Just want to vent, my boss is ... calm down... not very nice.

[ExConstance]

I work for an organisation as a manager of part of it. I'm qualified in this line of work to masters level and also have legal qualifications, I was a solicitor for over 20 years. In the sector I work in confidentiality is very important and there has been no suggestion in the 10+ years I've been here that I have ever failed to respect that rule.
I have never really got on with my boss, who is overall manager of the concern, I have thwarted her attempts to micro manage me ( she used to ask to see emails I was intending to send and change the wording in insignificant ways) She also instructed me to complain about the incorrect use of the words "who" and "whom" in a regulators report of our organisation (I did not, and made my views very clear about this)
Last week I was invited to a Zoom meeting I don't usually get invited to, and I didn't have much to contribute so was very quiet. During the course of the meeting there was discussion about some matters which were clearly linked to employees personal circumstances and were extremely confidential. As this discussion continues I get an email from her pointing out to me that there are sensitive matters being discussed and they must be kept confidential. I replied saying I considered it hurtful that she should even mention this. The implication here is that she doesn't trust me.
I really have had enough, she is well over retirement age and seems unable to let go, especially from her number one passion of making everyone's life a misery. She spends all her weekends here in her office, despite having more support staff for her role than anyone else doing her job that I have come across.
When anyone stands up to her she gets very awkward. After the incident she said she would like to come round to my office and talk to me about it, I asked her what time she was free and said I thought it would be a very good idea, she has not replied yet, 3 days later. She has also failed to reply to any of my routine emails which impinge on the welfare of our customers.
I'm just wondering if this time I should make a formal grievance to our Board, in any event I will clearly state that her comment was unacceptable when I do see her again. I have obviously not discussed the content of the meeting with anyone, but I have spoken to DH about why I was so upset, he told me, as he has before that she is just a sad person with nothing or no one in her life except work and that I should not let it get to me. I just feel totally fed up with this and need to do something. The rest of my job is OK really, the team I run is very good to work with, though they have all had their experiences with her of a similar nature to mine.

What is it that you want from raising a complaint or grievance? From what I see, she has done nothing wrong on this occasion. I’d say to be less emotional in your response to her.
If you are near retirement, how much longer do you see yourself working there?

The op lost me when she described a woman doing her job well and sending out an apt reminder, how she responded in a petty childish manner then went on to inform us all that this woman should retire due to her age and how her and her husband like to sit at home calling her a saddo who has nothing going on in her life.

Just awful

I know that a colleague/boss i have only has to send me a very simple reminder of something and my hackles are up 100% because I feel she has undermined me so seriously in the past. I have decided she is more valuable than I am to the organisation so I suck it up, reply very briefly and neutrally and make myself a cuppa until I calm down again. I've worked for 2 years to get away from being managed by her and I'm nearly there.

I think these personality clash work fights are nearly unwinnable. Yes you can put in a grievance but what then? It sounds like you feel she is undermining and creating a hostile environment for you. However, it also sounds like you are doing your job very well.

I'd decide what you want ad go for that. Is it to get her job, to be out of her team, to get compensation for constructive dismissal or to be respected and treated well by her? There are different steps depending on the goal.

Bluntness100 - please read the thread, I will not be working much longer due to retirement, I could just do without her blighting my last year. I certainly don't want her job, she is responsible for the property and facilities, my job is about helping people who have a difficult time in life. It is not a legal job but not very different, I was approached by a former chair of the board to join them years ago because of my expertise in certain aspects of the job. I'm not very keen on meetings and certainly don't want to have a regular invite to this one, I would prefer just to drop in for the financial reports section really.

I suppose this is just the straw which is breaking the camel's back after 10 years of this sort of thing - the "who" or "whom" thing was almost laughable. Looking back through a few things that have been said recently there is just an outside chance she will retire before me, maybe I can hold on to that thought to keep me going. The eventual successor being groomed for her post is well liked by everyone and I think we would work well together, if I'm still around at that stage.

OP I think you're that horrible situation when a work colleague or boss has driven you slightly mad over a number of months or years and the thing that makes you lose it seems to the new viewer to be inconsequential. In of itself, the example you give is quite bland, but it sounds like 'death by a thousand cuts' and you're miserable.

I've had this where even seeing an email from a certain boss or their name flashing up on my phone gave me an adreline surge. Only people in the organisation know what you mean. Life's too short to be miserable all day at work. You can either try counselling or cbt to learn to minimise your reactions to her nonsense or get a new job.

I suspect she's made herself quite invaluable to the organisation and if, as you say, she has no other life she's probably doing lots no-one else wants to.

Ah cross post. Think of it this way - she's making the job easy to leave!

Whatever she sent me, I would reply yes, ok thanks for the reminder. Each and every time….. and nothing more.

Op, I feel your pain. I work for a micromanaging nitpicker but unfortunately he is the owner of the company and there is no HR to take grievances to. Being continually reminded to do or not do things that you are already aware of is very undermining and draining. My boss has supposed to be retiring for the last five years but comes in early and leaves after me everyday. He also comes in on weekends and doesn't appear to have any outside interests despite having more resources than most of us can dream of.

I am telling him this week of my plans to early retire. I don't think I can stand more than a couple of months being hovered over. He rewrites my emails sometimes and shouts what I should say from his office when I am on the phone. Roll on the New Year and my release from the mad house! Hang in there, it will end.

The example you gave was really petty. You said yourself this is not a meeting you usually (ever?) attend. I think you're over thinking this. Your manager was within their rights to send a simple email. Your response was really defensive. I think if you don't lighten up you'll rile yourself up in resentment and frustrating and have a terrible last year of work. If I only had a year left to work in a job I didn't like I'd be keeping my head down and counting the hours.

I had a boss like this OP. It seems a small thing but it is indicative of her general approach to micromanaging.

Ultimately, my boss could not do her job in the allotted hours, so she stayed late to get through the work. She procrastinated so much and wasted so much time by doing the micromanaging of those who were perfectly competent (much more so than her in many cases)that she was never on top of her own task list. Then, she would delegate and then micromanage those she had delegated it to. It was a vicious circle and very wearing.

In the end, all of her team bar one, either left or took early retirement. I still keep in touch with the one who stayed and the situation is worse than ever. My advice would be to go early if it is at all feasible. Your manager will not change at this stage of her career.

I’m OK, Bluntness 100 clearly hadn’t read the thread, her suggestion that I actually would want to attend a meeting which usually concerns lawn mowing and mending cleaning equipment was very wide of the mark. I could list a huge number of things she has done deliberately to belittle and upset me but it is not worth the effort because I will be spending my life having fun in less than a year. I will however be standing up for myself if she does anything like this again, hopefully my union would be able to help if those circumstances arise.

Hi OP,
I think I get the picture from your position. You are fairly senior yourself, yet micromanaged like a trainee or a person who can't even send her own emails.
Posters like @Bluntness100 who think that's "a boss doing a good job", really??

Your boss's reminder of confidentiality would have been fine if there were no other issues between you. Sounds like she never trusted you to do your job properly and this "incident" as you called it was just the last straw for you. So you told her you felt hurt she didnt trust you. Well, most people in her place would tell you not to worry, reassure you that's not what they meant and it's a general reminder. But she didnt do that, she set up an entire meeting with you and then stopped responding to important emails. She sounds nuts to be honest and very unprofessional. You have every right to raise a grievance, her deliberate non communication is impacting your work and the clients concerned. Also it just makes you feel like you've done something wrong, which you havent.
Btw, I have a micromanaging boss too, so I can only sympathise. I'm lucky that we dont actually work side by side, but she does this sort of stuff: Anything she sees or hears, she has to get involved and "sort it" for us, even if it was fine on the first place.

I know this type of manager OP, however previous posters are right in that her reminding you about confidentiality (even though you were already aware of it) is not the hill for you to die on.

What will, I hope, help you, is if you can start to depersonalise everything this lady says to you. So, she sends you a confidentiality reminder, you say "sure, no problem". She asks to rewrite your email, you say "sure, no problem". Go on auto-pilot if you must, and you'll find over time these things will bother you far less than they used to.

All this resentment and angst building up over she said this, she did that, is doing you no favours, and is making your time leading up to retirement quite miserable. It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, and just think, you'll never have to see her again once your last day is completed!

• I really have been there OP, I once had a micromanaging boss who sent someone to call me out from the loos after I'd just sat down! I rushed back into the office and asked "what is so important that it couldn't wait for me to have a wee?" Funny enough, she never did it again.

I wouldn’t make this the hill I will die on, I can see she is extremely irritating but you will look silly complaining she reminded you about confidentiality. Focus on following up politely on the things you do need from her and put her out of your mind otherwise, as you say it won’t be long!

Thank you everyone for helpful advice. I've decided to keep a running log of her behaviour just in case I need it but just to minimise contact, give bland answers to her emails and just get on with finishing everything up before I retire. If it gets any worse I can afford to go now, but I don't see why she should thwart my plans to maximise my income in retirement by working on until I'm 66.
I do think her attitude is personal. I've lost 4 stone and totally reinvented myself this year, taken up running and weights, changed my hair, most people I have not seen for a while don't recognise me to begin with. She is the only person I work with who has not said anything at all about this, she turned round and stomped off when the receptionist invited her to comment! Anyway, less of that, back to the grindstone.

@Bluntness100

She was correct in reminding you of confidentiality. She has behaved correctly, it wasn’t personal. She was doing her job

The issue is you’re overly sensitive and can’t stand her, you resent her very presence

But this is not the hill tp die on op. You will look like a twat

You should have responded with “of course and understood”. You are not normally privy to these discussions, she is your manager, she was not implying anything, simoly ensuring confidentiality was maintained.

Good for her

Do you regularly need a reminder of confidentiality? Most of us don't.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro

Most people who are used to this kind of meeting don't. But imagine if an employee NOT USUALLY IN THE MEETINGS weren't aware of that?

I rarely agree with Blunty but she's nailed it on this one. If the OP has a list of valid grievances, get them on the table. "my line manager reminded me the details of the meeting were confidential" isn't one of them.

[quote SapereAude]@Getyourarseofffthequattro

Most people who are used to this kind of meeting don't. But imagine if an employee NOT USUALLY IN THE MEETINGS weren't aware of that?

I rarely agree with Blunty but she's nailed it on this one. If the OP has a list of valid grievances, get them on the table. "my line manager reminded me the details of the meeting were confidential" isn't one of them.[/quote]
Surely if you manage someone adequately you should know what they are and aren't aware of. Whilst it seems like nothing if this woman is a total dick to op all the time it's understandable why this has tipped her over the edge.

As part of a wider issue, it absolutely is one. Perhaps the better thing to do would be to tell the entire meeting it was confidential and not single out one member of staff who you already have an obvious issue with.

Bluntness has actually been very aggressive and nasty on this thread. To the point where I wonder whether she has taken it a bit personally.

Micromanaging is shit. It's not good management. It's shit management.

OP, I think the "pile-on" in relation to your taking offence at the confidentiality point, is very unfair, or at least ill-informed. I am a senior solicitor and, as you and I both know, the obligation of confidentiality is drummed into us from the earliest point of our training, and is enshrined in the rules of conduct which we must adhere to, or risk being struck off.

In that context, it would be the last straw for me, too, if an (unqualified) pedant, who had been behaving as you describe, singled me out to remind me of the importance of confidentiality. It would be akin to reminding a senior doctor that they must not harm the patient. I can't believe that she didn't realise how irritating this would be to you - she was clearly deliberately patronising you. Having said that, others in the organisation, would possibly not "get" the point that she had been very insulting to you in making this specific comment.

OP it is abundantly clear that this is the straw here. As others have posted though she has not done anything that would see her reprimanded in this instance, although I can see after a long campaign of “micro aggressions” I use the word loosely because this particular instance probably doesn’t meet even that bar, you have reached your limit.

I think you are best off having a quiet word with her directly, give her a few examples of the behaviours you struggle with preferably stronger examples than the ones you use here and then ask her to stop. She probably won’t, but if you are on your last year you can surely remain professional while creating a significant distance between you and worst case scenario she pulls you up a few times which let’s face it at this stage of your career any complaints from her aren’t likely to go anywhere. She sounds difficult but you don’t have to sort her out in anyway, you just create enough space for you not to lose the cool with her.

16:40Bluntness100

She was correct in reminding you of confidentiality. She has behaved correctly, it wasn’t personal. She was doing her job

She would only have been correct to do so if she emailed every single member of the meeting which she obviously didn't because if shed intended that she could have just said it in the meeting anyway.