my boss finally saw the light about my horrible coworker — but I’ve been warning him for years

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
A reader writes:
I’ve been at my company for eight years. I’m a senior manager and a very high performer. I’ve received multiple raises and promotions. I’m very calm and pragmatic and don’t easily get pulled into drama. It’s a small company and there are a lot of great things about it, including 98% of my coworkers who are all very experienced and professional. I really love my job.
The one glaring exception is my coworker Petunia. Petunia and I are both senior managers, and she started about a year before I did. She’s never been anything but awful to work with. She’s a liar and a manipulator and regularly drops the ball on her work in a way that not only impacts me and my work, but the work of the entire company (and in some cases the income of our coworkers who make commission selling our products). I strongly suspect she has mental health issues and I know she has a serious problem with alcohol. Most people in the company see Petunia for what she is.
Unfortunately one of the few blind spots is the company’s owner, Bob. Bob is Petunia’s direct boss and my grandboss. I work closely with Bob, and my direct boss, Jorge, is Bob’s most trusted and long-standing employee. Jorge is extremely supportive of me and is equally as outspoken about Petunia.
Bob grants Petunia endless rope — she gets away with stuff that would have anyone else severely disciplined or fired. I generally like Bob, but one of his weaknesses is his ego and Petunia knows exactly how to manipulate him. She’s completely different with him than anyone else. Over the past few years, I have raised issues with Petunia’s work with Bob and how it negatively impacts the whole company. Many others have as well, but I’ve been the most vocal. The responses range from “I’ll handle it” (which means he’ll say something to her once but never follow up or ensure she’s actually doing what he asked) to frustration with me for bringing the issue up. It’s ground me down and been demoralizing over time. Jorge has had the same experience.
Cut to this week. I just got back from a two-week business trip with Petunia and several other coworkers. Petunia was a disaster on the trip: tons of drinking, verbal abuse, and lack of professionalism with customers. It was two of the of the most stressful and exhausting weeks of my life. As a group, we approached Bob (who was not with us) towards the end of the trip with these issues. He removed Petunia from the last few days of the trip and fired her the following week.
In the week following Petunia’s departure, dozens of things have come to light that illustrate what a disaster she was and that she was doing no work at all. Most of the insight has come from important external partners. Bob finally seems to be “getting it” about her. I was right about literally everything I “accused” her of and then some.
On the one hand: yay, I got what I’ve wanted for years. On the other hand: this is not so easy for me move on from. I would really like some acknowledgement from Bob that he took her side over mine (and Jorge’s) repeatedly, that he didn’t listen to what we were saying and that he favored her over not just me but also all other employees who are also long tenured and very trusted. And we were totally right.
I want him to know that he lost a lot of employee trust and credibility through his handling of Petunia. We have no HR and I don’t think he’s going to be super open to this (his mentality is that he fired her so it’s handled). Is it reasonable to expect some kind mea culpa from a boss in this situation? Should I bring it up at all? Or should I just take the win and try to move forward? I’m not interested in leaving. The good outweighs this issue and I’m afforded many benefits wouldn’t easily find elsewhere. But I’m finding this a tough pill to swallow.
It’s reasonable to think that a manager in Bob’s shoes should acknowledge that the issues you’ve been raising were valid and that it took him too long to see it and act. A good boss would do that. But if that’s not how Bob rolls … well, you’re just going to make yourself frustrated waiting for him to do it.
One way to increase the chances that he’ll have that conversation with you is to bring it up yourself and frame it as, “Is there anything I could have done differently?” That’s not really what you’re seeking to find out (although if Bob has a good answer to that, it would be interesting to hear!); this is just a way to raise the topic without framing it as “I freakin’ TOLD you.”
So, for example, you could say something like: “You know I and others have had serious concerns about Petunia for a long time and have tried to raise them — and I’ll be honest, I’ve been frustrated that I couldn’t find a way for you to see what I was seeing. Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, is there anything I could have done differently on my end that would have helped bring it all to light earlier?”
I’d like that conversation better if Bob were your direct boss, but some grandboss relationships would still allow for it. If yours doesn’t, maybe Jorge can raise it. Jorge could also let Bob know that the staff is demoralized by how this all played out — that their feedback wasn’t taken seriously and that Petunia was allowed to rampage through your company for so long, and that it wasn’t until external partners spoke up that he took the problems seriously.
If none of that pushes Bob to acknowledge his role in what happened, then that’s just who Bob is and all you can really do is factor that into your thinking about him moving forward. What you’re expecting is reasonable; you just may not get it.
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