Direct report sent me a voice note feeling sorry for themselves

[Mistymeg]

AIBU. I’m not your mum. I’m your VP. She isn’t genZ, she is in her late 30s and is Director level.

We work at an American tech company, it’s beyond start up; hundreds of millions $$ turn over a year but still has the start up feel.

I’ve know this direct report from our last company but didn’t manage her. She started four months ago (I’m quite new too) and she has been off sick a good few times. Has two young kids and it’s been for a day or so but last week was most of the week.

On Monday she said she needed to go offline and was sick. I told her sorry to hear and let me know i could do anything. The next day she was back online, sounded awful in calls but she’s an adult (and director) I let her make her own decisions.

All of Wednesday she is offline, meetings cancelled, didn’t hear a word until Thursday when she sends me a long voice note on WhatsApp along the lines of….. sorry she’s been MIA, hasn’t known what to say, she stated that leaders are reliable and seemingly she has taken time off again for illness again. Told me it was flu and secondary bacterial sinus infection and needed antibiotics, that she just spoke to HR who encouraged her to get a GP note and keep me informed. Then spoke about her iron deficiency and that was the root cause of the immune system challenges. Even went into her iron levels and why it’s so bad with two young kids in flu season and how she feels so bad about missing work.

I get it totally but a single message would have been fine. I don’t need a long emotional WhatsApp voice note and GP note. I just need you to get better and let me know if I can take work while you’re gone. She said being a leader is showing the human side and that she’s never been so unwell in her life to catch flu then had the most excruciating head pressure due to the bacterial sinitius that followed, she stated we too work for a tech start up who has a value to ‘be human’ and not a big corporate bank. AIBU?

Too ill to work or even email manager, perfectly fine for prolonged and misleading posting on MN. Good luck in your career.

I think we can all agree if I had written it about me I would have been lambasted for being unprofessional.

Well yes this is Thursday vs Tuesday. I am feeling better after antibiotics for 5 days and 11 days after initially coming down with flu. On Thursday I had raging bacterial sinititus.

So you just want people to agree with you then? Blimey Im starting to side with your boss now.

No? I wanted to test what the reverse would look like.

This makes no sense.

Gawd, I’d have found you very frustrating and would probably try to move you to another dept. if you carried on like that.

Rambling voice notes are bloody annoying and totally unnecessary for a start. A short message containing the essential info. is all you needed to have sent.

No-one else needs to know the minutiae of your family life/sickness details (apart from HR maybe?), and you need to learn to communicate more succinctly if you want to be successful in your career.

She feels guilty despite having what would appear to be genuine reasons for being absent so much of late. She's probably looking for reassurance. Any chance you could provide same?

plot twist!

So op did she actually say "im not your mum"?

Or is her crime just that she hasnt replied to reassure you?

Sorry but rambling voice notes about sickness is a new kind of fresh hell.

Tell me if you’re sick via the normal channels, keep me updated and let me know when you’ll be back. I don’t need a full rundown as a manager.

I wouldn’t have replied to this either. It’s also not an official method for reporting as ill. Also sounds like absence is quite high for only 4 months in. Would probably flag in my firm too.

Exactly. Kindly - is her response (which you said earlier was a non-response) in your head?

Honestly, this is beyond unprofessional. Your post here only proves how focused you are on painting your manager in the worst light possible. Follow your company rules and appropriate channels of reporting sickness and all will be fine. There is no need for any of this.

Honestly I’d think that a reaction like this is some sort of issue in itself.

Looking for attention/validation when doesn’t get it at home or something.

It’s beyond unprofessional to send the voice note?

But when I was the manager I was callous, a robot, couldn’t lead a team or exercise empathy and the person in question was really struggling.

Amazing to see the sudden turn. It’s like whoever the OP is will get it, no matter what the circumstances.

i was feeling anxious and finally well enough to get some outside perspective but knew if i wrote that I’d sent the voice note id get ambushed; so wanted an impartial response so reversed it. Proved everything i know about AIBU….

Tbh I have no idea why some pp's called this manager callous etc. She's done absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever.

I didn’t think the manager was robotic.

Voice notes detailing your sickness and emotional state to your manager is actually insane, especially when you’ve already been as far as HR.

PP is also correct when they said some reports seem to list their illnesses to their manager and expect their manager to say, have a day off, don’t worry.

This is always a call for the staff member to make (and own) themselves. A simple, ‘I’m off sick with a sinus infection, I have antibiotics, I’ll update you in a day or two’ via email or telephone would have sufficed.

Being absolutely honest, I’d be on to HR to advise probation wasn’t extended, tbh. I could only see many issues down the line with this kind of drama. Being off all day without notifiying anyone would be more than enough to terminate.

Annoying but she sounds as she's feeling really shit both about her health and worrying about being new in post.
As her manager you can do a return to work with her when she's back and extend her probation to cover the sickness period if you want to be a complete bitch

I believe her actions are pretty unprofessional and being offline all day without calling in sick isn't acceptable.

However at Vp level of a large company I am baffled as to how you aren't equipped to deal with this yourself or seek support from HR or your manager. Posting about it on a public forum is inappropriate at best .
I work in HR and have conversations about things like this with managers on a daily basis, hardly worthy of an AIBU

Edit - I see it's a reverse. I still stand by a voice note is not professional or appropriate

And she can't reassure you your sickness is fine if thats what you were hoping. Because it might not be. Even if youve had raging bacterial sinusitis, severe fever, an extreme headache, terrible sore throat or whatever common adjectives people add on to make their illness sound worse or more believable.

Even when you were the manager, I thought YABU.

I think YABU, a bit.

There has been some absolutely brutal flu going round and it's leaving people wiped out for weeks. My DH had it and there's no way on earth he could have got out of bed, let alone worked through it, not even from home.

I think her long-winded explanation was because she's feeling a bit insecure and worrying that you won't believe her, so she's going into more detail than strictly necessary. Let's be honest, back in the day when you'd have to ring your boss on a landline at 9am and explain that you felt rough, it was something we all dreaded, but there was no alternative. These days it's easy to bash out a text or an email, even the night before, and even if you are actually planning on a day at the beach, no-one will be any the wiser. It's made it easier for the chancers and the flakes to take sick days without having to pretend to sound ill.

She probably thought a voice mail and a full explanation would put your mind at rest that she's not faking. Especially if she was expecting the response of 'well you are working from home anyway, so can't you just look at this email and respond to that client......'

It's pretty easy to clock in from home and work at half efficiency through minor sickness, whereas had you been office based with a long commute, you might otherwise have taken a sickie. So if someone says they are too ill to work, even from home and they need to go offline so they can rest, I'd be inclined to believe them and be sympathetic.

It’s just incredible to see the responses coming from those who has read the update and those who haven’t.

was there ever a greater experiment for AIBU? Prove me wrong.

this is for anyone who has ever been ambushed by AIBU and I was very reasonable to reverse it rather than get completely torn apart for being unprofessional. Doubt one person would have stood by me and said anything like they have on this thread.

But you have been deceitful op. And your boss hasnt actually said anything

Strange thread