How do I handle this?

[moneymaven]

I hold an executive position in a mid-size company. There is a woman who is a quintessential bully. She doesn't intimidate me or ruffle my feathers really. She doesn't report to me but works closely with my entire staff.

Out of the gate, she is resentful of me because she was demoted from the same role several years ago. Long story short, she uses her access to my staff to undermine me and stir shit up. The person she most recently got close to was just removed from the company. In cleaning up her outstanding items, I came across emails that she exchanged with the disgruntled employee and some vendors demeaning me.

I sent them to my boss this afternoon (who was out of the office today) and asked to discuss it tomorrow. Frankly, if I caught an employee with shit like that, it'd be grounds for termination.

I am not sure how to navigate this tomorrow simply because she's been at the company for years and despite her bullshit and bullying, she's still got a job.

I want to handle it in a way that doesn't compromise me knowing that she's got some crazy blessing keeping her there, but I find the behavior egregious. Help me navigate this.

[Deleted]

Emails with vendors demeaning another employee (or even a competitor's employee) would be grounds for termination everywhere I have worked. I personally only had one person I have had to discipline & write up for that issue. They got immediate written warning & advised if it occurred again they would be fired. Didn't even last 2 weeks & they did it again - buh bye.

I think you did the right thing sending it to your boss for a second set of eyes on it before proceeding. 

[andi9899]

I would tell your boss that you have put up with her starting stuff with your team longer than you should have to already, but demeaning you to not only another employee but also a vendor is the last straw and you want it addressed. I would say that you didn't want to stoop to her level and start anything with her, so you are bringing it to your manager to advise you on/handle. That way you have gone through the right channels to handle it.

[mmhmm]

I think I might say something like this to the boss:  "As you can see, I have been demeaned to our vendors as well as to our employees. How would you suggest we handle this problem?" That makes it clear you're not going to take the abuse and puts the ball in the boss' court.

[whoisjohngalt]

It doesn't really bother me when people say crap about me. 

However,  if something would make my job harder, that's a whole other story.  Also, if vendors don't have a good opinion of you or don't want to deal with you based on her yapping  it can be bad for the company. 

So, I would expect your boss, or HR handle something like that.

I wouldn't get my hands dirty in any way, shape or form.

[bobosensei]

Well, I don't think this is appropriate behavior for an executive.  I think the best course of action would be to go to the woman with the emails, and tell her to stop.  Though you have to be able to do this without getting all wound up, causing a scene, and making things worse.  But your boss already knows you want to discuss this, so your best bet is to remain calm and rational.  Treat it more like an FYI then drop it because it isn't any of your business what ends up happening to the lady.  If you start screeching about this and demanding she be fired, whether you are technically in the right or wrong won't matter, you will look like as much like a trouble maker as the other woman.  And people will not forget that later on.

The way I handle things at work is to think about what I would want my subordinates to do in a similar situation.  I find it helps me take a step back, and approach things in the most professional way possible.

[cronewitch]

If the interview doesn't seem to be taken seriously I would say you think it needs to be addressed so it doesn't become a hostile work environment. On the other hand I am retired and for my last few years didn't worry about getting fired. People hate the words hostile work environment it makes then think of lawyers.

[marvholly]

I really like the concept of 'hostile work environment." It just screams law suite about to happen to managers & HR.

Also, check your company handbook an/or written policies to see if she is in violation o any AND make sure you are not.

[Shooby]

Give her the rope and let her hang herself. She will. Be quietly professional, but lay the groundwork to open the eyes of Admin who can fire her.

[moneymaven]

Apr 24, 2015 0:05:09 GMT -5 bobosensei said:

Well, I don't think this is appropriate behavior for an executive.  I think the best course of action would be to go to the woman with the emails, and tell her to stop.  Though you have to be able to do this without getting all wound up, causing a scene, and making things worse.  But your boss already knows you want to discuss this, so your best bet is to remain calm and rational.  Treat it more like an FYI then drop it because it isn't any of your business what ends up happening to the lady.  If you start screeching about this and demanding she be fired, whether you are technically in the right or wrong won't matter, you will look like as much like a trouble maker as the other woman.  And people will not forget that later on.

The way I handle things at work is to think about what I would want my subordinates to do in a similar situation.  I find it helps me take a step back, and approach things in the most professional way possible.

I have repeatedly told this woman to knock it off. Of course, she gets off on that... Knowing I'm irritated. She reports to a colleague in an equal capacity as mine and we share the same boss so that's who I went to.
I agree that I want my staff to work a certain way in these situations and that's what I evaluated before sending it up the ladder. I would fully expect my staff to bring something like this to me.
ETA: I am a generally calm person and don't get my feathers ruffled easily. That's also part of what drives this lady crazy. She's highly emotional and that drives her behavior. I am much more logical and even keeled so when she's in a tizzy and can't work me up, it makes her mad. I will have a calm conversation with the boss (I love my boss and he's reasonable) and remain objective in the discussion.

[moneymaven]

Apr 24, 2015 5:25:14 GMT -5 marvholly said:

I really like the concept of 'hostile work environment." It just screams law suite about to happen to managers & HR.

Also, check your company handbook an/or written policies to see if she is in violation o any AND make sure you are not.

Yeah, I'm not down the path of hostile work environment. I know the handbook inside and out. I helped write it and I refer to it often for my own staff. She is violating at least two explicit company policies.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Since she is demeaning you to vendors I think you were right to bring it up with your boss. That could cost the company business if vendors decide based on her emails you aren't worth their time.

I'd focus on that because that is the bigger issue. Some supervisors don't care about employee spats so long as work is getting done and you may find yourself the "problem" instead of her.

But if she's saying things to vendors that's a different story. That could cost the company money and that won't look good on your supervisor since he's in charge of her.

You can mention she's also talking to employees to bolster your case but if he doesn't response I'd drop it.  If she still has a job despite her bullying there is somebody who doesn't give a fig about her relationship with co-workers b/c she provides some sort of value that makes her worth it.

I don't know of many employees that are worth keeping around if they are messing with vendors.

[thyme4change]

Apr 24, 2015 6:14:56 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Give her the rope and let her hang herself. She will. Be quietly professional, but lay the groundwork to open the eyes of Admin who can fire her.

I suspect that someone is protecting her.  When people behave like this, it is known.  This is good that there is now some hard-cold proof.  But MM has to find out who the bully's friend is.  This will likely be a long road.  

MM - Start documenting everything.  Write down every interaction you have with the bully.  After you talk to your boss, you might want to consider doing an interview with your employees to see if any of them will confess that the bully is doing more of the same.  Keep your eyes open, and your ear to the ground.  Find your allies and identify the opposition.  

[Deleted]

Apr 24, 2015 8:46:54 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Apr 24, 2015 6:14:56 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Give her the rope and let her hang herself. She will. Be quietly professional, but lay the groundwork to open the eyes of Admin who can fire her.

I suspect that someone is protecting her.  When people behave like this, it is known.  This is good that there is now some hard-cold proof.  But MM has to find out who the bully's friend is.  This will likely be a long road.  

MM - Start documenting everything.  Write down every interaction you have with the bully.  After you talk to your boss, you might want to consider doing an interview with your employees to see if any of them will confess that the bully is doing more of the same.  Keep your eyes open, and your ear to the ground.  Find your allies and identify the opposition.  

She has the emails with explicit violations. The company pretty has to do something now, the behaviour is in writing. The only thing I would suggest is a follow up email to money's boss about what was discussed in their meeting and what action or inaction was decided.

ETA - request a read receipt on that email to the boss.

[Value Buy]

Why haven't you involved HR in this?
If this is a medium size company, HR would not put up with behavior.
And the use of hostile work environment gets them every time.
Unless, you have a couple of skeletons......

[swamp]

fellow employees can talk smack about me all they want.  When it goes outside the company, that's a problem.

Forget about the internal spat. Focus on the external communication.  It was really unprofessional, and puts your company in a bad light.

[andi9899]

Apr 24, 2015 9:14:59 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Why haven't you involved HR in this?
If this is a medium size company, HR would not put up with behavior.
And the use of hostile work environment gets them every time.
Unless, you have a couple of skeletons......

HR can sometimes backfire. I worked at a huge company and had a horrible manager who was very overbearing and unprofessional. I reported her to HR. Then the claws came out! She for some reason has someone protecting her also. She lied about things either happening or not happening. My previous review was glowing about how I was such a team player and catch on quickly to new concepts and take the time to help others. The following review was full of inadequacies and said that I had multiple complaints about me and was very unprofessional. She kept at me any chance she could. She pushed me so hard that I just snapped one day and was immediately fired. Yes, I should have kept my cool, but I had enough.

Once I was gone and wasn't there to pick up the slack, her true incompetence started to show and she started throwing others under the bus saying that no one listened to her and writing people up. Another teammate complained to HR and now she is being targeted just like I was. The other day someone told me that 10 or 11 people have left since she became a manager in 2013, but she still has a job. I was never able to figure out why she was so protected and by who. It doesn't matter now, but my nosy side would still love to know. So I don't know that I would go getting HR involved just yet.

[moneymaven]

Apr 24, 2015 9:14:59 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Why haven't you involved HR in this?
If this is a medium size company, HR would not put up with behavior.
And the use of hostile work environment gets them every time.
Unless, you have a couple of skeletons......

HR is involved. I spoke with them first. No skeletons in my closet!

[andi9899]

I really hope it works out for you. Please keep us posted!

[Lizard Queen]

Apr 24, 2015 9:29:31 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

Apr 24, 2015 9:14:59 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Why haven't you involved HR in this?
If this is a medium size company, HR would not put up with behavior.
And the use of hostile work environment gets them every time.
Unless, you have a couple of skeletons......

HR can sometimes backfire. I worked at a huge company and had a horrible manager who was very overbearing and unprofessional. I reported her to HR. Then the claws came out! She for some reason has someone protecting her also. She lied about things either happening or not happening. My previous review was glowing about how I was such a team player and catch on quickly to new concepts and take the time to help others. The following review was full of inadequacies and said that I had multiple complaints about me and was very unprofessional. She kept at me any chance she could. She pushed me so hard that I just snapped one day and was immediately fired. Yes, I should have kept my cool, but I had enough.

Once I was gone and wasn't there to pick up the slack, her true incompetence started to show and she started throwing others under the bus saying that no one listened to her and writing people up. Another teammate complained to HR and now she is being targeted just like I was. The other day someone told me that 10 or 11 people have left since she became a manager in 2013, but she still has a job. I was never able to figure out why she was so protected and by who. It doesn't matter now, but my nosy side would still love to know. So I don't know that I would go getting HR involved just yet.

HR is always going to take the side of someone who is higher up the food chain, unless the evidence is so damning that they can't sweep things under the rug.

[gs11rmb]

I just finished a 2 hour anti-harassment session this morning at work.  The training was specifically focused on sexual harassment but the overall takeaway was companies have a legal duty to act (essentially protect themselves from lawsuits) if an employee complains.  The worst possible move a company can make is to retaliate.  I would not be surprised if this employee was fired.

[Abby Normal]

Rule #1.  Don't put it in writing unless you want someone to use it.

We just fired someone for something similar. 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Apr 24, 2015 10:00:43 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

I really hope it works out for you. Please keep us posted!

  What can I say?  I'm nosy!

[moneymaven]

Apr 24, 2015 11:26:29 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

Apr 24, 2015 10:00:43 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

I really hope it works out for you. Please keep us posted!

  What can I say?  I'm nosy!

Thanks, guys. I will. We have a large acquisition happening right now so boss and I have both been in meetings this morning but we have a meeting just us this afternoon on another topic. We will discuss it then.

[thyme4change]

Apr 24, 2015 8:57:57 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Apr 24, 2015 8:46:54 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I suspect that someone is protecting her.  When people behave like this, it is known.  This is good that there is now some hard-cold proof.  But MM has to find out who the bully's friend is.  This will likely be a long road.  

MM - Start documenting everything.  Write down every interaction you have with the bully.  After you talk to your boss, you might want to consider doing an interview with your employees to see if any of them will confess that the bully is doing more of the same.  Keep your eyes open, and your ear to the ground.  Find your allies and identify the opposition.  

She has the emails with explicit violations. The company pretty has to do something now, the behaviour is in writing. The only thing I would suggest is a follow up email to money's boss about what was discussed in their meeting and what action or inaction was decided.

ETA - request a read receipt on that email to the boss.

It depends on who is protecting her. There isn't a huge penalty if a corporation does not follow their own handbook. No police action will be taken. You can't sue them for not following the rules. And to enforce their handbook all they need to do is "punish" her, not fire her. What constitutes punishment? A write up? Big deal.

Going to the boss and remaining rational is the best course of action. But.if the gal isnt immediately terminated, MM needs to continue the documentation. An exec can sweep a little bit under the rug, but once it starts being a real problem for them, things will change.

[moneymaven]

Apr 24, 2015 10:29:08 GMT -5 Abby Normal said:

Rule #1.  Don't put it in writing unless you want someone to use it.

We just fired someone for something similar. 

Abby, would you elaborate on what happened with your company?

[chiver78]

Apr 24, 2015 10:02:54 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Apr 24, 2015 9:29:31 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

HR can sometimes backfire. I worked at a huge company and had a horrible manager who was very overbearing and unprofessional. I reported her to HR. Then the claws came out! She for some reason has someone protecting her also. She lied about things either happening or not happening. My previous review was glowing about how I was such a team player and catch on quickly to new concepts and take the time to help others. The following review was full of inadequacies and said that I had multiple complaints about me and was very unprofessional. She kept at me any chance she could. She pushed me so hard that I just snapped one day and was immediately fired. Yes, I should have kept my cool, but I had enough.

Once I was gone and wasn't there to pick up the slack, her true incompetence started to show and she started throwing others under the bus saying that no one listened to her and writing people up. Another teammate complained to HR and now she is being targeted just like I was. The other day someone told me that 10 or 11 people have left since she became a manager in 2013, but she still has a job. I was never able to figure out why she was so protected and by who. It doesn't matter now, but my nosy side would still love to know. So I don't know that I would go getting HR involved just yet.

HR is always going to take the side of someone who is higher up the food chain, unless the evidence is so damning that they can't sweep things under the rug.

not necessarily true. HR is going to take the side of the company, first and foremost. if that means an individual contributor, awesome. if that means sweeping shit under the rug to cover a more senior person, ugh. but HR is there to preserve the interests of hte company, it's in everyone's best interests to remember that.

[Abby Normal]

We've had two incidents in the last couple months. One woman (admin who reports to me)got a bit too big for her britches and called the VP of one of our vendors to "tell him how it was going to be" and stated that 'Bob' (another employee- different department) didn't know what he was talking about. VP, calls my boss, to ask WTF. During the investigation, we found an email that she wrote undermining Bob authority and a second of her bitching to her bf about 'bob's incompetence". Except that Bob isn't incompetent, she just didn't like the fact that it was creating more work for her. She way over stepped her bounds in talking with the customer. As far as I was concerned, she was done after the phone call. But when I found the email- it was the kiss of death because we had documentation.

More recently- we had a guy who emailed his boss saying he had an off the job injury and dr told him to stay off his feet for three days and he would send the doctors note in the morning. Email was sent late Wednesday night.  Monday comes and we still don't have the doctors note- but not too concerned because he offered to send it, we didn't ask for it. Only he emails boss and is now saying it's work related and he went to Dr again that morning and needs a few more days off. So Boss says that since it's work related we need Dr's full release, and the original note stating he needs time off . He sends us a very generic Dr note saying that he can return to work in a few more days. The note didn't say anything on the injury or reason he's out. He still hasn't provided us with the original Dr note stating he needed time off. He comes in on Wednesday and fills out an 801 stating he has "back issues" resulting from an injury on Friday. Except-he was already off by then. So he changes the date to Thursday, umm still no. The story starts getting stranger with contradicting time lines- but because he had communicated with his boss by email it was really easy to see the holes.  He's changed his story again to say it wasnt work related. Kiss of death was when he said he couldn't provide the original Dr's note from the week before (which he stated in first email that he had) because he had gone to the doctor under someone elses name.  

[Robert not Bobby]

An incredible amount of back-stabbing and pettiness going on all over the place.

Where has that old fashion word, "character", gone. In my parent's generation if you had "character" you were a model that others should and would  emulate...you were polite, thoughtful, forgiving and always held your head high, but not too high to lend a helping hand to those who were less fortunate than you (through no fault of their own)...you set an example by your deeds not your words...but I digress.

To get back to your dilemma, honestly, I really don't know. But maybe you do and you want outside confirmation?

Why don't you have a chat with her, that doesn't descent into pulling hair and screaming at each other.

Diplomacy is always preferable to war, even on one on one relationships.

[andi9899]

I'm so glad that I'm only responsible for myself at work. I could never be in management.