What is the smartest way of dealing with a new manager at work who nitpicks despite not really understanding my job?

[AngelaBeverage]

This is so frustrating.

At my workplace there are several smallish teams (4 - 8 people) and in each team one person is the team leader. This person also does the same job as the rest of us but is paid more for doing more administration, going to the management meetings and feeding back whatever management wants this week, and generally being the point of call for anything that doesn't fall in the standard role remit. I would say that 80% of the team leader's role is just to do her job like the rest of us. 20% extra stuff on top.

In my team, we are all qualified professionals who have been doing this job for quite a long time. We work collaboratively at times, and there is a decent amount of respect for each other's expertise and professionalism. I like my collegues and often learn from them.

Also worth saying that although one person is the team leader, other people in the team might be the authority on a particular aspect of the job. I have a contracted part of my job which makes me the lead on one aspect of our work for the whole staff, and management defer to me on this particular thing because I have experience and qualifications in this field. The same is true for my collegues in other areas.

For reasons best known to themselves, management have appointed a new team leader in our team who has never actually done our job before. She has been extremely heavy handed in her first two weeks, definitely trying to make the point that she's The Boss. She assigns us admin tasks, which is unusual. She says things like "and when I say that's due on Monday, I mean before 8am Monday, not at some point when you feel like it." She has not made the slightest effort to get to know any of us, and she is certainly not coming from any perspective of respect for any of us being able to do our jobs.

We are not a team in need of 'fixing'. In fact, we're doing well and have been leading the way this year. She has come from a background in managing a small business. I think she thinks we're staff. Which, I suppose we are, but it's really getting everyone's back up to be spoken to constantly like teenagers trying to cut corners in their part-time job. We all work hard and take pride in our work.

I have a large piece of work coming out in a couple of weeks and she asked told me she would like a sample so she could check I was on the right track. This is unheard of. (She has never actually done the thing I'm doing, whereas I have done it many times before). I asked her what she wanted to check for, and she told me that she checked my collegue too and found they were overusing pronouns in their writing. WTF?? Anyway, I gritted my teeth and sent her a page of my work and she's sent it back covered in highlighters, and apparently I overuse pronouns too. (I'm actually going to quote her feedback: "You have used two many pronouns. Can you join some sentences together so you use less?" I promise I'm not making this up.)

I can't complain to management (very complicated situation). I'm stuck with her for the rest of the year. How do I manage this without being rude or bursting a blood vessel in my temple?

Please, please, does anyone have any calm and measured advice on how best to deal with this situation?

Ask where and who has decided the level of pronouns? When was this decided and why weren’t you informed?

She is your boss. Do what she says. If any of her requests are unclear or you're unsure of the purpose of them, ask.

"Do you mean I have used two too many pronouns, or just too many pronouns?"

"Why is too many pronouns a problem? This is how I've been writing since I started this role 11 decades ago, and it has never posed a problem".

Question everything she does in this manner

1. I do a great line in diffident.
2. You need to find people like this amusing. They have to live with themselves 24/7 & you can be grateful you don't. It helps if they have no power over you, but otherwise, she'll exhaust herself and continue to make a fool of herself.
3. Choose the battles carefullyl
4. Did she actually spell too as two?
5. She'll probably calm down, just has something to prove until she realises she can't spread herself so thin.

Honestly I'd be minded to send her all the pages and invite her to comment if she wants, advising her of the deadlines. And yes I'd be amused at the sheer stupidity of some suggestions she made. Still have to implement them, but then she owns the final product not me.

Ultimately is she responsible for the outputs? As long as she gets flack for final product and I don't, she could crack on with the micro-managing.

What happens if you just ignore her? If someone clearly illiterate told me to run sentences together or cut down on pronouns, I’d change the wording in a couple of sentences so I could prove I wasn’t just being awkward, but I would not consider her “advice” worth taking.

1. @lljkk "Did she actually spell too as two?"

She actually did. Am assuming typo rather than illiteracy, but still...

Is she running it through AI or even just the Editor on Word and feeding back the results?

My work likes us to use plain English rather than formal language with our customers and that generally means more pronouns and less passive writing. Whatever AI she is using is presumably set to 'formal' writing.

I would ask her what the problem is with pronouns and have her explain why you need to cut down on them. Ask her to give you an example of a piece of work with fewer pronouns and explain why it is better.

Ask for examples for every single thing she asks for.

Picking up on @lljkk ‘s point about ‘two’ and ‘too’, she should have used ‘fewer’ not ‘less’.
Being pedantic about your use of pronouns exposes her lack of understanding of the content. She needs to have everything explained very simply as there’s no prior knowledge.
You could adopt her suggestions in the hope it will expose her pointless nitpicking to her superiors.
You could tire her out by asking endless irrelevant questions to ‘check’ you’re on the right path. Be sure to look sincere.
You could gently suggest her managers prefer the style you have used for the last eleven decades.
How have other colleagues reacted to her?

I'd ask why and where this sudden change has come from. Say you've written like this with no issue for the last 20 years and weren't aware of a company policy change. Email her so there's a paper trail. Even if she verbally replies, follow up with a "just to summarise our conversation" email.

I’d reply with ‘noted’ or send her response back corrected in highlighter, with an inner tinkly laugh: “ ‘two’? I presume you mean ‘too’? And I hope you mean ‘fewer’, surely, not ‘less’, but thank you for your feedback Sue, noted …
But then I can be petty AF.
Sympathies @AngelaBeverage. She sounds a nightmare.

Why can't you raise it with management?

"You have used two many pronouns. Can you join some sentences together so you use less?"

I hope you picked her up on her use of "less" when she should have used fewer!

Micromanagers are a complete pain in the arse. I had one for a while who was so bad she was known as "Anal Annie". It was her first management job and I think it came from a lack of confidence, as she got much better after a while and she was actually a decent manager apart from that sort of thing. And, like yours OP, she'd never actually done the job the rest of us were doing, so didn't have a feel for what was important and what was just window dressing.

Being micromanaged is soul destroying, so I feel for you. We get an annual supervision meeting with the next manager in line where we can raise this sort of stuff.

Ask her for an up-to-date copy of the company handbook on house style, as you were unaware of this new rule limiting pronouns, which hasn't been picked up on before.

Or ask her to rewrite the page in the style she is requesting, so you have a management approved guideline to follow.

Why can't you discuss these issues with HR? It sounds as if she is running your work through some generic AI editing tool and is too ignorant to critically evaluate its feedback. As any fule kno who writes specialist copy for a living, those AI programmes aren't fit for purpose.

Yes, I rolled my eyes at the fewer / less thing too.

Perhaps I should ask her to write an exemplar that uses less fewer pronouns to circulate within the team so we all understand what to do.

What's especially frustrating is that there is a robust editing phase for all big pieces of work. I'm not above making errors or starting two sentences with the same word, but these things would get picked up in editing before publishing. She claimed she wanted to see if I was "on the right track" and that I had the right "tone" but then nitpicked editing nonsense.

Deep breath.

Right. This isn't about pronoun overuse. This is about her pissing on our turf to let us know that she's the boss. And the most sensible response is to.... what? Let it wash over me, smile politely, and continue to do my job well as I always have?

Our style guide is the same. Shorter sentences are clearer, and running them together to avoid an excess of pronouns can make them harder to understand.

It can be challenging sometimes, as we often have to explain complex legislation to non-specialist colleagues. I resort to bullet points quite often.

LOL I would ask her for a few examples of her joined sentences. Id trick her into writing that she needs to check everything.... then Id overwhelm her and get her to check EVERYTHING.

Definitely just crack on. Id basically ignore her tbh.

By any chance did you unsuccessfully go for this team leader role? If not, do you feel it should have been offered to you

We are not a team in need of 'fixing'.

no doubt her line manager has told her differently

“Very complicated situation” as to why you can’t approach anyone in management regarding your concerns?

that is a little odd op

Absolutely not. It's not a role I could manage to add to my current workload.

Maybe I was being dramatic here. Managemt are tricky and often pull in two directions at once. You're never sure where they stand. But in any case, it's hardly a good look to go and moan about the new person they have appointed.

They thought she could manage it though.

She was an external candidate?

Well if it was only you, then yes

Sounds a bizarre company if you can’t talk to anyone in management about what sounds like a legitimate concern

although might be an idea to talk to the new team leader first, which you don’t appear to have done

I gritted my teeth

well that is going to achieve the square root of nothing