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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To try and get my awful colleague sacked

235 replies

WhenHarryMetSandro · 14/01/2023 08:21

Some background is that I returned from maternity leave in October and my reduced days (went to 4 days) meant that my maternity cover has remained in the business in a slightly senior role to accommodate my reduced hours and so she has retained some of the admin parts of my role. She was part of the team and was given the ML cover in what I believe was an error of judgement from management. She got it after the person given it went on long term sick leave a week after I left. She was hated at the time by the team. She now has no line management responsibilities and I think misses the control.

She is still hated by the team. She is a micromanager, rude, disrespectful and generally, a jobs worth that tells on people like the teachers pet at school. She isn’t well liked around the rest of the business and people often comment on their displeasure of interacting with her. She will do things to make things harder for my team who are all great, hard working and lovely people. I cannot understand why! They really tolerate her BS most of the time. She will get involved in things that don’t fall under her job just to be a cow and ruin something for someone else. She usually gets nothing but support but she is pushing people to the point of leaving and getting sick of it.

Two of my team left during my ML time because they couldn’t stand her as their manager.

Things she has done recently that makes me think she is an arsehole are as follows :

sent round the company policy about not using the company printers for colour when a team member (worked at the company 10 years, always lovely person) printed out 5 sheets of A4 paper in colour for a charity function as her own printer had shut down whilst printing those last 5 pages. I had given the ok to do this. She knew this and still complained about it.

tells tales to me if my team are 2 minutes late getting to work. I don’t want this level of observation. it’s weird and unneeded.

insists on working in freezing cold temperatures and often sets this to her preference despite it being uncomfortable for the rest of the team who sit in hats and gloves to accommodate

has thrown away birthday cakes brought in by the team members if they’ve haven’t accommodated for her specific tastes (not allergies, just cake preferences)

I have made some adjustments to work shifts to create better work life balance for the team which has been well received by the team and she has painstakingly reviewed our company policy and flagged why I can’t or shouldn’t have done this despite knowing the team really would benefit. it’s a grey area and at managers discretion as long as it benefits the team with no detriment to the business. which it doesn’t.

Checks up on my own work and that of others. We are all very capable, intelligent people and she takes great pleasure in pointing out of anything looks out of the ordinary which normally back fires as there is a reason for it. It’s just embarrassing that my team or I feel we then need to explain or justify to her (we don’t)

AIBU to think that getting this person out of business is the only reasonable thing to do. Any advice? I’m half joking really. I appreciate times are hard at the moment so don’t like the idea of someone losing their job but she is just awful. How do you deal with people like this? She has been at the company 5 years now and has been awful the entire time. Makes most of us dread working and each interaction leaves a sour taste for days. Always the busiest person, always the person who doesn’t need to muck in. Always a tell tale. Always got an eye over her shoulder despite us being a really nice and supportive team. I mean, aside from this post but it’s past the point of thinking she will see the light.

OP posts:
LynetteScavo · 14/01/2023 13:34

Well, she does sound like a miserable, difficult colleague, but I couldn't quite follow from the OP her position in the company etc.

How will you get her sacked though? Throwing away cake, pulling people up for time keeping and reminding everyone not to use the colour printer are hardly sackable offence's.

FriteFuaite · 14/01/2023 13:46

I always recommend Alison on the askamanager.com site, I've had so much work help from reading the posts and comments. Try posting on there, op! I don't understand why you have had such snippy responses on here.

bluegreygreen · 14/01/2023 13:48

What @DanceCapital says

It's all fairly minor stuff that's easily enough dealt with, isn't it? Especially as she no longer has a line manager role for your team

WhenHarryMetSandro · 14/01/2023 14:19

sorry I have kept it vague in her and my role but she doesn’t really have anything to do with my team anymore but as a small business (less than 15 people in the company and no HR department) we do all sit in the same office so she still monitors even though she wouldn’t have day to day contact with any of my team other than sharing the office space. She is a different department but sits close by.

OP posts:
Oblomov22 · 14/01/2023 14:20

So, cut the bullshit OP, what exactly are you going to DO? You've had loads of good advice.

Oblomov22 · 14/01/2023 14:22

It starts with "Can I have a word"?

Not that hard. Is it?

Eddielizzard · 14/01/2023 14:29

Is it worth talking to the business owner / director? Say this person is ruining the working environment and is deeply unpleasant. Then if nothing changes I'd move on. You can't sack her if you're not her LM I'd have thought.

WhenHarryMetSandro · 14/01/2023 14:35

I don’t think I can sack her and that isn’t really the plan. I was being stupid adding it in there, I was more looking for advice to deal with someone who can make the energy so unsettled when it really doesn’t need to be that way. I realise it was flippant and that everyone has jumped on that part. If you’re going to comment that it’s what I WROTE and why did I WRITE IT if I didn’t mean it. Come on… I was clearly being ridiculous.

OP posts:
Tigertigertigertiger · 14/01/2023 14:36

I feel your pain, OP

cant understand all the nasty comments directed towards you.

WhenHarryMetSandro · 14/01/2023 14:38

Eddielizzard · 14/01/2023 14:29

Is it worth talking to the business owner / director? Say this person is ruining the working environment and is deeply unpleasant. Then if nothing changes I'd move on. You can't sack her if you're not her LM I'd have thought.

We both report directly to the owner so I plan to discuss with him directly. He’s very level headed and has been struggling to understand why the atmosphere has shifted so much. He is a great guy but the nature of the business we are in means he’s often on the road and not in the office as much and doesn’t get involved in the day to day.

OP posts:
Eddielizzard · 14/01/2023 14:41

Because not everyone is like you and your flippancy didn't come through.

Then you can make a joke of it. Haha here's the cake police! Quick, eat up before you have to fish it out the bin haha etc.

roundtable · 14/01/2023 14:56

WhenHarryMetSandro · 14/01/2023 10:35

I’m not mates with my team. I am a courteous and thoughtful manager of people, adults who can and do a brilliant job. They don’t need me to hit the roof if they were running late due to daycare drop off or traffic. I treat people how I’d like to be treated, with a bit of respect and dignity. It’s a workplace, not a prison camp. I am not there to make their days worse. I don’t socialise outside of work, I don’t talk badly about this colleague (or any colleague) and keep it friendly but professional as I think you should as a LM. I’ve posted on MN in a way I obviously wouldn’t discuss with my team.

Reasons she hasn’t been sacked are that I tried to pull it back, thought we could try something new and see if it helped. I made cases for her and worked with her. It helped for a few weeks or months but it would all start again once her fear of the sack would wear off.

Christ alive op, your thread attracted just the sort of person you were talking about in your op.

I do agree that I'm not sure being annoying can be a sackable offence so I think you are going to have to either ignore it, take it higher or look for a new job.

She sounds like a drain. I've worked with one until fairly recently and I nearly quit because of it. She's been now moved elsewhere and now the person who is managing her is suffering in the same way. The person who could ultimately do something about it won't - so nothing changes. People like that are too narrow minded and selfish. You can't reason with it and they are usually manipulative enough not to do anything sackable. Combined with weak upper management, it's an awful situation.

Good luck you have my sympathies.

Allergictoironing · 14/01/2023 15:03

Company Printers - not for personal use and you aren't management to give permission are you? Erm yes the OP IS the manager of her team.

Lateness - It's obviously often enough to piss people who can make it to work on time. Depends on when "on time" is, and the reasons for it. A couple of minutes late now and again due to traffic, time that's made up, isn't usually a big issue in most offices except for big busy call centres.

Temperatures - are you aware there's no cap on business rates increasing - ours has increased nearly 200% and we are sitting in hats and gloves - heating or pay - you decide. Not this person's place to police or control this. There's guidance on minimum "reasonable" office temperatures, but the effectiveness of the rest of the team must also be a factor.

Birthday cake - if she's that unpopular why are people buying her cakes and why would anyone buy or eat a cake they don't like? Not her cake - it was another person's birthday, with the cake made especially to their tastes (read the OPs updates). And nobody was making her eat it, she was throwing away somebody else's cake so other people couldn't eat it (no safety issues).

Adjustments - what you've done is create an expection for other employees so again, you're in the wrong. Not at all. I work in the same building as other teams. Some need to be very fixed in their times due to the nature of their job, in others it's much more flexible, or they can sort out earlier starts and later finishes between themselves as long as there's cover. We all manage to understand that what's OK for some teams isn't for others, nobody has a problem with it.

This person has no responsibility for the OP's team; from the OP's posts it looks like she has no managerial responsibilities for the overall running of the company. She is trying to interfere with the OP's management of her team.

EasterIsland · 14/01/2023 15:10

The PITA person doesn’t like the friendship and so I believe was being vindictive.

It's comments like these which I think make you a tad unreasonable.

You clearly don't like her. We get it.

But you also feel yourself to be a better person than her. Again, this is probably tre, but such a moral judgement has no place in the workplace.

Your colleague said that " the smell was upsetting her as she doesn’t like chocolate and it was closest to her desk."

If you are such a courteous & reasonable manager, why was this not of concern to you? Surely a colleague upset by food smells is worthy of even a little bit of concern? Why is this so terrible, but other colleagues turning up late to work or using company resources to print off colour copies for a non-company event ("but oooooh, it's for chariddeee!") are not terrible?

I think this is why you're getting some harsh responses @WhenHarryMetSandro

Cherrysoup · 14/01/2023 15:56

KimberleyClark · 14/01/2023 09:05

Lighting candles could well be against the company’s health and safety policy.

Because the OP works in a firework factory?

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/01/2023 16:02

EasterIsland · 14/01/2023 15:10

The PITA person doesn’t like the friendship and so I believe was being vindictive.

It's comments like these which I think make you a tad unreasonable.

You clearly don't like her. We get it.

But you also feel yourself to be a better person than her. Again, this is probably tre, but such a moral judgement has no place in the workplace.

Your colleague said that " the smell was upsetting her as she doesn’t like chocolate and it was closest to her desk."

If you are such a courteous & reasonable manager, why was this not of concern to you? Surely a colleague upset by food smells is worthy of even a little bit of concern? Why is this so terrible, but other colleagues turning up late to work or using company resources to print off colour copies for a non-company event ("but oooooh, it's for chariddeee!") are not terrible?

I think this is why you're getting some harsh responses @WhenHarryMetSandro

Reasonableness. Everybody arrives a few minutes late at some point, and if apologies and a credible explanation are proffered, so what. An employee who never, ever takes the piss asks a favour and is told yes, once - no big deal to the company, pays dividends in increasing employee loyalty and feeling of being valued as individuals.

These are not in the same league as a senior employee claiming to find the smell of chocolate cake so upsetting that she had to throw it in the bin immediately, without asking the person who'd brought it in or been given it to put it in a tin, or any other sensible, proportionate measure.

WomanStanleyWoman2 · 14/01/2023 16:40

I think all you can do here is handle every interaction in as factual and detached a way as possible. You need to take this woman to one side and say “Look X, I know you were line managing this team while I was on maternity leave, but you’re not anymore. I am - and if I have concerns about timekeeping, output, use of office equipment or anything else, I will address them. I don’t require a daily bulletin from you or anyone else. Is that clear?”

If - or more likely when - she does the whole “But I’m only trying to help” routine, tell her “Thank you, but I’m fully capable of managing my own team. I’m sure you have more than enough to do in your own job”.

ZeilanBlueSky · 14/01/2023 16:48

insists on working in freezing cold temperatures and often sets this to her preference despite it being uncomfortable for the rest of the team who sit in hats and gloves to accommodate

There's a legal minimum for offices. If people are having to wear hats and gloves, then the temp may be too cold. I also think the majority opinion should take precedence anyway.

So in my office, the temp is higher than I'm comfortable with. Instead of insisting the heating is turned down for me, I have a desk fan, that cools the air round just me. That's a better way to make it comfortable for each other.

pleaseandthankyou45 · 14/01/2023 17:48

I can't find the response to my previous post but just wanted to clarify that I meant to set boundaries with her. It sounds like you and your coworkers have been too nice and if she has no business managing or sticking her nose into what you guys are doing then just simply don't let her. If she does have business doing it then limited to where she actually is needed and then keep her out of where she does not have any influence.

Murdoch1949 · 14/01/2023 17:56

If she is as awful as you state, her line management are being irresponsible not tackling her, giving verbal then written warnings. On smaller issues, eg lobbing the cake, why was she not immediately called out for that unacceptable behaviour? She gets away with her behaviour because her colleagues allow her to. Stand up.

Allergictoironing · 14/01/2023 18:12

There's a legal minimum for offices.

Unfortunately there isn't, the government says "reasonable" and suggests 16 c as the minimum for non-manual workers.

Your colleague said that " the smell was upsetting her as she doesn’t like chocolate and it was closest to her desk."
If you are such a courteous & reasonable manager, why was this not of concern to you? Surely a colleague upset by food smells is worthy of even a little bit of concern?

Surely a colleague upset by food smells would ask for the food to be moved rather than throw it into the bin without saying anything and giving anyone a chance to move it or put it in a sealed container?

2bazookas · 14/01/2023 18:35

She is still hated by the team.....They really tolerate her BS most of the time..... She usually gets nothing but support but she is pushing people to the point of leaving and getting sick of it.

Spot the contradictions.

Nishky32 · 14/01/2023 18:37

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/01/2023 12:32

Including the teetotal staff, those who can't have alcohol because of pregnancy or a medical condition, people on a very low income, people with caring responsibilities who can't stay after normal working hours? Much more inclusive and cheaper to have a cake in the workplace during the working day.

You are just being silly.

Nishky32 · 14/01/2023 18:40

Nishky32 · 14/01/2023 18:37

You are just being silly.

I have been all of those things and still managed to socialise….

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/01/2023 18:44

Good for you. Compulsory socialising outside working hours, especially when it involves alcohol, is recognised as a barrier to certain groups, especially women. But if you've not been affected, that must all be just hooey, mustn't it?