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.

If you want to go nuclear make a data subject access request and ask them to search her teams messages and emails with your first name in over the last year or so.

You have a right to see the results of a reasonable search for your personal data.

Brace yourself for the results. People forget teams messages are not confidential.

That is so awful. Well done for standing up to it.

Whatever action you decide to take is up to you but please be careful and vigilant going forwards because this person has shown her true personality type. She either can't handle pressure and will throw the nearest person under the bus rather than take responsibility or she has so little respect for you that she will say lies behind your back rather than talk to you first. Either way she is only apologetic because she has been caught out and hoping that you will not take it further.

Hard disagree with the 'go to HR crowd'. HR are not your friends. They are there for your company, and will see you as a troublemaker.

Obviously this was rude, but not a big deal, so I'd just let it lie.

Unions are good however.

I’d make a miniature effigy of her & stick pins in it….that always makes me feel better!

You should screen grab the message before it’s deleted and save it to your files, then you have one up on her for future reference. Let her worry for now that you might be taking it further

Don’t be scared of escalating if it needs to be.

I think it was unfortunate but mostly forgivable. Many have done this - it’s wasn’t 100% correct but nor was it utter gossip, offensive, racist etc. With any HR complaint you have to ask yourself what outcome you would like to achieve. There is little positive outcome here (in my view at least) so why escalate. It would help no one.

You are going to need to ve politically astute from now on, assuming that she does not have your back. Build relationships with her peers as well as your own. See if someone in a different department would be a mentor to you

It’s really unforgivable that the manager basically made up something to cast the OP in a poor light. She has made the op out to be difficult to cover up the fact that she couldn’t access the document. This was malicious and not accidental. And she intended to portray the op as negative and angry to another person. Very poor, and untrustworthy.

Do you work in local government by any chance? Sounds like really poor management.

I would have an informal chat with HR if so. If unionised I would definitely join a Union in your position as they can be very helpful indeed.

Also, endure that if you are not in a union, that you consider joining one

Hi, sorry you have had that unpleasant experience. It might be a good thing that you saw it though. If she is your immediate superior, maybe you can talk to her superior. Maybe she has done something bad for company morale. I probably would not just leave it, because it might be the thin end of the wedge. This is how bullying starts. Just my opinion but I know I would want to deal with it above board and in the open. If the problem started with you, then it should be resolvable without going behind your back. How can you make something right if you are being kept in the dark? All the best. X

This is very unprofessional but if you need to stay just make sure you watch your back and be more aware of how she treats you. Some people should not be managers she sounds like one of them.

Seems like you’d be making a fuss over nothing if you escalate.

Ouch!

I’d ask yourself what you want to achieve by raising it with her again. She knows you know and she’s apologised.

if you’re raising it to talk through the incorrect aspects of it - what will you achieve?

This happened to me but it was someone line manage who sent an email about me to me. The content wasn’t nice or professional. Until then we’d had a good working relationship. She said to me at the time, “I can’t take it back because I won’t”. That told me all I needed to know - our working friendship was over. We are now civil but I won’t ever trust her again. Depending on the content of the message you’ve been sent, I’d be wary from now on. If it’s a professional message about your performance to someone who also line manages you then fair enough but if it’s an unprofessional one then, depending on your relationship, I’d think about taking further action.

Tell her she needs to send an email round to the team correcting the inaccuracies. Then you make a complaint to her manager about her habit of discussing her staff behind their backs. Tell her manager you want a meeting to discuss this and if you aren’t satisfied HR is next. That should concentrate her mind nicely.

I'd ask for a meeting to discuss it and her stress levels. While it's not your role to manage the later, it may give you both a better understanding of what is going on, why she behaving this way and allow you to explain it is unacceptable to gossip and backbite within a team, both as a leader and team member.

It sounds like it may not be personal, so rather than assuming that open as if it wasn't but with a how can we work together to ensure you don't take out stress on your team. Perhaps ask about mental health training, and stress management options in general within the work and what would available for both of you if it should happen again?
Hope that is helpful.

Log it with HR if this isn't the first time you can always say you don't want it to go any further but that you want it noted it covers yourself if anything further was to happen also you don't know if other messages have been sent that you haven't seen

I would write her a message back.

'Condescending and rude', sorry, wrong person!

I would send a formal email to her (and maybe cc the other person/people the message went to) putting the record straight, making clear that what she said was incorrect
Keep the email and any response

I'm not a complainer at all, but I would want HR to be aware of this.

Hoped I’d find a message like this! She is, indeed, a snide bitch, and she probably says a lot worse about you to people in person, whether or not those things be true. I would take this as far as you can go. She’ll do it again in the future if she thinks she can get away with it.