How Do You Be Assertive To A Workplace Bully - Manager!

anxiousmess

Well-known member
I have my supervision meeting tomorrow with my manager. This is my opportunity to let her know how unhappy I am with the way she has been treating me for quite a while.

A brief list of the things she has done to me:

1) Blame me for things that have been broken

2) Not involving me within the service (withholding information from me)

3) Giving my colleague extra work to help him with self development. When I ask for extra responsibility to learn, she comes up with excuses. For example, my colleague has been given six months to do the rota. My manager told me, after six months she would let another colleague get the chance. My colleague has been doing it for nine months. He went on holiday for 3 weeks so there was no one to do the rota. My manager gave me the chance. I completed it after two days. My manager told me I did a really good job. As soon as my colleague came back from his holiday, my manager gave the rota back to him. I requested for more opportunity to do the rota. But she came up with excuses and told me my colleague will continue to do it. Despite her giving me previous good feedback for doing it. Why take the opportunity away when I did a good job and the six months has gone?

4) Constantly praising my colleague in the communication book. But only documents negative feedback to the rest of the team in the communication book

5) Every time my manager goes on holiday, she puts my colleague in charge of the service. Does not ask me if I would like to be in charge

6) Treats and gives management jobs to my colleague, despite she is the only management person in the service. Both me and my colleague are full time Support Workers. He gets involved and she always wants his input

7) When I request for further opportunities, I want to learn. She tells me she doesn't want me to forget that I started the job on a blank piece of paper. When I am requesting for further opportunities, I am apparently getting over confident wtf? How can someone be over confident when they want to learn?

8) She tries to do my thinking for me. Won't allow me to do my job without her telling me how to do it. She doesn't like it when I can think for myself. She is trying to keep me down and belittle me.

9) I have managed to help a resident who has a history with being anxious to go out. I have a good bond with the resident. The resident went out with me to do some clothes shopping. The whole service was shocked and I felt really pleased. The manager tried to find a way to knock me down for it. I feel it was done out of jealousy because for them to get this resident to do anything - they have had to use blackmail and threats to motivate him in the past.

How can I be assertive especially when she is my manager? I feel pretty scared when telling her tomorrow. I feel enough is enough. It has to stop. She is making me feel incredibly unhappy at work.

Any tips please?
 

R3K

Well-known member
first of all, where do you work? what's a "rota?" and how are "residents" involved in your job?

going of what you're giving us though...

it really sounds like your boss is just using everyday favoritism in the workplace. for whatever reasons she likes your coworker/colleague all day long, and is probably just going to continue giving him all the advancements, raises and perks she can give him cause he's a buttkisser or she has a crush on him or something. do you know if there's some kind of intimacy involved in their workplace relationship?

going by the pattern she's got going on already, any grievances you bring up in this upcoming meeting with her will probably just be shunned or dodged. she's already used to doing it, and she probably doesn't want to be bothered with any new developments in her life so she'll just keep using the same old lines on you to keep you down.

if you really want to be assertive toward her, be prepared for a war of wills. extroverts/bullies are over-assertive by nature. i'm assuming your on the introvertive/type-B side of the spectrum, so it's gonna be a real uphill battle for you to get her respect.

normally, i'd say take an indirect route on this... maybe approach your boss-favored colleague and work out some kind of deal with him that might help you advance in the workplace.

but you're talking about how to be assertive with this "bully"... only thing that works ultimately, is planting your feet and standing your ground on whatever issue(s) are at hand. using ultimatums. but that's dangerous, she might just fire or demote you if you go that route on her.
 
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