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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?

  • 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 

  • 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.

  • 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 

  • It seems as if any attempt to complain or put your point of view across is seen as abusive, I feel like telling them, 'no this isn't me being abusive, if I was being abusive nobody would be in any doubt about it'.

    It may have been miscommunication as Iain says, but it might not be. Maybe what your manager suggested would of been a better way of phrasing it, but you were obviously in a very stressful situation and some leeway should be given for that, storms can be really scary, especially when the electric goes off.

    I often wonder if when ASC people complain or ask for something, those, like your manager see a way of trying to reframe your words to make what you're saying less important, especially when you think of NT people seem to be able to get away with saying?

  • I've always tried to be placatory in these situations until the resentment builds up to the point where I lose my interest completely and leave.

    MY daughter OTOH would HAVE your line managers ass in a sling for this latest abuse.

    And it seems to work for her better than "being nice about things" ever did for me.   

  • squishylea said:
    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

    I suspect there has been a communication mismatch here, although possibly not between you and your manager but between her and HR.

    If their policy states they pay in the event of such storm related issues then it is probably because your line manager reported you as absent without the mitigating circumstances you called in with.

    This also explains why your manager is saying you ae the problem - they are trying to cover for their own mistake and doing a poor job at it.

    It was all cleared up pretty quickly so no harm was done and if you want to try to rebuild that relationship with your manager then ask if you can book in a review of it to find out how you can prevent such comminication issues again in future.

    In some ways it helps to kind of take the blame for their being a general issue and ask how can I communicate in a way that gets everyone informed with the appropriate info in future. It should give your boss a polite way to dodge what is apparently an embarrassing mess up from them and to offer sagely advice to make them feel important.

    It may even turn out that it was your tone that makes you apprear combative, or the lack of saying "sorry" for being an invonvenience. Maybe your boss is having their own crisis and this was just an inconvenience that made their life even more difficult - sometimes giving that chance to get it out in the open helps.

    It is a form of headology as you are letting someone off the hook to improve your relationship for the future when they are probably the villan of the story.

    That would by my approach anyway.

  • in reply to Judetheobtuse

    I think we should be honest with each other at work.

    Drift Boss

  • When I have pointed out something to my manager I have been met with 'we have really supported you' and put in a way to make me feel grateful. In fact my union has said in a number of meetings about adjustments is that we are not talking about the past help, which we appreciate but this is now.