Can anyone help with a workplace issue?

[Amanitacae]

I work in technology with a heavy M:F ratio in my department.

I am a woman, and I lead an area of a tech estate where I have a high level of expertise, and where I have daily negotiations with men leading in other areas, where I have to assert the policies and agreements which are key to keeping my area of the tech estate running smoothly.

I have had an issue with a more junior male colleague from
another team, repeatedly going against the longstanding agreements which are in place to protect my area of the estate by autonomously changing configs which are not related to his area of work. This man does not hold any expertise in the area where he is changing configs.

Where this has happened, it poses risk to the business and causes the team that I lead stress, and so I have had to communicate by email and repeat the agreements which are in place and assert that he should not be changing the configs. This has happened 5 times in 18 months.

I am always polite and factual in these emails. Stating the agreements and the reasoning behind them.

I have now received a complaint at work from his boss for what is being described as patronising/rude emails, and a ‘it’s her way or the highway way’ attitude.

Looking at my emails they are none of these things, and if I don’t communicate with the individual to try to prevent the actions he has taken there is risk and knock-ons.

Looking at the communication style of male peers, mine is no different, yet they don’t receive similar complaints.

The last email I wrote, I ran past my own male manager before sending who said it was fine.

Can anyone help with how to unpick/approach this, or give me a steer as to what kind of sex discrimination this might be.

If I don’t protect my area of the tech estate from risk, I am not doing my job, but it I get complaints about being rude and patronising I know this will also affect my career in a heavily male dominated area.

Take his twiddling around in areas outwith his jurisdiction higher up the chain and complain. Don't just fix and hide it.

If the seniors ask you why you've elevated it, you can prove you've tried to fix it 5 times already and sadly, you have found resistance to following procedure. As you're aware the consequences could be severe, you're now requesting support in engaging him in correct procedure as he doesn't seem to understand you.

This is a systemic problem if someone who should have no reason or authority to do so can change configs. At the moment it's this one man but it points to a wider vulnerability. You need to take it up with your seniors to say there has to be some kind of access control where only people who have been granted privileges can do this.

Thanks Cocoa. I have done this. His own boss is generally not engaged or motivated to discuss his behaviour. Possibly this event will allow me to take things higher up.

However I don’t want my stance to be undermined by the view that I’m rude or patronising when this is an unfair accusation. Looking for the language or any information to use to uncover that a gender bias/discrimination is at play here.

I don't work in your field but is this not a case of him not following agreed process? if he's complaining about the tone of the email, rather than arguing that he should be making the decisions to change the configs because that's his call and he judges it to be a better way of doing things? If so then I guess the question is why he's not been challenged by his line manager before on this - has it just been you emailing him or has his LM been copied in? Either he can make that call on the process or he can't, and if he can't, you telling him not to do something that's against policy is just you doing your job. Is he trying to get in first to mitigate a complaint that he repeatedly isn't following agreed process.

Dump it on your male boss to deal with? You've tried 5 times, so it must be his turn now.
You'll drive yourself mad trying to prove any discrimination in this environment, unless he does something really obvious. For your own sanity you need to find a way through (or a new job).

Thanks Eau.

i completely agree re. the bigger systemic issue, but how can i ensure i don’t get categorised as rude/patronising and therefore dismissed when trying to flag this. What is the best way to defend myself against the complaint. It feels so implicitly sexist but I’m not sure it comes under sexual discrimination. Certainly not quoted in the business policy as ont of the criteria of sexual discrimination.

It’s unconscious bias /stereotyping behaviours so I would look at values and dignity at work. And then keep logging everything.

I'd ask a male coworker to see if they have a similar email style they've sent out to another team with a similar message.

Print them both - redact the names of you all and any indicators of he/she. Go and meet with your own boss to demonstrate that your communication style is in line with that of the team.

Not that you should have to do that of course!

I'd have actually escalated this via my manager by now if his actions are that much of a risk. I wouldn't be worrying about my tone frankly. If anything you've been too polite.

Time for your managers to pull their fingers out and deal with it. If they don't you've got more things to worry about.

That's just gaslighting. Making you doubt yourself, cos he's got an issue with a "girl" pulling him up.

It's worked, hasn't it?

As long as you cam show what you sent each time and that is consistent with what your own boss approved this final time, you can dismiss his whining as an attempt to get you to shut up.

Don't focus on what YOU wrote.

Focus on what HE is actually doing.

He's trying to push attention away from that. Don't let him.

You would have no reason to contact him at all were it not for the fact that he's making changes that are not required, that have potentially serious knock on effects and that he's undermining the entire project. Why is he making these changes? What are his reasons?

Focusing on the lil woman making him feel bad is a distraction technique that I'm prepared to bet he wouldn't use on a man.

If he is repeatedly going against company policies and procedures then it is a conduct issue. His access to make those confident changes should be revoked, he should have mandatory re-training, a requirement to sign his understanding of the policies and procedures and performance management/disciplinary action should be taken. This is a repeated conduct infraction having a direct negative impact on company operations.

Thanks everyone. I am in complete agreement re. reporting his behaviours and flagging the risk he poses.

The email which generated the complaint actually had both his, and my manager copied (and as I mentioned had been sense checked by my manager before sending).

I will be highlighting (again) his behaviours as part of whatever comes next.

I agree that he is gaslighting. I disagree that he has made me believe I’m in the wrong though. I am clear that I have done nothing wrong here.

However given that he has made the complaint, and his manager has agreed and brought to my manager, there is already a risk to my professional reputation and my ability to perform my role.

This is for the reason that I work in a really male dominated space, and I’m sure these two are not the only ones who have viewed my factual emails through a biased/unfair lens.

This accusation will, I’m sure, have some other men in the department agreeing with them (though there would be no evidence of anything which would stand up). Regardless, word travels and senior leadership (also male) may hear and take at face value.

what I need is the language and tactics to defend myself against the accusation, and I can deal with his own behaviour seperately.

Really like the suggestion of comparing emails as a logical way to proceed, though I’m not entirely sure who I could trust with this, and it would mean having to bring more men into the conversation. However I will have a think about who I could approach.

‘You would have no reason to contact him at all were it not for the fact that he's making changes that are not required, that have potentially serious knock on effects and that he's undermining the entire project. Why is he making these changes? What are his reasons?’

this is a great point. Thank you. I will also be using this.

Also - thank you for all of the reiterations from posters pointing out that fundamentally he is going against process. Whilst I do need the language to defend the accusations, you are all really helping to bolster my resolve over in that camp too.

The thing is, you can't really defend yourself against a complaint that the tone of your emails was patronising or rude. By definition that needs to be assessed by your manager. You can only state that your did not intend to be patronising or rude, but you can't objectively assess your own text.

I would respond to the charge of 'it's her way or the highway' by simply saying: yes it is my way. This is my area of responsibility, what I say goes. And furthermore, boss-of-troublemaker, I have asked you repeatedly to ensure that troublemaker does not alter config that is my responsibility, why is he still doing it?

(You have been escalating this repeated interference to his boss each time, haven't you? Not just emailing the troublemaker directly).

These are all great points tribpot. Thank you.

I guess my concern is given that I work with all men, anyone who is chosen to assess the emails could view though a gender biased lens.

Helpfully though my manager is supportive, and generally aware of some of the issues of sexism that women face I no the workplace, so I don’t predict I’d have a negative experience if he was tasked with assessing my tone (no less since he approved the email before I sent it). However if this goes further it would be helpful to have the language to confidently highlight the difference in reaction to my emails than to other make colleagues.

I wonder if anyone reading this thread knows the area of sex discrimination that this might fall under, and/or any examples of it from elsewhere which I could point to.

to answer Q - yes, every instance that has been raised with the troublemaker has had other members of management involved.

I really like your response to ‘her way or the highway’ thank you.

Two thoughts …

run a sample of anonymised emails (yours and others) through an untrained AI, see if it picks anything up regarding tone or content.

and yep. @tribpot is totally correct. I’ve used the ‘my way or the highway’ defence. It works.

I use the variant of… you pay me to provide technical oversight of this specific (and very complicated) matter. It is what I’m here for. Don’t then stand in the way of me doing the exact thing you brought me here to do, unless you have the kind of very very good reason that will stand up in court‘ (and since that’s a strong chance it could be an inquest in my profession, that does focus the mind somewhat)

Ask your emails to be compared to those of others whose tone has been complained about.

I suspect yours will in no way compare, that the threshold for complaining about a man’s tone is higher.

I think there absolutely would be evidence you could present about how similar language from men and women is perceived differently in heavily male environments like tech (and btw I am also a woman in tech so I share your pain). But I wouldn't start with that as you know it will go down like a lead balloon. Bloody woman immediately cries sexism as soon as she gets criticised, etc, etc. At the moment this appears to be nothing more than a clash of personalities.

Your manager approved the email, so should be able to assess it now. The issue of whether the tone is similar to those sent by male colleagues is complicated by the fact that tone is in the ear of the beholder, so you would need to prove that the male colleagues had sent emails to the troublemaker in the same tone and the troublemaker had not perceived them as patronising. Which you've no evidence for. I would stick to the more general line if required that 'here are three emails from Jim, Bob and Adam on similar issues and with a similar tone, what is the actual problem here?'.

I suspect troublemaker wants to bait you into make this about sexism, as he will implicitly win as a result.

Could you just respond saying you hadn’t intended to be patronising, you simply wanted to be very clear as the colleague has already been told five times not to do the against protocol thing and he continued to do it so assumed he mustn’t have understood you previously. Glad to know the issue is now resolved and you won’t need to email again.

I would put the onus back on them. Say you have reviewed the emails and they are no different in tone both to other emails you send to other people and emails you receive from everyone, so please can they specify exactly why he found them patronising/rude.

He almost definitely won't be able to, and if he does come up with something pathetic like "she ended it 'I hope this is clear but if not please feel free to get in touch'" you can do a search on all your emails and say 'but here, Big!Boss ended his email about the new stakeholder guidance on 21 Jan with that exact wording, oh and actually here's an email you, bossofsexisttwat, sent yourself on 18 March saying "hope this is clear." So I'm not really sure what the problem is?"

Same if he comes back with "well in the last email you said 'this is now the fifth time I have explained this, please let me know if you need further clarification,' you can say, "Well it was the fifth time he had done it, which I personally find quite concerning when it goes completely against our processes and guidance. How many times should I have let him make this mistake before I pointed it out? Or are you saying I shouldn't have ever pointed it out to avoid hurting his feelings? Surely that's more patronising?"

You could even reverse-sexism it and do a false concern "Is everything okay with sexisttwat? First he is repeatedly making these very rudimentary mistakes, and now he's upset about the tones of emails being too brusque? It seems a bit unusual to be so oversensitive about such a minor thing. I can't imagine you or bigboss getting upset if someone sent you an email saying "this should be quite straightforward"! (or whatever stupid example he comes up with)
If there's something going on at home that's affecting him perhaps he should have some time off? While I can try and amend my communication style to be a bit gentler if needed, it's not really our corporate style to overthink how we word emails to be more softly-softly to avoid hurting someone's feelings. I wouldn't want to treat sexisttwat differently to anyone else...."

Use their own gendered language and assumptions against them - you are one of the team, just wanting to get the work done, he's the sensitive little flower complaining when he gets told off for making mistakes and getting nasty emails (which, of course, aren't nasty at all!)

I understand what you are saying OP but I think the only way to address the gender bias is to do so actively rather than passively - ie you need to actively make a complaint rather than passively building a defence.

You'd have to tell your own boss that you wish to raise a complaint: this guy is demonstrating bias, either consciously or unconsciously, in that he is expecting you to operate to different communication standards than those which he finds acceptable in his male colleagues.

I think he will be had words with and told to drop his own complaint in order to avoid a ton of shit for him and everyone else...

Lots of good advice here.

Regarding how the men perceive you, I think practically speaking you've got 3 choices, unfair though it is:

• Try and develop a thicker skin and not care how they perceive you, so long as they aren't treating you differently
• buckle up for a big conflict where you stick your head above the parapet and complain, and then are forever seen as 'that woman' by at least some colleagues, although this guys more obvious behaviour may be toned down
• leave

It's shit, but you can't change the world (or a workplace) single handedly.

I would try to analyse what outcome you really want here and let that help you decide your action. Is it, as you have said, the issue of how they perceive you? Or how they treat you? Because these are different things.

If you really want to make a stand, go for it and complain. But appreciate that that is likely to make things more difficult rather than less and to make more colleagues see you as 'the problem'. If you're successful it may change some of the behaviour on the surface though.

A point of anecdata: I raised a grievance at work (not over sex discrimination) and 8 months later it was still rumbling on. The stress was horrendous. And although some of my complaints were upheld, I'm not sure it was worth the cost and I left anyway.

I guess what I'm saying is pick your battles carefully.