A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes: Hello! I have a bit of a work issue right now I’d love some advice on.I’m a creative and work on a few different brands in my job which has a set number of people working on each of them and whilst I lead on the brands, I have someone with more seniority who I might need to get things signed off. My actual manager is is lovely - and they’re not directly in any of the teams which I work on. Just someone in my department who oversees all the creatives.One of the brands I work on has just got a temporary person who has more seniority than me who I need to get certain sign off from. But he is making my life a bit of a misery. He sets up meetings for me and the juniors (even though I’m mid management) and asks me to ‘run them through all my projects’ including the ones I don’t work with him on. He is not my manager so shouldn’t be doing this.He talks over me in every conversation I have and has not made any effort to actually introduce himself to me and establish how they / I work. I get left out of emails and he just has no idea about the brand we’re working on - he is not the target customer and he comes out with very strange ideas which are very old school. There was a bit of an incident where one of my projects i led last year, before he joined got an award. And he included all senior management (who never worked on it) and put me last and completely left other people who’d worked on it. Obviously, lots of people were left feeling annoyed. Instead of working with me as a team, he would go into my work via a shared document online and make comments I wouldn’t agree with that felt very strange. E.g about what kind of post to put on social media for a brand but was just cringey for the kind of people we’re supposed to be targeting. I’ve told my manager very bluntly that I’m having trouble working with him, to which they immediately had a chat to them and asked them to let me get on with things and my manager said they would put me first as I’m a perm member of staff and they really want to make sure I’m happy.However, the meetings asking me to run him through my work hasn’t stopped and I don’t know a polite way of saying it’s none of his business. I’d also love a bit of advice about how to handle someone like this. He does not make work enjoyable for me at all and I actively try and avoid any kind of contact with him. Thanks Reply to this Question Share |
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female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (12 September 2023):
"I’ve told my manager very bluntly that I’m having trouble working with him,"
Your manager needs to step up.
TALK to your manager AGAIN. Ask for CLEAR boundaries to be set. If your manager wants YOU to deal with this on your own, ask for a meeting between the 3 of you. Have your MANAGER spell it out for him IN FRONT of you what are HIS duties and yours. IF need be.
He sounds like an old coot who doesn't respect women in the workforce OR just younger people.
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