I think my boss is scared of me - should I call it out?

[CaponeOnTax]

My boss is very able and experienced but not a massive people person so we’re a small team. We’re each other’s key colleague. What’s bothering me is my boss seems to dread being in a room one-to-one with me. I don’t know if it is weird or AIBU to think it is weird or what.

Around November my boss took me into a meeting room to give me what he thought was a dressing down (closed door). It didn’t go well, I had plenty to say from my side and HR ended up involved. After that, any meetings he instigated were either with the door open or in weird places round the office without doors, so in open plan. A marked change from previous years of working together.

We’re both mainly WFH so it doesn’t come up much and I thought we’d got through it. But again today we had a meeting and he left the door open. The implication seems to be that I am too unpredictable/toxic/not sure what really? to be in a room with. I find it hurtful, unprofessional and odd but … should I say something?

YABU - he can leave the door open if that’s how he prefers it, everyone’s entitled to feel at ease
YANBU - weird and unprofessional, you need to be able to work in a meeting room in your company’s office with the door shut.

Why had he instigated a meeting in the first place to give you a ‘dressing down’ what did you do?

Your first post does make it sound like he was reasonable and you laid in to him.to the extent that hr had to be involved but your further posts indicate that he took you to task on something, you stood your ground but also cried due to personal issues.on top of everything which is unlike you usually and he went to hr - poss as he has been taken to hr for similar behaviour and wanted to get in before you - and since then is refusing to be in a room with you.

In that case I would use a meeting where being in an open room is not appropriate and request a move to a closed room and see what happens then.

Exactly my view.

I get the impression it was thoroughly uncomfortable all-round, and boss doesn't fancy a repeat!

@LookingOldTheseDays that's fair enough but surely there are loads of job roles where you can be client facing but may have a meeting where confidential info like that is discussed - eg a lawyer in a law firm, or anyone working at a consultancy or agency (eg an investor relations or PR agency). Plus there was nothing to say the MLRO wasn't already informed. I obviously don't know what the OP does exactly but it seems unnecessary to try to pick holes in her post and say that her account doesn't make sense. Surely she would know bettering than you what her meetings are about!

I'm just finding all the replies to this thread very odd as so many people are making assumptions that paint the OP in a bad light and I genuinely don't understand why.

'Guys thanks for all the posts' 🙄 you sound insufferable. It's irrelevant if you're male or female, if you came into my office and did all that I'd think you were unhinged.

What has she done?

you sound insufferable. It's irrelevant if you're male or female, if you came into my office and did all that I'd think you were unhinged.

Did all what @DramaLlama20 ? What all did I do? When did I go into anyone’s office? You posting just doesn’t take into account the facts - you are making it up with ‘burn the witch’ type blindness to what happened, and an unwillingness to accept my professionalism.

I am ‘insufferable’ and ‘unhinged’ but I have done nothing. I just haven’t acquiesced to posters like you, often really forceful in their criticism.

...I have done nothing

So what reason did the boss have to call you in for a "dressing down" in the first place, and regardless of who took it to them how did HR come to be involved?

It was a dispute about an external consultant recommendation for a client and was resolved in the meeting. I don’t know what was said to HR but they contacted me days later to check I was OK, so that’s how I know he went.

The money laundering example was just not very believable, because in a regulated sector all professionals know either (a) not to discuss it at all, or (b) that it was to be discussed on a need to know basis only. If this manager was an appropriate person to have that conversation with, they shouldn't need "calling out" to get them to close the meeting room door. Not in my experience anyway.

(Not sure how a PR agency could be relevant to this sort of thing, as PR firms aren't generally involved in facilitating financial transactions for clients.)

Tbh, the OP's approach on this thread has been confrontational, so I can see why people are reacting as they are. She says she only used the phrase "call it out" to get a reaction, but that's a confrontational and manipulative approach in itself. She can't blame people for responding to the words that she chose to use.

The professional way to deal with this situation would be to say, "I'd like to discuss [confidential thing], so I'm just going to close the door". No drama or confrontation needed.

Why are you so hysterically devoted to the word "trope'?

And do you really think he's scared of you? And if so, how do you call fear out? You can't, it's not a thing. This makes you sound a bit mad and not in a Strong Women way, more in a Liz Truss divorced from reality way.

Then you suggest you actually think he's trying to make you feel uncomfortable and isn't scared at all, leaving lots of people trying to answer a question that no longer exists. Your know exactly what you think about that one so need no help but have no problem critiquing the advice you've requested.

You then feel the need to explain how awfully clever you've been getting people to click on your thread, not seeming to realise there's not much point getting advice on a scenario you don't believe in yourself. The arrogance of writing a thread title then revealing your real position once everyone has clicked is somewhat obnoxious and has garnered sympathy for your boss.

The only thing there seems any consensus and clarity about is a collective undercurrent of thankfulness that you are not working under any of us TBH.

I think the reason people have responded so harshly is that from the beginning of the thread you were extremely vague about what your boss is actually like and what really went on in the original meeting.

You seem to have expected people to read between the lines of: 'My boss isn't really a people person. He called me in for a (justified?) dressing down over something and it didn't go well (for him?). HR were involved (by you?)' and take it to mean 'My boss told me off when I'd done nothing wrong. He's a bully and he made me cry. He involved HR and now he's acting like I'm the one who's been aggressive and threatening*.'

I'd normally jump to take the side of a female employee being bullied by a male boss, but it honestly didn't read like that!

Confrontational, manipulative, hysterical, ‘just not very believable’…

That’s just the last few posts. My posts just haven’t been a patch on the aggressive/disparaging posts directed at me.So many posters directing sexism and bile at me. Just plain ignoring what I wrote so they could take the opportunity to try to paint me as unstable or dishonest or [insert other trope here].

Everything I wrote is factual. I had a tough meeting in which I cried (unusual) because boss was mean (not unusual) and now meetings are open door (very unusual). I was considering raising this - considering but hadn’t done.

I’ve been told I am lots of awful things on this thread and haven’t responded in kind. But, phew. Hopefully that is testament to how professional I am under pressure.

Great response op! You're a real trope!

Phew! You nearly had to engage with a rational challenge there but a bit of bewilderment and victimhood got the situation nicely turned around.

It's treatment to something alright. Not professionalism.

You sound a bit mad and not in a Strong Women way, more in a Liz Truss divorced from reality way.… arrogance … obnoxious… The only thing there seems any consensus and clarity about is a collective undercurrent of thankfulness that you are not working under any of us TBH.

There’s a lot of spite in your post @Languagelanguage . You sound forceful and like you want to hurt me or damage my sense of professionalism.

I don’t think your assessment is an accurate representation of either me or of even most of the other posters who thought the door should stay open.

Why are you so devoted to misogynistic language like ‘hysterical’?

You are part of the problem, whereas OP has been gracious on this thread on the face of aggression.

Please don’t speak for me by saying we are part of your consensus, I want nothing to do with you and your views. I feel sorry for the imaginary people who work under you.

I wasn't the first one to use the word hysterical. It was.... The op.

She’s under attack by 200+ people, I’m surprised she hasn’t told everyone to fuck off.

Maybe next time you have a one on one meeting with him in the office and you feel that the content is confidential try saying ‘ I need to talk about something in confidence, may I shut the door?’

Maybe he does feel wary about being with alone, maybe he doesn’t? Maybe HR had a word with him when he spoke to you and advised this course of action. Unfortunately unless you ask him directly you will likely never know - and even if you do ask him he is not likely to tell you is he?

A glance at the voting and comments would suggest you're firmly in the minority. Did the op awaken the feminist board to a Cause? Are you lately arrived to protect a beleaguered sister?

The op's identity as a woman doesn't protect her from being unreasonable and rather unhinged. Who starts a thread with one question, then changes it and blithely explains to everyone they just put that to make everyone click on it, then proceeds to explain to everyone who doesn't support them how little they know about her professional working environment.

Let's return to the original question of the thread.

No, op. I don't think your boss is scared of you. I think he is aware of your remarkable ability to spin off on a self righteous tangent full of zeal for imaginary woes and he doesn't want to be accused of any more tropery thanks you've already implied he's responsible for. Whether or not he's scared of you, it would be inappropriate for you to call out your boss but if you choose to close the door yourself and see what happens, you can obviously do that and don't need any hand holding on being advised that you are able to do that.

On other news, you are exceptionally irritating in your self congratulatory and cliche ridden posting style. I was particularly unimpressed when you labelled posters' reasonable disagreement as hysterical, a word that I was surprised to hear you using to invalidate other women's views. Knowing that you had used it so couldn't really complain, I also used it because imo it is deserved here. You are posting hundreds of words and reading a grand narrative into a door being left open. The boss is wrong, most of mumsnet is wrong, and you are Always Right. You sound self involved and exhausting. No one else is womaning or working as well as you. And that is both oppressive and unprofessional.

Go to the canteen and sit at a quiet table. The place can't be that busy, especially post Covid. Unless you shout nobody will hear you. Promise

Oh, she's having far too much fun to do that.

Seriously, what motivates this kind of post?

You are telling me I am unhinged but you sound very much passionate about my dilemma and thread. Do you want to hurt me and/or the posters that have been pleasant? I really do not understand.