Problems at work

[honeycookies]

I have been promoted. I am moving offices within the same company, transferring across as an internal candidate.

My manager has been acting up in a temporary capacity to be my manager for 2 months, and I have been promoted to a permanent senior position which I believe has pissed him off.

He knew I applied for this role. When I told him I was successful, he agreed I could leave within 1-2 weeks by request of my new manager. a day later changed his mind and requested I stay for 5 weeks before starting my new role.

He has also said I can’t take annual leave in these 5 weeks. This isn’t in guidance, he’s made this up. Guidance states I can take AL as normal.

He also wants me to remain as a point of contact for things in the office. He wants my name to still be attached to certain pieces of work. This will inevitably lead to emails being sent my way about my old role, whilst I’m in my new role. I don’t think this is appropriate. I would be the equivalent of his manager in my new role so I shouldn’t be spending time doing secretarial work for my old office.

aibu to think he’s being difficult here?

Ah Thanks @Aprilx - massive misread by me - doh!

That is what he's doing.

Ask HR for clarification on the holiday, and come back saying "HR have confirmed this isn't a problem so these are the days I'll be away"

Re: the contact point, again as others have said check with the new manager if this is part of your role. When they say no, just a straight formal email saying this isn't part of the JD and you will do a full and comprehensive handover for his team.

And thank him for every opportunity etc etc. be super professional.

He's a dick.

I am very surprised by these replies about annual leave. It is up to the manager to agree to leave in just about any job anywhere. If he doesn’t want to approve leave it is up to him, it is not up to HR to over rule that either, it is only five weeks, it is not like somebody has been denied leave all year, in that case, yes HR would need to get involved. Some companies have a policy of no annual leave during a notice period.

Employers can dictate when their employees take all their holiday so having a five week period where they prohibit it is nothing unusual.

This.

He's fuming to be losing control of you, and wants to maximise what he has. But you earned this promotion, and now it's time to start acting like it.

Get your leave approved, and don't worry about the rest.

So he sheepishly approached me first thing and said my leave has been approved. I did send HR an email asking where the guidance is stating people transferring to new roles cannot take AL. I can’t take AL in my new role initially as I’ll be in training, so it doesn’t make sense to block AL before I start the role too.

That's good news.

Have you pushed back on the request to be a contact still?

Not yet! My plan is to:
1.raise it again on my last day
2.send an email CC-ing their big boss if I ever receive an email relating to their work
3.the nuclear option - revoke my access to certain systems to prevent them from allocating that work to my account, but this will simultaneously block my access so I’ll need to see if new role requires access or not

I'm not sure this is the right way to go about it - leaving it until your last day gives him the argument that you've left them in there lurch at the last minute, therefore you will need to cover until someone else is able to pick it up. He'll just bring that up in an email ping pong game if you start cc'ing in his boss, too.

The way I would do it is:

1. I would speak to your new line manager telling them your current line manager's plan and why you feel this isn't a good idea - your new manager should back you on this, you can't learn and take over a new role if you're spending part of your time on another, it comes out of your new manager's budget and they wouldn't want to cover it.
2. Once you've done that send an email detailing your handover plan to your current line manager, cc'ing in your new line manager. Your plan should state that you intend to complete the handover in full by x date. Include any of the work that your current manager wants you to carry over in the plan.
3. If you get comeback on it, get your new line manager to help - that's what they're there for.
4. If no comeback on it, then carry out plan as described. On the day you finish, revoke any access to any systems you do not need; any systems you DO still need you should contact the system administrators to remove yourself from any workflows that will assign you work for your old role - this is possible on most systems.
5. If, after you start your new job, any work gets assigned manually, either on the systems or via email, forward to your old line manager, cc'ing in new line manager.

Best way to do it is to nip it in the bud before it happens - leaving it until the last day will just leave you open to this carrying on for longer!

I wouldn't have agreed to 5 weeks or any of his crap.

You're above him now and his behaviour isn't doing him any favors moving forward.

I totally get him blocking a large chunk of annual leave; ie to agree x weeks a have you off for half of that time would be unreasonable, but three days out of five weeks sounds like he is trying to play power games.