can I ask my boss not to scream at me with her door open?

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

Recently, my boss sent me five spreadsheets, several with multiple tabs, to fill out but offered no information on what went in which row, column, or tab. I managed to figure most of it out (she gets annoyed when I ask her questions) and asked for clarification on the rest. I only had hours to get all of this done because it was due the next day and she had sent it to me a few hours into my workday so I had to work quickly. I apparently filled out one of the columns wrong, subtracting the scores instead of adding them. I went to her office to address it, and she was infuriated. She proceeded to scream at me about my mistake.

Despite my apologies and offers to immediately fix the error, which would take five minutes, she shooed me away. All of this happened with the door open. I was so shocked and embarrassed, I left and cried in my office. I sent an email apologizing for the mistake, ignoring that her clarification had been my reason for doing it the way I had. Later, two women who work on the same floor as my boss asked how I was doing. They were horrified to hear her screaming at me.

The next week, I had to complete 12 individual information packets to send to her. I reviewed them thoroughly, and we went back and forth on them about four times (through email) before they were finalized. The next day, she calls me into her office and, again, with the door open, proceeds to speak in quite an agitated and frustrated tone about my mistake, which had involved pasting in the wrong name in one of the documents. I could tell she wanted to scream at me again because the more she went on, the louder her voice got. I only realized after she had cut into me for five minutes that the door had been open the entire time.

I left feeling embarrassed but also angry. I am quite thorough when I do my work. I’ve been at this job for nine months, and this was the first time I had made a mistake. One of them wasn’t my fault because I was provided with zero instructions except “fill this out with these numbers” and the other I owned up to just as quickly. At one point in the second conversation with her, I acknowledged I had made two mistakes, and she said, “No, three,” pointing out a “mistake” I had “made” in a document that had not been finalized yet. It involved removing a single word, but I hadn’t even finished looking over the whole thing.

I am quite defeated already. I thought her reactions were quite disproportionate to the mistake both times. I’m not sure whether this is “get a new job” worthy, but I want to have a conversation with her about her tone because I don’t mind having my mistakes corrected, but I do think there is a way to do it without embarrassing the person. I think it begins with closing the door, but how do I go about bringing this up?

It begins with not yelling.

It begins with not berating.

The open door is the least of the issues! It sounds like you’re feeling embarrassed that people heard your boss laying into you — but I promise, that reflects terribly on her, not on you.

After all, imagine if you were walking down the hall and heard someone’s boss screaming at them. Wouldn’t you think “jeez, what a jerk?” not “wow, that person being yelled at must really suck?” That’s why your two coworkers checked on you afterwards, and why they were horrified.

People make mistakes. If your boss needed to correct your work, the appropriate action was to matter-of-factly correct your work. It doesn’t require berating or yelling or being “infuriated” (!).  If you’re making so many mistakes or such serious mistakes that she’s frustrated or even questioning your fit for the job, the correct way to deal with that is to use the many, many tools she has at her disposal as your manager and actually manage you, which could be anything from more intensive training/coaching to formal warnings to actually firing you. At no point along that path of progressively serious consequences would it be appropriate for her to berate you or yell at you, even if you were a disaster of an employee. (And if these were your first mistakes in nine months, you’re clearly not a disaster of an employee — but even if you were, it wouldn’t justify being abusive.)

I want to know what your relationship with your boss is like aside from this. I doubt that she’s seemed calm and reasonable all along until she suddenly become infuriated over a single mistake and unloaded on you like this, so I’m guessing there have been issues with her all along — and that’s your bigger problem than just these most recent reactions.

You can certainly try a calm conversation along the lines of, “I take my work seriously and I want to know about mistakes so I can fix them, but I do not want to be yelled at like what happened last week.”

And if she ever yells at you again, you should feel free to say, “I’m not willing to be yelled at, but I will of course talk with you about this later once you’re no longer yelling” and then leave. Truly, you’re allowed to do that.

You should also feel free to simply stand up and close the door if you’re concerned a conversation is getting heated and you’d prefer privacy.

But you have a boss problem that goes beyond these most recent incidents, and it’s the sort that’s probably only solved by leaving for a new job when you can.

As long as you’re stuck working for her, though, keep in the forefront of your mind that this is about her, not you. People who have the skills to manage effectively don’t operate this way, and she’s telling on herself to you and anyone who happens to overhear.