I’ve had a micromanager for about 10 months now (for context I started 12 months ago and she started 2 months after me). I’ve been doing my best to maintain professionalism, learn to adapt to her learning style, etc., but she’s very intense and makes things very difficult to do my job. At least 1 out of 4 weeks I’m so anxious to the point where I can’t eat, sleep, exercise, or live a normal life. The only reason I haven’t started looking for a new gig yet is because she doesn’t seem to be well liked by other managers (I’m the only person she manages), and I just got a promotion that could eventually lead me to a different team.
The one (out of many) issue with her is her email and chat tone. It comes across as very demanding and tense. I always feel as though I’ve done something terribly wrong and that I have to defend myself. It’s weird because every time I talk to her on the phone she seems relaxed and seems to like me, so I’m extremely confused. I’ve shown my friends and other coworkers her emails and they agree they sound very intense, so I don’t think I’m going crazy. I also have 7 years of working experience and an advanced degree, so this job isn’t my first rodeo.
Normally I try to just tell myself that it’s just her email tone and to not take it so personally, but there are certain weeks when I get so many emails and chats in this tone from her that I feel so overwhelmed and want to quit. She’ll usually be asking me to do part of my job that I’m already doing in literal real time, and demand status updates when I haven’t even finished the assignment that was given to me earlier that day.
How do I get through this without blowing up on her?