I have a co-worker who would announce everything he was doing in a soft, annoying voice. "I'm going to prepare the report now and make 40 copies for the clients.......I am going to put this file here for easy access..I am going to send a copy to Cindy in the finance department.I am now going to eat my sandwich" No one cares, Darrell!
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Your manager is an arse.
FWIW when there's more than 10 or so people on a video call you can't see everyone anyway, and at my place sometimes the call quality dips if everyone has video on, so we tend to say, let's go cameras off unless we are speaking. And as you say, when sharing your screen you want them to watch your slides/etc, not your face. I would take heart from your peers giving you good feedback. Is your manager like this with your peers?
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BIB - You don't have to do that though.Thank you so much for the kind words & support. I really don’t have anyone to talk to about this, so it means a lot
Honestly, how many times did I attend a presentation and couldn’t even recollect the face afterwards of the presenter because the focus is on the presentation, not the speaker.
It’s really sad because I’m always going to link this huge personal milestone with her drama.
I agree that I’ve had my fair share of grief with this company. Changing teams just
caused me to go from one issue to another. I’m not interested in this company anymore.
I know it's human nature to remember criticism more readily than we remember praise. You actually can decide that Nitpicking Nellie wanted to deflate you, for whatever reason. But you can also decide that you won't allow her to do it.
I'm not saying it's easy but it would be a shame to allow her to do that, imo. But you get to choose your reaction to what she said.
Btw, she is clearly out of her depth with that comment about it not being a formal reprimand. Why would she even say that! It's nonsense. Imagine what an idiot she would look, going into HR, 'I have to issue a formal reprimand to TG...oh my god, what did she do? Er, she eh, er hadn't her camera on when...er, eh, um.. forget about it'
My advice (and I have dealt with a couple of hole managers in my time), is, for now, keep your powder dry. Don't rush into anything. If she mentions that you cried, say something like oh I was just relieved it was over and so many people gave me great feedback. (Shots fired
)Start to look around. It sounds like you are highly skilled at what you do and now you know you are good at presentations too. Freshen up the CV. Meantime play her game.
And now like I said earlier, put it out of your mind and enjoy your weekend.
Previous posters have given great advice so all I’ll add is something I’ve said before. I worked in a horrendous environment about 20 years ago and got a new job. Once everything was signed and sealed I made a point of telling a bullying witch from hell to duck off on my last day. The euphoria I felt was off the charts. I strongly recommend this.Thank you so much for the kind words & support. I really don’t have anyone to talk to about this, so it means a lot
Honestly, how many times did I attend a presentation and couldn’t even recollect the face afterwards of the presenter because the focus is on the presentation, not the speaker.
It’s really sad because I’m always going to link this huge personal milestone with her drama.
I agree that I’ve had my fair share of grief with this company. Changing teams just
caused me to go from one issue to another. I’m not interested in this company anymore.
Oh I would so love to have done that. The bullying bastard I worked with went onwards and upwards. When it was announced he was leaving (he was no longer my manager at this point) I took pleasure in not once congratulating him or asking him about the new job, like I would have done with anyone else.
I would meet him by chance say when grabbing a cup of coffee and smile into his face and talk about the weather and the weekend and how were his kids
. On the day he left, he did a kind of swagger down the office saying goodbye to everyone but I made sure to be missing from my desk. I will never forgive him as long as I live, for what he put me through, but as the saying goes what doesn't kill you makes you strong.
Sorry you had to go through this @TheGlossy.
(As usual), I wholeheartedly agree with @ChastityDingle's advice.
I'll add that as someone who owns a couple of small businesses I try and build my staff up. If I was your manager, I would've messaged you to say "great job!" and left everything else unsaid. If I was concerned that you weren't using your camera I'd approach it far more diplomatically than this horrible woman did - and at a different time, so you could enjoy your 'woohoo' moment having done well with your presentation. This isn't a 'how to manage people' technique; it's common courtesy / decency in dealing with people.
I don't know what sort of company you work for, but I've worked for a handful of international corporate consulting firms in my time and they are the absolute worst. Their managers rarely give praise - they'll look for any and every excuse under the sun to berate you and will try their darnedest to drain every bit of life out of you. As soon as they sniff out that you're about to leave, or are unhappy, they'll ramp up the unpleasantness. They will never, ever change - this way of working / this culture, is in their DNA. Even the "good" managers become monsters. And don't think for a moment that HR is there to do anything but feed back any information back to management - they certainly don't care about workers.
My work bestie has just left the company. HR need to offer counselling for this as it is genuinely traumatic. I feel I should be offered bereavement leave or something.
My TL is an army bore. He’s also strangely needy and can’t bear to be in the car alone. Usually, there’s another member of staff who he goes with and they just bore each other all day long but if he’s off, TL will announce, ‘right, you’re in with me today’ and you will be stuck with him.
Honestly, it’s living death. He will just bang on and on and on about the army (which he was in for about 5 minutes 25 years ago) or share his views - he calls it ‘imparting his knowledge’ - which are frequently borderline racist and sexist but he’s one of those people who tries hard to justify his views. A few months ago, he literally spent about 2 hours going on about rapists and police prosecutions and it was just soooo uncomfortable. With him, it’s not a conversation, he just blares at you.
Recently, he called me into his office to ask if I’d ever heard him say anything sexist or out of order. I wasn’t in a very good mood so I told him flat out yes and named the rapist stuff as an example. He then immediately started rehashing what he’d said! I was like wtf and just stood there, arms folded, and said ‘I’m not talking about this with you because it’s really uncomfortable’ and even after acknowledging that my body language was telling him I didn’t want to talk about it, he still tried to continue. Sake, man! Stop!
He‘s not really a bad person, he‘s just useless at interactions with people and tries to hide insecurity by being boorish but it’s flippin’ tiresome.
Honestly, it’s living death. He will just bang on and on and on about the army (which he was in for about 5 minutes 25 years ago) or share his views - he calls it ‘imparting his knowledge’ - which are frequently borderline racist and sexist but he’s one of those people who tries hard to justify his views. A few months ago, he literally spent about 2 hours going on about rapists and police prosecutions and it was just soooo uncomfortable. With him, it’s not a conversation, he just blares at you.
Recently, he called me into his office to ask if I’d ever heard him say anything sexist or out of order. I wasn’t in a very good mood so I told him flat out yes and named the rapist stuff as an example. He then immediately started rehashing what he’d said! I was like wtf and just stood there, arms folded, and said ‘I’m not talking about this with you because it’s really uncomfortable’ and even after acknowledging that my body language was telling him I didn’t want to talk about it, he still tried to continue. Sake, man! Stop!
He‘s not really a bad person, he‘s just useless at interactions with people and tries to hide insecurity by being boorish but it’s flippin’ tiresome.
So sorry to read this.
People are truly awful sometimes
Clearly this person feels envious and threatened. Focus on the brilliant feedback and pity someone who has to use negativity to bolster themselves.
It’s a pity you can’t call their bluff by sending a group email to everyone at the presentation saying you understand that it appeared your camera was off and you hope it didn’t affect the presentation too much.
You could copy old jealous features in, and let them see all the positive replies you get back.
Or, (if you’re not as petty as me
) you could focus on all the brilliant feedback you got, polish up your CV, and look for a job elsewhere. When you land one, smile a dazzling smile and talk about how excited you are to be progressing 
She got jealous
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Nah trust me. She got very jealous of ur success with the presentation so she had to find a flaw and there were none so she invented one. People are jealous, they bring their negative energy to bring u down. You did so well it broke her. Believe me thats the truth. Thats how people are at workThank you so much for the kind words & support. I really don’t have anyone to talk to about this, so it means a lot
Honestly, how many times did I attend a presentation and couldn’t even recollect the face afterwards of the presenter because the focus is on the presentation, not the speaker.
It’s really sad because I’m always going to link this huge personal milestone with her drama.
I agree that I’ve had my fair share of grief with this company. Changing teams just
caused me to go from one issue to another. I’m not interested in this company anymore.
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in my last job there was this guy who kept going to Slack (where u can create channels to discuss different topics) and he’d go to the social media one where there are 100 people to criticize my work. It was always petty things like « u made a typo, it’s not good to do that [rant] »
But most of the time was when i posted about football he kept critizing to make me look not knowledgeable in football maybe cus im a girl.
So he’d be like « Messi won ballon d’or though… » always with three dots. And it’d make my anxiety go thru the roof because I wanted to slap the tit outta him.
well in the next video call meetings I made sure I let the managers know that he never provided me with enough info to create good content.
But i didnt do it in an aggressive way ofc. I was more like
I just have a few issues
I think Richard should provide me with more information as all the form I sent is never completed it has been months I just wonder why, so i can improve the way we work! him: turns red, stutters
yeah there u go bitvh run your mouth again ill kill ur whole career. bleeping bleep
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He never tried to humiliate me again after that. What a bleeping witch seriously. They think cus i got a soft voice and im a girl ill be a victim. Imma kill u real fast u got no idea. I plot that tit in my head if u do me wrong and i always get u back
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Been asked to work extra hours next week due a major influx of work that could, and should, have been predicted and dealt with.
I’ve agreed, partly because it’s not in my nature to let it all drop on to everyone else, partly because I’m a mug, and partly because if the situation gets much worse, the next step will be a crackdown on everyone taking leave - I can see it coming
The thing is, I want to spend as little time there as possible at the moment.
Why is it that management jobs goes to those with the most to say for themselves, rather than to people with enough brain cells to do the job?!
I’ve agreed, partly because it’s not in my nature to let it all drop on to everyone else, partly because I’m a mug, and partly because if the situation gets much worse, the next step will be a crackdown on everyone taking leave - I can see it coming
The thing is, I want to spend as little time there as possible at the moment.
Why is it that management jobs goes to those with the most to say for themselves, rather than to people with enough brain cells to do the job?!
Thank you all for the kind advice 
It really means more than I can express.
I agree with you all. I had the time to ponder over what happened and I realize she had the intent of deflating me at some point because she made a few strange comments during the week that I didn’t think much of in the moment but I realize they could have been warning signs:
- Monday, her own manager told her she highly valued me (and that must have struck a cord for her). Then she pinged me asking me what I said in the meeting with her manager that impressed said manager.
- Tuesday, her other two reports in the team kept complimenting me over some matter and she said to me ‘seems you’ve been showered with compliments lately’.
- Wednesday, she made a comment saying ‘the strategy is to not stand next to TheGlossy because we don’t want to look bad’ (in response to someone complimenting me about something). Who says that even says that to a direct report even as a joke?
Then Thursday was the culmination when she lectured me after that presentation which I believe was the cherry on top for her.
I’m not an attention seeker. I’m just me and it seems to be a problem for her. Something is clearly not right there and I’m done having to shrink myself to make sure I don’t shine in case the manager doesn’t like it. Been there, done that. This is the clear red flag and this time I’m seeing it for what it is. I think I’m past the stage where I will tolerate this nonsense, especially after all I went through last year. I’ll start polishing my CV and look elsewhere.
It really means more than I can express.I agree with you all. I had the time to ponder over what happened and I realize she had the intent of deflating me at some point because she made a few strange comments during the week that I didn’t think much of in the moment but I realize they could have been warning signs:
- Monday, her own manager told her she highly valued me (and that must have struck a cord for her). Then she pinged me asking me what I said in the meeting with her manager that impressed said manager.
- Tuesday, her other two reports in the team kept complimenting me over some matter and she said to me ‘seems you’ve been showered with compliments lately’.
- Wednesday, she made a comment saying ‘the strategy is to not stand next to TheGlossy because we don’t want to look bad’ (in response to someone complimenting me about something). Who says that even says that to a direct report even as a joke?
Then Thursday was the culmination when she lectured me after that presentation which I believe was the cherry on top for her.
I’m not an attention seeker. I’m just me and it seems to be a problem for her. Something is clearly not right there and I’m done having to shrink myself to make sure I don’t shine in case the manager doesn’t like it. Been there, done that. This is the clear red flag and this time I’m seeing it for what it is. I think I’m past the stage where I will tolerate this nonsense, especially after all I went through last year. I’ll start polishing my CV and look elsewhere.
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Good luck - it sounds like the best plan. I’ve been in similar situations and it’s not easy. You work hard to get a good reputation at work but that can be threatening to some people. I’m the least competitive person on the planet and anyone who gets to know me soon realises that, but I think sometimes if you move around a company and you’ve been ‘bigged up’ (for want of a better phrase …) or you get that positive feedback it can automatically put you at a disadvantage. Some people - especially those who have their own insecurities - will view you as a threat and will act towards you accordingly, no matter who you are or what you do.Thank you all for the kind advice
I agree with you all. I had the time to ponder over what happened and I realize she had the intent of deflating me at some point because she made a few strange comments during the week that I didn’t think much of in the moment but I realize they could have been warning signs:
- Monday, her own manager told her she highly valued me (and that must have struck a cord for her). Then she pinged me asking me what I said in the meeting with her manager that impressed said manager.
- Tuesday, her other two reports in the team kept complimenting me over some matter and she said to me ‘seems you’ve been showered with compliments lately’.
- Wednesday, she made a comment saying ‘the strategy is to not stand next to TheGlossy because we don’t want to look bad’ (in response to someone complimenting me about something). Who says that even says that to a direct report even as a joke?
Then Thursday was the culmination when she lectured me after that presentation which I believe was the cherry on top for her.
I’m not an attention seeker. I’m just me and it seems to be a problem for her. Something is clearly not right there and I’m done having to shrink myself to make sure I don’t shine in case the manager doesn’t like it. Been there, done that. This is the clear red flag and this time I’m seeing it for what it is. I think I’m past the stage where I will tolerate this nonsense, especially after all I went through last year. I’ll start polishing my CV and look elsewhere.
It can very much do a hell of a number on your mental health to be in that environment (and I speak from bitter, bitter experience) because whatever you do confirms their beliefs. Do well and you’re after their job, just like they thought, make yourself small and well, they were right to knock you down a peg or two because you didn’t deserve the praise anyway. It’s a horrible situation and I think you have to eventually prioritise your own mental health and walk away. I would say not everywhere is like that but you get individuals like that in every company, it’s whether the wider culture allows that to thrive that’s the issue. That’s not always easy to discern at interview but you can find places that suit you better. Or you can reach a compromise with how much space you let work take up in your life ...
Sounds very similar to my old manager. I said I wanted to progress in my then current role and change the bonus structure of the company (I was in the work forum). Half an hour after saying that I was pulled into a meeting with my manager and threatened to be put on a PIP.Thank you all for the kind advice
I agree with you all. I had the time to ponder over what happened and I realize she had the intent of deflating me at some point because she made a few strange comments during the week that I didn’t think much of in the moment but I realize they could have been warning signs:
- Monday, her own manager told her she highly valued me (and that must have struck a cord for her). Then she pinged me asking me what I said in the meeting with her manager that impressed said manager.
- Tuesday, her other two reports in the team kept complimenting me over some matter and she said to me ‘seems you’ve been showered with compliments lately’.
- Wednesday, she made a comment saying ‘the strategy is to not stand next to TheGlossy because we don’t want to look bad’ (in response to someone complimenting me about something). Who says that even says that to a direct report even as a joke?
Then Thursday was the culmination when she lectured me after that presentation which I believe was the cherry on top for her.
I’m not an attention seeker. I’m just me and it seems to be a problem for her. Something is clearly not right there and I’m done having to shrink myself to make sure I don’t shine in case the manager doesn’t like it. Been there, done that. This is the clear red flag and this time I’m seeing it for what it is. I think I’m past the stage where I will tolerate this nonsense, especially after all I went through last year. I’ll start polishing my CV and look elsewhere.
I was then put on a PIP and it was clear my manager was bitching about me to others, some of them were keeping tabs on me and making mountains out of molehills.
I was in the travel industry and during the pandemic was put on furlough. I had to reapply for my own job and the person who had only been there three months got the job over me despite the fact I had been there three years.
I got made redundant, job searched for eight months and I’m now back on track. However during those eight months I was suicidal and the effect my manager had and still has on me is insane.
I say all that to say, get out! Don’t let managers holding you back from thriving. Unfortunately mine got no repercussions from what she did (no ceo or line manager reached out to ask how I was doing after being made redundant). Keep a paper trail of everything. I didn’t and now I can’t really do anything about what she did! It’s my word against hers!
Have a read of this - it might be helpful in choosing your next roleThank you all for the kind advice
I agree with you all. I had the time to ponder over what happened and I realize she had the intent of deflating me at some point because she made a few strange comments during the week that I didn’t think much of in the moment but I realize they could have been warning signs:
- Monday, her own manager told her she highly valued me (and that must have struck a cord for her). Then she pinged me asking me what I said in the meeting with her manager that impressed said manager.
- Tuesday, her other two reports in the team kept complimenting me over some matter and she said to me ‘seems you’ve been showered with compliments lately’.
- Wednesday, she made a comment saying ‘the strategy is to not stand next to TheGlossy because we don’t want to look bad’ (in response to someone complimenting me about something). Who says that even says that to a direct report even as a joke?
Then Thursday was the culmination when she lectured me after that presentation which I believe was the cherry on top for her.
I’m not an attention seeker. I’m just me and it seems to be a problem for her. Something is clearly not right there and I’m done having to shrink myself to make sure I don’t shine in case the manager doesn’t like it. Been there, done that. This is the clear red flag and this time I’m seeing it for what it is. I think I’m past the stage where I will tolerate this nonsense, especially after all I went through last year. I’ll start polishing my CV and look elsewhere.
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We use Teams and I hate it when someone does that and then the ‘Suchabody is typing a message …’ notification stays visible for aaaages. You wonder if they’re sending you an advance copy of their memoirs or if they’ve started typing a message and got distracted. Whatever it is, it’s very distracting to see.
“Here is a new image that needs to replace this old image on the document. Do you want to jump on a call?” WHY would we need a call for that
I don’t know if I’m being overly negative or reading too much into this, but:
This morning the manager sent me an email the importance of some random ‘relationship cultivating’ training and how I need to take it because learning how to build relationships will help me with ‘my current role and overall career.’
I mean I have a decade experience in the industry including client facing experience. I don’t see the relevance of this training at this point of my career. I’ll take it to make sure I meet her requirements but I find it odd she’s sending me this after the ridiculous lecture.
She’s making it sound as though I’ve no interpersonal skills and need training or am the ‘bad seed’ in the team. She has access to my past feedbacks from prior role in the company and it’s 100% not the case. I think she’s just adding more fuel to the fire.
This morning the manager sent me an email the importance of some random ‘relationship cultivating’ training and how I need to take it because learning how to build relationships will help me with ‘my current role and overall career.’
I mean I have a decade experience in the industry including client facing experience. I don’t see the relevance of this training at this point of my career. I’ll take it to make sure I meet her requirements but I find it odd she’s sending me this after the ridiculous lecture.
She’s making it sound as though I’ve no interpersonal skills and need training or am the ‘bad seed’ in the team. She has access to my past feedbacks from prior role in the company and it’s 100% not the case. I think she’s just adding more fuel to the fire.
I think you need to keep a diary of her emails, etc.
Also, after a conversation with her, email her outlining her statements just for “clarification “
You may have a case for bullying.
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