AIBU to think my assistant manager is handling this poorly, but is this my own fault? WWYD

[Frustratedly]

I am cautious of outing myself with too much detail so sorry if this is vague.

I am a manager in a small business and my assistant manager recently oversaw a large project. I was more top level final sign off, and she was day to day management.

We subcontracted a bulk of the work to an external company, another small business.

To cut a long story short, after the project ended I kept in touch with the man who was managing the project for the subcontractor. We began a romantic relationship.

We were open with our companies about this when we realised it was not just dating but more serious, but on reflection this has backfired on us. His directors know about us, as does my direct director (manager). We have both been clear and open that this began after the contract ended. All is fine with our companies.

I also had tell my assistant for reasons below…

However, my assistant manager is being so difficult and I don’t know how to manage it. She put it to me that there was still a small amount of work outstanding under their contract, so she asked them to come back to do a final remedy. I agreed she would be the point of contact, and not me, to keep lines of professionalism clear.

However she has asked me questions about the work outstanding and asked me to ask my partner for clarity, which I naively did to be helpful.

I gave her a response that she should contact him directly to ask him because he was organising a date to come back. I also asked him to email her directly about when he was starting the work and he said he was going to email her.

He popped in one day last week and she wasn’t here, but she had left him a big list of jobs to do, 80% of which was nothing to do with the original job he would do, essentially a list of ‘favours’. He didn’t do any of them because they were not on his official final job list.

She was pissed off that he didn’t do the extras, so has emailed his director above him asking that he only deal with her, and not pass messages through me. She didn’t copy me into it though.

My partner is fuming at her email because it’s very passive agressive and insinuates that we are doing all this by pillow talking. Plus the extra work was nothing to do with him, and is unprofessional of her to ask him to overstep his remit anyway and work for free essentially. But she didn’t copy me in so I only know as he’s told me and he’s annoyed, but if I speak to her she knows he’s told me.

As her line manager I have put myself in a difficult position because she thinks I’m unprofessional by entering into a relationship with a contractor (who I didn’t know was coming back), plus agreeing with his firm that her requests are unreasonable, and these passive aggressive emails making my partner look unprofessional.

I have never been in this position before and I genuinely do not know how to address this with her, or let it go and stay out of it from now on and just get the final work done and all move on.

Can someone from DPs company who is not DP come back to finish the work? Can you approve the list of jobs before your assistant asks for too much?

This is also an issue! My partner works with one other man (H) and her email specifically stated that she did not want H to be allocated this work so it can only be my partner. She also recently got him to quote for new extra work we don’t need and I had to tell them it wasn’t approved.

H did make a few mistakes previously, but he’s probably capable of doing these jobs.

My partner seemed to get along with my assistant when they worked together, and they often worked extra hours together when I wasn’t around and got the job done. I always just found him to be professional.

I had clocked on a few occasions he mentioned she wasn’t very nice to him and he thought she was creating extra unnecessary work for them both and thought I should know.

Before we were romantically involved and just colleagues, he came to me twice to ask if he could bypass her and come direct to me for some decisions as she was being passive aggressive, controlling, bossy and causing delays. I had to speak to her and get us all together to get decisions made.

He also alleges she would also go into project meetings and make unprofessional comments to his director that he was lazy and not getting jobs done.

I asked her directly if she had any issues with him and she said no. I also asked him if there had been anything between them, or whether he had the impression she liked him romantically and he said he had no interest in her in that way, and found her difficult and unprofessional to work with.

I feel like I’m in some weird love triangle!

I’ve asked him to just finish the work and not come back again and I’ve told her to keep things professional.

But she didn’t copy me in so I only know as he’s told me and he’s annoyed, but if I speak to her she knows he’s told me.

So, yes, you are 'pillow talking' and this exactly the kind of thing that's making it awkward for your assistant manager. Can you not see this? The way you've recounted these events suggests a serious lack of self-awareness.

I know. So I can’t tell her which is why I posted. It just makes it look worse. Problem is he doesn’t like working with her at all now. But she asks me ‘is X coming this week’ I say I don’t know, ask him yourself, she says well you are seeing him later, can you ask him?

I’ve told them both to stop involving me unless it’s my actual remit and to raise it with his boss if he has a problem and I will liaise with her if I need to