How to approach my boss about a personnel issue
December 28, 2018 6:01 AM Subscribe
I have a coworker who is problematic and I think things have reached the point where I need to talk to my boss about it. Please help me strategize what to say and how to say it.
My apologies for length, but I'm going to try to provide a lot of context about my work situation in general before I describe the problem, because I think in this case the specific context is very important.
1. I work for a very small software company that has been around for about 3 years now. We provide programming services for a specific niche clientele. The company is neither very "successful" nor "failing"-- it has been treading water, growing very slowly through word of mouth and maintaining profitability but only barely, it is a "startup" in the sense that it's (relatively) new but not in the sense that anyone here is hoping to become very wealthy.
2. I am not located in America. I mention this for two reasons, firstly that any legal aspects aren't going to be American law, but secondly because it is my understanding that in America it is possible to easily find software jobs (maybe just in major cities?) where work-life balance is highly respected? I don't know if this is actually true. Where I live, it is not. The culture of software jobs is that 9-10 hour days are the baseline norm and plenty of jobs will expect more at least occasionally. Jobs will advertise themselves as unusually "flexible" if they let you make up some of those hours on the weekend, or if they let you leave early 2 days a week and stay late another 2 days to make it up.
3. My company, on the other hand, has the following business model (I have not heard of any other company with something like this, and I have asked around): We are extremely flexible about hours. We tell clients up-front we do not work to deadlines because we do not charge deadline-allowing rates. The employees are paid per hour, below the usual per hour market rates, and in exchange you can take off pretty easily, show up late pretty easily, leave early pretty easily, work from home pretty easily, within the constraints of actually getting your job done. What this means is that the employee pool is composed of people for whom flexibility is super important above and beyond pay, which is pretty much: students, parents, and other caretakers, plus occasionally sometimes people with other very specific large time commitments they want to fit a job around (eg, a first job they want to supplement). (To clarify: nonetheless overall the office keeps basically regularish hours. people arrive between 8-11, and leave between 2-6. it's not quite a free-for-all roll in on rollerblades situation, it's not remote work, there is quite a bit of necessary interpersonal interaction taking place on site. I mention this because "never show up to the office again" or "only sneak in a few hours at midnight" are not, actually, on the table here.)
As of right now, the company has ~10 employees.
1. The boss
2. Programmers, including myself
3. An "office manager" type position, who handles assorted tasks like payroll and billing clients and buying food and supplies for the office and calling and supervising repairmen etc etc.
4. We hire the services of an external accounting company, who the office manager liaises with. They do the actual accounting and writing pay slips etc.
And now some context about each of these:
1. The boss:
He has several decades of programming experience and some business related experience, but no prior experience to do with management or personnel. This is something that shows-- he is a pretty good project manager, in terms of planning and managing deadlines, etc, and thoroughly mediocre at the more human aspects of managing people.
I do not know the exact details of either of these facts, but I do know that he gets paid less than many of the employees, and I also know that he is quite financially comfortable. In many ways, this company is his pseudo-retirement/hobby. He would like it to succeed to the point of it becoming more profitable, absolutely, but he doesn't seem particularly fussed for that to happen fast. Whereas when work gets slow, annoying, or boring, he will become irritated. A prime example of the kind of thing he doesn't like dealing with is people issues.
2. The programmers, particularly myself:
I joined the company fresh out of school around 3.5 years ago, and I am by now the "veteran" employee. All of the people who worked there when I started have gone on to other places. I have more programming experience than anyone else there. My boss has been steadily sliding more management duties off of his plate and onto mine (I have gotten pay raises accordingly).
I think I should note here that this leaves me in a weird, paradoxical position of juniorness and seniority. I feel wide gaping chasms in my experience, but also have a lot of responsibility. This is exacerbated by:
I am also the "closest" to my boss-- when I joined the company, all the workers bought lunch together outside the office. New workers have opted out of joining in the shared lunches, working at their desks eating food they brought from home. (I have gently suggested to them that they join us to no avail). The end result is that most of the other workers do not feel comfortable talking to my boss directly about things that bother them (this is not entirely unjustified, more below), and they talk to me instead. They're intimidated by him, I am not. I then have to try to figure out strategically how to bring the issues up with my boss.
I am going to give an example of an issue I've dealt with separate from the issue prompting this post, because it gives a certain sense of the office dynamics and what I have to tiptoe around. I have been trying to convince my boss that he needs to start doing regular employee reviews, where he talks to the workers, tells them what they're doing that he likes, asks them for feedback, etc. The goal being, 1: slightly more lines of communication, 2: He needs to start giving more positive feedback, people in the office feel like they only get feedback when he doesn't like what they did and they end up feeling extremely unappreciated even when I know he's happy with them 3: having some kind of formal regular feedback seems more functional and healthy to me than the current situation.
He has still not done so.
Alright, and with all of that context out of the way, we arrive at the problem.
3: the office manager.
the office manager has been with us for 3 years now. she was hired to do all the things my boss hated spending time doing and has, indeed, done so.
in those three years, she has also cycled her way through all the employees for who gets to be her "persona non grata". the more obvious negative behaviors are that she will pointedly ignore the person in question, or loudly harangue them (sometimes publicly, sometimes she will ask them to come into her office), but there are subtler abuses as well, made possible by the number of things she runs in the office (so, for example, pointedly refraining from buying a food for the kitchen her current target eats). Various people have tried to be extra kind and considerate to her with the idea that maybe she was just over-sensitive and easily offended and could be placated. She would be close and warm to them for a while before, without any clear cause, turning on them as well. (note that in addition to whoever her current target is, she is also freely unpleasant to everyone else, just in a less focused way)
Every single one of the programmers has complained to me about her at some point, most multiple times. I myself also have complaints against her. We openly acknowledge among ourselves that the atmosphere in the office around any request that needs to be made to her is of "walking on eggshells". Extremely simple matters-- requesting a change to how rooms are cleaned, any changes to what is bought for the kitchen, holiday gifts-- are turned into fraught minefields.
The biggest problem is that she handles payroll, a position which require a certain amount of trust and goodwill. Neither are present.
She reacts to any request for clarification of something unclear on the paycheck with hostility. I, for example, had a question about how one of my sick leaves was calculated. It turned out that an error had in fact been made on the accountant's part, and that simultaneously I had misunderstood a clause in my contract. She called me into her office to shout at me, then called the accountant to have her explain to me in person, then reported what I gathered to be one-sided account of events to my boss, as he called me angrily some time later. What should have been a simple clarification, in other words, ended up feeling more like a gauntlet.
And I am not the most major of her victims (thanks to seniority she left me alone for quite a while), there are people she has been steadily abusing for months. I know at least one has said openly she would quit over it but she needs the job. Needless to say, the entire situation sucks for morale.
A year ago, two of her victims went together to talk to my boss about it. I was not present for this conversation, but they told me he called her into the office and told all present to "stop acting like kindergarteners and sort it out between you". Needless to say matters did not improve. I tried to raise the issue privately with him, saying it needed to actually be dealt with, but he made it clear he didn't want to deal with it at all. (As a side note: she does also harangue or ignore my boss on occasion, but obviously because of the power differential she both overall treats him better than everyone else and he can also more easily let things slide).
I would say most of her behavior falls sort of barely on the side of plausible deniability. I mean, everyone, including my boss, is aware that she's unpleasant and difficult. But despite her clearly creating a bad atmosphere it would be difficult for me to "prove" it through a list of incidents, even though I could simply ask my boss to ask every person in the office to describe if she makes them feel unhappy at work and come to his own conclusions.
Aaah... but here we get to the complicated part. My boss has no interest in firing her because she's useful to him and he doesn't want the headache of finding and training a replacement. We could, theoretically, force his hand, by arriving en masse to demand it.
But. A lot of the employees, simultaneous to not being able to stand her, do not want to be directly outright responsible for getting her fired. I think people would feel guilty. I am becoming less and less sympathetic over time, but there's a lot of room to pity her. She is the sole caretaker for her elderly father and does not seem to have much else in her life beside that. My understanding is that she also had a lot of difficulty finding (or at least retaining) work before us (a fact that at the time of her hiring was mildly curious, but is now more understandable-- that said, it is surely also because she needs the unusual level of flexibility in order to be a caretaker).
What people would like is a solution that doesn't involve outright firing her yet solves the problem. I am not certain, as I write this, that such a solution exists. Maybe having her work from home more often. Certainly finding some other way to handle payroll, which is the aspect that bothers people most.
Regardless, the entire issue has been less "shoved under the rug" than an outright open secret in the company. Yesterday I returned home from work in a foul mood from having interacted with her, and realized that the thought of staying at the company long term with the status quo as is, is miserable to me, despite how badly I would like to stay there for other reasons (I love the flexibility and enjoy the work and get along well with coworkers who aren't this woman). I finally talked about the situation with people outside the company, who among other things helped me acknowledge to myself just how bad things actually were.
This made me realize that I need to make another effort at getting the situation resolved or ameliorated. My boss is currently on a vacation. When he comes back, I need to figure out how to talk to him about this to make it clear the situation is damaging the company and that he can't continue to ignore it. I thought maybe I could explain that what we desperately need is an HR person. Her actual office management duties she does -- I'm not going to say just fine, since many small things become problems because of it being impossible to talk to her normally-- but adequately. But having no one to handle personnel issues and someone antagonistic handling payroll is a problem.
finally, not sure if relevant : i am going to be on maternity leave in a few months. i am trying to decide if i should chicken out of saying anything until just before the leave, thereby possibly avoiding some of the worst fallout (i'll need forms from her and she'll almost definitely be impossible about it, but I can cc my boss for every email communication which can maybe limit how much she can do from outright malice?). i'm simultaneously debating whether, if the situation has zero improvement, i should spend my leave looking around for other jobs. i would really prefer not to as i do like my job, and my current gut instinct is I shouldn't mention that the possibility is starting to come up for me, even though I also wonder if it would serve as a last-ditch giant huge flaming red flag for my boss that he can't ignore this and this is a real problem.
Goals for the conversation, some of which may be impossible:
1. solve the situation?
2. impossible, but I'll list anyway: solve the situation without her reacting with a huge dramatic rage spasm whenever the solution is implemented
3. at least not actively make the situation worse? if he doesn't do anything effective and she gets wind of it she will be totally impossible
4. selfish, but a major concern for me: I don't want this to damage me, like I don't want the request to cause my boss to penalize me for making it. (as per 3, i doubt I can do this and not have her become even more actively unpleasant to me)
i've been spending a while obsessing over timing this. my boss has indicated he wants to discuss giving me a raise soon, and i don't know if i should bring this up at that meeting or make a separate meeting, and if so should i wait until after the raise? and i just, have no idea how to approach the conversation, what to say, etc. I would really appreciate advice. I hope my description of the situation was clear enough, but I can PM with clarifications if needed.
My apologies for length, but I'm going to try to provide a lot of context about my work situation in general before I describe the problem, because I think in this case the specific context is very important.
1. I work for a very small software company that has been around for about 3 years now. We provide programming services for a specific niche clientele. The company is neither very "successful" nor "failing"-- it has been treading water, growing very slowly through word of mouth and maintaining profitability but only barely, it is a "startup" in the sense that it's (relatively) new but not in the sense that anyone here is hoping to become very wealthy.
2. I am not located in America. I mention this for two reasons, firstly that any legal aspects aren't going to be American law, but secondly because it is my understanding that in America it is possible to easily find software jobs (maybe just in major cities?) where work-life balance is highly respected? I don't know if this is actually true. Where I live, it is not. The culture of software jobs is that 9-10 hour days are the baseline norm and plenty of jobs will expect more at least occasionally. Jobs will advertise themselves as unusually "flexible" if they let you make up some of those hours on the weekend, or if they let you leave early 2 days a week and stay late another 2 days to make it up.
3. My company, on the other hand, has the following business model (I have not heard of any other company with something like this, and I have asked around): We are extremely flexible about hours. We tell clients up-front we do not work to deadlines because we do not charge deadline-allowing rates. The employees are paid per hour, below the usual per hour market rates, and in exchange you can take off pretty easily, show up late pretty easily, leave early pretty easily, work from home pretty easily, within the constraints of actually getting your job done. What this means is that the employee pool is composed of people for whom flexibility is super important above and beyond pay, which is pretty much: students, parents, and other caretakers, plus occasionally sometimes people with other very specific large time commitments they want to fit a job around (eg, a first job they want to supplement). (To clarify: nonetheless overall the office keeps basically regularish hours. people arrive between 8-11, and leave between 2-6. it's not quite a free-for-all roll in on rollerblades situation, it's not remote work, there is quite a bit of necessary interpersonal interaction taking place on site. I mention this because "never show up to the office again" or "only sneak in a few hours at midnight" are not, actually, on the table here.)
As of right now, the company has ~10 employees.
1. The boss
2. Programmers, including myself
3. An "office manager" type position, who handles assorted tasks like payroll and billing clients and buying food and supplies for the office and calling and supervising repairmen etc etc.
4. We hire the services of an external accounting company, who the office manager liaises with. They do the actual accounting and writing pay slips etc.
And now some context about each of these:
1. The boss:
He has several decades of programming experience and some business related experience, but no prior experience to do with management or personnel. This is something that shows-- he is a pretty good project manager, in terms of planning and managing deadlines, etc, and thoroughly mediocre at the more human aspects of managing people.
I do not know the exact details of either of these facts, but I do know that he gets paid less than many of the employees, and I also know that he is quite financially comfortable. In many ways, this company is his pseudo-retirement/hobby. He would like it to succeed to the point of it becoming more profitable, absolutely, but he doesn't seem particularly fussed for that to happen fast. Whereas when work gets slow, annoying, or boring, he will become irritated. A prime example of the kind of thing he doesn't like dealing with is people issues.
2. The programmers, particularly myself:
I joined the company fresh out of school around 3.5 years ago, and I am by now the "veteran" employee. All of the people who worked there when I started have gone on to other places. I have more programming experience than anyone else there. My boss has been steadily sliding more management duties off of his plate and onto mine (I have gotten pay raises accordingly).
I think I should note here that this leaves me in a weird, paradoxical position of juniorness and seniority. I feel wide gaping chasms in my experience, but also have a lot of responsibility. This is exacerbated by:
I am also the "closest" to my boss-- when I joined the company, all the workers bought lunch together outside the office. New workers have opted out of joining in the shared lunches, working at their desks eating food they brought from home. (I have gently suggested to them that they join us to no avail). The end result is that most of the other workers do not feel comfortable talking to my boss directly about things that bother them (this is not entirely unjustified, more below), and they talk to me instead. They're intimidated by him, I am not. I then have to try to figure out strategically how to bring the issues up with my boss.
I am going to give an example of an issue I've dealt with separate from the issue prompting this post, because it gives a certain sense of the office dynamics and what I have to tiptoe around. I have been trying to convince my boss that he needs to start doing regular employee reviews, where he talks to the workers, tells them what they're doing that he likes, asks them for feedback, etc. The goal being, 1: slightly more lines of communication, 2: He needs to start giving more positive feedback, people in the office feel like they only get feedback when he doesn't like what they did and they end up feeling extremely unappreciated even when I know he's happy with them 3: having some kind of formal regular feedback seems more functional and healthy to me than the current situation.
He has still not done so.
Alright, and with all of that context out of the way, we arrive at the problem.
3: the office manager.
the office manager has been with us for 3 years now. she was hired to do all the things my boss hated spending time doing and has, indeed, done so.
in those three years, she has also cycled her way through all the employees for who gets to be her "persona non grata". the more obvious negative behaviors are that she will pointedly ignore the person in question, or loudly harangue them (sometimes publicly, sometimes she will ask them to come into her office), but there are subtler abuses as well, made possible by the number of things she runs in the office (so, for example, pointedly refraining from buying a food for the kitchen her current target eats). Various people have tried to be extra kind and considerate to her with the idea that maybe she was just over-sensitive and easily offended and could be placated. She would be close and warm to them for a while before, without any clear cause, turning on them as well. (note that in addition to whoever her current target is, she is also freely unpleasant to everyone else, just in a less focused way)
Every single one of the programmers has complained to me about her at some point, most multiple times. I myself also have complaints against her. We openly acknowledge among ourselves that the atmosphere in the office around any request that needs to be made to her is of "walking on eggshells". Extremely simple matters-- requesting a change to how rooms are cleaned, any changes to what is bought for the kitchen, holiday gifts-- are turned into fraught minefields.
The biggest problem is that she handles payroll, a position which require a certain amount of trust and goodwill. Neither are present.
She reacts to any request for clarification of something unclear on the paycheck with hostility. I, for example, had a question about how one of my sick leaves was calculated. It turned out that an error had in fact been made on the accountant's part, and that simultaneously I had misunderstood a clause in my contract. She called me into her office to shout at me, then called the accountant to have her explain to me in person, then reported what I gathered to be one-sided account of events to my boss, as he called me angrily some time later. What should have been a simple clarification, in other words, ended up feeling more like a gauntlet.
And I am not the most major of her victims (thanks to seniority she left me alone for quite a while), there are people she has been steadily abusing for months. I know at least one has said openly she would quit over it but she needs the job. Needless to say, the entire situation sucks for morale.
A year ago, two of her victims went together to talk to my boss about it. I was not present for this conversation, but they told me he called her into the office and told all present to "stop acting like kindergarteners and sort it out between you". Needless to say matters did not improve. I tried to raise the issue privately with him, saying it needed to actually be dealt with, but he made it clear he didn't want to deal with it at all. (As a side note: she does also harangue or ignore my boss on occasion, but obviously because of the power differential she both overall treats him better than everyone else and he can also more easily let things slide).
I would say most of her behavior falls sort of barely on the side of plausible deniability. I mean, everyone, including my boss, is aware that she's unpleasant and difficult. But despite her clearly creating a bad atmosphere it would be difficult for me to "prove" it through a list of incidents, even though I could simply ask my boss to ask every person in the office to describe if she makes them feel unhappy at work and come to his own conclusions.
Aaah... but here we get to the complicated part. My boss has no interest in firing her because she's useful to him and he doesn't want the headache of finding and training a replacement. We could, theoretically, force his hand, by arriving en masse to demand it.
But. A lot of the employees, simultaneous to not being able to stand her, do not want to be directly outright responsible for getting her fired. I think people would feel guilty. I am becoming less and less sympathetic over time, but there's a lot of room to pity her. She is the sole caretaker for her elderly father and does not seem to have much else in her life beside that. My understanding is that she also had a lot of difficulty finding (or at least retaining) work before us (a fact that at the time of her hiring was mildly curious, but is now more understandable-- that said, it is surely also because she needs the unusual level of flexibility in order to be a caretaker).
What people would like is a solution that doesn't involve outright firing her yet solves the problem. I am not certain, as I write this, that such a solution exists. Maybe having her work from home more often. Certainly finding some other way to handle payroll, which is the aspect that bothers people most.
Regardless, the entire issue has been less "shoved under the rug" than an outright open secret in the company. Yesterday I returned home from work in a foul mood from having interacted with her, and realized that the thought of staying at the company long term with the status quo as is, is miserable to me, despite how badly I would like to stay there for other reasons (I love the flexibility and enjoy the work and get along well with coworkers who aren't this woman). I finally talked about the situation with people outside the company, who among other things helped me acknowledge to myself just how bad things actually were.
This made me realize that I need to make another effort at getting the situation resolved or ameliorated. My boss is currently on a vacation. When he comes back, I need to figure out how to talk to him about this to make it clear the situation is damaging the company and that he can't continue to ignore it. I thought maybe I could explain that what we desperately need is an HR person. Her actual office management duties she does -- I'm not going to say just fine, since many small things become problems because of it being impossible to talk to her normally-- but adequately. But having no one to handle personnel issues and someone antagonistic handling payroll is a problem.
finally, not sure if relevant : i am going to be on maternity leave in a few months. i am trying to decide if i should chicken out of saying anything until just before the leave, thereby possibly avoiding some of the worst fallout (i'll need forms from her and she'll almost definitely be impossible about it, but I can cc my boss for every email communication which can maybe limit how much she can do from outright malice?). i'm simultaneously debating whether, if the situation has zero improvement, i should spend my leave looking around for other jobs. i would really prefer not to as i do like my job, and my current gut instinct is I shouldn't mention that the possibility is starting to come up for me, even though I also wonder if it would serve as a last-ditch giant huge flaming red flag for my boss that he can't ignore this and this is a real problem.
Goals for the conversation, some of which may be impossible:
1. solve the situation?
2. impossible, but I'll list anyway: solve the situation without her reacting with a huge dramatic rage spasm whenever the solution is implemented
3. at least not actively make the situation worse? if he doesn't do anything effective and she gets wind of it she will be totally impossible
4. selfish, but a major concern for me: I don't want this to damage me, like I don't want the request to cause my boss to penalize me for making it. (as per 3, i doubt I can do this and not have her become even more actively unpleasant to me)
i've been spending a while obsessing over timing this. my boss has indicated he wants to discuss giving me a raise soon, and i don't know if i should bring this up at that meeting or make a separate meeting, and if so should i wait until after the raise? and i just, have no idea how to approach the conversation, what to say, etc. I would really appreciate advice. I hope my description of the situation was clear enough, but I can PM with clarifications if needed.
What people would like is a solution that doesn't involve outright firing her yet solves the problem. I am not certain, as I write this, that such a solution exists. Maybe having her work from home more often.
My current place of employment dealt with an extremely abusive and problematic individual on another team that they, for reasons beyond me, didn't want to fire (because holy shit he can be downright malicious and for some reason they made him a manager...) by making him work exclusively at home. I'm not sure how the conversation went to initiate this change, but the office environment is MUCH lighter and happier now. Your boss already has had multiple complaints from you and other employees regarding her behavior so it could be framed truthfully as such, thus not coming back entirely to you. Can you trust your boss to handle this at all and in a way that is professional and doesn't specify any one person who has voiced concern. It honestly doesn't seem like he wants to deal with it at all...perhaps, if you desire it, you could ask for a more senior, management role with your raise to deal the issues he won't.
This could go two ways: Maybe she takes the stress of her caretaker role out on others and needs to have control/power any place she can. So maybe she doesn't want to work from home because she will be completely isolated and she will push back to stay in office for that reason.
Two: Framing working from home as a benefit to her. Perhaps office life is stressful and this will make her happier and more productive in the long run.
The other option is implementing performance evaluations to systematically address this behavior in a concrete, measurable fashion that can be discussed and remedied and to put her on a performance improvement plan. Sometimes that's all people need to be introspective and jarred out of bad behavior. Companies without performance evals almost always tend to be chaotic and toxic, I've noticed, because people aren't being guided toward maintaining a healthy, productive environment.
posted by Young Kullervo at 6:46 AM on December 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
My current place of employment dealt with an extremely abusive and problematic individual on another team that they, for reasons beyond me, didn't want to fire (because holy shit he can be downright malicious and for some reason they made him a manager...) by making him work exclusively at home. I'm not sure how the conversation went to initiate this change, but the office environment is MUCH lighter and happier now. Your boss already has had multiple complaints from you and other employees regarding her behavior so it could be framed truthfully as such, thus not coming back entirely to you. Can you trust your boss to handle this at all and in a way that is professional and doesn't specify any one person who has voiced concern. It honestly doesn't seem like he wants to deal with it at all...perhaps, if you desire it, you could ask for a more senior, management role with your raise to deal the issues he won't.
This could go two ways: Maybe she takes the stress of her caretaker role out on others and needs to have control/power any place she can. So maybe she doesn't want to work from home because she will be completely isolated and she will push back to stay in office for that reason.
Two: Framing working from home as a benefit to her. Perhaps office life is stressful and this will make her happier and more productive in the long run.
The other option is implementing performance evaluations to systematically address this behavior in a concrete, measurable fashion that can be discussed and remedied and to put her on a performance improvement plan. Sometimes that's all people need to be introspective and jarred out of bad behavior. Companies without performance evals almost always tend to be chaotic and toxic, I've noticed, because people aren't being guided toward maintaining a healthy, productive environment.
posted by Young Kullervo at 6:46 AM on December 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
As I was reading your question, "3. An "office manager" type position, who handles assorted tasks like payroll and billing clients and buying food and supplies for the office and calling and supervising repairmen etc etc." jumped out at me, in part because I am an executive assistant and have seen far too many office managers handling a huge workload of incongruous tasks, when, in fact, it is a professional position that should have clearly defined duties and responsibilities, even at a start-up/smaller company. So, before I even arrived at the heart of your question or your description of your office manager's temperment, I noted that as problematic. I think your idea to advocate for an HR person is an excellent one, but it can be a challenge to get an operations position approved at even the most lucrative companies.
Putting aside her temperment for a moment, I strongly suggest you make a comprehensive list of her duties and see if there is anything that can be taken off her plate. Whatever responsibilities you identify as possibilities, try to bucket them under the same category. If you aren't able to convince your boss to hire an additional person, maybe you can outsource payroll and/or the billing of clients? While office managers can and often do these tasks, it's a lot to handle coupled with the actual management of the office. To some people, ordering food, supplies, cleaning rooms, and arranging office repairs doesn't sound like much but it can be time-consuming, often underappreciated, and is a whole job unto itself. Is she also acting as the receptionist, answering the main phone number, distributing mail/packages, handling express mail and faxes, and greeting an occasional guest/job candidate? Her behavior is inexcusable, but she could simply be overloaded and stressed out by work, without even factoring in her caretaker role outside of the job, which is an additional stressor.
This will be most successful if you can get her on your side. If you approach her with kindness, note her contributions, and mention that it seems like an awful lot for one person to manage, you'll be identifying yourself as on her side rather than against her. Mention you would like to advocate for her and a better work situation and ask for her input. Maybe she'll be receptive and that will be fantastic! Maybe she won't, which will be a bummer, but then you move forward without her. Something definitely needs to change.
Of course, it's quite possible that reallocating responsibilities/shifting things off her plate, won't make things better, but at least you tried. If that doesn't work, it will be time for a difficult conversation with your boss. The most persuasive argument for a change is that people (presumably highly valued talent) have quit/have mentioned quitting after a series of poor interactions with her. No, you don't want to get her fired, but you don't want to lose your other employees or work in a hostile work environment either. Also, while it's an important job, it is not terribly difficult to find another, much better office manager, but it often is challenging to find the people who make your product and fit in the company culture. I hope this helps and good luck!
posted by katemcd at 7:01 AM on December 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
Putting aside her temperment for a moment, I strongly suggest you make a comprehensive list of her duties and see if there is anything that can be taken off her plate. Whatever responsibilities you identify as possibilities, try to bucket them under the same category. If you aren't able to convince your boss to hire an additional person, maybe you can outsource payroll and/or the billing of clients? While office managers can and often do these tasks, it's a lot to handle coupled with the actual management of the office. To some people, ordering food, supplies, cleaning rooms, and arranging office repairs doesn't sound like much but it can be time-consuming, often underappreciated, and is a whole job unto itself. Is she also acting as the receptionist, answering the main phone number, distributing mail/packages, handling express mail and faxes, and greeting an occasional guest/job candidate? Her behavior is inexcusable, but she could simply be overloaded and stressed out by work, without even factoring in her caretaker role outside of the job, which is an additional stressor.
This will be most successful if you can get her on your side. If you approach her with kindness, note her contributions, and mention that it seems like an awful lot for one person to manage, you'll be identifying yourself as on her side rather than against her. Mention you would like to advocate for her and a better work situation and ask for her input. Maybe she'll be receptive and that will be fantastic! Maybe she won't, which will be a bummer, but then you move forward without her. Something definitely needs to change.
Of course, it's quite possible that reallocating responsibilities/shifting things off her plate, won't make things better, but at least you tried. If that doesn't work, it will be time for a difficult conversation with your boss. The most persuasive argument for a change is that people (presumably highly valued talent) have quit/have mentioned quitting after a series of poor interactions with her. No, you don't want to get her fired, but you don't want to lose your other employees or work in a hostile work environment either. Also, while it's an important job, it is not terribly difficult to find another, much better office manager, but it often is challenging to find the people who make your product and fit in the company culture. I hope this helps and good luck!
posted by katemcd at 7:01 AM on December 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
I've worked in a number of small offices and the Office Manager position seems to attract Petty Tyrants as defined by Carlos Castenada (I understand the issues with his work, but with this I feel he is spot on) the link above goes to a clear explanation of this type of person.
Here's what I have experienced. Your boss doesn't want confrontation he doesn't want to deal with personalities, he is not going to want to spend much money on this problem. The Office Manager is obviously serving a function for him and his inertia is going to keep her there--he knows she's a problem and doesn't want to do anything about it--you'll just make him mad by bringing it up. So, you need work arounds.
First, on the payroll issue--since you already have an outside company that handles the paychecks, see if you can figure out a way to get direct access to the company to address paycheck issues. Couch it as taking this annoyance off the Office Manager's plate--get permission from your boss to speak to the account manager at the company and see what the cost would be for them to provide a customer service person to deal with employees directly.
In regard to the other stuff she does, i.e. not stocking someone's favorite foods, try looking at it from her point of view. She obviously has a lot on her plate and minor stuff like that is super annoying to her--perhaps propose that the kitchen be kept stocked with only the basic supplies like coffee, tea, creamer, bottled water, and that is it and then propose creating an automatic order that gets filled monthly or weekly. Everyone is then responsible for their own snacks. Really, I would be annoyed, too. Again, take this "solution" to your boss--couch it as helping her, and don't mention her difficult personality.
For housekeeping type stuff, again, perhaps you can set up a direct communication with the company providing housekeeping/maintenance. Set up some online forms that folks can fill out that can be sent in directly to the company--they will probably also charge a fee for this extra service, but it is cheaper than hiring/firing and will take another annoyance off the Office Manager's plate.
Your boss might be willing to hire some type of assistant as well--a receptionist who handles, phones, mail, etc. who works part time (since the office is so flexible)
Once she has some relief from these tasks, you might find she becomes easier to deal with--or you won't have to deal with her, which is the ultimate goal. Also, if you gradually take most of her work away from her, she has less power to annoy you. Like the frog in the pot of cold water, if you very gradually heat it to boiling, it may not notice until it is too late. At some point, your boss might look up and realize he's paying salary to someone who is not doing much. Or, he might not, but either way, she's not your problem anymore.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:33 AM on December 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Here's what I have experienced. Your boss doesn't want confrontation he doesn't want to deal with personalities, he is not going to want to spend much money on this problem. The Office Manager is obviously serving a function for him and his inertia is going to keep her there--he knows she's a problem and doesn't want to do anything about it--you'll just make him mad by bringing it up. So, you need work arounds.
First, on the payroll issue--since you already have an outside company that handles the paychecks, see if you can figure out a way to get direct access to the company to address paycheck issues. Couch it as taking this annoyance off the Office Manager's plate--get permission from your boss to speak to the account manager at the company and see what the cost would be for them to provide a customer service person to deal with employees directly.
In regard to the other stuff she does, i.e. not stocking someone's favorite foods, try looking at it from her point of view. She obviously has a lot on her plate and minor stuff like that is super annoying to her--perhaps propose that the kitchen be kept stocked with only the basic supplies like coffee, tea, creamer, bottled water, and that is it and then propose creating an automatic order that gets filled monthly or weekly. Everyone is then responsible for their own snacks. Really, I would be annoyed, too. Again, take this "solution" to your boss--couch it as helping her, and don't mention her difficult personality.
For housekeeping type stuff, again, perhaps you can set up a direct communication with the company providing housekeeping/maintenance. Set up some online forms that folks can fill out that can be sent in directly to the company--they will probably also charge a fee for this extra service, but it is cheaper than hiring/firing and will take another annoyance off the Office Manager's plate.
Your boss might be willing to hire some type of assistant as well--a receptionist who handles, phones, mail, etc. who works part time (since the office is so flexible)
Once she has some relief from these tasks, you might find she becomes easier to deal with--or you won't have to deal with her, which is the ultimate goal. Also, if you gradually take most of her work away from her, she has less power to annoy you. Like the frog in the pot of cold water, if you very gradually heat it to boiling, it may not notice until it is too late. At some point, your boss might look up and realize he's paying salary to someone who is not doing much. Or, he might not, but either way, she's not your problem anymore.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:33 AM on December 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
It seems to me that the main problem here is really your boss, rather than the office manager. All companies occasionally hire employees who cause problems for one reason or another, but an effective boss deals with those problems. A bad office manager is only a major issue if management won't correct or replace them, and if it's allowed to get to the point that it has at your office then that's a reflection of management's ineffectiveness more than anything else.
You need to take this up with your boss again. He needs to know that people feel like they aren't getting paid properly, that people are threatening to quit over this, that morale is suffering and the office is breaking out in spasms of internal politicking because of this person. In short, he needs to know that things have gotten to the point where it is threatening the health of the business.
The office manager's responsibilities outside of work are not especially relevant. That's not beause they're unimportant—it's just that they don't make her special. Other people also have families, dependents, responsibilities and obligations that they need to support and uphold, and they manage to do this without making life a living hell for the people around them. This woman's toxic behavior is making it harder for everyone else in the company to maintain their own responsibilities, because she apparently can't be trusted with payroll and has singlehandedly torpedoed morale to the point where I guarantee that people's on-the-job performance is suffering and they are feeling unnecessary stress that they are bringing home to their own lives outside of work.
In short, this one office manager is dragging the whole ship down and imperiling the livelihoods of everyone else on it. The fact that she has someone who depends on her is not a defense—it just means she has an even greater duty to perform her job in a way that won't get her fired. It's not on other people to put up with her poor behavior.
You, or even better a group of people led by you, need to sit your boss down (again) and tell him that this is something that has to be fixed or people are going to start to quit. Don't let him avoid the confrontation—bring the confrontation to him, don't let him squirm out of his managerial duties. If he tells you again to sort it out on your own, tell him right back that he is the boss and that sorting this stuff out is his job. Nobody else in the company has enough power to deal with this person, only him. Make sure he knows that the only reason people aren't already quitting is that they really appreciate the flexibility and work-life balance that the job offers, but that soon this won't be enough and that people who have other options will start exercising them. And that meanwhile, performance and morale are suffering because there is a petty tyrant in the office who retaliates inappropriately over perceived slights and also people are worried that their pay isn't being correctly calculated. Do it openly, don't make a secret of it, and follow up regularly (as in more than once a week) so that the issue doesn't die. Again, if you can get a group of allies to share this burden you'll be much better off.
You're going to have to make him uncomfortable. Hos whole strategy so far has centered around trying to avoid personal discomfort. Take that option away from him and he'll be forced to take action in order to restore the peace, which is what he wants.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:15 AM on December 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
You need to take this up with your boss again. He needs to know that people feel like they aren't getting paid properly, that people are threatening to quit over this, that morale is suffering and the office is breaking out in spasms of internal politicking because of this person. In short, he needs to know that things have gotten to the point where it is threatening the health of the business.
The office manager's responsibilities outside of work are not especially relevant. That's not beause they're unimportant—it's just that they don't make her special. Other people also have families, dependents, responsibilities and obligations that they need to support and uphold, and they manage to do this without making life a living hell for the people around them. This woman's toxic behavior is making it harder for everyone else in the company to maintain their own responsibilities, because she apparently can't be trusted with payroll and has singlehandedly torpedoed morale to the point where I guarantee that people's on-the-job performance is suffering and they are feeling unnecessary stress that they are bringing home to their own lives outside of work.
In short, this one office manager is dragging the whole ship down and imperiling the livelihoods of everyone else on it. The fact that she has someone who depends on her is not a defense—it just means she has an even greater duty to perform her job in a way that won't get her fired. It's not on other people to put up with her poor behavior.
You, or even better a group of people led by you, need to sit your boss down (again) and tell him that this is something that has to be fixed or people are going to start to quit. Don't let him avoid the confrontation—bring the confrontation to him, don't let him squirm out of his managerial duties. If he tells you again to sort it out on your own, tell him right back that he is the boss and that sorting this stuff out is his job. Nobody else in the company has enough power to deal with this person, only him. Make sure he knows that the only reason people aren't already quitting is that they really appreciate the flexibility and work-life balance that the job offers, but that soon this won't be enough and that people who have other options will start exercising them. And that meanwhile, performance and morale are suffering because there is a petty tyrant in the office who retaliates inappropriately over perceived slights and also people are worried that their pay isn't being correctly calculated. Do it openly, don't make a secret of it, and follow up regularly (as in more than once a week) so that the issue doesn't die. Again, if you can get a group of allies to share this burden you'll be much better off.
You're going to have to make him uncomfortable. Hos whole strategy so far has centered around trying to avoid personal discomfort. Take that option away from him and he'll be forced to take action in order to restore the peace, which is what he wants.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:15 AM on December 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
New workers have opted out of joining in the shared lunches, working at their desks eating food they brought from home.
Is this a pay-related thing? If the company pays below market rate (in exchange for things like flexibility and casual atmosphere), the newer workers may not be interested in reducing their take-home by buying lunches. One possible way to ameliorate this problem is getting bossman to pay for the occasional group lunch, or just group snacks-and-hang-out at the office.
A once-a-month half-day of work, followed by Office Social Time, could help avoid the constant back-channel communications issues. Label it "company meeting" with an agenda of "meet the new hires; discuss current client specifications; negotiate shifting job responsibilities" etc.
Regarding the troublesome office manager, options include:
1) Fire her. Nobody wants this, but it's the only option that doesn't require her cooperation; it's the one you may be stuck with.
2) Convince bossman that her approach to problem-solving and people-interaction needs to change. If possible, mention ways she has cost the company - have good employees left because they don't like working with her? Is she reducing productivity in ways you can identify? If you can convince him, you then have leverage to tell her which aspects of her behavior need to change.
3) Have her work from home. May or may not actually be possible, and even if it is, may require someone in the office to take on some of her tasks.
4) Adjust her job so that she's not doing nearly as much employee interaction. Again, may not be possible, and someone has to do those tasks anyway.
5) Find out the cause of her actions - is she just an unpleasant person who likes being hostile (in which case, see options 1-4), or would she prefer to be more liked and doesn't know how? If so, get her some social training. (I can recommend Suzette Haden Elgin's Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series, which has at least one book focused on the workplace. However, they're designed for native English speakers in America; the principles will carry over in other places, but the specifics may not.) Getting her to change is both the most preferable solution, and the most difficult - it involves convincing her that what are probably lifelong habits are making her unhappy, and then teaching her new habits to replace them.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:15 AM on December 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Is this a pay-related thing? If the company pays below market rate (in exchange for things like flexibility and casual atmosphere), the newer workers may not be interested in reducing their take-home by buying lunches. One possible way to ameliorate this problem is getting bossman to pay for the occasional group lunch, or just group snacks-and-hang-out at the office.
A once-a-month half-day of work, followed by Office Social Time, could help avoid the constant back-channel communications issues. Label it "company meeting" with an agenda of "meet the new hires; discuss current client specifications; negotiate shifting job responsibilities" etc.
Regarding the troublesome office manager, options include:
1) Fire her. Nobody wants this, but it's the only option that doesn't require her cooperation; it's the one you may be stuck with.
2) Convince bossman that her approach to problem-solving and people-interaction needs to change. If possible, mention ways she has cost the company - have good employees left because they don't like working with her? Is she reducing productivity in ways you can identify? If you can convince him, you then have leverage to tell her which aspects of her behavior need to change.
3) Have her work from home. May or may not actually be possible, and even if it is, may require someone in the office to take on some of her tasks.
4) Adjust her job so that she's not doing nearly as much employee interaction. Again, may not be possible, and someone has to do those tasks anyway.
5) Find out the cause of her actions - is she just an unpleasant person who likes being hostile (in which case, see options 1-4), or would she prefer to be more liked and doesn't know how? If so, get her some social training. (I can recommend Suzette Haden Elgin's Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series, which has at least one book focused on the workplace. However, they're designed for native English speakers in America; the principles will carry over in other places, but the specifics may not.) Getting her to change is both the most preferable solution, and the most difficult - it involves convincing her that what are probably lifelong habits are making her unhappy, and then teaching her new habits to replace them.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:15 AM on December 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Neither the boss nor the office manager seem self-aware or motivated enough to change. Small businesses often have funky cultures with funky people, for better or worse. This company culture was created by the boss and you're not going to change it: both because he's the boss, but also because you have very little authority to tell him that things are broken. "Stop acting like kindergarteners" is a red flag.
You don't want a new job, but what if you could find a new place with as much flexibility, better pay, and a better culture? This is your first gig out of school. If you do some interviewing during your leave, you will get a view into other companies, and you'll have a better understanding of what's possible and what your market worth is. You don't have to take any new job, even if they offer it to you.
However, being at a new company could give you some new insight into how other companies are run, and that would be good experience for you and give you more authority in future situations like this, because you will encounter messed up teams & companies throughout your career -- that's the human condition!
If you do start looking, I would not mention it to anyone, especially the current boss. Good luck!
posted by troyer at 11:51 AM on December 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
You don't want a new job, but what if you could find a new place with as much flexibility, better pay, and a better culture? This is your first gig out of school. If you do some interviewing during your leave, you will get a view into other companies, and you'll have a better understanding of what's possible and what your market worth is. You don't have to take any new job, even if they offer it to you.
However, being at a new company could give you some new insight into how other companies are run, and that would be good experience for you and give you more authority in future situations like this, because you will encounter messed up teams & companies throughout your career -- that's the human condition!
If you do start looking, I would not mention it to anyone, especially the current boss. Good luck!
posted by troyer at 11:51 AM on December 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
You're pregnant and have a flexible job you don't want to jeopardize? I mean, I'm sorry for your troubles but I wouldn't say a single thing. This is not, at this time, your circus and these are not your monkeys. Unless you can think of some reason why you are individually irreplaceable and not going to be fired, if your boss chooses to make a change, it will be to fire you and not her.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:19 PM on December 28, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by DarlingBri at 1:19 PM on December 28, 2018 [14 favorites]
yea, I would absolutely wait until after your mat leave to deal with this - for all you know this situation will resolve itself while you are away, and if not, you can deal with it when you get back. Especially if you are going to need her to fill out necessary paperwork, you need to put on your own oxygen mask first, so to speak. Once you get back you'll be on more stable footing to make structural changes and follow through, it's not very fair to your coworkers to drop a bomb and then not be there to help sort out the fallout. Take care of yourself!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:07 PM on December 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:07 PM on December 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is a toxic situation for you and you can't continue in it. So it doesn't have to be your problem to solve, though you can offer to work with your boss to find a solution while you look for new jobs, and mutually pick a date by which one of those two things has happened or you leave anyway.
posted by spindrifter at 4:47 PM on December 28, 2018
posted by spindrifter at 4:47 PM on December 28, 2018
I agree that this is out of your boss's interest and or abilities. Like someone up top did, I too came up with the idea of you basically doing that job by becoming something like a Deputy Director or Operations Manager, with seniority over her. Then you gradually learn how to do everything she does. Then you tell your boss that you have been hearing many complaints and are afraid that you'll lose staff if her behavior doesn't improve. Then you put her on a performance management plan, and if she doesn't improve, you regretfully let her go to find a job where her temperament is a good fit. Crucial here is that you have the knowledge of her job to hire a good replacement.
Your boss doesn't know how to handle this and doesn't really want to. You sound like you'd be good at it. My only question was going to be if it's worth it to keep getting below market wages, but I'm assuming that as a new mom, the flexibility might remain valuable to you.
How long will you be gone? Maybe you could try to get the promotion in place before you leave but start the intensive effort to improve her behavior after you return. However, I'm not sure how you get the promotion without explaining that your boss is failing at this role.
posted by salvia at 6:13 PM on December 28, 2018
Your boss doesn't know how to handle this and doesn't really want to. You sound like you'd be good at it. My only question was going to be if it's worth it to keep getting below market wages, but I'm assuming that as a new mom, the flexibility might remain valuable to you.
How long will you be gone? Maybe you could try to get the promotion in place before you leave but start the intensive effort to improve her behavior after you return. However, I'm not sure how you get the promotion without explaining that your boss is failing at this role.
posted by salvia at 6:13 PM on December 28, 2018
However, I'm not sure how you get the promotion without explaining that your boss is failing at this role.
"I'm really interested in assuming management responsibilities." He's made it clear he doesn't want to do it and that he's ok hiring people to do things he doesn't want to do, so I think just offering to do it and explaining why you'd be good at it would likely work.
posted by lazuli at 9:17 PM on December 28, 2018
"I'm really interested in assuming management responsibilities." He's made it clear he doesn't want to do it and that he's ok hiring people to do things he doesn't want to do, so I think just offering to do it and explaining why you'd be good at it would likely work.
posted by lazuli at 9:17 PM on December 28, 2018
I agree with the advice to minimize contact with the office manager for now, and wait until you are back from your mat leave to take any action. If others are that unhappy, things might change while you're gone.
When you do approach your boss, keep your comments focussed on how this is affecting your own work and productivity. Your boss sounds kind of clueless, but that kind of information is very difficult to ignore, and is more likely to get action than anything else.
posted by rpfields at 8:43 AM on December 29, 2018
When you do approach your boss, keep your comments focussed on how this is affecting your own work and productivity. Your boss sounds kind of clueless, but that kind of information is very difficult to ignore, and is more likely to get action than anything else.
posted by rpfields at 8:43 AM on December 29, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
I had a manager who was wonderful but similarly less-engaged in the actual "managing" part of her job, and we had a receptionist/admin assistant who was prickly and tended to play favorites (though not to the extent you're describing). I got promoted to a supervisor-level position in the team, which didn't give me any actual hiring/firing/reviewing authority but did elevate me enough in the hierarchy that when I started interacting with her with an expectation of "I'm not putting up with your nonsense; I expect you to do your job professionally and respectfully," it did shift things a bit. Your situation sounds worse than mine, though, and it sounds like you need a manager with full authority to hire/fire/manage who actually manages!
posted by lazuli at 6:42 AM on December 28, 2018 [15 favorites]