

Who does your manager report to? Have you kept a diary of events where you have been unduly stressed/harassed/sworn at by her? It’s time to start job hunting and going over her head.

That’s an appalling email to send.

Do you have an HR department - complain in writing and look for another job.

The email is meant to stress you and shift the blame. It’s a really crap management style and is unlikely to improve.

Take it from someone with notoriously poor boundaries, nothing good comes of checking emails when not at work, you need to be really firm with yourself. I have deleted the app I used to access mine and often leave my laptop at work now to switch off completely. I still have struggles but I’m trying to adopt the ethos that if I'm not being paid to deal with shit, I'm not going to do it.

I would - forward to HR, raise a grievance, then get signed off sick with stress.

Horrendous management.

I think you need to set up an automated email response saying "I am on annual leave until xxxx and will deal with your enquiry upon my return."

So I have a boss like this - I can leave extensive notes and that is still not good enough / I might come back to a shitty email.

One time I came back to an email like this and really lost it with her. I demanded a meeting with her that day and had decided I would resign on the spot if she didn’t back down. She funnily enough back down.

It is nonsense to come back from annual leave to these sort of emails and I basically said that to her (politely)

Exactly. I worked in a small company once with a husband and wife MD and Despot team. Once. Only once.

I don't think your boss is wrong to send an email while you're on leave. Every where I've ever worked people still send you emails when you are away. The point is they are sending them at a time convenient to them and you then pick them up when you return to work.

Nothing you have said suggests your boss is expecting you to pick up emails while you are on leave so I don't know where @Echobelly has got this idea of bullying from. It is absolutely not the boss' fault if the OP decides to log in to her work emails while on leave.

The content of the message however is awful and that would be fair to raise with your manager and with HR.

@CheeseCakeSunflowers the OP has said she has put on an out of office message like that. She's just choosing to check her emails anyway and then getting stressed as a result. She's ruining her leave by choice.

I'd reply 'yep, I'm disappointed and pissed off too. I'm on A/L'

Easy to tell OP to stop checking her emails, (and I am evangelical about not reading email outside work hours) but she has said that NOT checking makes her feel anxious, so clearly the problem is bigger than that, and is not a new thing.

OP, it does sound like you need make plans to leave. It doesn't have to be this way.