I work with a manager who micromanages me to the max. I have twice the number of years of pharmacy experience as her. I work as a pharmacist and she does she. Some of the things she has micromanaged me on include:
-Berating me for asking for the patient’s surname before their first name when they request for their prescriptions or repeat prescriptions which I need to look up on the pharmacy software system. I look up the surname first because the software asks for the surname first before the first name. I find that asking for the surname first narrows the results down to a few patients whereas if I input the first name first, there’s way too many results, i.e. there’s heaps of Peter’s or John’s. Her reasoning was that patient’s know their first names first so I should ask for their first name first.
– When a patient asked me what the difference is between Zoloft and sertraline, I told the patient that Zoloft is the brand name of the medicine whereas sertraline is the name of the actual medicine. All the patients who have asked me a similar question in the past have been happy with my answer. But my manager overheard me saying this and told me that I should tell the patient that sertraline is the name of the active ingredient, not medicine. She told me off for this.
I feel like all of this is irrelevant and she’s just telling me off for very minor details that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things which makes me feel so irritated everytime I work with her. She also won’t let me check for drug interactions or dose changes while dispensing.
She also uses me as a personal therapist by telling me how head office and her manager treats her badly, her personal life, her family life, and so on, she complains for the whole work shift every single time, non-stop for 8 hours a day everyday. But she also complained to head office about me because I was off sick for a couple of weeks with a medical certificate as I was admitted to hospital recently. She never spoke to me before she involved head office and HR in this. I received a written warning letter about being off sick. When I asked her why she didn’t consult me or ask me first before involving HR, she said she was “following protocol”, yet she herself skips protocol often.
I feel like she just complains about everyone. I find it extremely unprofessional the way she talks shit about everyone in her life to me, I don’t even want to hear it. One time as I was listening to her confide in me about how her younger brother has ADHD and therefore cannot work, I accidentally stuck on a medicine label a bit lopsidedly because I was paying close attention to what she was saying. She told me off for sticking the label a bit off and told me not to do it again, even though she was the one who distracted me.
I have been putting up with her up until this point, I usually don’t say anything back and just go along with it, and thank her for the feedback but I’m getting so fed up with it. I’ve just started working with her so I don’t even know her that well, and I don’t do the same to her, I don’t use her as a personal therapist. I get paid the bare minimum as a pharmacist to put up with her, but it’s honestly so draining to work with her. She has had major complaints from patients made against her that has gone to the court, therefore I don’t feel like she should be telling me what to do given her past history. I can understand she is the manager but I feel like she is being way too controlling.
How would you deal with a situation like this?