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Started a new job recently and my boss is a huge micro manager. Sends me tons of emails starting at 5.30 every morning mostly asking me to do something by a certain time. She often does the task herself then turns around to flog me for not doing it myself.
I know we have a lot of wise people on here so I’d really appreciate any advice as to how the hell you manage a micro manager. To top it all off she’s also passive aggressive and menopausal. Help! 🙁
Ask her why she’s sending emails at that time when you don’t start until 8 or whenever it is.. Say you won’t read anything work related until your actual start time.
favourite cheese mature Cheddar. FFS there is no such thing as the EPL
As another poster just said - Start looking for another job, because if things are as you describe you've clearly got off on the wrong foot with each other, she does not trust you to do whatever it is you are supposed to do and you won't make probation.
You have my sympathies. Easy to say look for new job but that may not be practical or good for your career. My advice would be to either go above/around her or if that fails have it out with her and explain she either back off or you will be off. Life is too short, good luck.
I was micro managed when working on a golf course a couple of years ago. We were 12 members of staff short and once the mm started I lasted a couple of months. Phone calls for standing still when a colleague drove off for a toilet break. Thick b’stards. It will never work.
Say 'no'. Many people, like your manager, will not realise what they are doing is wrong until challenged. Once they are, they'll usually back off, if not then off to HR.
This book is very good. Short and sweet but it succinctly sums up how to be a manager - get a copy and see if you can subtly introduce it to your manager, maybe via all your team enthusing about it? After reading it you'd hope they'd have some sort of epiphany.
Alternatively, knuckle down, work hard and ascend the greasy pole and become THE manager yourself. I realised in my mid-20s I was surrounded by idiots and if I wasn't careful one, or some, of them could become my boss, I therefore had a 10-year burst of grafting, asslicking, toadying, saying "yes" a lot and eventually became the big chief. At that point I could just apply one-minute-manage principles and enjoy 30 years of peace and quiet.
You don’t say if she’s the company boss. If she is you might as well walk.
If she’s just your boss, she will have undoubtedly done this to other members of staff. Call her bluff, say she either lets you get on with it your way or you’ll take it over her head. They’ll be others so she’ll likely back off. If she gets stroppy, take it higher.
My daughter did something similar and it came out that everyone in the company hated the fckin woman, they just wouldn’t challenge her. She carried on micro managing everyone else but left my daughter to do her own thing thereafter.
You could send her questions at 3.30AM. Then the phone calls. Then the questions AND the phone calls. Then the voice notes. Then turning up outside her house with a printed spreadsheet and a highlighter.
I reckon she'll get the message.
'What do we want? We don't know! When do we want it? Now!'
This. About 12 years ago I changed jobs from somewhere I'd been happy with for seven years but very underpaid for the role I was doing. Soon after I'd started I knew I'd made a mistake. The team manager had taken a swift dislike to me after I started for what I've never understood.
He picked holes in everything I did and was forever having a go in a very passive aggressive way. The team I was working in was also very cliquey and none of them apart from one guy made me feel very welcome. I used to dread the train journey into work every day.
As soon as this started happening I should have gone to HR but didn't and it's something that nags me to this day. The twát of a manager was a fake hoops fan.
If I saw the cúnt in the street today, I'd be sorely tempted to chin him.
Yes agree with this approach the sooner you sit down and say your piece the better. Manager will probably back down as most micro managers are insecure.
**I'm currently out of the office spending time with my family, minding my own business In my own free time and enjoying my privacy and liberation. I will respond to your email on my return to work**
My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.
It may be that your manager doesn't yet trust you. That may change as she gets to know you and realises that you are perfectly capable. I'd give it a couple of months. Best of luck 👍
"Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1."
Thanks everyone for the good suggestions. For context, I’m the manager of a government property portfolio but as I’m only 5 weeks in I’m still on probation. I was hired by my boss’ boss while she was on stress leave so I think she’s a bit miffed that she had no say in my appointment. I have a gun on the table meeting with the big boss (the one who actually hired me) today so I’m going to launch my counter offensive at that meeting. Got nothing to lose so will be laying it all out.
May or may not be applicable to your situation but I had some joy being explicit in my responses.
Is what she's asking for reasonable in terms of workload and timing? "Yep, I can get that done by end of day Wednesday and will update you by mid day Wednesday if anything changes that delivery timing."
At that point they just seem like a dck if they're bothering you for it on say Tuesday, and you can always say "I'm still on track for end of Wednesday"
If what she's asking for is not reasonable in terms of workload or timing then it's tougher but you might have success sharing the reasons why. Give her a chance to move stuff out your way to let you do what she wants, or make her make a decision about priorities. Ultimately I always think a managers job is to put their team in a position to succeed and the employees job is then to execute on that. If she's not putting you in a position to succeed then that's on her and that can be raised, first with her and then her boss if she doesn't change.
The 530am thing is bad, especially if she's actually expecting you to be active at that time, but that feels less like micro managing and more like just being a terrible boss and person.
She does sound pretty insecure and as you say you were hired into her team without her input I would say document things, make time lines and notes of the emails at 05.30, when she undermines you and such. Definitely never loose your rag or become frustrated with it, easier said than done I know, but really building up a case that you may have to take to HR is the best way forward Good luck with it
Just totally ignore her emails sent before your working day. She will then write further emails asking why you have not actioned her emails thus doubling her emails to you meaning that she has to start at 4.30.
You can also ask questions in relation to her emails so that again she has to spend twice as long explaining what she means.
If your boss is doing this to you, then others are getting the same treatment.
I'd say stand off, reply to the emails when you get to work in a respectful manner and explain the truth that you'd be delighted to do these tasks if only you'd known about them in your working hours. Enjoy your trip to work as normal, your lunch as normal, and your trip home as normal.
Keep your head down. Let someone else fight this. Because this fight is unwinnable.
Seneca - "No matter how many you kill, your successor will be among the survivors." It's not quit apt, but you get my point. We can't beat all of our enemies. Better off that we don't create them.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Whatever is happening try to address it in one of the above ways but if that doesn’t work and eg HR doesn’t back you then leave. It’s very undermining to be bullied and harassed undermines your confidence, making it harder to leave in the longer run.
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