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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

  • I forgot this last part when I wrote here earlier. It is quite a common thing in my experience that people come to me when they are upset at something and simply let it all out. If anyone was to interrupt at this point they would mistake it for the one releasing everything to be yelling at me. They always too do the same thing afterwards, when they're done, they say it's not my fault, sorry if it comes across that way. it just feels so good for them to let it out, they trust me, it is them doing that that is a sign of trust. This is people who are not autistic (in my book) who do this. 

    To be fair, the most conflicts at work that I have seen taking place are not between autistic and  NTs it is between NTs. 

    One of the reasons my husband thinks it is a good idea I shut up about being autistic is that he says the wrong kind of people can abuse that knowing and turn it into something they will earn from. 

    I think there is so much misunderstanding, so much blur between NT when they communicate through text (and real life) that lets so much go wrong and then no one is ready to take responsibility for it. Nobody knows how it happened. I know how it happened. But who's listening, right? 

Reply

  • I forgot this last part when I wrote here earlier. It is quite a common thing in my experience that people come to me when they are upset at something and simply let it all out. If anyone was to interrupt at this point they would mistake it for the one releasing everything to be yelling at me. They always too do the same thing afterwards, when they're done, they say it's not my fault, sorry if it comes across that way. it just feels so good for them to let it out, they trust me, it is them doing that that is a sign of trust. This is people who are not autistic (in my book) who do this. 

    To be fair, the most conflicts at work that I have seen taking place are not between autistic and  NTs it is between NTs. 

    One of the reasons my husband thinks it is a good idea I shut up about being autistic is that he says the wrong kind of people can abuse that knowing and turn it into something they will earn from. 

    I think there is so much misunderstanding, so much blur between NT when they communicate through text (and real life) that lets so much go wrong and then no one is ready to take responsibility for it. Nobody knows how it happened. I know how it happened. But who's listening, right? 

Children
  • in reply to Table1

    I get people doing that to me too, it's like I'm a safe place, I've learned over the years to not take it personally, to make the right noises in the right places and at the end ask if they feel better now? I try and treat it as an honour that people feel able to do this around me, whatever faults I may have in other areas people feel emotionally safe around me.