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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 · 09/10/2020 18:18

Thank you!!! She suggested taking my laptop into the bathroom so I can quickly answer it if she happens to ring! Yet after my catch up today, she pointed out several mistakes (obviously her job to point them out, and I’ve probably made them due to feeling stressed) but she manages to really make me feel like “She’s not all bad...I’m just really incompetent” but then I remember all the things I’ve mentioned on here. My head is so confused!!!

OP posts:
PanamaPattie · 09/10/2020 18:23

Really?

Cavagirl · 09/10/2020 19:33

"Dear Shitbag
Ref. our conversation earlier when you suggested taking my laptop into the bathroom so I can quickly answer it if you happen to ring. I do not believe this is a practical request and would prefer our catch ups to be during our scheduled time."
Cc HR
Seriously. You need to start doing this. Everything in writing.
She's fucking batshit.

Ceriane · 09/10/2020 19:47

She is completely batshit.

OP posts:
Chickenwing · 09/10/2020 20:35

You definitely need to raise a grievance!! There will not be repercutions, it can only improve matters. I would also consider going sick with stress and citing it is due to behaviour of your line manager. You dont deserve this and dont need to put up with it.

Chickenwing · 09/10/2020 20:35

You definitely need to raise a grievance!! There will not be repercutions, it can only improve matters. I would also consider going sick with stress and citing it is due to behaviour of your line manager. You dont deserve this and dont need to put up with it.

Chickenwing · 09/10/2020 20:37

Everytime she makes a ludicrous suggestion like taking your laptop into the toilet ask her to put it in writing. If she asks why say that you dont think it is a reasonable request and want a record of it. I would also be saying to her directly that she is micro managing you and it is distracting and stressing you out. Give her the opportunity to respond.

Ceriane · 09/10/2020 20:51

Thank you. I just read a post on here about someone managing a graduate and now I’m worried that people think that of me (not a recent graduate by the way) I couldn’t be trying any harder.

OP posts:
notapizzaeater · 09/10/2020 21:07

I'd just go,off sick and raise a Grievance, did you tell HR that she was insisting you rang her when she couldn't ring you ?

LilyLongJohn · 09/10/2020 21:08

Raise a grievance op. What's the worst that can happen? You have to leave? You'll leave if it doesn't get any better anyway.

Ceriane · 09/10/2020 21:18

I will tell them that. She said “it is courteous to ring someone back when you know they have tried to ring you”

OP posts:
Cavagirl · 09/10/2020 22:16

OP you are letting your own insecurities and self doubt undermine you.
Imagine if you were totally incompetent. The shittest person in the world at your job.
Would this method of "management" be appropriate?
If you were utterly shit, is it justified to ask you to take the laptop to the toilet with you?
No. It's not. There is no justification for what she's doing.
FWIW you sound very competent. You've been doing your job fine for 2 years before Shitbag came along and started bullying you. Don't let thoughts of self-doubt hold you back from standing up for yourself.
Raise a grievance. She's a bully.

justilou1 · 10/10/2020 05:18

In the case of bullies, they generally cry foul then back down when you push back. You have been bending over backwards to accommodate and appease her, which has given you a target on your back and made her continue to shift her goalposts.

Ceriane · 11/10/2020 18:28

Thanks, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, trying to accommodate and appease her, and can’t keep up with it! I really doubt myself. 😥

OP posts:
ApolloandDaphne · 11/10/2020 18:35

She sounds awful. Who on earth thinks it is okay to answer calls in the bathroom?

Porridgeoat · 11/10/2020 20:28

Raise a grievance, ask for a different manager and go to your GP with stress. It sounds like you’re on the edge due to her micro managing to the extreme.

Ceriane · 11/10/2020 20:38

I’m going to ask to move teams. I just don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t work with her.

OP posts:
Porridgeoat · 11/10/2020 20:42

Please email her manager and give details of what’s been happening.

LilyLongJohn · 12/10/2020 11:43

I hope today goes ok for you op Thanks

Hadalifeonce · 12/10/2020 11:53

I think she may be trying to 'manage' you out of your job.

Often this targeting approach, undermining, telling you one thing then when you follow through on that tells you you have done it wrong, giving you the vaguest of instruction then when you query it, you are seen as incompetent.

You need to speak to someone higher up the food chain, at the moment she has the upperhand, and unless you are careful you will be gone.

BananaHammock23 · 12/10/2020 15:23

OP I really feel for you here but I think you need to put in a grievance as a matter or urgency. She's making your life a living hell, but if you don't do something about it then you're going to have to live like this. I don't understand why you're so adverse to putting in a grievance?

Ceriane · 12/10/2020 15:31

I have now put in a grievance. I think she just enjoys the power trip.

OP posts:
Cavagirl · 12/10/2020 16:46

Well done @Ceriane
Still curious about what HR have done so far - they have told you that they've instructed her she's only allowed to call you once a day? Does she know that you know this?

Ceriane · 12/10/2020 18:10

Not yet no. Should be an interesting one to explain. They’ve asked her to do another stress risk assessment.

OP posts:
shivermetimbers77 · 12/10/2020 18:52

Hi OP,

I am so sorry to hear you are going through this. I have been through something similar, so much so that your post brought back a lot of old feelings and memories.. I did not go down the formal grievance route (as was totally bamboozled by my micromanager/bully) but wish I had, so well done for going down that route. I would strongly encourage you to contact your NHS Trust’s ‘Freedom to Speak Up Guardian’ (every NHS Trust has to have one). They will provide support and advice to you about the grievance process and will support you, whereas HR (in my experience) have to remain much more neutral. Good luck OP. A micromanaging bullying boss can be very traumatising. Make sure you have a good support network, and remember, it’s not you, it’s her. Remember how you used to feel about your work and write down the things you are proud of about your work and all the things colleagues/former managers have complimented you for in the past, and look at it regularly. This really helped me when my confidence was shot away by the bullying.