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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 

  • 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.

Reply
  • 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.

Children
  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK
    IrishInManchesterUK said:
    I would see any other attempts at resolution as being nothing more than formalities and hoops that one would have to go through in the corrupt legal process that sides with abusive employers

    Surprisingly most legal systems are not biassed in my experience, but the process of using the in tricky - you need good, experienced advice to build your case and make it unappealing for an employer to want to go down this route.

    At the end of the day the company really doesn't care about you as an individual and it is likely to be a numbers game for them when deciding if any legal process is worth persuing. If they (ie the managers) have messed up and there is a chance a sympathetic judge would side with you then they are much better off either trying to rehabilitate you into the workplace and let the manager push you out using a process of attrition (ie making you want to leave) or if it is too far gone, to just pay you out.

    The only people who win at the end of the day are the solicitors / lawyers.

    IrishInManchesterUK said:
    I would refuse all offers of out of court settlement and proceed direct to court hearing and would relentlessly pursue it all the way to the highest courts possible, if I considered that the principles involved were sufficiently and fundamentally serious 

    If you won your first court battle then that is as far as it goes - but if you loose (such as you refer to taking it to a higher court) then you need deep, deep pockets to pay lawyers to do it and of course if you loose then you have to pay the other sides legal costs as well as your own, and quite possible any fines that they counter sue for.

    This can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds very quickly, so while it is a noble idea, not many could ever hope to do it.

    I'm just offering some experience to temper the fine sentiments you voice here.

  • in reply to Iain

    I would see any other attempts at resolution as being nothing more than formalities and hoops that one would have to go through in the corrupt legal process that sides with abusive employers - where there are important principles at stake, these must be heard openly in a court of law, before a judge and/or jury - personally, depending on the issues involved, I would refuse all offers of out of court settlement and proceed direct to court hearing and would relentlessly pursue it all the way to the highest courts possible, if I considered that the principles involved were sufficiently and fundamentally serious