Manager accidentally sent teams message about me to me

[Newyorklady]

My Manager accidently sent a message on teams about me to me. It wasn’t very nice either and factually incorrect.

I have messaged her to let her know I’ve seen it. She has apologised (eventually after trying to excuse it) for what she said, although trying to excuse it to being busy.
Id be mortified if I was her I now feel our relationship is damaged.
I am going to distance myself now as I can’t trust her.
What would you do ?
Im not the type to escalate anything as it never ends well but I feel it needs raising with her in a more formal setting.

I would ask her to message all recipients of the first message to let them know that she has retracted her negative comments about you and ask her to copy you in

When she’s done that , ask her to place a copy of both messages in your personnel file for future reference

Fucking teams is unprofessional shite anyway.

Use this to your advantage. Any chance you get say, friendly ribbing to her - “just to clarify … I’m not losing it”
Be sure others hear that you are confident
and not losing it.

I understand your reluctantance to email HR as you want to keep your head down for a few years. But in 6 months time you may want to escalate things to protect this aim, if things develop further. Please be aware your manager has bullied you. She should be scared, not blasé. Futureproof things to give yourself options:

Send the screenshot or whatever to yourself as an email attachment. Along with the email correspondence between you. Send them to your personal email.

Send yourself a personal email about what happened, so you have a contemporaneous record. Imagine you're writing it as a simple statement of your version of events for possible use in an HR meeting. Because it might be.

Repeat the last step again as a separate email (again to your personal account) but this time include emotion. How it made you feel, your anxious concern for your reputation amongst colleagues, etc. You can then choose which one is appropriate to use if required.

Always to your personal email though, in case of a data access request of your work account.

Speaking of which, if things get serious, you could make a data access request of her inbox for anything mentioning your name. This is all just if things escalate, but please futureproof things for now even if you take no action. To protect your future, your pension, your sanity, etc.

I would screenshot and see how she acts. Don’t act different, just now you have a bit of info to keep under your hat and you know not to trust her.

If there is any whiff of her treating you unprofessionally because she is embarrassed etc, then take it higher.

I’ve read your updates and I’d stick it out, she will probably leave or move roles soon.

I think you should raise it as a complaint to HR. Unless you feel confident enough to have it out in person with her, by which I mean give her a bollocking, she clearly doesn't respect you.

Feel for you @Newyorklady.

Discuss it at your next 121. Say you found it unacceptable that she was critical and described you as “losing it” when all you did was politely ask a question. Say if she has any concerns about your conduct, you’d appreciate it being discussed with you at 121s, rather than with other staff. You always welcome feedback.

Ask for a note of the 121 and make sure she’s recorded what you’ve said, and her apology, in the note. If she won’t do this, keep a note of her apology, if it was via message/email. If she said it to your verbally, then send an email to her confirming the conversation in your 121 and saying you accept her apology.

You don’t have to complain or do anything else. But best to have a record of what’s been said at the time, especially if there’s already been a string of unprofessional behaviour. If it escalates, and you need to take further action or prove you’ve been professional, it’s important to have a record.

Teams is rubbish, as is all micros*t. How the business world has never questioned this is beyond me.
More training on teams for the guilty party?

I have a similar dynamic among the senior team at my work and it's very unpleasant. It's quite hard to shift these sorts of attitudes and it really sabotages trust etc.

I personally would be looking to move as I'm not as close as you to retirement. I'm very cynical about HR which in my experience usually just provides air cover for senior management as opposed to protecting staff (maybe different in the public sector but private sector HR is toothless).

But in your situation it might be worth going to HR: you clearly have been there a long time and have a lot of credibility and support (and to be brutal about it you would be expensive to fire or manage out) so if you raised a grievance they would have to take it seriously.

I’ve had one 1-2-1 this year. My own staff have one every 4 weeks.

If you want to stay that changes things: I agree with some pp - make a record of exactly what happened from your perspective including at the meeting and everything afterwards, how you feel and forward yourself the email to keep. Also record any previous instances that have felt off in as much detail as possible. Date it and watch out for more. Hopefully she’ll move on.

You can pursue it in a less formal way if you are really worried. You should be at least letting someone know that she has mis-characterised you, she's made you look like an idiot which would be far more damaging in the long-run. I'd be pushing it a bit further and I would forward the email chain to next level management (or did she not put anything at all in writing in response to you) and you have to bring these things to the forefront or else a person like this keeps getting away with it, towards you or towards someone else.

I get that you don't want to rock the boat but she is already badmouthing you, that can go downhill very quickly and your reputation is shot and before you know you'll be on a performance mge plan with a view to managing you out. As I said I personally would either have it out with her so she knows not to mess with you or go the HR route and nip it in the bud.

You need to send that to HR, along with the message that you don't want to rock the boat, but you do want a documented record of this.Screenshot the teams message and save it to your desktop in a file too. You're 8 years to retirement, she could create a hostile workplace, make things difficult for you in other ways. She clearly won't hesitate to talk negatively about you. Record it and if you never need it then that is fine, but if you do, the protection is there. Having been in the "wish I had preserved a record, now i'm leaving due to a bully" situation, I strongly recommend this.

If she has apologised i'd accept her apology (in writing) and tell her I don't expect that she will be sending unnecessary and untrue emails about me in future to others and if it does happen again I will take it further.

I'd ask her to email the person she sent the message to, explaining her other message was factually incorrect about you. And I'd want to be copied in.

Involving HR would only be necessary if she refuses to do this. There's no need to go to HR in the first instance, it's always better to resolve things between you first if you can.

I think I’d have hit reply all with something dismissive ‘oh remember I said I couldn't open it. Productive meeting as always.

See Id ask for a meeting with the boss above her.
I’d just explain factually what happened and show them the messages.

I’d say at this point you don’t want to take it any further or raise a grievance and that you’ve spoken to your manager directly regarding it but you wanted to inform them of the situation just in case of any issues in the future. That you’ve been happy in the organisation you work in for many years (length of service would surely reflect that and would work in your favour?). I’d also ask for an email/digital record of a summary of that meeting so you have proof of senior management acknowledgment.

I dont know what kind of person your direct manager is whether she is malicious or has the capacity to be but you don’t want her to be now turning people against you out of embarrassment for her error.

Logging it at least sets out what happened factually from the beginning.

Ouch. I feel it says how she perceives you or talks about you when you're not around, especially if it wasn't accurate. Maybe have a meeting with her so she can explain herself, you can ask her if she has an issue with you

This is great advice.

Id be careful with this approach.

Reason being, your company, and possibly the manager themselves, can most certainly access and read your work emails if they want to. So if you do email yourself, and they see it, the blow-back on you could be worse than if you'd raised with HR formally.

Taking a picture of the screen is a more discrete way to preserve a record of what occurred. Now might also be a good time to put in for that payrise/promotion; if you dont get it, what could be the reason...?

Can't see the issue with sending an email about you to your personal email account, with no comment. Unless it contains secret company information, of course.

And everything else, as I said should be written from and to a personal email account. To avoid any subject access requests.

But definitely go for that payrise/promotion 😈

The issue is that you would then have an employee who is perceived, by their employer, to be covertly securing documents without having raised any complaint internally. While there are a few different actions the employer might take in such circumstances, very few of those options are likely to be in the employee's favour.

An employer taking action against an employee for not taking action against their manager bullying them? I respectfully disagree.

I would say that you ought to raise it with your line manager and arrange a meeting specifically to discuss things. Try and keep things calm, whilst pointing out the factual inaccuracies in her teams message.