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Being bullied working from home

375 replies

Ceriane · 30/07/2020 02:47

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!

OP posts:
Ceriane · 22/09/2020 13:34

Dreading logging back in, she constantly finds things to pick at, my nerves are in shreds!

OP posts:
BananaHammock23 · 29/09/2020 12:29

What's the latest @Ceriane?

Ceriane · 29/09/2020 18:25

Just awful, being her usual self, she just constantly goes looking for trouble. I’m looking for another job.

OP posts:
Bikinib0tt0m · 29/09/2020 18:40

She sounds like a pyscho Confused

Ceriane · 29/09/2020 21:28

Believe me, she’s nuts!!!

OP posts:
SpaceDinosaur · 06/10/2020 11:23

How are you doing @OP?

Ceriane · 06/10/2020 19:01

Terrible!!! Spent most of my day in a state of anxiety where I could barely think or in floods of tears. None of this anyone could see as working from home. In such a bad state mentally or physically and can barely concentrate on my job, as she is stressing me out so much. Confidence is on the floor. I have an appointment with HR tomorrow and I’m going to ask if I can be re-deployed into another team. If I can’t I’m starting to feel I have no choice but to hand my notice in, and I REALLY don’t want it to come to that. 😥

OP posts:
YoBeaches · 06/10/2020 19:39

Op have you actually raised a grievance against this manager with Hr? It doesn't sound like you have? I would strongly recommend you do this if you are considering resigning as it doesn't sound like much has happened to actually solve the situation?

Appreciate there's was an 'inquest' but that's not the same as a grievance and sounds rather generic. What were the outcomes of this inquest?

HeyBlaby · 06/10/2020 19:43

I'd make a record of every phone call and email over a week and then forward it to HR alongside a description of her general behaviour. Make sure you keep the emails and phone records too.

RandomMess · 06/10/2020 19:44

This kind of impact means you can go justifiably go off sick, no one should be making you this unwell Thanks

Heyahun · 06/10/2020 19:58

What phone does she ring? Is it w work phone or personal one!? If it’s personal then turn it off ! And I’d just simply stop responding to her emails and get on with your work - she sounds nuts - and deffo inform HR

Babyday · 06/10/2020 20:27

I am so sorry to hear you are going through this. It happened to me a couple of years ago when I got a new female manager, I went from not having one days sick in eighteen years and an excellent reputation at work having just achieved a high level promotion to a quivering wreck who had to go on sick leave with anxiety which I had not suffered with before! Even after I came back from sick leave and was no longer under the management of the woman who drove me to the edge she would still use every opportunity to try and make digs and make me look incompetent in front of others. Unfortunately these people rarely change and things only got better when she left the organisation although my confidence at work is still not where it was. I would definitely document everything, every call, every email inform HR and if you have a senior colleague who could influence the situation confide in them. Good luck

Ceriane · 06/10/2020 20:27

Thanks all

YoBeaches....I haven’t raised a grievance, scared of repercussions.

She manages to make me feel like it’s me.

Maybe I should go off sick, cos I am really sick, so not as if I would be lying.

She rings Skype. With that they can keep tabs on when you are at your desk or not. If I’m away for more than 5 minutes she questions it.

I just can’t do this anymore 😥

OP posts:
Cooltalkin · 06/10/2020 20:43

Please please log it as pp said 801 this happened
803 that happened
And so on .. present again to hr with a grievance
Go off sick and let them deal with It
Hope ur ok I too have a mad boss and I understand how difficult it is but don’t risk yourself or you health
Step back from it and let the cards fall

YoBeaches · 07/10/2020 06:46

I understand your fear but you're assuming the grievance won't result in a good outcome for you, when it usually does.

If you go off with stress, you will be asked if it's work related and the sick note will mention this and HR will be aware when they receive the sick note. At that point they have to ask questions.

As of yet you haven't really given anyone the opportunity to help fix it. You haven't spoken to your boss about it (understandably) but you haven't accessed procedures through her line manager or through HR either...

Going off sick isn't really a solution to your problems. It will give you some breathing space yes, but the issue isn't getting resolved. And don't forget the pay impact depending what your company policy is. They may also refer you again to OccHealth if this is all considered to be about 'you' as you haven't told anyone (that can help) that it's about someone else's behaviour causing this.

You really need to raise a grievance with HR and let them do their job to support you.

You say your fearful of the repercussions - but you are about to go off sick or resign - the worst outcome is loosing your job which you are about to do to yourself anyway. You actually don't have anything to lose by trying.

WineGumsandDaisies · 07/10/2020 11:05

Hello OP, I hope you’re okay.

I’m going to be quite honest as it’s quite easy, for people looking at this, to see what is happening. In essence you absolutely MUST go to HR and raise a grievance. This is essential because you probably don’t realise that your line manager is taking you down the disciplinary route by way of OH assessment. She’s suggesting you’re not able to do your job properly and that you’re not up to it. You seem quite conscientious and that doing a good job and helping people are very important to you. Those are great skills and clearly others have seen that in your work too (from the feedback you’ve mentioned from them). Your Line Manager is absolutely not your friend, she’s not supporting or assisting you as LMs should and her behaviour, which has been abrupt, condescending and sustained, is a form of bullying. You should log everything (especially and including the ‘I am god’ comment) whether verbal or by email. Send a copy of all her emails with the log to HR. Put a quick couple of sentences requesting an urgent discussion via Teams. Tell them it’s making you ill and you want this taken forward.
You mustn’t go off with stress as this will give your LM more ammo to say you’re not up to the job (which is disgraceful but does happen). Ultimately either she goes or you get a transfer to another team. You need to get to HR now before she does. She’s trying to push you out of your job.
You need to look out for yourself. As someone in HR, I’m shocked and saddened to read this. I’d want to know about it if this was going on (and would most definitely sort it out).

RandomMess · 07/10/2020 11:12

You have nothing to lose by going to HR and raising a grievance.

You have plenty of time pre Line Manager when you work was satisfactory.

It is clear to us it's a sustained campaign to push you out and the level of contact from her is costing you hours per day when you are not able to get on with your work!!!

Cavagirl · 07/10/2020 11:25

Are you able to change your Skype settings to increase the number of minutes you have before it shows you're away?
(Settings -> Status)
She sounds like a horror show. Don't resign!!! I really believe people like this eventually get their comeuppance, have faith and don't give her what she wants!Flowers

rainydayslover · 07/10/2020 11:45

Hi Op,

I left a job like this due to my manager, she would micromanage me just like that. After I left, she set up his own team and within a year, they all went off sick with anxiety and mental health issues and they raised it with HR. She ended up leaving in return. It's all worth it, people like this shouldn't get away with it. Don't put up with it as it will affect your mental health. After I left, I didn't work for a year as it really shattered me and now if I ever come across her as she lives local, I will seriously punch her in the face for what she put me through.

Ceriane · 07/10/2020 17:42

Thank you. I have been keeping a log, I have spoken to HR and they have spoken to her line manager so that when she has her 6 monthly review they can talk about her management style...however I feel strongly that it’s more than just her management style...she seriously has it in for me for some reason, so I very much doubt she will change after this as it’s not just a clueless management style...she knows full well what she’s doing. However they are going to limit her contact with me, so that she can only ring me once a day and I don’t have to answer emails the second she pings them in like a trained puppy! Just a soul destroying nightmare!!!

OP posts:
Ceriane · 07/10/2020 17:48

What actually happens when you raise a grievance?

Winegumsanddaisies...Believe me I’ve already worked that one out a long time ago...although more likely capability than disciplinary. I need to get this sorted in my favour before that happens. I’m really stressed about this potentially happening.

OP posts:
Ceriane · 07/10/2020 17:52

I have to change my status to away before I leave my desk, if I leave it as available it changes after 5 minutes and she rings before it changes, she accuses me of not answering the phone, takes a screenshot to say that I was showing as available yet not at my desk and hadn’t changed my setting as per policy...this is how unbelievably ridiculous she is. She then e-mails me about it, with the screenshot and copies her line manager in...I end up feeling like a criminal!

OP posts:
Cavagirl · 07/10/2020 18:30

@Ceriane

I have to change my status to away before I leave my desk, if I leave it as available it changes after 5 minutes and she rings before it changes, she accuses me of not answering the phone, takes a screenshot to say that I was showing as available yet not at my desk and hadn’t changed my setting as per policy...this is how unbelievably ridiculous she is. She then e-mails me about it, with the screenshot and copies her line manager in...I end up feeling like a criminal!
Bloody hell!!!! Whose policy? You can change the time it takes to reset to away via Settings/Status, the default is 5 mins. If they are meant to be limiting her contact with you to one call a day maybe you can try this to get a bit of breathing space now. She sounds like a complete psycho.
Ceriane · 07/10/2020 18:56

She is. The working from home policy that she created 2 weeks after she started in post.

OP posts:
rainydayslover · 07/10/2020 19:08

Op it's ridiculous for her to be following up on whether your screen is away or online. I'm not sure what field you work in but in my field of work, there were many times my screen would fade-away as I'm busy proofreading or doing essential work but not on the computer. In a workplace, you are entitled to toilet breaks etc. She shouldn't be stalking you like that, it's unacceptable. Are you getting tasks done at an appropriate timing?