'I don't like your tone': Female data scientist gets called out during meeting for ‘delegating’ work to team, despite managing the project

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    of the event deral and lat La shocks-gital- Hair ware ve alapse allocate a lot lok-blocks 7 group tafelloe("props 1 (n return WILL group lade-group-gital gropato- "I don't like your tone..."
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    How to handle nightmare boss? I'm a data scientist consulting for a healthcare division in the US gov. I have a project manager (let's call him Andy), and a supervisor (let's call her Claire). I started on the team as a junior data scientist, and when the data scientist I was working with quit, was told to take over his role. Within a few months, after a client spotted my work and liked it, I was promoted to mid-level data scientist and made lead on this initiative. My job overlaps greatly with
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    how our roles differ so I know what's expected of me, I'm given cagey answers. So far, the client has expressed glowingly positive feedback about me and my performance eval (from July 2023, by Claire) was great. After July though, things started to slowly go downhill as working with Claire became increasingly difficult. Here are the incidents:
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    1. We had a release coming up in Dec 2023 (and this was the first time I was ever leading a release, and I didn't get much of any support from Andy or Claire). In late November 2023, I was on a debugging call with a couple of other data scientists on my team. I'd been told that if I couldn't resolve an error on my own, not to hesitate to ask my team for help, so that's what I was doing. Suddenly, Andy brings Claire onto the call without giving me a heads up, and she starts telling me (in front o
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    resolve the problem, not contributing useful solutions, and am pawning my work off on other people. After gritting my teeth and politely addressing her concerns, I finally let out an exasperated chuckle and say something like "I will continue handling this error with my colleagues and let you know when I have an update. Is that all right with you Claire?". She goes "By the way, I don't need your smart mouth". I was stunned, and regrettably got upset and said that she has no
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    idea what work I even do on the project and doesn't appreciate my efforts, and that I document my work thoroughly if she'd wanted to review it. She sarcastically says that everyone knows how hard I work, and that I haven't done any coding work, just "research". This is patently false.
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    I decide to let this go because I didn't want to get sucked into drama. The release went great, and Claire didn't really have a leg to stand on about her complaints that I wasn't doing anything (I documented everything I did). Also, she wanted me to manage the project organizationally AND be the lead coder - no one can do both those things at once, so I did my best to incorporate both and I think I did so well, considering how unclearly roles were defined despite me asking multiple times.
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    I have a friend on the team (Claire didn't know we were friends), and apparently during their 1:1 she started telling him how I'm an overly sensitive Karen who doesn't do her job, and that she's just waiting for me to try going to HR about her (with a mocking tone, like they wouldn't do anything about it). My friend strategically responded in way that didn't indicate that we're friends, but showed her the contradiction in her expectations of wanting me to be a project lead and lead coder at the
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    2. Things seemed to calm down since then, until a couple weeks ago. I have a medical condition and need a weekly appointment for them. The only time my provider could do was 5pm ET. It's common practice on my team for us to flex our hours - so, work 7 hours on Monday and 9 on Tuesday, for example. Since this was just one hour of flex I was requesting, I figured this shouldn't be an issue. I told her that I'll be having a recurring medical appointment on Thursdays, and propose working from 9-4pm
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    missing hour each week on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. My company even has a policy where you can work 8 hours a day in any sequence as long as it totals 8 (with supervisor approval, which is what I was seeking). I also reassure her that I am happy to move appointments that conflict with immovable customer obligations. She starts saying that she's never heard of a medical appointment that requires long-term care like this and wants a doctor's note. I saw on my company's site that they're n
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    doctor's notes and I'm not supposed to give them, so I told her I'd submit a medical form to HR per the guidelines. This definitely pd her off. She denies my request and says that if I want to do this appointment sequence, I'll need to get my provider to move it to 6:30am (before work), or make up time at 7am on Fridays. Seriously. I tell her that I'm interested in working out a solution, and would like to better understand why Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday wouldn't work as a consistent day for
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    wanted to reassure her that the customer is fine with the arrangement I'm proposing. She doesn't answer this and says that because I turned down the two options I posed, I'll have to take all the appointments going forward as PTO. This would obviously rapidly deplete my PTO. I don't want to take PTO when other people on the team have been given freedom to flex hours. I just want ONE hour, that too towards the end of the day. I have an independent relationship with the
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    customer, and they have reassured me (in writing) that they are completely fine with the arrangement I'm suggesting and don't have any problems with it. The customer has confirmed that they're very happy with my work, too. I told her that I'm happy to address any concerns about customer service quality (she cited this as a concern), but she didn't respond to that point. I don't understand why she's forcing this issue. Then, I get a message from her right around my appointment time on Thursday, a
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    I stayed later on Thursday that day to make up the time, because there's no way I'm taking PTO for this. I'm worried though that she'll reject my timesheet at the end of the time period. My customer, seeing the situation, said he wants a standing appt with me at 8am ET on Thursdays so that I would work 8-4pm (8 hours, which should resolve the hours issue completely). She turns this down, and copies her boss on that message.
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    HR has a vague sense of what's going on, and they told me the next step (if I wanted to pursue it) would be to talk with Claire's boss and he would make the decision. I feel like this whole thing is such an unnecessary behemoth. Is what I'm asking for really that unreasonable? I don't want to escalate this fully in HR unless absolutely necessary - but Claire approves my timesheets, does my evals, and would definitely be the one deciding if I get promotions or raises. So that gives me great pause
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    whispers within the company that she's treated other people on the team poorly too, so I'm weighing that too. I haven't left this company because I really like my customer, and think it's great that I get to code, develop client facing skills, and get authorship experience too. What would you do?
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    BumAndBummer • 2d ago Claire is pretty much out to get you, so you have to take steps to watch your back and protect your career. She isn't going to magically become your ally. Unfortunately I don't think you have a better choice than to go to HR. Especially now, given other whispers about her— there is power in numbers. If even one other person makes a formal report against her that looks much better for you when you do the same. (If you can safely leverage those whisper networks to organize mu
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    If you are super worried this could backfire, maybe you can consult with an employment lawyer first to get extra advice on how to gather documentation of her inappropriate questions, or how to phrase things to HR? Don't handle this passively, it simply won't resolve itself. ↑ 8 Share Reply
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    JjlvfVet 2d ago ● I have been in tech for close to 14 years, had such experiences from my supervisors. My approaches in the past had been 1. Ask for a change of supervisor if possible 2. Ask for project change 3. Ask for a location change just to not escalate the current situation 4. Change job( right now not a good time esp if u r in tech) I always preferred better bosses to better pay or better roles simply because I hv enough drama in my personal life can't handle any more at work 44 ↓ Reply
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    DazzlingSet5015 • 2d ago It honestly sounds from the comments to the other person, the requesting of the doctor's note that she shouldn't be asking for, etc., that not only does she dislike you, she is trying to goad you into a particular response. Almost like she wants you to go to HR. Is there a reason she would want to fight that fight or think she could win it?
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    Stallynixa. 2d ago Unfortunately you are in the center of employees don't quite jobs they quite managers. She doesn't like you and nothing will change that. Only thing you can do is be very consistent, give no room for actual criticism, and look for ways to not be under her supervision either by internal transfer, speaking g with her boss about a better management fit, or moving companies. I would also make it a point to continue to develop good strategic relationships with coworkers, especially

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