Workplace bullying by supervisor.

In My Humble Opinion
1

This started as a Pit, but I decided it may end up with input so here it is.

It’s not me; it’s my wife. I just want it to be fixed… she’s miserable from her horrible supervisor, who torments her constantly. It started probably 4 years ago, but it’s just gotten worse as time goes by.

The worst thing is, it’s been so bad in the last year or so that it is impacting her mood and our life at home. She doesn’t want to go to work, she’s depressed that she really does work in an awesome field with awesome people, doing awesome things, EXCEPT for her fucking supervisor. And, for that matter, HER supervisor, who from what it sounds like is ok with direct supervisor being horrible insane passive-aggressive jealous tyrant, as long as the group gets the job done.

Examples…I’m sure I’ll miss some, but what kicked it off for me and sent me over the edge today was that our little one (19 mos) is a little sick, and he went to day care today but my wife wanted to stay home with him tomorrow if he still wasn’t feeling good, to let him rest. Day care is a zoo…he’s well taken care of, but it’s not a restful place for a sick boy. I would love to stay with him, but I have a training I need to go to. Note: I generally will take off instead of her, since I am a little more flexible. Tomorrow just isn’t a good one for me.

Well when my wife told her supervisor that she might stay home with kiddo, supervisors response was something like this:

“Well, you know, (person who was a terrible underperformer, had personal issues, and is long gone ) used to take off when her kids were sick, too. You shouldn’t use sick time as a crutch and should probably have a backup arranged so you can come in to work.”

Pardon me while my head fucking explodes. I mean this wasn’t the first time I wanted to sneak over and cut her fucking brake lines, but this time I was going for my cutters.

Now look, this is just icing on the cake. The history of her abuse is long and varied…look up “workplace bullying” and it’s happened. Putting her down in front of co-workers, saying one thing in an e-mail to a researcher and then saying another thing to my wife, taking credit for ideas or projects, belittling her capabilities, twisting stories to their boss about things that have happened.

I honestly believe this woman is slowly going mad. I really think she’s in the beginning stages of dementia.

The worst thing is, and I know I’m not the perfect husband for this, I can’t hear it anymore. I’ve been telling her the whole time to document, document, document, take it to the big boss, to HR. But she hasn’t done it. I’ve been trying to get her to take care of herself, defend herself, do what she needs to do to be able to go to work and not face that (at minimum) or have horrible crazy supervisor face the consequences (optimum). She doesn’t. She doesn’t feel like anything will change.

She can’t really change jobs; she’s a bit of a specialist, and there aren’t any jobs for that around here. We can’t afford for her to take a pay cut; I already did to change jobs, myself. There is a possibility that she could get a position doing something she likes here in a few years. In the meantime, she’s stuck.

What do we do? I think she should be much more aggressive in confronting her supervisor. She’s afraid it will just make things worse. I’m not sure how much worse it can get.

She has the support of the rest of her lab, but again they are pretty content, and while crazy supe bugs them at times, my wife is the real target.

I know someone will say, “Are you sure your wife isn’t the problem??” Yes. I’m sure. She’s extremely competent, has personal skills such that she can communicate with the researchers (science joke), and is considered a go-to for information. I assure you, she’s not the issue, and I wouldn’t even venture this if that was even a possibility.

Anyway, rant over. What do I say to her about this, what does she do about this when she’s worried about upsetting the apple cart?

2

You already know the answer.

There’s nothing she can do if there’s nothing she WILL do.

She won’t confront, she won’t complain, she won’t quit.

There is one thing you can suggest. My wife had a fair level of success with it when she was a teacher, and parents jumped on her. She can look her supervisor in the eye, say “I won’t tolerate this,” then turn around and leave the room. Go to the restroom, the break room, the receptionist’s desk, whatever. (She might want to go someplace where there are witnesses, just in case the supervisor decides to follow her and yell some more.)

It’s sort of a nonconfrontational confrontation, but it does show that your wife isn’t a chew toy.

3

The way I see it you have a few options:
1)She’s not going to do anything about it. Maybe this really is tormenting her, maybe it’s not and she’s complaining to blow off steam, but in the end, it’s going to keep happening and as long as she can mentally deal with it, you have to find a way to do so as well. In one ear and out the other, same shit different day and all that.
2)Convince her to BCC every.single.email to at least one person about her supervisor and send then forward the reply back to them as well. Assuming asking for a day off tomorrow is reasonable, being declined because some former employee was shitty is, well, shitty.
3)Drop a dime to someone there. Just a call from you to them to say ‘hey, don’t tell her I called (or email), but she’s falling apart because of this situation, could you please keep an eye on them’.

Also, if the company is large enough to have FMLA and your wife would be covered, have her (or just do it yourself) call whoever is above the supervisor (boss? HR?) tell them the kid is sick, the wife is under a lot of stress due to the workplace environment and being declined a day off to take care of the child and she’ll be taking the rest of the week off. (But please check the FMLA rules first).

PS, I’d like to reiterate, whatever you do, don’t mention anything about her excuse for not allowing your wife to take the day off, personally, I’d just state it as ‘My kid is sick, I told the supervisor I needed today off and she told me I wasn’t allowed to do that’ or something like that. Let them go to her and say ‘Mary, why are you telling people that can’t take days off to take care of sick children?’.

Also, fer seriously, BCC all the emails or at the very least forward all the ones with nasty responses to someone over her head.