My manager is a micro manager and I’ve no idea how to deal

[MadHatter36]

Please help or give me your advice.

I joined a firm 10 months ago which pays very well and above average. To put it into context the average role (outer London) pays £28k, where as I’m on £36.5k. So £8,500 above average.

There is me, my colleague (same level as me) and my manager who permanently work remote from home. Everyone else is hybrid working.

Anyway! To the point. My manage is a micro manager and it’s driving me insane. She’s checking our every move(me and my colleague), checking how many emails I’m answering, checking how many accounts I’m actioning & it’s all getting a bit much. My colleague is newer than me, and she comes down on him like a ton of bricks when he makes mistakes (albeit minor but I understand). I find when he is on annual leave, I get the brunt of her micro managing. I work 9-5, I logged in early today (8am) as it’s the school holidays as i wanted to get ahead for the day and make up for any interruptions (my son was home with me today, he is in year 6), yet I got bombarded with 11 calls throughout the day to ask me pointless questions. I feel it was to check on me. I’ve told her previously (in a nice way) to stop calling all the time as it interrupts the flow of things, and she promised she would stop it. She hasn’t. Today was the worst because my collegiate was off so it seems the emphasis was on me. She called me at 1.45 PM today to ask me what I was doing, and that I was taking ages to compete a task? I explained to her I had not long came back from lunch, as to which she replied “well you haven’t sent an email since 11am”, I explained I had been doing other things and how would she know what I’m doing? She told me she does a check on how many tasks I’ve done at 11am, followed by another check. I instantly said “micro management” and she flipped! She said how I must be away from my laptop all the time etcetc. I explained that was not true. Anyway, what on earth can I do about this ? She has pushed so many people out of this job, I think I’m the fourth person to do it since she became manager over a two year period , and she’s already told me it’s unlikely my colleague will pass his probation. I’m so fed up! But like the money. When either me or my colleague make an error, or I tell her I’ve got too much work, or I keep logging in 30 mins to an hour early to keep on top of my work load her response is “well your paid well so get on with it. I’m busy too”. Honestly, she does nothing but check on my and my colleague. She cannot be doing much herself surely calling me 11 times between 9-5? Should I confide in her manager?

Like I’ve said, it’s worse when my colleague is on leave. I guessed what would happen when he was on annual leave and it was worse than I imagined. I told him before I left, I bet you she is a nightmare when you’re off and I was correct. I am off the whole of next week, she knows I’m away this time so she will not contact me. However, my poor colleague will get the brunt of it next week!! Today she only called me twice, but that’s because she knew not to call as I was flat out. I logged in at 8am (I don’t start until 9) , I had a 20 min break, and logged off at 3 as her superior said we can all finish at 3pm. Before her boss said this, she called me to say get my head down today and I MUST complete all my work today as im now on annual leave for over a week. She puts on huge pressure and I had to rush through everything today. I go above and beyond, but it’s almost as if I’ve made it the norm so she expects me to log on early ?

Out of curiosity, anyone in the finance world that doesn’t live in London, how over worked would you expect to be if you earned £36.5k? Would you be expected to be working flat out for 7 hours of the day?

I totally sympathise with how difficult this must be. My previous manager was like this, luckily I had been with the company for 5 years so was left alone a little but she treated my colleague horrifically.

She expected daily logs of how many calls were taken, lists of tasks completed each day and if she wasn’t happy with how the list looked in terms of format then she asked for it to be redone at 4.30pm by 5pm when there was a lot more important things to be doing, expected multiple catch ups in one day as a team and I had to minute these yet the following day we wouldn’t reflect on anything to check progress. Each week she came up with new ideas on how to all record what tasks we were working on, including shared calendars and all sorts of applications where she wanted updates to be made on top of daily catch ups where notes were taken on It drove me absolutely insane being in the team of 3 where 90% of her energy was being spent discussing what needed to be done rather than allowing us to complete tasks. She also would be very vague about her responsibilities (including tasks she had taken off you to ‘help’) and then when she left the company it became clear very quickly that she hadn’t touched a lot of the work she should have been working on and left a trail of destruction behind her. Her handover was about one side of A4 and some key projects only had a single sentence attached to them so it was clear she had spent way too much time tracking our work then doing her own.

In the end I spoke to her line manager and HR and explained that I couldn’t face working with her for another minute (she was also borderline bullying the other colleague) and luckily it was clear that I was one of many who had raised concerns so it was taken very seriously because it was affecting too many people in such a negative way .

I would absolutely recommend speaking to someone to at least ask how best to cope with her way of working because it isn’t currently working for you and you find it extremely counter productive. Micro-managing is truly awful and can affect your mental well-being so please do seek some support. I found it helpful to keep a log of examples that i shared when I raised my concern so that I could give very clear and accurate context to my complaint.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for your reply @Jellybum2019 , wow your scenario is very similar to my own. When I tell her how busy I am, she replies “so am I”. It’s all about her I just cannot stand her and she knows it. The money is amazing, but money isn’t everything right? It would be such a lovely job if she wasn’t there, but there is no chance of her going. 0. She has it too easy.

That’s fucking annoying. If she didn’t interrupt you, you could actually finish the task. The manager is an idiot!
I work somewhere where there’s loads of meetings. Great! But, you can’t actually get on with the job in hand whilst you’re having another fucking meeting 🙄

The tipping point for me was when she introduced a meeting at 9.30 every morning to discuss our weekends to improve team bonding but if you dared declined one week because you geneuinly didn’t feel it was a good use of time due to workload, she would ring you immediately to push ‘why are you so busy?’. Honestly mind boggling her thought process. My blood used to boil seeing her face appear on Teams what felt like 2827283 times a day! Even worse when her cat would appear and you would get a 5 minute update on what the cat was doing.

Money absolutely is not everything and being ‘happy’ at work is way more important than dealing with this type of stress every single day. It ends up taking over your life because you find it even difficult to switch off each day because of how wound up you feel. Please do seek support and hopefully things improve you for one way or another!

Every Monday sorry not every morning - although I’m sure she would have tried every morning given her way!

Wow you really have experienced what I am experiencing. I find it impossible to switch off @Jellybum2019.

update on this situation: nothing has changed. I get between 5-10 calls a day, accused of not sitting at my desk, constantly checking my work and picking at small errors. I told her manager today what she’s like and the calls. Her boss said I need to tell her not to do this, and to schedule in some time once/twice maximum a day. So fed up!

I imagine that The extra money isn't worth the stress, OP.

ps: and block her number when/if you go on holiday again !!

I think you should take what her manager said very seriously. You know have valuable back up to try to get this under control, don’t lose momentum!

Did you keep your log of each call/email she makes to you, what it was about (and why it was unecessary), the time it took and the interruption it caused to your task

Did you keep a log of your time/motion

Once you have those things put it formally in an email and set out how deskilling and disabling the constant interruptions are and that you consider this micro management which is a very poor management style. That you want to have a formal meeting with HR to move forward as its impacting on your ability to consider staying with the company and that you can see there has been a high turn over within this role and this is bad management for that to impact so badly on staff retention.

Its also helpful to set out how much time it is taking you to focus on the above which you have had to do because having raised it already nothing has changed.

Then you can also talk about the impact its having on your emotional welbeing

Are you obligates to on-hand for phone checkups?
Is your work task-driven and are the KPIs tasks like projects instead of ongoing work like constant workflow?

If it's the former what would happen if you just stopped answering the phone to her but got all your work done and hit all your targets?

Who would she complain to that you were not available for her silly checks, and would they care, if all your tasks were completed?

Told her today to stop calling. Literally nothing has changed. She said it’s noted that I want her to stop calling but sometimes queries need to be answered there and then, which isn’t true. I think she’s just trying to push me out. I checked my contract and I get three months full sick pay…. Very tempted.

Make sure everything is documented in writing. If you have a verbal conversation with her about micro managing you, follow it up with confirmation in writing.

The last person that did this to me (not the calls so much but the constant criticism and error noting) I raised a grievance against for bullying me.

I didn't win the grievance but I was moved away from them and that is all I wanted. Life is 100x better now with a normal manager (who has just given me a pay rise!).

I agree with Hunderland, communicate in writing wherever possible and follow up any verbal conversations in writing, just confirming ... Make contemporanous notes as things happen; if you do end up going down the greivance route, they will add some heft.

Really though, it shouldn't be up to you to tell her not to call/pester you. Her lovely manager should be doing her job, part of which is to manage your manager, esp now you've raised it with her.

I've had a micromanager and until you've been through it you don't realise how demoralising and demotivating it is.

Be micro managey back.

Everything you do, send her an email/message. “Just spent 17 minutes on a call about X” “just spent 23 minutes working on Y file” etc

I’m lucky that at my job, 75% of what we do is recorded automatically so no one can really try this with us

Also I can’t imagine her manager is happy about her using her time like this. Leaders are supposed to inspire their delegates to get on with it, not baby them all the way. I’m sure your manager has other things she can get on with.

I’m fed up of it. I wake up dreading work now. I’ve done 13 months at the company. I’ve read through my contract and it says we get 12 weeks full sick pay, 12 weeks half. How do I go about going off with stress ? I’ve never ever been through this in my life. I don’t know the process.

It should say in your company policy.

Update Glassdoor so people are aware

@MadHatter36 go to your Dr and tell them you're feeling really stressed because of your manager's behaviour.

I was signed off for two weeks, then another two weeks, then I felt well enough to go back but could have carried on being signed off if not.

Hi everyone. I reported my bosses behaviour to her line manager, who wasn't very happy. She said because of how it's affecting me as a person, she needs to inform her how I feel and suggest mediation. After the meeting between my manager and her line manager, she called me and said "I thought I was leaning on you, I was training you up to do my role but youre clearly not cut out for my role". She then said she had to take a call and left. I'm now very unhappy. We have mediation next week but I can't see now it's going to work. She's a control freak! I don't know if to go on sick leave for a while and then resign (I get full pay for a while), attend mediation which I'm not looking forward to, or just resign immediately and make all of our lives easier. I've spoken to my previous employer and my boss said I can come back any time and to drop her a call when I'm ready. The pay is no where near as good, however I'm lucky I'm in a position where money isn't an issue. Opinions ?

I think that

1. After she was told, the first conversation she should have had with you about this would be during mediation. She should not have called you.


2. she shouldn’t have said what she did to you. It would be different if she called you and said sorry, but she called you to guilt trip you and drop some bitchy comments. You should raise this with her manager.