I think the function head is a bully

[DarkCh0c0]

51 minutes ago, RuedeRivoli said:

company which literally issues report cards to employees to rate them on an individual basis for everyone else to see.

That's extreme.

Hopefully, you might get some answers in the meeting. I am never onboard with embarrassing anyone publicly on my team. If I have something to say (feedback), I'd discuss it privately with them.

Also, remember, some managers don't know how to do better. So, it might not be as personal.

[RuedeRivoli]

11 minutes ago, DarkCh0c0 said:

That's extreme.

Hopefully, you might get some answers in the meeting. I am never onboard with embarrassing anyone publicly on my team. If I have something to say (feedback), I'd discuss it privately with them.

Also, remember, some managers don't know how to do better. So, it might not be as personal.

Extreme and it happens on a quarterly basis. I feel like a pupil as a grown professional.

That's what I would have expected from a "normal" manager. She blindsided me by sharing this with the whole team (including people who didn't work with me on this project) without addressing the problem with me first. This is what I have an issue with because she made a whole lot of incorrect assumptions in public during the call and never gave me a chance to explain beforehand. She even said herself: "I don't have any background on these deficiencies and how they came about, but blah blah". Well, she could have had some background if she had discussed this with me privately first. 

This whole conference call ordeal will therefore mean for me that my peers will not want to work with me on any project (either it'd be mine or theirs) and that is my biggest issue in the approach she took. Now, everyone is going to make the incorrect assumption that I am incompetent, which I am 100% sure I'm not. Someone's performance should never be discussed in public period. 

[DarkCh0c0]

11 minutes ago, RuedeRivoli said:

Someone's performance should never be discussed in public period. 

Agreed.

[Jibralta]

I also agree. It was totally unprofessional of her to do that.

As far as your feelings go, I just think you should have more of a relationship with her before going that route. That's why I recommend talking to her, asking questions, and listening, and perhaps doing this more than once. That way, you can find out if she actually cares about your feelings, or if she gets off on hurting them and bullying you. Why cast pearls before swine? The best way to deal with a bully is a swift punch in the face, not through appeal/supplication. Obviously, at work, the 'punch in the face' option is removed but appeal and/or supplication still don't work. I speak from personal experience with bullies, both at the playground and at work. 

[Batya33]

But won't your colleagues know that her assumptions were incorrect and her criticisms therefore weren't well founded?  Sounds from what you described it was obvious and you ended up vindicated.

[Batya33]

6 minutes ago, Jibralta said:

That way, you can find out if she actually cares about your feelings, or if she gets off on hurting them and bullying you.

I would try to find out if she actually cares about working as a team vs cares more about showing her "power" (I mean didn't she end up looking pretty foolish?)  - because feelings are mushy, ever changing but if a supervisor cares about the team working together effectively and feeling the right level of responsibility/accountability and sort of "taking one for the team" (as opposed to singling someone out -my former mentor used to tell me "I don't want to hear who made a mistake - you're a team so if a mistake is made it's all of you"). 

I recently had a situation where I had two choices (1) I could not tell my supervisor I'd made a mistake since it was rectified before the deadline (really I doubt she'd have known)  - but only because someone who works "for" me caught it in time; or (2) I could tell her and also take the opportunity to tell supervisor that my coworker caught it.  I chose (2) even though then I'm telling supervisor I made a mistake.  I believe in (2) strongly and I think your manager should foster that type of environment - so in that way yes feelings matter -meaning IF you had made a mistake you should feel obligated AND comfortable enough (meaning for a typical person not someone who's afraid of his own shadow) to come forward, own the mistake and even share who found it if it wasn't you.  I see that your manager's approach might have the opposite effect and kind of pit people against each other.

Good luck.

[Tinydance]

That sucks that your manager did this to you but I also agree that you should be fairly careful in how you deal with this. It may be possible that the manager didn't mean to actually humiliate you on purpose but they were just making an example of your work to show what to do and what not to do to the other staff. If you do want to speak to her about this incident then I think you just need to be careful in how you word what you're saying and you need to say it politely.

[Lambert]

Now that you know the audit results are being discarded, I probably would change my approach in the meeting. 

What is there to really discuss now?

In a professional environment stay professional. no matter how low someone else goes. I would not express my feelings. I would not let someone who does not give a poop, the satisfaction of my emotions.

Rather, I would become cold, professional, distant. Work only.

This manager showed you what her style is... instead of making things worse for yourself put your effort into leaving.

I've had terrible managers and I always just kept focused on the work. And quietly keep looking for new and better opportunities.

It's work. Not personal.

While I agree, it's great when you work with caring and respectful people.  When you don't, don't make yourself crazy trying to teach your bosses. Do your work until you can leave. Then leave on good terms. Never burn a bridge.

Always show professionalism and grace. You never know who is noticing and where that will lead in the future.

[catfeeder]

I would avoid approaching this from a 'should' perspective or a defensive push-back position.

I'd avoid displaying a victimized mentality in any way.

Instead, I'd ask which milestones had triggered the audit. From there, I would ask this manager what 'I' can change about our process to make sure that preliminary drafts or other documents are entered into our system, such as current issues being addressed, to ensure that we are not audited prematurely again.

If she suggests actions that are beyond my scope or otherwise out of my hands, I'd ask whether I can schedule her into a meeting with me and those responsible for these actions in order for her suggestion to reach the right people.

I would do the OPPOSITE of adopting a surly, cold or shamed demeanor. I'd carry a confident and cheerful attitude around the office as though this just rolled off of me. I'd adopt the assumption that everybody knows of the unfair conditions that exist within management, and I'd demo that I'm well-seasoned enough to just play through regardless of what gets thrown at me.

I'd watch to learn who gets targeted next, but if it continues to be ME, I'd read that writing as an invitation to move on.

 

 

[Lambert]

59 minutes ago, catfeeder said:

 

I would do the OPPOSITE of adopting a surly, cold or shamed demeanor. I'd carry a confident and cheerful attitude around the office as though this just rolled off of me. I'd adopt the assumption that everybody knows of the unfair conditions that exist within management, and I'd demo that I'm well-seasoned enough to just play through regardless of what gets thrown at me.

I'd watch to learn who gets targeted next, but if it continues to be ME, I'd read that writing as an invitation to move on.

 

 

I just wanted to clarify... I do think this is the right attitude to present to others.

I would be cold and distant on the inside, if that makes sense. Acting normal to those on the outside and being detached on the inside. 

[catfeeder]

52 minutes ago, Lambert said:

I just wanted to clarify... I do think this is the right attitude to present to others.

I would be cold and distant on the inside, if that makes sense. Acting normal to those on the outside and being detached on the inside. 

Yep, exactly. It's not about denying reality, but rather adopting resilience as my motivation.

I don't operate well if I allow my own inner whiner to drive my perspective. It will never lead me to where I WANT to go.

When I can lift myself UP by adopting the behaviors and attitudes of people who I admire, my whole approach to professional challenges ends up surprising me, AND before I know it, I've either resolved a situation OR it has resolved itself without my intervention.

[boltnrun]

I worked with a manager who made it her personal goal to either get me fired or get me to quit.  And I wasn't imagining it; she told one of the workers who happened to be a good friend of mine that she was determined to get rid of me.  She called me out in a meeting with the GM and the entire management team for something I hadn't done correctly.  In fact, it was allegedly a safety issue and the regional safety director happened to be present as well.  They both very strongly told me that I'd created an unsafe condition that put the employees at risk.  I knew that wasn't the full story, but I also knew it was pointless to argue or try to defend myself in that circumstance, so I just said "I understand.  I assure you I will follow policy going forward".  And that was it.  I didn't ask for a meeting or anything, I just said I would comply.

Not too long afterward that very same manager started changing her opinion of me.  She saw I was a hard worker and a fair manager.  She made such a complete turnaround that she was even recommending me to other GM's for a promotion!

Try to think long term.  Will telling her you "felt uncomfortable" really serve YOU in the long run?  You often need to be self-serving when managing your own career.  Think about what would be best for you and proceed from there.  And sometimes handling difficult situations calmly and with poise will make someone's opinion of you do a complete turnaround.

[catfeeder]

2 minutes ago, boltnrun said:

I worked with a manager who made it her personal goal to either get me fired or get me to quit.  And I wasn't imagining it; she told one of the workers who happened to be a good friend of mine that she was determined to get rid of me.  She called me out in a meeting with the GM and the entire management team for something I hadn't done correctly.  In fact, it was allegedly a safety issue and the regional safety director happened to be present as well.  They both very strongly told me that I'd created an unsafe condition that put the employees at risk.  I knew that wasn't the full story, but I also knew it was pointless to argue or try to defend myself in that circumstance, so I just said "I understand.  I assure you I will follow policy going forward".  And that was it.  I didn't ask for a meeting or anything, I just said I would comply.

Not too long afterward that very same manager started changing her opinion of me.  She saw I was a hard worker and a fair manager.  She made such a complete turnaround that she was even recommending me to other GM's for a promotion!

Try to think long term.  Will telling her you "felt uncomfortable" really serve YOU in the long run?  You often need to be self-serving when managing your own career.  Think about what would be best for you and proceed from there.  And sometimes handling difficult situations calmly and with poise will make someone's opinion of you do a complete turnaround.

Yes, yes, YES!

I'm sure that Bolt wasn't feeling exactly fabulous even before this incident, and had she operated from a place of defense in a room full judges, she would have amplified rather than minimized the problem.

Often, less is more.

I try to avoid a mentality that positions me to 'tackle' someone else's perceptions. That can set me up for overkill on something that will evolve into last week's problem--then last year's problem--even as I simply hold my ground on professionalism and competence.

Crosshairs tend to move around to multiple people, and for reasons we likely will never know. It's up to us to operate in ways that make that focus on us temporary as opposed to hooking and grabbing that focus and amplifying it with protests and unnecessary drama.

Test how well you can 'roll' beyond an unfair incident, and learn whether this might benefit you better than amplifying the incident.

[Batya33]

I have a friend - this prompted by Boltnruns post - recently offered a chance to work with a woman she worked with years ago who she didn’t like working with - because of her management style. But this woman reached out to my friend via LinkedIn so like in boltnruns case apparently this woman likes and respects my friend’s work a lot.  It would mean a promotion plus work she would prefer to her current work.  
We agreed she should explore it especially since it’s been years - perhaps the woman changed.  And since the woman obviously wants to work with her there’s some leverage there. 
Another vote for not burning bridges or getting defensive. 

[RuedeRivoli]

Thank you all for your responses. 

To give a bit of background on the dynamic with this manager:

I've sensed she's had something against me from the beginning. It started during my first week when she asked me to write a paragraph to introduce myself and she would sent it across to the entire network afterwards. I did and she never sent it to anyone, nor did she introduce me to the network. She however introduced every single employee that arrived before or after me (I received those emails - including some from when they set up my email account before I started). This already gave me a negative vibe. 

Fast forward, a few months ago, she asked about how I want to progress between then and the end of the year. I told her I was interested in a specific topic and if she had any projects revolving around that, I would be interested in getting involved. What did she do the day she had a project? She assigned it to someone who is known for making mistake after mistake. Every single time I express interest in a project, she says she will assign me to it and then winds up assigning this person or someone else. If she asks who is available for an extra project as other people are at capacity and I volunteer, if no one else volunteers, she will suddenly come up with another employee to assign it to. It's been like this since day 1, yet she told me during my performance review (pre-audit debacle), I had an exceptional performance. Go figure. 

She is also the type of manager who seems to encourage people to talk to her about disagreements with other co-workers. A few months ago, two guys in my team had a lot of problems with one another and it created some toxicity within the team to the point where they both went ahead and complained about one another to this manager. I was nor involved in this drama nor did I want to be dragged into it. Then during my performance review, she said she knows there's a certain dynamic within the team and is aware of what's going on between the two guys, so if I ever feel the need to address any frustrations etc.. I can always speak to her. I don't throw people under the bus unless the situation has gone out of control, so nothing from my side there. 

That is why I am saying she sets an odd dynamic. 

As far as why the call is going ahead - the internal audit will be undertaken again at a later stage, but it doesn't mean the call shouldn't go ahead. The internal audit will still happen again. She plastered the supposed deficiencies in front of the whole team during the call and I wasn't able to even speak my truth because people started talking on top of each other. I want to address this privately to show that I also care about the quality of the work. If I don't address it at all then she's going to take it for face value that I on top of this don't care at all about trying to improve things moving forward. It's strategic. 

Talking about the team - some people from the team helped me out during this project. It just so happens that the deliverable supposedly marked as "not done" by internal audit was delivered by another member of the team, not me - on top of all this. I have the email trails. When I was about to address this during the call, the person who undertook this piece of work jumped in asking: "How could anyone forget to do this piece"? It annoyed me because this is the same person who undertook the piece of work at stake (the one marked as not performed) and instead of actually being team-oriented and saying she undertook the work I was overseeing, she acted as though she had some kind of memory loss and instead made it sound as though it was me who forgot to assign it or undertake it myself. There was no getting out of this during the call, clearly. 

In any case, what is done is done. I will continue to perform my tasks as required, but I will stop going above and beyond. This project which was the cause of the internal audit debacle landed me at the hospital because I was working 8am to 10/11pm including weekends for months (unpaid overtime of course) and it's not even recognized. I've now mentally checked out. I will be "cold" in the sense that I will no longer be emotionally invested in the job, will continue to perform the tasks such as a robot and leave it at that. I already have a foot out and certainly don't intend on staying. 

I don't burn bridges with people or former employers. I've had awful employers, but never even vocalized anything during exit interviews or anything for this specific reason. I always say: "Great company which I would recommend, great team - I'm simply looking to expand by skill-set by taking on a new challenge". I'm still in touch with my former employers,. No one knows what I truly think and I intend on keeping it this way until I leave. 

[Jibralta]

2 hours ago, RuedeRivoli said:

I already have a foot out and certainly don't intend on staying. 

I think that's your best option. 

[RuedeRivoli]

23 hours ago, boltnrun said:

I worked with a manager who made it her personal goal to either get me fired or get me to quit.  And I wasn't imagining it; she told one of the workers who happened to be a good friend of mine that she was determined to get rid of me.  She called me out in a meeting with the GM and the entire management team for something I hadn't done correctly.  In fact, it was allegedly a safety issue and the regional safety director happened to be present as well.  They both very strongly told me that I'd created an unsafe condition that put the employees at risk.  I knew that wasn't the full story, but I also knew it was pointless to argue or try to defend myself in that circumstance, so I just said "I understand.  I assure you I will follow policy going forward".  And that was it.  I didn't ask for a meeting or anything, I just said I would comply.

Not too long afterward that very same manager started changing her opinion of me.  She saw I was a hard worker and a fair manager.  She made such a complete turnaround that she was even recommending me to other GM's for a promotion!

Try to think long term.  Will telling her you "felt uncomfortable" really serve YOU in the long run?  You often need to be self-serving when managing your own career.  Think about what would be best for you and proceed from there.  And sometimes handling difficult situations calmly and with poise will make someone's opinion of you do a complete turnaround.

Thank you. 

The reason why I asked for a meeting is because I have evidence the work was done and I didn't get to speak at all during the meeting due to various colleagues jumping in to ask random questions and she not stop for 10 seconds. I simply want to highlight the work was done and discuss how to avoid this discrepancy with audit moving forward. No harm in having a professional meeting to discuss an issue that could severely impact your performance review when the results are clearly incorrect. 

[Jibralta]

10 minutes ago, RuedeRivoli said:

No harm in having a professional meeting to discuss an issue that could severely impact your performance review when the results are clearly incorrect. 

If you're dealing with someone who is fair-minded and always looking out for the best result, you're right. But you're dealing with someone who you believe is out to get you. If that is true, and she is really doing it to entertain herself, then you're playing right into her hands by "proving her wrong." She already knows she's wrong; that's why she's doing it. 

[RuedeRivoli]

29 minutes ago, Jibralta said:

If you're dealing with someone who is fair-minded and always looking out for the best result, you're right. But you're dealing with someone who you believe is out to get you. If that is true, and she is really doing it to entertain herself, then you're playing right into her hands by "proving her wrong." She already knows she's wrong; that's why she's doing it. 

I invited my team lead to the meeting as well, but given the fact the audit results are being discarded, I might cancel the meeting altogether. I'll link in with her tomorrow to ask whether she still wants to move forward with it. 

[Jibralta]

1 minute ago, RuedeRivoli said:

I invited my team lead to the meeting as well, but given the fact the audit results are being discarded, I might cancel the meeting altogether. I might cancel the meeting altogether.

Also, (hopefully) you are one foot out the door, looking for other jobs, and this place is disappearing into the past, so who cares about setting the record straight. 

[boltnrun]

53 minutes ago, RuedeRivoli said:

Thank you. 

The reason why I asked for a meeting is because I have evidence the work was done and I didn't get to speak at all during the meeting due to various colleagues jumping in to ask random questions and she not stop for 10 seconds. I simply want to highlight the work was done and discuss how to avoid this discrepancy with audit moving forward. No harm in having a professional meeting to discuss an issue that could severely impact your performance review when the results are clearly incorrect. 

This is not going to get this manager to view you more favorably.  In fact, having someone else in the room to witness you telling this manager she was wrong and presenting evidence like it's a court case is possibly going to make her view you even more unfavorably than she already does.  No one likes to be told they did something wrong, especially in front of others (as you well know).

I wouldn't go forward with the meeting, but of course this is your workplace and you know how it functions.

[RuedeRivoli]

24 minutes ago, boltnrun said:

This is not going to get this manager to view you more favorably.  In fact, having someone else in the room to witness you telling this manager she was wrong and presenting evidence like it's a court case is possibly going to make her view you even more unfavorably than she already does.  No one likes to be told they did something wrong, especially in front of others (as you well know).

I wouldn't go forward with the meeting, but of course this is your workplace and you know how it functions.

The purpose of the call is not to tell her she did it wrong. Not at all. I think this is where most posters got confused. As a matter of fact, it won't be about her at all. I won't even mention the Thursday meeting. 

I was planning on asking questions about the internal audit process. How internal audit conducts their audits, whether they do ask questions as part of the audit and what I think internal audit did not pick up on because they simply did not ask. Then, the second part of the meeting would simply be about what we could have done better during the project, the lessons learned during the project in relation to what internal audit picked up on.

Nothing in the call will be pointing towards what she did on Thursday at all. She has far more visibility over what internal audit does and has direct contact with them. It's not a trial at all. If anything, my problem is more with internal audit than her specifically during this upcoming call. 

I invited the manager, not because I wanted to put her on trial in front of him (again, the call won't be about her at all), but because I don't want him to think I went above his head. I want to remain transparent with all management levels to avoid any further problems. Once again, the call is not about me telling her what she did wrong, but mainly ask her about the internal audit process etc. As I said, it is internal audit that came back with incorrect conclusions. She did not draft the conclusions herself, she just presented them. I want to address what internal audit did, not her. 

[boltnrun]

36 minutes ago, RuedeRivoli said:

what I think internal audit did not pick up on because they simply did not ask.

I wouldn't expect her to respond favorably to this (above)

37 minutes ago, RuedeRivoli said:

She has far more visibility over what internal audit does and has direct contact with them.

because of this.

But again, you're there and I'm not.  So I presume you are confident about how your presentation will be received.

[RuedeRivoli]

55 minutes ago, boltnrun said:

I wouldn't expect her to respond favorably to this (above)

because of this.

But again, you're there and I'm not.  So I presume you are confident about how your presentation will be received.

Any bad rating on one of her employees affects her rating too, so I would hope she cares to an extent. 

In any case, I'll probably cancel the meeting.