Anonymous wrote:You have to calmly push back. When she chimes in that she’ll talk to Bob and let you know, just respond that it’s not necessary and we’re moving forward. Or whatever. Don’t obey her.

Or you also need to talk to Bob.

Oof. This describes the dynamic in my dysfunctional office (thankfully furloughed at the moment). I think you have to focus on the things she is doing that derail your projects, and also establish some clear SOPs so that she is not messing around in the middle of things. But to do this you need your mutual boss’s approval and buy in. You also need to accept that she likely has more pull than your team with the mutual boss. But maybe you can at least establish some procedures to make it less annoying.

Alternatively your mutual boss may just be really weak and be steamrolled by her into believing that he has to follow her lead. She may also have convinced him that only she/her team know what they are doing so she needs to control the projects. That is the case in my office unfortunately.

You have to calmly push back. When she chimes in that she’ll talk to Bob and let you know, just respond that it’s not necessary and we’re moving forward. Or whatever. Don’t obey her.

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like the rest of you are afraid to confront her. And when I say that I am not suggesting that you go high order and initiate a screaming match, but when she writes an email that contradicts the plan that everyone has more of less agreed on, then I'd next down the distro to your peers and push back and perhaps set up a call to understand her viewpoint.

On things like chastising all of you for meeting without her I think I'd let her say her piece and then just move on and say, well, glad you were able to join us after all Larla.

This is good advice!


When she joined the call and chastised us, I couldn’t help but snap back at her. ‘Thanks, Larla, but we are just trying to TALK to each other briefly so we all understand the background of this project. No one is moving forward with anything until we all connect, and you’ll be included of course’.

It sounds like the rest of you are afraid to confront her. And when I say that I am not suggesting that you go high order and initiate a screaming match, but when she writes an email that contradicts the plan that everyone has more of less agreed on, then I'd next down the distro to your peers and push back and perhaps set up a call to understand her viewpoint.

On things like chastising all of you for meeting without her I think I'd let her say her piece and then just move on and say, well, glad you were able to join us after all Larla.

Ignore? Say something to her directly? Make a passive aggressive joke (honestly that’s more my style- not saying it’s ideal).

Co worker who is in a different group than me but with work that crosses over into mine occasionally (and vice versa) is often rude and controlling with work, acting like projects are her decision and only she can discuss them with senior people… (projects are not her decisions, nor mine- we are both mid senior level managers who report up). What’s frustrating is that she will jump in on an email chain where a group of people have already discussed a plan for what to do, and she will contradict everyone to say ‘No, I’ll speak to Bob and let everyone know what next steps are’. Again, as if she controls things. And even more frustrating is that she then sits on things and doesn’t deliver. This has happened on one project for 3 months now.

I do not report to her, nor do these other people fwiw.

This example perhaps isn’t entirely clear but she’s generally just snippy and rude and weird about everything. One time she got visibly upset because a group of us got on a zoom call to discuss the project even though she had said she couldn’t attend. We didn’t know that- she canceled at the very last second, and the call had started already so we decided to continue. She saw that the meeting had started and apparently left her other meeting, or whatever it is she was doing that made her cancel, to get on the call to chastise everyone for speaking. It was so WEIRD.