To quit my job over this woman?

[wrongrabbithole]

Ok so it’s not personal to me as I’ve seen her do it to others but wow …

This woman will escalate every single tiny thing we do that she doesn’t like. If I use a font size she doesn’t like she escalates it to my manager, I’ve seen her make my colleague cry with frustration.

I have to submit my work to her as part of risk management and even my manager has admitted she’s now just looking for anything to escalate.

it’s draining. I’m tired. This woman is protected and been there a long time. Numerous others have quit before her.

I’m at the point where I’m going to sleep and waking up with anxiety.

I get it but honestly, if you otherwise like your job/it works for you outside of this woman, then literally ignore her. She’s not your manager or anyone of any importance.

Her copying in various senior people makes her look like a dick - it doesn’t shame you.

Each and every time she provides you with feedback do what others have said, reply with a thumbs up or a “thank you for the feedback”. And get on with your day. Basically grey rock her.

And if that still isn’t making the job tolerable, and you are not that bothered about the job, just find another job. Unless she is someone of importance over your work, I would not be going through the stress of raising a grievance - that is a serious thing to do and prob not worth it.

Yes, this.

Exploit her ridiculous attention to minute detail to tie her in knots. Make a game of it. Spend so much time deferring to her and getting her to double check everything that you cannot get your other work done and she cannot get her work done.

What is her actual role? If it were improving accessibility as a PP mentioned, then I can see that things like font may be in her remit. But in that case, she should be inputting her wisdom into standardising templates etc that colleagues automatically use. You mention risk so assuming it isn't accessibility, but what is the actual reason for her role having a say on things?

I see 3 choices

1. Stop letting her behaviour affect you. Either a "let them" mindset or start taking the piss like a PP did with their micromanager
2. Find a new job and leave. Grass is not always greener but unlikely to have the exact issue elsewhere
3. Make a change on grounds of efficiency. Suggest ways of making improvements that absolutely mean she is the one doing all the work to make that happen. Style guidelines, corporate templates, delivering training sessions, there's probably a set up that would mean all comms go via her to do her check and make the relevant edits before being sent on to the end actual user. If she's the one being drowned by the impact of her fussiness, the fussiness might be the thing that disappears.

Get yourself a new job but when you’ve safely got it, then email hr, your boss and her boss with a “just to let you know” message about how she drove you out as she had previously done with others. Reiterate it wasn’t worth your mental health to go through the processes as has been experienced by others. It was easier to just leave but they should be aware of her impact on people’s jobs.
If do that for my colleagues sakes.

This exactly. Get her to sign off every single draft of work before you send it off. Or each page as you go

as about for for any heading and subheading. Separately. How does she want you do to attachments, decks, pdfs what programmes should you use?

find any and everything for her sign off

I'm imagining it's because she has an ND diagnosis of some sort. She may not purposely be bullying, she may stress over small details, ( like fonts) I work with a couple of people like this. Of course I may be wrong

I had one the same and did just that. The management came to me and asked me to stop. I said I wasn't doing anything wrong and she was being unreasonable to not accept my view.

They backed her up and I then went to her first to ask how she wanted every little thing delivered, had her make all the decisions and basically had her do the job for me.

Op don't take it personally...be sweetness and light, in fact approach the management on her behalf and say things like "I know Freda won't be happy with using Times New Roman, so I'm escalating to you now to say her the effort "

It depends, at my work policy is to cc the performance manager into any feedback and feedback on font size would be valid (we issue reports that clients pay thousands of pounds for. It’s poor attention to detail to have different font sizes throughout the report, and I’ve definitely given feedback about it when one page is size ten font and the next is size 8, or even worse when it changes in the middle of the page).

So what you’re complaining about would be normal practice where I work, but you would be getting positive feedback at the same time and it’s generally constructive feedback (eg next time do a full read through for presentation details before sending for review) rather than just “wrong font size”.

But if you’re not happy in your job, yes leave

Tiny font!

YANBU to leave. This sort of behaviour is unprofessional and arguably bullying.

I would start by going to her manager about it and asking them to act. If they didn’t, I would put in a grievance against both of them.

In the meantime, I would be applying for jobs anyway and if I got one I wanted, I would be very explicit about why I was leaving - i.e. her bullying behaviour and her manager’s failure to tackle it. I would point out others had left because of it and the workplace should reflect on that.

Does she have a guide that states the font size needed or is it something she likes to make up? If she makes it up you could start challenging her back even publicly about her comments.

I do understand where you are coming from, one of my projects the Business lead is a real pedant that likes to pick on people and email their managers to complain about them. They did it to my colleague before I joined and they did it to me. They are very hard work and when I email to move things forward I get no response or they change their mind every 5 mins, and are looking to get a rise out of me. I just don’t care. I just don’t rise to the bait. It’s just a job we shouldn’t feel filled with anxiety but then I know my manager has my back.

I had a colleague like this. She was neurodiverse and there were also some structural issues in the organisation that exagerated the problems. I gently raised it with my boss and my bosses manager. Then one day my bosses manager saw an example of what I was talking about in a document - I was also getting told off about fonts! I was called in immediately and asked how I had managed to endure it. My colleague was sent home early that day and it mostly stopped from them on. My bosses manager helped coach me into a new role which was a blessing. My bully is still in the same role years later while I've had some great jobs since.

So my advice is to get evidence and document it all. Then take the evidence to your line manager and probably HR. They can't do anything without this. I've recently seen another micromanager moved on because her team had evidence.

This crap is soul destroying and l really regret putting up with it.

Omg yessss! Subtle gaslighting like one word in a different size font and see if she spots it 🤣

I had to leave a lovely specialist teacher council role because of a woman like this. I was one of a long stream of people before me. On my first day the other department in the same building warned me what she was like - and the lady on the reception desk who had greeted me for my interview told me she wished she had told me to turn round and leave before the interview as I was ‘so nice’ and she knew what would happen.
vile vile woman.

She does put it in writing. It's right there in the post

What does 'protected' mean? Can people be unsackable now?

There are employment laws in place that protect against this kind of behaviour. You need to document everything and raise a grievance with your manager and HR if this continues.
I don’t understand what you mean by ‘protected’. Do you mean she is a DEI employee ?

I was bullied at work by someone with an ND diagnosis. Purposeful or not, it was awful and resulted in me leaving my job.

ND should not be an excuse for bullying. Obviously.

It's your manager's actual job to ensure that you and your colleagues can do your jobs well, and that includes no-one being driven to tears, sleepless nights or wanting to quit due to the behaviour of another. This management job is not being done right and you need to talk to your manager more about it, including saying honestly that you will be looking for other opportunities elsewhere if the current situation persists. All employees are "protected" there is no category of employee that gets more protection than another. If this employee has a "protected characteristic" that just means she can't be sacked or otherwise disadvantaged because of that characteristic, she can still be disciplined for working in ways that make colleagues upset, stressed out, sleepless and wanting to quit.

put in a grievance - at this point you have nothing to lose and everything to gain

keep a note of everything you put into this woman and every single time there is a problem - its it 99% of the time then there is a problem, so raise it and keep raising it until the problem either is resolved and you can pass work over and only 10% of the time it being subjected to remodels or she leaves

”Even my manager has admitted she’s now just looking for anything to escalate.”

So your manager is the problem here for not addressing it. When she does that, your manager’s response should be “thanks Helen, this isn’t something that needs to be escalated to me.” If she continues doing it after she has been told not to, then your manager needs to address that via her manager.

Go ahead and quit if you want to, but please don’t frame it as quitting because of this woman. You will have quit because of your manager’s lack of action.

Sounds like harrassment - of her to you and everyone else. Keep evidence, and complain formally to HR / your manager. If everyone else joins, they would have to tackle it.

😂You're Fired!

I think it depends on the end user of your work. If it is going out externally, then I can see her point about font sizes. What exactly is her role and the purpose of you sending stuff to her? Is she quality assurance? If so, is there clarity on exactly what she is quality assuring? Is it her role to qa the content or the presentation or both?

If it is just the content that is her remit, I would specify in any cover email to her if she could review the content, and not to worry about any style issues, you will finalise after you receive her sign off on the content. That heads it off at the start, and if she comes back to you on style issues you can say thanks, but you didn’t ask for that.

Also, I would start keeping a log of how much extra unnecessary work she is creating for you. Once you have a decent amount of evidence, go to your manager along the lines of ‘I obviously don’t mind redirecting my focus to address Betty’s issues if that is your priority for my time, but it is preventing me from doing xyz. Also, is it a good use of Betty’s time for her to pick up on this minutiae, and company time for her to be cc’ing so many people?’

I wouldn’t focus on the impact on your mh, as sadly for a lot of organisations they don’t give a toss. But if you highlight the loss of efficiency and how much it is costing them, they tend to take more notice.