This is one of my employees.
I have brought it up formally and informally but I think it’s such an ingrained part of her personality that she can’t change it. It’s driving me mad (and everyone else) so I need some suggestions.
She argues or corrects pretty much everything. She’s often wrong. Or it’s completely irrelevant. It has the effect of making the person she’s correcting uncomfortable and embarrassed, or just enraged.
Some random examples. She raised her voice to tell a colleague she was wrong about the flavour of a sample, in front of the customer. Colleague had it correct. The customer looked awkward and confused. There was no need for any of the interaction.
If a customer asks a question she will jump
in and answer it, cutting off the person who was asked. If the person gets a word in, she will say ‘well yes but’ and change the answer slightly to get her oar in.
Argues the toss whenever asked to do something. For example can you get 3 of these for me? No you’ll only need 2 so I’ll get those. This is just so constant that it’s become a joke.
Tells me frequently, loudly and publicly that I need to do XYZ when either a) I know, b) I don’t need to, c) I’ve done it.
Sometimes I just stare at her in a WTF fashion. Sometimes I state my point again. Sometimes I take her to one side and pull her up properly. Nothing changes.
She has been there the longest out of the whole team (and calls herself the OG out of my earshot) but when I say the longest, we are a new team and she has been here less than a year. I’ve been here six months. She thinks I don’t know what I am doing and tells the rest of the team this frequently. This is because I do things differently to the previous manager. The previous manager was let go and I was brought in to replace her.
She argues with customers! Not aggressively but by correcting them. Like if they mispronounce a product name, or ask for something we don’t have. She’s really abrupt in her manner.
This one is petty, but she very grandly ‘let me know’ in front of the team about a big operational change that was happening. My boss had told her on my day off when he visited. I obviously already knew about it (it was my fucking idea!) but either she genuinely thought she knew before me or was trying to make out to the team that she knew more than me. I did actually laugh out loud at her and say yes, why do you think I wouldn’t know that?
She just has a pathological need to be the person with all the answers and to have the last word. And I so far haven’t managed to get through to her to stop. It is getting to the point I am probably going to actually sack her because I’ve brought it up in two appraisals and several times informally and nothing is changing. And I’m sick of dealing with complaints from the team and customers about her. So before I get to that point, help me with some tactics. Please.