How can I handle this work meeting
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I may have set the cat among the pigeons at work. I’ve moved into a pretty awesome role that has strong union support. I was made permanent really quickly from a contract role and targeted for promotion not long after so I’m confident this isn’t about my abilities.
I just got a secondment at a higher level and this job has been an absolute disaster. The area is a complete mess. I manage a staff member who has been there forever and has made herself ‘indispensable,’ however I just covered her for 3 weeks and can see she doesn’t do a lot. She is, however, a favourite of management. This woman is a queen of passive aggression. She had one small outstanding task when she returned and that led to an entire morning of exasperated sighs. The task literally took two short emails to do.
Anyway, on to today. There’s been an outstanding issue with a customer, I’ve been trying to deal with it for ages. He’s refusing to send a needed invoice. I’ve been working with accounts constantly on it as we need the invoice paid. She was literally in a meeting with me this morning when I yet again talked about it!
I got sent a reminder about the invoice this morning and this woman took it upon herself to reply and say accounts had no idea why I hadn’t got it in but she’d be sure to work with me so I would understand the importance of having it paid. I guess it all got to me and I replied with a very short email saying I had absolutely discussed it and to please clarify any outstanding issues with me first before undermining my operational ability. My immediate boss can back me as he was there, however the main boss who loves her has now asked for us all to discuss in the morning.
I can’t be fired but I also can’t get rid of her. Am I crazy or is that an absolutely bullshit email from a ‘subordinate?’. It’s not a system where I can act so much like a boss but I am definitely her manager.
I guess the most useful thing you can do is document everything to do with this invoice. When it was sent, when it was due to be paid, every time it was followed up on, etc. Get that into a document along with the copies of communications if possible. Or just in an email folder. And then calmly give a summary of the situation and what the next steps are. Ask if they’d like more detail. The meeting is a discussion about this invoice so keep it yo that. Don’t get emotional. Don’t talk about your employee, that has to be handled separately. Keep it to, yeah, here’s the situation and here’s what we’re doing about it.
I know this won’t be about the invoice though, it’ll be about what I said. This boss is incredibly touchy feely and literally (no exaggeration) spends all day in meetings or on the phone with his teams. He’s a talker, loves to discuss feelings. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard him reference Brene Brown.
However, this email continues a pattern where my team member has shit talked me to someone else without either asking me directly or listening to what I said. And she doesn’t go to my boss, she goes directly to big boss. Thank god she’s working in another office today.
Did the meeting happen yet? I don’t even know what to tell you, because it’s bonkers to me that someone would call a meeting to talk about an email you sent to your direct report. I would definitely let the boss talk first, and ask questions to try to draw out what she’s getting at before giving any response. And resist the temptation to disparage the employee because unfortunately that probably makes you look like a poor manager. You may have to take measures to protect yourself with this employee going forward, to limit the damage she can do.
Try the “listen, restate, ask” framework. Restate what you think the boss just said, for clarity. Ask a follow-up question. Try to understand their concern. Make them tell you what the fucking problem is. Make them tell you what outcome they want from this. You can always say you’ll get back to them with some ideas.
Oh yeah it’s definitely bonkers! This is the department though, I’m not allowed to manage and I’m accountable to five different people for every decision I make. Very Office Space.
I met my boss this morning and he told me my email was unprofessional and that it’s on me to become someone that my team member wants to ask questions of. I didn’t disparage her, just went through the lead up to it where she has gone around me on issues I’ve addressed directly before and how this was the last straw. No mention of her conduct being suss but anyway. So yeah, at least it’s an outcome I suppose. But I did call my team member and apologise as I don’t like being that person myself.
Seriously still shaking my head about the whole thing and definitely considering moving back to my regular role, the money isn’t worth it.
That is wild! Where I work, the new boss (on a different team) yelled at several of his direct reports. Just the female ones. I saw it happen myself on one occasion, and I also had a 1:1 with this guy where I was like why is he being so weird and aggressive. Anyway, they went to HR about him I guess, and all that happened was they had to have a meeting WITH him and like talk about it. I feel like in the US, the abuse has to be so widespread and egregious before anything is done about it, it is just amazing to me that someone sends their employee a pissy email and is taken to task for it. Your email was, yeah, not the best, but it didn’t need its own meeting. Lord. There are probably ways to deal with this woman, but I’m with you, idk if it’s worth it. If you decide to stay in the role I think you have to NEVER take a tone with her in writing or in front of anyone, but also keep her out of the loop as much as possible, communicate expectations dispassionately, evaluate her on her performance against those expectations, and just insulate yourself from sabotage. She sucks. What she did was bullshit.
Oh yeah it’s very much a cultural difference. Nobody would get away with that here in my line of work (though there would be plenty of industries where it would probably be a lot more accepted).
My immediate boss came over to this role as my boss again. We’re chatting with our old boss this arvo to see if we can go back. Even though this issue has been resolved, I can’t be in an area with this much back biting. Ironically they think they’re the pinnacle of communication, funny that.
