Biased at work? Or "too nice" (as a manager with ADHD)?

Hi everyone,

I was late diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year in my mid 30's.

I have had a bit of a situation at work that I would love an alternate perspective on. I felt this place would be the best place to ask, rather than somewhere like r/AITA or r/managers (they scare me a bit lool 💀). I need people who understand questioning yourself. I'm wondering if I was too "soft" (or too biased), and how to process my emotions following this, and if I handled it correctly (my dumb RSD is telling me otherwise 😭).

I'm a director/manager at my workplace. I'm a fairly new manager (been working as one for 2 years now), and have not delt with a similar situation yet. We work at an educational building - not a school, but we do deal with children. There is another manager below me (M) who started working with me in that capacity about 5 months ago, but she has worked there in other capacities for longer than I have (over 4 years).

We hired a new employee (A) about a month ago. She has been... somewhat odd. She's very nice/bubbly to me, but from the second she worked with N, it seems like she got off on the wrong foot.

I trained A, and then I went on vacation directly after. Her first official shift was with N.

I won't go into the details of exactly what went on, but N told A of a procedure she needed to follow, and A was resistant, and apparently very vocal in her disagreement. She wasn't listening, and M had to remind her that she was a boss, and that she needed to listen to her. This employee is in her 40's, and M is in her late 30's. She also made a quote like, \[my name\] is so nice..." (insuating that M needed to be nicer, to her face). At the time, I thought M was exaggerating this part. She was not.

Another employee I talked to after the fact relayed the same information, and was honestly surprised we didn't fire A after the fact due to A's tone towards M.

Later the next week (while I was still on vacation), there was an issue with A's paystub. It was my fault - I forgot to include some of her training hours on the payroll. She brought this up to M, but M had difficulty answering her question because she does not handle this (this is my work responsibility). She assured A that I would take care of it when I got back, and that it would be easily rectified. But A would not let it go. It apparently escalated to M asking about her personal payrate and qualifications. This was while the children were present, and M had to remind her that this needed to be discussed later.

When I came back, M relayed the events to me and our boss/the owner. M was upset - not just angry, but hurt over the situation, due to A essentially undermining her.

However, during my vacation, A also texted me 5 or 6 times about how she was doing on the online training modules (and her scores on the module exams), questions about work, and her feedback on the children she worked with. She also relayed business ideas she had for the owner (she also mentioned this during her training after I relayed a few issues we were having in order to give her context for some of our procedures. I was kind of like, "...well, yeah, sure, you can mention your ideas" to kind of brush it off, not thinking much of it), and schedule questions. After this last text, I was pretty fed up (I was on vacation!! All of this can be relayed to me later!!), and I texted her and told her (politely) to email Owner her ideas, and that she would get the schedule emailed on Friday. She did so, and it was quiet after that.

However, in the later discussion with M and myself, Owner told us A had sent her a lengthy email within her first few shifts (Owner showed us how long it was... she scrolled for quite a while 😭) outlining her ideas, and suggesting how she could help and how she would need additional hours (pay) to do so, along with travel pay. A lot of these "tasks" where some if the tasks M already does.

Owner was very annoyed over this. She said she never adds additional responsibilities unless the employee has shown they can be relied upon, which makes sense. She's welcome to hearing ideas (and has done so many times before), and is a truly lovely person, but has no tolerance for much bullshit.

Owner wanted to fire her immediately, but I wanted to give her another chance. I suspected A might (clearly) have some social issues and boundry issues (she is likely neurodivergent), and was still learning procedures. Half of our staff are neurodivergent, along with the majority of the children that go to our business. I felt empathetic toward her due to this

We agreed, I told them I would talk to A, and told M to let me know if anything else happened. I will mention that M and I are fairly close at work (we weren't until we worked more closely together as managers), but I was still trying to keep unbiased about the situation, and to keep an open mind for A.

I did, and A was seemingly \*very\* surprised/shocked when I brought it up. I wondered if I hadn't made it clear originally that M was a manager (and I may not have), and I felt perhaps that maybe I hadn't outlined our job roles clearly to A. I did so, certainly reiterating to A that M had a leadership role, and she needed to listen to her. She said something like, "she certainly didn't stop reminding me of that fact!"

Well. 🤨 I brushed \*that\* comment off, proceeded to outline that we needed to keep the texting to emergency situstions only, and that at this current time, she would only be sticking to her specific work she was primarily hired for, and no marketing advice was needed for now.

She went on about how she realized after Owner responded to her email, that M was already doing these tasks, and she'd stop pursuing it because she was "stepping on too many toes" and "upsetting M". Fine, okay.

(She also brought up the fact that there was a situation where she was working with a child, and asked M if she could use a particular table that the child prefered. I had set this table up before work for another student the next day. M didn't want her to move the materials because \*I\* had set it up. A felt M was rude about this, but I asked M about it after (without telling her beforehand what A had said), and she basically was like, "I told her we should leave it there for you, and she started muttering under her breath".

I felt this was basically... a nothing burger? Like, who cares?)

We then ended the meeting.

Everything was for a while. However, on Friday, after sending A her schedule, she emailed me back reminding me that she had taken another side job, and wouldn't be available for one of her shifts. It's kind of hard to explain without revealing what my job is, but the employees are booked with children based on "appointments", and are only here for a certain number of appointments, depending on how many children are coming in at a specific time. She often works with a particular child, and he comes during the first "block" of appointments, and she was only available for the "second" due to her new job. It's a very casual job, and employees are made well aware of this before they are hired.

I didn't see this email until I came in on Monday (I don't look at my inbox over the weekend), and I apologized and told her I would check to see if this particular appointment could move to a later block, or if I had enough children coming in during the second block to simply move her shift to later with other children (so she could still keep her number of hours for the week).

On Wednesday, M told me she needed to talk to me. When she opened that morning, A had come in for work. We let the children in at 9AM. She told M that she was letting the children in - not to be all swarmy and tapping at her wristwatch/chatizing her, but to simply give her a heads up she was doing so. However, A took it the wrong way.

Later, she asked M about what I needed to check for her (moving the child's appointment to a later date). M simply told her she would need to ask me.

A said, "But (my name)'s so busy." and proceeded to push the issue until some children nearby started to notice. Then she shut down, and refused to talk to M, so M left it alone.

About an hour after her shift, she sent me an email essentially saying "M is constantly picking on me. Why isn't she a nice boss like you?" (I'm not kidding. This is pretty much verbatim. 😭)

I responded back asking what she meant by that, and that we should meet to discuss this in person.

I also told her at this point the student could not move, and we also did not any children from block two to give to her, so I had to cancel her shift on Friday (she'd recieved an extra hour for her shift on Wednesday, so her hours wouldn't be that different).

She emailed me a \*long\* email, first back tracking, then saying how great M was, but then... basically saying M was too critical, I should review M's managerial skills, and essentially that "the best solution for her" was to undermine M and go only to me when she needed things.

It was like a constructive criticism sandwich, but in completely the wrong order. 💀 I was baffled. Never have I had an employee make such an issue out of essentially nothing before. Then she sent me a second email asking whether we closed for Christmas, and asking about how busy we were then to plan for vacation.

I emailed her back, and told her we would talk about it when we met, and set a meeting time. I talked to M again to get her version of events.

They both told me the same thing, essentially. But to me, it seems M is just saying things bluntly/in a more direct way to A, and A is taking it completely the wrong way, and far too sensitively. It seemed like a bunch of just pure misunderstanding.

I will also mention that M is from another country/culture. We are in Canada. There is a lot of racism towards this particular country in Canada right now, and if you are Canadian, you can probably guess which country it is. I have no tolerance for this. Many of our employees (not to mention our clients and their children) are from different backgrounds, and we welcome all and work together as a team. A is Canadian. I was becoming worried now that this might be a reason why A was constantly feeling "picked" on by M, yet perfectly nice to me. M's culture is also kind of known for being more direct/blunt, but of course I did not bring this up.

No other employee has had issues with M, nor typically any children or clients (and if there has been, it was because of the obvious: racism).

I wrote out my thoughts for the meeting, making sure not to accuse A of this, and more (nicely) redirecting her to her expectations at our company, and to stress that she needed to get along with M, and that she could not simply undermine M as a manager and go to me when she had an issue - she had to be able to communicate to her, as some times I might not be there. And honestly, due to health issues currently, I might not be working there at all much longer.

I phrased it nicely, basically saying, "I felt that you have interpreted \[x\] this way but M did not intend it that way. She is just more direct than me. We are two different people, and have different managerial styles, and that's OK. You do not have to prefer M's managerial style, but you do have to communicate professionally with her. Regardless of what happened, M \*is\* also entited to correct you, as she is a manager." I tried not to focus it on he said/she said, and only on procedures and on what was expected of A and N going forward. I did stress that this is a casual position, and it is expected of her to get along with M going forward, or we would have to reconsider A's position at our company. She's only been here a month, and now this is twice I've had to talk to her over seemingly riculuously small events/annoyances (to her).

I stressed that I was done being a mediator, and I considered this matter closed.

She looked like me telling her she would need to work cooperatively with M was like me pulling out her finger nails one by one. She also interrupted several times, and I had to tell her to wait (even though I told her she could speak after I spoke about everything at the beginning), as I had a feeling she would interrupt.

It was like everything went completely over her head. She did not discuss reflecting, and only continue to put the blame on M. At the end, when I asked her if she understood my expectations, she kept being like, "well I would want to know if someone was hurt by xyz" and flat out would not agree to my expectations. She refused to consider she might be seeing M in too harsh of a light, and only that she was "hurt" and "she wished the events were being misinterpreted. If this were reversed, I would be apolizing profusely and promising to reflect in the situation. I'm big on seeing things from another's shoes, and I don't understand people who refuse to do so.

At this point, the adrenaline was starting to hit me due to how confrontational it was becoming. I didn't notice, but my fingers were shaking slightly. She actually brought this up, and I quickly said "I'm fine" to brush it off, and reiterated for the fourth or fifth time that these were my expectations.

She asked it that was it (very glumly), and then left. I am going to email her my points again to make sure I am clear.

It felt very unresolved, and I'm having a hard time navigating my thoughts.

This whole thing has felt very childish, and quite frankly, none of us get paid nearly enough to have this sort of environment at work.

I have a tendency to avoid things when it makes me anxious, and I worry that this made me handle this badly. I am currently working on this with my psychologist, am on anxiety meds, and am starting ADHD meds next week when I see my family doctor.

a) I know I'm thinking too much about this

b) did I do this correctly? Or am I being "too nice"? I've often been told that by people in my life. Or am I being too harsh to A? AITA????

c) any advice for doing things differently?

d) ahahaha help 😭