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Dear Miriam,
I travel to different locations for my job. A long time ago, my then-supervisor told me to send a text informing her whenever I leave a site for the day. I’ve kept up this practice under my current supervisor. She always replies, “Thanks. Drive safe.”
I recently became aware, to my surprise, that the other two people she supervises, both newer than me, don’t ever send her these texts. I’m wondering why she hasn’t either told them they have to text or told me I don’t have to. I’m in a hurry to get home and don’t feel like sending a text every day if it’s not required. I’m reluctant to confront my supervisor about this because if she makes the other two start texting, they’ll blame me. Should I just stop texting and see what happens?
Signed,
Too Much Supervision
Dear Supervision,
You can’t go back in time, and regrets won’t get you anywhere, but I have to start here: The moment when you switched supervisors would have been the opportunity to investigate this practice and gauge whether your new supervisor expected these texts the way your old supervisor did. If you’ve never had a conversation about this with your new supervisor, she may not know the origin of your diligent texting, and she may not feel it’s necessary at all. She may even wonder why you do it but not know how to bring it up with you!
Even though you feel understandably frustrated by this particular pattern of oversight, since it didn’t come from your current supervisor, I recommend a short, non-emotional, non-confrontational conversation bringing her up to speed. In your next meeting, you could say it as simply at this: “My previous supervisor requested that I text her whenever I leave a site. You and I never talked about this and I just continued out of habit, but I’d like to stop and just wanted to run that by you.”
If she says she really wants you to continue, you can dig a little deeper and ask why and whether it’s company policy. You can certainly force the issue as a means of protecting your boundaries and standing up for yourself. You could also copy and paste the same message every time in likely less than 10 seconds and find a way to move past your resentment into another mindset about this. Maybe you could find a way to appreciate your boss looking out for you. Or maybe you could conceptualize that moment of texting as the dividing line between your work day and your evening. Sending that text could actually be a release valve to let you get on with the rest of your day.
As for your coworkers, I recommend leaving them out of it. My script above alludes to the question of whether this is company policy, so you could explore that question with your supervisor. You could ask the coworkers purely out of curiosity if such a request has even been made of them. But the fact that they don’t seem to have this obligation points back to my theory that this is a vestige from a previous supervisor and is not at all required. Take a cue from them and break this cycle of texting before it intrudes any further on your work life.
Be well,
Miriam
