Colleague has complained about me using wrong pronouns

[CandyCane103]

Name changed but have been on mn for a fair while now.

I work in a role which requires me to do casework supporting vulnerable people. I am supporting a member of staff with some cases that fall under my specialism. We've always got along well and I've really enjoyed working with her. I've been here a number of years, she is 6 months in. One of her cases is a non binary person, and she emails me occasionally for advice as it is a long and complex case (has been ongoing for months now since before she joined the team). I usually get it right but have occasionally written 'she' by accident. They have a female name and I am not intentionally using 'she', it just naturally happens. Instead of speaking to me about it, she has made a complaint to my line manager, who has had a word. Line manager was fine about it and it wasn't a telling off. More of a passing on a message.

Now feels very awkward and think my line managers advice to her was that she should speak to me in the first instance. I really want to raise with my colleague that she should have spoken to me instead of running straight to my line manager. Not sure how to handle this as I've never had a complaint from a member of staff and it has ruffled my feathers.

Would you just leave it be?

I think you should never trust anyone at work unless they have showed to you that you can trust them. It avoids a lot of problems.

But there is absolutely no reason why this person couldn't have raised the issue with her directly, and her manager also felt the same way.

All this person has done is make herself look petty and immature, and made the OP feel less inclined to help her in future.

@CandyCane103 If you're still reading, I'd be interested to know what you decided to do.

My first instinct was to ignore the situation, but maybe this could be a teaching opportunity.

I'd be tempted to take your young colleague for a coffee and say, "Sarah mentioned to me that you'd spoken to her about the fact that I failed to use someone's preferred pronouns. She said she'd told you that you should have raised this with me directly and I was just wondering why you didn't. I felt we had a good working relationship and I'm disappointed that you felt the need to speak to a manager rather than simply let me know I hadn't used the person's preferred pronouns. Is there something about our working relationship so far that made you feel you couldn't trust me?"

Then let the little twerp say their piece.

And then say, "Well, I'm sure you felt you were doing the right thing, but I felt quite undermined and I feel this has damaged our relationship. I will of course continue to help you. But in future, please be mindful of how this sort of approach is likely to be perceived by the people you work with. Obviously if there is ever a serious issue which can't be resolved by a simple conversation with the other person, speaking to a manager is the right course of action. But involving managers for every tiny little issue is likely to annoy both your colleagues and the manager in question. When you've been doing this job for as long as I have you'll understand how important it is to have good people skills."

If the OP lets it damage the working relationship that is petty and immature.

Unless you are the OP’s work colleague you have no idea if she could have approached the OP directly.

The OP says she'd have been happy to be approached directly and the manager told this person they should have approached the OP directly.

It's not a question of "letting" this damage the working relationship. It has damaged it. That's a simple fact. If think you have a good working relationship with someone based on mutual trust and respect and then they go squealing to a manager about you over something completely inconsequential like this, you're not going to like them as much as you did before. You only need a fairly basic level of emotional intelligence to understand this.

If you're so fragile and immature that you need a manager to referee every tiny issue that displeases you in the workplace, you're not going to go very far in life and you need to grow up.

This thread has gone the way it has because it is about pronouns. If it had been racism for example the responses would have been entirely different. That you think the pronouns stuff is bollocks isn’t relevant, some people would see it as discrimination and akin to racism. So if you look at it like that it isn’t minor to the reporter.

If you're so fragile and immature that you need a manager to referee every tiny issue that displeases you in the workplace, you're not going to go very far in life and you need to grow up.

So?

Equally if you over react to every tiny negative thing that happens at work you won’t go far either.

But racism isn't a relevant comparator at all.

If the OP had made a racist remark about a service user then obviously that would be an incredibly serious matter which should be reported to a manager.

That's not what happened. In the context of her job working for an organisation which helps female service users, she accidentally referred to a female service user as "she", forgetting that the female service user in question prefers to be referred to as "they".

Equating that with racism is frankly disgusting and shows just how far down the gender rabbit hole you must be.

In your opinion

Other people see it differently.

I’m not equating it I am saying some people would. I definitely don’t.

Please explain to us how using pronouns to describe accurately describe sex is the same as racism.

I don’t agree it does.

I work with people who would though.

And to be honest the posts above completely prove the point I was making.

Yes well some people see the earth as flat. Some people see certain races as inferior. Some people believe that God created the earth in six days and put dinosaur bones in the ground to troll scientists.

Some people see biological sex as mutable and female rape survivors who don't want trans women in their rape crisis groups or providing their rape counselling as bigots.

Not all views are equally valid.

This

I haven’t said they are.

All that means is that some of the people you work with are idiots.

I think someone who has no people skills that they cannot communicate with their colleagues and instead need to run to management are the ones who are very young and with Arrested Development.

Is your job very ‘us and them’ in terms of culture?

If you were a manager you would encourage your colleagues to learn to COMMUNICATE and work together as a TEAM. Not run to you with problems that someone older than 12 years old should be able to work through.

This isn’t just my workplace I suspect.

No, that's the entire point! Your stance creates an 'us and them' atmosphere. Mine, is one of communication and teamwork. You encourage a hierarchy and an us vs them atmosphere.

Thanks for the feedback, it’s always useful when someone who’s never met you gives you feedback on your management style 👍🏻

You're the one suggesting it's appropriate for employees to go to managers over trivial matters, that's the them and us culture, not one where employees get on with it and speak to each other about minor issues.

I work NHS so need to trust my colleagues. Rather or not I trust management is another answer. But yes you probably right