Being bullied working from home

[Ceriane]

So, I have been at my current job for 2 years and work with a really nice, friendly team. Have been working from home since March and quite enjoying it, no problems. However, in May we had a new line manager, and it didn’t take long for her to get her feet under the table. We were all really welcoming and settled her in, but after not very long she began running it like and absolute dictatorship and is making my life a living hell. We now have to log it on our screen if we leave our laptop for any reason such as to go to the loo or make a drink, and we are quizzed about it if it happens to be at a time she happened to want to ring us. We have to answer every e-mail she sends straight away (within seconds or she rings and asks why it hasn’t been answered) regardless of how many other emails we have or what else we might be working on and she is constantly emailing and ringing me. She has said that we have to log everything on a calendar for her to read as to exactly what we have been doing and when and will query it as though we are lying, if she sets a task she demands that you inform her how far you’ve got with it at the end of every hour and will ring me after about 15 minutes and accuse me of not doing it and say in a really creepy, deliberately intimidating sing song voice “if you have been working on this since 11.10am as your calendar suggests, then how come...” she will quibble down to the nanosecond everything you have said you’ve been working on on your calendar. A lot of our systems are shared and she seems to spend the entire day checking I’ve done what she has said straight away. I’m a well meaning person in my 30s and have never given her any reason to mistrust me. Every interaction I have with her she is really aggressive and quite abusive. You can’t relax for a second. She quizzes me on what time I started, we have to email her to let her know we have logged on. I can start any time between 8 and 9 and finish 8 hours later. If I send the email at 8.07 and then out of habit put 8.00am started working on such and such she rings me and I get the sing song voice “If you started at 8am as your calendar states how come I never had an email until 8.07?” She micromanages my every move! She has changed all our systems and made them unnecessarily complicated and she will check that you have followed every detail of this. If there is anything you have forgotten to do or been confused by she copies another more senior member of the team into the email detailing the errors and a lot of the time they are perceived errors because she has got confused. If you ask a question regarding any of her new systems she comes back aggressively with “we went through this yesterday, you said you understood. What is not clear?” If she asks you to do something and it takes longer than she thinks it should she rings and says”I’ve asked you to do such and such WHAT is the hold up?!” I’m fairly new to taking minutes, and in most jobs people say I’m really good at anything that involves writing. She doesn’t seem to understand why I can’t just ping them over to her an hour after the meeting and instead of commenting on the detail or if it’s well written she will say “not all of the bullet points were in a straight line, if this had have been for a bigger meeting there’s no way we’d have been able to send these out”. If she has been confused about one of our systems, she assumes I have got it wrong and when I’m in the middle of constructing an email back to her to explain the process, she will constantly email me asking why I haven’t e-mailed her back. I had to email her twice to say “can you just give me a minute, I’m looking into this” before sending her the big email explaining it. The list of examples goes on. She will accuse me of not attending meetings when she has got the time wrong or of not having my away sign on if I’m on my break when weirdly she always seems to need to “urgently” ring me at that time. She even went as far as to take a screenshot of it and sent it to a more senior manager. She just constantly rips me to shreds over things that I’ve previously had praise for in other jobs. She won’t let me decide how to plan my own workload or to jump to a different task to break it up a bit, if I do she speaks to me in the weird singsong voice again like she’s caught a wayward child doing something really naughty. I’m a grown adult with a flipping degree and a lot of experience, plus I’m well meaning and work really hard yet she makes me feel at best, incompetent and at worst like a criminal. I could go on and on there’s so many examples. My nerves are in shreds and she’s actually made me really ill. She’s never even worked in the office with us, she doesn’t know us, this has all been during the lockdown and working from home. She is by far the worst person I’ve ever worked with and to be honest ever met in my life! I just don’t know what to do!

She's an immature incompetent batshit bully you need to play her at her own game and go above her.

Wow, she sounds crazy! She's wasting so much time over obsessing what you are doing. It's bizarre. Best of luck

Well done op for putting a grievance in. I did this once years back and absolutely shit myself doing it, imagining all sorts of things, it worked itself out in my favour, and I was all the happier for it.

How are you getting on this week OP?

Thanks all. You’re right, she is immature and the way she obsesses about what I’m doing is batshit crazy!!! She’s had another visit from the 3 spirits this week (hence the stress risk assessment). She has been sticking to the 1 call a day which has helped a lot, I feel so much calmer and clear headed and feel more like I get to decide how I do my job....however I have my 1-1 tomorrow, dreading it as bound to be a 2 hour bollocking! The other manager dressed the request to only ring once a day up as “HR have put some things in place to reduce staff stress levels in the workplace” she doesn’t know it’s because I’ve raised a complaint. We have trust wide meetings constantly Abou Freedom to speak up, trust values and mental health in the workplace through webinars and MS teams. She never attends them, we had one today and she is just the complete opposite of what our trust is about!

Record your 1-1 so if she bullies you you will have evidence.
Another reason to record the 1-1 is that if she does bully you, and you get upset, you can end the meeting without fear of her disciplining you.

Good thinking!

Good luck for your 1:1

Thank you. I’ll need it. Dreading it so much!

She sounds very poorly supported in her management role and is not doing a good job. It’s an excellent way to lose good staff.

I’m afraid you need to put your big girl pants on and not accept a telling off. One to ones are meant to be supportive not destructive or to intimidate. You need to tell her that her behaviour is not healthy and is having a serious detrimental effect on you. How is she going to get better without feedback? Write it down and hand it to her if you can’t bring yourself to say it. You need to take control of the meeting and not be ‘done unto’. Don’t be aggressive but ask questions- How do you think the call about x on X-day made me feel? What were you hoping to achieve by emailing about X? What do you think might be a better way to ensure I deliver to expectations? What do you think might be the longer term impact for both of us?
Don’t enter a war on words. Don’t justify being bullied.

Make notes of everything. Keep clear records. Address every time she behaves inappropriately. “I thought we’d agreed just one phone call a day?” Etc.

You are absolutely right!

It was an hour of sheer hell. I always come out feeling like it’s not her, it’s me that’s the problem. She does know I went to HR (so breach of confidentiality somewhere along the line) her response was “you do know I only keep ringing you as a supportive measure?” I can’t see the wood for the trees, feel like I’m going mad! It was also obvious in the meeting that she really is pushing me to leave, she just can’t come right out and say it. I’m just feeling really low now.

Get straight onto hr and ask what course of action they intend to take, what process and also mention that she spoke to you about the grievance during your 121.

Seriously, now is the time for you to take control. It may not feel like it now, but the more you push and make yourself heard, the more difficult they will find it to try and manage you out of the company. It's not up to you to prove she's a bully, it's up to the company to prove she's not. Know your rights and make yourself heard. The law is in your side

God this sounds like a nightmare, I have been there OP, I was micromanaged a long time ago, by someone who totally lacked confidence in their role and took that out on me. I left that job in the end, but I do sometimes wish I'd dealt with it formally.

I used to be a union rep in the public sector and this is how I would deal with this case, as you've already submitted the grievance.

I would email HR, copy in her manager, and their manager, and state the following:

That someone has informed her you went to HR putting you in a very difficult position and breaching your confidence.

That as a result you will no longer be prepared to participate in 1 on 1 conversations with her until the completion of your grievance and any subsequent appeals and disciplinary procedures are completed. Either someone else takes over managing you, or someone shadows her or chaperones you in any meetings with the two of you.

Also I would ask if HR could confirm the timescale for resolving your grievance.

That your prefered resolution to this situation is that one of you (preferably her, why should you have to move?) move teams.

I would also note that she has suggested that you take your laptop to the bathroom in order to be permanently available, and that not only is this impractical, but that you have a right to dignity at work, and privacy in the bathroom, particularly your own bathroom in your own home, and as such this suggestion is wholy inappropriate. That alone should be a disciplinary matter. As such I'd request a copy of the Dignity at Work Policy (assuming NHS, there should be one) and see what further complaints I can build based on that.

There's nothing stopping you writing an email like the above and sending it off. You would have an even stronger case for complaint if you suffered negative consequences as a result of complaining about bullying.

In terms of leaving your role, and whether she could stop you getting a job somewhere else, it depends on the industry to an extent, but it's unlikely. For one thing you don't have to put her down as a reference, just give the details of your HR team, they will provide a reference if needed. As far as a new employer is concerned, she doesn't exist. So don't let that worry you.

Sorry to hear this is happening to you. Hope you don't go off sick - she would be winning if you did. If you make a mistake, own up to it. If you later find the procedures confusing, own up to it. I typically say "on reflection..." and then what I don't understand.

Also, if the procedures are confusing, volunteer to write it up.

Hope it gets better.

What sort of things is she saying that make you think it's your fault?

Thank you. Every now and again she acts like she has had a visit from the 3 spirits, and because she said “you do realise I only ring to be supportive” also I have made errors, and it’s not that I don’t understand the processes, it’s just when there is a lot going on at once and she’s sending emails and then ringing me about something else, then my brain is all over the place and I get stressed and feel rushed as she puts conflicting deadlines on everything, and then I just feel so embarrassed as I then make another mistake. I just feel so incompetent. I have explained all this to her though. Obviously she has to bring mistakes to my attention, that’s part of her job, I don’t consider that to be bullying.

I think what @katmarie said is a good starter for 10

You need to set out your stall with her and her, if you remain passive ( through no fault of your own) they control the situation. You need to make it very hard for her and then hr to manipulate you. Every interaction with her or hr you need to be thinking, how do I cover my arse in targets to the situation. You're allowed to make mistakes, that's human nature.

What katmarie says is spot on.
Did you record the meeting? If not please record any further meetings or phone calls.

Thank you. I think when I talk to her I end up just thinking about the mistakes I’ve made...but I’m human. Then I remember all the ridiculous things she has said and done and the things she classes as mistakes for example if we get bounce backs from an email we have sent to 500 plus people she blames me for not checking every email address was spelled correctly (even though it could be that they no longer use that email address etc) and she will ring or email to query what I’m working on (as though if it’s not visibly productive she thinks you’re skiving when you could actually be thinking how to complete tasks or prioritise them before starting them) she will then go into whichever spreadsheet on the shared drive I am working on, and follow me round all the cells deliberately trying to make her prescience felt, this causes me to occasionally freeze and be unable to think and then she will ring the second she sees a genuine or perceived mistake “you went to type this and not that and don’t say you didn’t cos I’ve just seen you do it”

There has been times where in response to this I have typed in the cell next to where she is “Hi NAME, I’m just working on these ones, I see little point in us doing the same cells”

When she rings like she’s had a visit from the 3 spirits I question myself and think “aah she’s not all bad, probably just doesn’t realise how she is coming across etc”.

I’m just so confused at the moment. If I’m typing minutes she will constantly ring and email and insist I keep her informed of how long I’m likely to take, and if I estimate it wrong for example let her know at 2.00pm that I’ll get them to her by 4.00pm then at 3.00pm say that I’m still aiming for 4.00pm that I may need longer and send them at 4.05pm she will accuse me of not letting her know in plenty of time how likely I am to meet deadlines. It’s really weird. However after my 1-1 I end up feeling like I’m the thickest most incompetent person that ever walked the face of the earth!

She sounds mad. Does she have no work of her own to do?

I'd start cc'ing her boss into every email.

She has not had a visit from the spirits OP, she is covering her own arse "I'm only trying to be supportive". She will use this line later with HR so you need to call it out now. Everything she says is not to help you, it's to help herself. Everything.

At this point you need to stop her and say "I do not find it supportive, I find it intrusive and distracting" and suggest instead she contacts you via X medium at X time. Get a commitment from her "Can we agree on that?"
Then summarise in email after the conversation "As we discussed I find your frequent calling to check up on tasks counterproductive so we agreed you will do xyz"
And in doing this also follow up the suggestion from @katmarie

She's only your manager.
You are better than she is.
Believe it and start managing her instead.

You've done really well in logging the grievance but you need to keep pushing and pushing for a resolution with HR and at the same time stand up for yourself in your interactions with her. She's a bully.

Please stop thinking of the "visit from the three spirits" change as anything other than her covering herself.

You raised a grievance and she had the audacity to use your 1-2-1 to manipulate you on it. Take the advice above and push HR to create a solution

Thank you! She isn’t in tomorrow which may mean I get a phone call from her manager, who shys away from conflict and burys her head in the sand, so I will definitely raise it with her and be as honest as I can. I did say to Shitface today that I don’t find it supportive In fact it really stresses me out!