Very well said, I completely agree.
Messed up at work, need advice...
- Thread starter Matt-Page
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Very well said, I completely agree.
Well said. How many times do management feel the need to belittle their employees for mistakes. If your manager has already given you a talking to, I don't see why this has to go all the way to the top with every middle manager getting involved as well. Just assume they have nothing better to do, just an epic waste of everyones time if you ask me, you've got the message from your immediate, move on.
This completely. Don't let them try and frighten you with some BS... it's work, not school. If they try and pull that crap on you just say "are you going to give me a warning or not?"
Indeed. Like I said, I've done wrong and I'll apologise. I deserve a bollocking but I wont take anyone shouting at me. I'm not a shy person by any means so I can stand my ground.
Nope, very big in fact.
Are you worried about being sacked? I don't know what the culture of your organisation is like, how easily/quickly do they get rid of people if they're under-performing? I know where I am, it is notoriously difficult to get sacked (not that you try), but I am aware of people who have had disciplinary hearings involving HR for quite bad things, and are still employed, etc.
Depending on the above ^ in regard to what your boss said, I would read into that to mean you are in for a big telling off but should not be worried about your job. To me it would be hugely unprofessional saying 'lolz you're getting told off' when you know that person is going to get sacked, you just wouldn't say anything.
Soldato
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Thanks all. Seems as though my original plan is the way to go. He's accepted the meeting request and naturally I'm now bricking it.
My boss said the words "If you think we've given you a bollocking, that is NOTHING compared to what Mr XXX is going to be like, so be prepared"
This is like going to the headmasters office when you're at school.
You really need to stand and bang on this one, courage of your convictions and all that. A wise old professor taught me ‘don’t defend the indefensible’ (he genuinely was a wise old prof who is even older now). This approach has worked for me.
You need broad shoulders to survive in the work place or if you are totally useless, very slippery ones. If you are clearly right about your comments, and you can justify this, then defend what you put. The mistake of sending this to the whole IT team is a separate issue, which you can apologise for, but multiple replies to the wrong people happens daily. You are more likely to get walked over and disciplined if you are a soft touch and people think you won’t fight back.
When in the wrong hold your hands up, people will respect you for it (but don’t be a wet blanket), when in the right don’t give an inch. If the battle is already lost for whatever reason (usually politics or ego) and merely speaking, commenting or exerting any effort is a waste of time, then don’t bother because it will only ever wind you up more.
Besides, you now have the ear of the big boss (any publicity is good publicity) so use it to your advantage. Also, I doubt they could give you a disciplinary for this as it hardly miss-conduct, besides they would have started this by now and shouting at you is not a good management approach to undertaking one.
Go in, apologise and state that although you never meant to send it to everyone, it was still an inappropriate e-mail to be sending regarding company software. If he gives you a chance, proceed to calmly go through the faults of the software, and then admit that you should have sought the correct forum for these views.
Good luck
Good luck
He's done it because he doesn't like me. Never has, and wont because I voice my opinions and challenge decisions which involves the team I look after. I'm not really management material, I enjoy the techinical thought provoking part of the job too much.
No but the wording I used (see opening post) isn't appropriate in a working enviroment and shouldn't be distributed around. New starters in the department also read it and I should be leading an example.
Soldato
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Actually, I would say because you voice your opinions and challenge decisions that makes you excellent management material.
Caporegime
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Am I missing something, this e-mail was "in house" to an IT team basically? Without knowing what kind of a system it is, did you accidentally e-mail clients and harm the companys reputation?
In that case I can understand a backlash and even being fired, telling everyone at work, accidentally, what you think of a system that most people also believe is crap is nothing, I wouldn't make the slightest deal out of it.
If I was the boss I'd be asking why the system is so crap and finding out how whoever was put incharge came up with a crap system. Its an e-mail, why should anyone get in trouble over essentially nothing, not least because it was a joke and accidentally sent to people it shouldn't have been.
I had the classic thing at work years ago like in Office space if anyones seen it, company with three directors, I made ONE mistake in 6 months, I was on crap pay and doing FAR more than my job title entailed, I was happy too, I worked hard from the second I walked in the door to the second I left. One mistake that(internet order company) meant one order needed to be shipped again, and I got crap from 3 different bosses. IT would mean essentially no profit on a single order but probably no loss, out of thousands and thousands of orders.
Mistakes happen, thats life, no one should ever ever get as others have said, made to feel inferior by anyone. It shouldn't happen in school but thats another matter, it certainly shouldn't happen in the work place.
In that case I can understand a backlash and even being fired, telling everyone at work, accidentally, what you think of a system that most people also believe is crap is nothing, I wouldn't make the slightest deal out of it.
If I was the boss I'd be asking why the system is so crap and finding out how whoever was put incharge came up with a crap system. Its an e-mail, why should anyone get in trouble over essentially nothing, not least because it was a joke and accidentally sent to people it shouldn't have been.
I had the classic thing at work years ago like in Office space if anyones seen it, company with three directors, I made ONE mistake in 6 months, I was on crap pay and doing FAR more than my job title entailed, I was happy too, I worked hard from the second I walked in the door to the second I left. One mistake that(internet order company) meant one order needed to be shipped again, and I got crap from 3 different bosses. IT would mean essentially no profit on a single order but probably no loss, out of thousands and thousands of orders.
Mistakes happen, thats life, no one should ever ever get as others have said, made to feel inferior by anyone. It shouldn't happen in school but thats another matter, it certainly shouldn't happen in the work place.
Matt there is no right or wrong answer, you need to be prepared for everything.
Be humble when you should, apologise genuinely but also be prepared to defend your case with humility if you deem it necessary. Don't just go in there with grovelling in mind, prepare every possible scenario, write down an answer to every possible thing you think may be said to you, perfect your apology speech.
Pretend you're revising for a very mean exam. It may sound strange but believe it or not people don't respect a one dimensional argument.
Be humble when you should, apologise genuinely but also be prepared to defend your case with humility if you deem it necessary. Don't just go in there with grovelling in mind, prepare every possible scenario, write down an answer to every possible thing you think may be said to you, perfect your apology speech.
Pretend you're revising for a very mean exam. It may sound strange but believe it or not people don't respect a one dimensional argument.
I have found that large companies can be just as bad, if not worse, due to the fact that they are larger and think they can get away with it. Again personal experience, but I have found smaller employers better when it comes to the treatment of personnel.
Good luck tommorow, I would say hold up your hands and admit to your mistake but at the same time if you have a valid viewpoint make sure you get that point across! Thats always stood me well and I have dropped some considerable clangers in my time
Soldato
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Hmmm ... well if we got fired at work for slagging off our internal systems then there would be no-one left. So far the year we've had new leave booking and training booking systems and both of them are extremely poor and just don't work.
Barely a day goes by without someone hitting an issue and it leading to various levels of ranting, (one of my colleagues has spent the last 6 weeks trying to go through the new system to book an external course ... something which should take a couple of days if you include management sign-offs).
Things is everyone knows how bad the systems are (up to the highest level ... HR frantically backtracked on the leave system and claimed it is in "beta") so any comments are backed up by our management.
I would say that the OP should go in expecting to be told off but should also be prepared to justify his position if asked what he thinks is wrong with the system. But only if asked ... don't just start ranting about the short coming of the system as things are likely to go badly from there.
Barely a day goes by without someone hitting an issue and it leading to various levels of ranting, (one of my colleagues has spent the last 6 weeks trying to go through the new system to book an external course ... something which should take a couple of days if you include management sign-offs).
Things is everyone knows how bad the systems are (up to the highest level ... HR frantically backtracked on the leave system and claimed it is in "beta") so any comments are backed up by our management.
I would say that the OP should go in expecting to be told off but should also be prepared to justify his position if asked what he thinks is wrong with the system. But only if asked ... don't just start ranting about the short coming of the system as things are likely to go badly from there.
Well, this is it, people whinge about different systems all the time for numerous reasons. It's done vocally more than anything. I think the problem is it's a new system, to replace an old one and they've spent a lot of time and money on it. It's not going great (I wont go into why) and me saying seomthing like that has obviously angered them. Couple that with going to new starters (can't be good for them to read that from a top level support person) and there is a potion to upset people.
The more I sit here thinking about it, the angrier I'm getting about the whole thing. I really think my boss could have dealt with this one2one but instead he's gone above him to damage me. I asked why about this, and he said he doesn't have to give a reason, and that it was his decision.
I'm now ****** fuming about this. God I hope I calm down soon.
The more I sit here thinking about it, the angrier I'm getting about the whole thing. I really think my boss could have dealt with this one2one but instead he's gone above him to damage me. I asked why about this, and he said he doesn't have to give a reason, and that it was his decision.
I'm now ****** fuming about this. God I hope I calm down soon.
