update: I can see a coworker doing work for me incorrectly over her shoulder — can I step in?

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer who could see her coworker doing work for the letter-writer’s projects incorrectly and was wondering if she could say something? Here’s the update.

Firstly, thanks so much to Alison and all of the commenters for their insight and advice. It really helped me think about the situation from a different perspective. In the end, we actually had an office reshuffle and I was seated directly next to the designer. This worked out great because I couldn’t see her screen without turning and looking to the side, and we were able to have conversations about the work whenever she liked. We’ve now become quite friendly! The company has also switched to a new task management system which is much simpler to use, so the designer has started to pay more attention to outstanding tasks and deadlines. We still have the odd miscommunication over a brief but it’s easily and quickly resolved.

However, unfortunately, it turned out the issue was a symptom of a much larger issue: My managing director’s raging ego and tyranny over the company. I suspected the designer may have been getting mixed messages from him about what work to prioritise, and this turned out to be true, as I was soon to experience for myself. In general, he’s a hugely erratic and impulsive person. He does whatever he feels like doing [A relatively minor example; accessing our company social media accounts and putting up posts riddled with spelling errors despite my repeatedly asking him to run them by me first, or improvising a presentation that he had months to prepare for and getting annoyed when it doesn’t go well] and then blames the rest of us when it doesn’t work. He also has a nasty, nasty habit of getting blackout drunk at industry events and verbally abusing potential clients within their earshot, loudly showing off as much as possible and, on one occasion, calling his friend [our taken, female coworker] a slag because a man from another company asked to buy her a drink.

Here’s a recent example of his ‘mixed messages’ when it comes to priorities:
1. MD texts me repeatedly at 6pm on a Friday, telling me that I must drop everything and work on a ‘huge priority’ task, writing a 20 page support document for a client.
2. I, naturally, change most of my plans for the following work week and go flat out on completing the document by the deadline, which I manage to do. I warn MD in advance that in order to get this done I will have to put my other projects on pause.
3. The day after that deadline, MD sends me a flurry of ‘f*cking furious’ messages, swearing and generally fuming that I haven’t finished all of my other work on top of the ‘high priority’ document. Phrases like ‘welcome to my world’ and ‘everything is top priority’ are thrown around.
4. MD sits me down and tells me I need to learn how to prioritise.

Work-life balance is non-existent, we’re ridiculed as ‘slackers’ if we leave at 5:30pm and jokes are made about taking a half day from our leave allowance. Strangely, everyone else seems to have been around this toxicity for so long that they’re just used to it and shrug it off as eccentricity and passion.

I’m about to start a job hunt to get out of here, but I’m reluctant to jump ship too quickly and have it look bad on my CV, so i’m waiting for the right opportunity to come along. I’ve recently been given a monthly target that is completely unachievable [think, generate 500 teapot leads in 3 months, when there are only 200 teapot companies in the country] and my performance from now on will be tied to hitting those targets, so I know I won’t be able to progress far in this company without being subjected to a lot more abuse on the way.

Hopefully things will be on the up soon!

update: I can see a coworker doing work for me incorrectly over her shoulder — can I step in? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.



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