To feel undermined at work?

[200degrees]

I took a month off work after my husband died.

Since my return, I feel like management don’t take me seriously.

Today I dealt with a vile member of the public. I told a manager what happened and she said she has to “stay neutral” and “not take sides” as she didn’t witness it. When she was taking to him about me, she said to him “you never know what people are going through” which seemed to reference my bereavement. I felt that she did not have my back during the conversation as she seemed to be pandering to him. Later on, she fed back to me what he said and seemed to believe his version of events. Other members who witnessed the incident piped up and explained the person was lying and was being vile, then she apologised and believed my version of events.

This is a manager who has been on nights out with me and has given me award nominations and always came to me for specialist advice - but all of a sudden now seems to be taking what I say with a grain of salt.

I also noticed an error which affects my work today and raised it with another manager. He kept making incorrect assumptions as to why the error was correct and did not believe that I had already checked, until I told him to check. Even after he checked and confirmed I was being truthful and discovered a valid error, he did not want to correct the error. He said to raise it with my manager (who is on AL) as he doesn’t want to go above her head. The system issue is clearly an error and there’s nothing that would be negatively impacted by him changing it there and then.

aibu here?

I’m so sorry to hear of your bereavement. One month is a very short time to take off work so well done for getting back to work relatively soon. I can well understand your frustration with these incidents which you describe as being very poorly handled.

Staff should expect that managers will collect all the relevant information before dismissing or downplaying what happened. In addition, staff should feel supported when they’ve dealt with difficult situations, or brought concerns to management notice.

Your question relates to managers responding to you differently due to your bereavement. It’s difficult to tell if they’re prevaricating due to a weak management style or because they’re not showing confidence in you. Maybe a bit of both.

You say your line manager is on leave so I’d suggest waiting for them to return to discuss these situations and how to go forward. It might take time for your colleagues to see that you’re still efficient and competent. Your approach of being insistent that you’re reliable is the correct one but managers might take a little longer to catch on to this.

You can discuss with your manager whether s/he should raise these incidents with those concerned or simply to continue to provide evidence through your further work. You should schedule further meetings to evaluate progress. Make sure you’re getting the support from your manager that you deserve at this tough time for you.

It sounds like they don't believe you about anything anymore or like someone has said something about your behaviour? Might be worth confronting it on the nose next time, with, "Have I given you some reason to not believe a word I say?"

Sounds like she handled it as diplomatically as she could.

What were you expecting her to do? Kick off with a customer for your sake? Like she said, she wasn't there so had to stay neutral.

@MollieMarie I wasn’t expecting her to “kick off”

I wasn’t expecting her to undermine me or reference my personal life to appease him

Why did an angry member of the public need to know that I’m “going through” something? My personal life isn’t relevant here, other witnesses attested I was polite to him.

He was angry because of company policy (which I informed him about) then started following me around the office shouting insults at me. So whilst she can stay neutral, I didn’t feel supported by her. No one should have to deal with verbal abuse at work by members of the public after all.

You have every right not to have your personal life to be referenced by colleagues in dealing with a belligerent person.

When your manager returns, email what occurred and your unhappiness with how these issues have been handled.

My condolences to you.

To be fair to the manager, she didn’t directly reference your personal life. She was diplomatic and made a general statement to the customer which appeased the situation. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to do anything other than that while they were there, but she was also willing to amend her opinion once other colleagues backed up your version of events. Sounds level headed and reasonable to me 🤷‍♀️

Re the other manager, if he’s on a level with the manager who made the error, maybe he just thinks it’s more appropriate that they be the one to fix it.

I think my issue is that before my absence I was given a high level of trust and respect by both of these managers. Since returning, it’s like that has gone and that I need to be fact checked almost. Both of these people used to literally sign off on my work without checking it as my work was carried out to a high/accurate standard over a period of years so they trusted my expertise.

No holes occurred in my work to justify a change in their behaviour. The only thing that changed is that I was absent from work so it feels a bit shitty. I am hoping that it’s just me being over sensitive as the alternative seems worse!

A month is such a short time to deal with losing your dh. I work in a 75% desk based and 25% difficult service user role and when things are going on in my personal life the difficulties in work seem amplified.

Personally if I was you and if you get decent sick pay, I'd take another month or three off. I don't think I'd trust my feelings/be able to see objectively in your position.

@TheMorigoul thanks. Work would not take kindly to me being off again unfortunately as they’re understaffed and wanted me to return sooner. No further action was taken as they said it was a “one-off” for me.

But I think I should be at work now. I can see things objectively, particularly with service users. eg I know when to raise escalations of their concerns to get the best outcome and I’m thorough and listen to them. There’s no issues with my work.

I do trust my feelings as I’m over the worst of it. I’m not an overly emotional person and at work, even if I think things aren’t right, I am always polite and never make a fuss. So my standards of behaviour are okay. I’m not struggling being at work.