Micromanaging colleague

[Pieministers]

I work as an admin in a team of specialists, one of whom used to do the admin role which I now do. She’s not my manager, but out of the whole team, she’s the one I work the most with.

The main part of my role is responding to queries via email. When I first started doing the job, she would send me a message every day listing the various queries and what I should do with them. To begin with, this was fine as I was still learning, but she was still doing it a few months later so I gently suggested that she didn’t need to and I’d ask her if I needed help.

She took that on board at the time but has suddenly started looking over my shoulder again and it’s really irritating as I feel like I’m constantly having to justify my actions!

To be fair to her, she is a nice person and I think it comes from a place of really caring about the job and wanting to give a good service, which I absolutely agree with. But she seems to be nervous that I’m not going to do something, so I keep getting slightly PA reminders like ‘I checked and you haven’t emailed xyz back yet, just making sure you’re ok to do that?’ or lengthy instructions on particular queries. If I wasn’t responding quickly enough or doing my job properly then it would be understandable but the rest of the team have said they’re thrilled with how well I’m doing.

I really enjoy the job and it’s a great environment, I just want to find a way of reassuring her and nicely asking her to let me get on with it! If anyone has had a similar situation and managed to deal with it in a non-aggressive way that would be really helpful.

Bump

You asked her nicely and it hasn't worked, so now you need to tell her that you know what needs to be done and will do it in your own time.

I would have another chat with her, say that you're so grateful for all the support she's given you but it's time for her to step back and let you manage your own workload independently to help you develop in your role. Stay positive and pleasant and keep repeating each time she asks you if you've done XYZ say it's all in hand thanks and shut down the conversation or change the subject quickly. Maybe she's not got enough to do in her new role. If it continues you could mention it to your manager but hopefully you'll not have to do that.

I like the idea of saying it will help me develop as she will see that as something she can support while not breathing down my neck too much. I don’t want to upset her as she is genuinely nice and cares very much about what she does, plus I can learn a lot from her.

It’s just the feeling that she’s hovering nervously behind me in case I make a mistake that bothers me. She’s super busy so she really doesn’t have time to be monitoring me and I’m definitely not in need of supervision!

That’s just given me an idea actually, I have to come up with some objectives for myself for my manager and I might ask colleague to suggest a couple.

That's the last thing I would do, I wouldn't reply to her emails either.

Tell her to speak to your manager if she has any questions.

She may be super nice and helpful but if you reinforce that she's your go-to you're just drawing out her ever leaving you alone.

Next time she did it I'd just email back 'I'm on top of things, no need to spend time on reminders', maybe with a smiley, and then ignore any further emails.

I've got zero patience with being micro-managed though.

That was pretty much what I did the first time. I said that I knew she was really busy and she could leave the queries to me rather than spending time on them and I’d ask her if I got stuck.

It is irritating - I’m in my 40s and spent over 20 years in banking so I’m very used to being proactive and managing my own workload effectively. I suppose I was just trying to tiptoe a bit but @WeAreAllLionesses is right, I need to not enable her to micromanage.

Perhaps it's more varied, I truly hope it's more varied, but I worked with someone who came across as very nice while training because as you said, they have a reason to be directly overseeing what you do.

My situation got progressively worse until all I wanted to do was leave. There were other issues to tbf but they did all revolve around micromanagement.

I would nip it in the bud by sending an email and then ignoring advice. If it continues you must escalate.

In my experience, my last two jobs I was micromanaged, it won’t get any better no matter what you do or say.
Micromanagers are insecure, territorial, no matter what you try to do or say, they won’t change.
All it’s does is wear you down and eventually knocks your confidence and makes you question yourself, when you know your perfectly capable. It’s like a form of gaslighting.

Funnily enough, I’m in the office with her today. She asked me if I was ok with the queries that had come in so I grabbed the opportunity and basically told her that I knew she was busy helping another more senior person with a project and she could leave the queries with me.

My tone wasn’t aggressive but I did frame it as a instruction rather than a request. She looked a bit taken aback for a minute but then said not a problem, sorry if I’ve been a bit OTT. She then went on to mention that another of our team had told her off for trying to micromanage me and she was trying to stop herself.

So at least it’s out in the open now and if she tries again I can push back.

Still be wary OP. The irony was my micromanager always went on about "not ever wanting to micromanage". But the issue was they meant on stuff like time keeping and presenteeism. They still very much micromanaged the actual work though.

Absolutely, and if she does continue then I have more leverage now to say something more directly.

I had a manager several years ago who was a nightmare for the presenteeism and timekeeping and it pissed me off massively. He would deliberately give me ‘urgent’ work or organise a meeting just before finishing time to try and make me stay late. On the few occasions I worked from home, he’d call me at certain times to check I wasn’t off somewhere - a fact I only discovered when I saw his calendar and he’d made a note at certain times saying ‘check pieministers’.

She sounds unhinged!

If you've told her many times before then I'd start ignoring her. Emails can easily be ignored. If she's hovering about beside your desk then pretend you haven't noticed her and carrying on working. When she starts waffling on, get up and walk off while simultaneously saying you've got it, need to go to reception, etc. Do that on repeat every. single. time. she. approaches. Don't apologise. Don't get annoyed. Just minimise that interaction. Eventually she will lose interest.

It sounds to me as if she's missing the job and has over-egged her importance in the process.