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Manager saying I was combative and rude

squishylea

I work from home and recently had a power cut due to storm Bert, so I was without power from Sunday morning through to Monday evening.

I text my line manager on the Sunday to warn that I may not have power the next day and rang her on Monday to say that I still had no power and that I couldn't log on to work.

When I logged back on Tuesday morning I had an email from her saying that HR were not going to pay me even though in our adverse weather and disruption policy states they would pay for up to 3 days if all reasonable attempts were made to work.

I responded with: 'I am confused, point 4 says they would treat up to three days of absence caused by disruption as special paid leave, what is the reason for not honouring this? I might have to go to citizens advice at this point as my pay keeps being targeted - I literally had no power, I lost all my frozen food, I couldn't even bathe.'

To which HR responded they had made a mistake and I would be paid for the day so as far as I was concerned the matter was closed.

Today (Wednesday) I was in a meeting with my line manager and she said that my response to her email was incredibly combative and she felt attacked.  She mentioned that she has been nothing but supportive and putting 'her neck on the line' (which I think means she was putting herself at some kind of risk?) to support me with things such as my occupational health review which is a result of my asking for reasonable adjustments, and how she made sure I didn't need to attend the London meeting recently as she knows that it was very difficult and the head of the department was not happy with the decision etc.  

She said that my response to her email made her feel like I was attacking her and 'throwing the rule book at her' because it went straight from her trying to support me to me mentioning citizens advice.

I don't understand what I have done.  I agree she has been supportive in those aspects and I did not intent to come across that at all, I was trying to be open an honest which is what she says she wants from me.  I don't want to make her feel attacked, I was just trying to be honest and mentioned citizens advice because I didn't understand and they are an institute which would be able to advise me. She said my response should have been something similar to 'Sorry, I don't understand can you tell me why they came to this decision?' which I am also confused as to why I would apologise for seeking the information and also I was trying to give context as to my situation.

I apologised but I do not think she understood my intentions or didn't want to accept.  I feel awful but I also don't understand. How do I relay this to her without coming across as rude or not genuine?

Parents

  • At this stage of my life, I personally have zero tolerance for increasingly abusive employers in this day and age and this manager was clearly gaslighting and they were the ones who were abusive in this case - I would not even bother going to trade unions and I would get legal advice straight away, even involving the police if needs be - getting some kind of written evidence of the power cut in the general area from an official body would be helpful and taking this issue directly to head office via your Solictors or barristers would be a good move 

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  • At this stage of my life, I personally have zero tolerance for increasingly abusive employers in this day and age and this manager was clearly gaslighting and they were the ones who were abusive in this case - I would not even bother going to trade unions and I would get legal advice straight away, even involving the police if needs be - getting some kind of written evidence of the power cut in the general area from an official body would be helpful and taking this issue directly to head office via your Solictors or barristers would be a good move 

Children
  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK
    IrishInManchesterUK said:
    I would get legal advice straight away, even involving the police if needs be

    You could go down this route but from discussions with employment lawyers in the past (yes I have had big payouts from abusive employers) then they will most likely advise that you need to be seen as being reasonable in your attempts to sort the situation out even if the other side is being an ass.

    Without this it will not have a chance should it go to any kind of court case - the employee will be seen as unreasonable and not trying to find a solution to what could, theoretically, be a communication issue.

    I'm not offering advice, just relaying what advice was given to me by a specialist solicitor and which made the employer offer to buy me out rather than face a court case they would probably lose.