Hello people,
I am facing this situation every day. I think I am handling well so far but things don't/won't change. At the end of the day I can only control the controllables..
Anyway in a nut shell, my relationship with my immediate boss has deteriorated significantly since January. It already hit the peak point in March, hence a third party HR consultant was brought in to mediate the issues by the big boss. (This is a small company and there is no HR person employed. I share an office with my boss.)
At the meeting, we agreed on some bullet points we were going to work at. I believe I've been sincerely putting a lot of efforts into it to make the situation better since then. I made it clear though that I wouldn't want to talk about personal stuff at work with her and I would appreciate vice versa. She brings a lot of family/personal stuff into work and waste my time by talking to me about them (not interested at all) or being on the personal call out loud too long. I just wanted to be cordial and professional at work.
Now it's been a couple of month since the meeting and things have gone even worse. Her behaviour is unbelievable - unprofessional, vindictive and childish. Here go some examples. Most of them are basically the reasons that caused such a conflict in the first place. Now it just got worse.
1. She excludes me in her (work-related) outgoing emails by all means possible. I am the one who needs to action on those issues most of the times and I get to hear the final result only or from some other sources by forwarded emails or verbally.
2. We've had this long standing rule that she goes to lunch at 1pm or earlier and I go to lunch at 2pm. (One of us has to be present at the office all the time.) Now she just goes whenever she feels like (sometimes more then twice in different times) and however long she likes. It doesn't really bother me as long as she comes back before I go or she tells me in the morning if she has to go at my usual time but she never tells me any of this. On many occasions, she comes back a lot later than 2pm. She sometimes leaves work early and she just says 'bye' the moment she was leaving. Also when she can't come into work for some reason, she doesn't contact me but people in other irrelavent department. The same goes for her holiday. She doesn't tell me her holiday schedule. We cover for each other and I don't get to hear from her when she's booked a 2 week's holiday. I get to find out on the first day of her holiday (obviously!) or by hearing from somebody else.
3. When I request holiday, she holds her approval for long without any good reason.
4. She gives me tasks/projects in a short notice and tells me to do it by tomorrow or in a few days. If I ask some questions regarding those tasks, she lashes out at me in aggressive and confrontational manners. Once she gave me this unreasonable and impossible task without much details or deadline and suddenly told me she needed it in a few days. At that point I had to inform the big boss and he had to ask her why this had to be done and by a certain date and why she had to make me do things manually. Then he made the task much simpler using a downloadable spreadsheet. Without his involvement, I would have had to print off a load of paper and manually input all the figures for months long compared to a couple of hours actually taken!
5. She does not respond to my requests emails. Even after I politely ask her if that has been sorted, she answers abruptly and abrasively. And sometimes she says she doesn't remember so I have to prepare a new document.
6. I feel like I am walking on the eggshell when I ask her any questions due to her expected tsunami-like reaction.
7. She's sitting and waiting to catch me out with any tiny silly mistake. It actually happened yesterday that she went on an anger outburst on me for something trivial. OMG it should have been seen.
However I actually like what I do at work and have a good relationship with the rest of the people. I've believed as long as I excel at what I do - which I am trying really hard to perfect everything what I do - she wouldn't have much to criticise about me or my performance but alas, this annoys her even more and she tries to use her position/power to do things to me.
I was briefly considering moving on but from experience there is always somebody difficult in any workplace and no place is perfect. Since this is kind of an ideal job for my long-term career, I've been holding on to it.
However today I've heard somebody committed suicide and part of the reason was the office bully. It makes me feel confused and disheartened that there will be light at the end of the tunnel or this is just walking into the even deepr toxic ocean?
I really appreciate any advice on my situation.
Thanks for reading a long story!
I am facing this situation every day. I think I am handling well so far but things don't/won't change. At the end of the day I can only control the controllables..
Anyway in a nut shell, my relationship with my immediate boss has deteriorated significantly since January. It already hit the peak point in March, hence a third party HR consultant was brought in to mediate the issues by the big boss. (This is a small company and there is no HR person employed. I share an office with my boss.)
At the meeting, we agreed on some bullet points we were going to work at. I believe I've been sincerely putting a lot of efforts into it to make the situation better since then. I made it clear though that I wouldn't want to talk about personal stuff at work with her and I would appreciate vice versa. She brings a lot of family/personal stuff into work and waste my time by talking to me about them (not interested at all) or being on the personal call out loud too long. I just wanted to be cordial and professional at work.
Now it's been a couple of month since the meeting and things have gone even worse. Her behaviour is unbelievable - unprofessional, vindictive and childish. Here go some examples. Most of them are basically the reasons that caused such a conflict in the first place. Now it just got worse.
1. She excludes me in her (work-related) outgoing emails by all means possible. I am the one who needs to action on those issues most of the times and I get to hear the final result only or from some other sources by forwarded emails or verbally.
2. We've had this long standing rule that she goes to lunch at 1pm or earlier and I go to lunch at 2pm. (One of us has to be present at the office all the time.) Now she just goes whenever she feels like (sometimes more then twice in different times) and however long she likes. It doesn't really bother me as long as she comes back before I go or she tells me in the morning if she has to go at my usual time but she never tells me any of this. On many occasions, she comes back a lot later than 2pm. She sometimes leaves work early and she just says 'bye' the moment she was leaving. Also when she can't come into work for some reason, she doesn't contact me but people in other irrelavent department. The same goes for her holiday. She doesn't tell me her holiday schedule. We cover for each other and I don't get to hear from her when she's booked a 2 week's holiday. I get to find out on the first day of her holiday (obviously!) or by hearing from somebody else.
3. When I request holiday, she holds her approval for long without any good reason.
4. She gives me tasks/projects in a short notice and tells me to do it by tomorrow or in a few days. If I ask some questions regarding those tasks, she lashes out at me in aggressive and confrontational manners. Once she gave me this unreasonable and impossible task without much details or deadline and suddenly told me she needed it in a few days. At that point I had to inform the big boss and he had to ask her why this had to be done and by a certain date and why she had to make me do things manually. Then he made the task much simpler using a downloadable spreadsheet. Without his involvement, I would have had to print off a load of paper and manually input all the figures for months long compared to a couple of hours actually taken!
5. She does not respond to my requests emails. Even after I politely ask her if that has been sorted, she answers abruptly and abrasively. And sometimes she says she doesn't remember so I have to prepare a new document.
6. I feel like I am walking on the eggshell when I ask her any questions due to her expected tsunami-like reaction.
7. She's sitting and waiting to catch me out with any tiny silly mistake. It actually happened yesterday that she went on an anger outburst on me for something trivial. OMG it should have been seen.
However I actually like what I do at work and have a good relationship with the rest of the people. I've believed as long as I excel at what I do - which I am trying really hard to perfect everything what I do - she wouldn't have much to criticise about me or my performance but alas, this annoys her even more and she tries to use her position/power to do things to me.
I was briefly considering moving on but from experience there is always somebody difficult in any workplace and no place is perfect. Since this is kind of an ideal job for my long-term career, I've been holding on to it.
However today I've heard somebody committed suicide and part of the reason was the office bully. It makes me feel confused and disheartened that there will be light at the end of the tunnel or this is just walking into the even deepr toxic ocean?
I really appreciate any advice on my situation.
Thanks for reading a long story!