Manager has upset wife how should she respond?

Transform_IT

Transform_IT

Transform_IT

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Hi there,

My wife has phoned me today crying after a manager from a different department has shouted at her and made her feel very small. The top and bottom is he had booked a conference room and she had swapped his conference room for a different one to cater for a bigger group that needed the one he was originally in. What she didn't realise was the said manager needed the room conference room for a video call and this isn't possible from the room that he had been moved to.

He phoned her shouting at her and telling her off and told her 'Not to do it again'. She said she felt like a child with a teacher and explained to him that "all she could do was apologise". He then questioned why she had emailed the conference members notifying them of the room change saying "she had just confused everyone". After he slammed the phone down he followed up with a polite emailing notifying her he needs a conference room with video calling feature.

I told her to respond apologising for the confusion and to say she didn't realise he needed the room for this purpose and explain, that in future she will double check before swapping conference rooms. But, then also tell him how he had upset her the way he had spoken and she had simply made a mistake that didn't warrant the shouting and belittling.

However, I don't know if this is me just sticking up for her and is the right thing to do?

Any ideas or should she just ignore it and apologise?

Cheers.
 
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She's a grown woman, I'm sure she'll figure out what to do without your help.
 
Apart from the shouting I would say he had a fair point but your wife should definitely have checked first but mistakes do happen. I wouldn't have been pleased if that had happened to me, particularly if I had the embarrassing call to clients to make.

If I were her I would just apologise, explain that it won’t happen again, forget it and move on. Never an excuse to shout at anyone but I certainly would never demand an apology if I had been shouted at.
 
Well she did screw up there if some rooms have facilities others don't + he booked a specific room and she simply swapped it over without checking. They really ought to have a procedure in place for conference rooms - we eventually automated it.


However he shouldn't be raising his voice at her - I think really though the time to mention that is on the actual phone call when it happens

'...don't talk to me like that or I'll terminate the call, I realise there has been a mistake with the conference rooms and I'm sorry about that etc..'

I wouldn't bother after the event, the guy has probably forgotten about it now and kicking up a big fuss now about someone's tone and voice level after saying nothing at the time isn't necessarily going to be a good idea, especially as she screwed things up in the first place.
 
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amigafan2003 said:
She's a grown woman, I'm sure she'll figure out what to do without your help.
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yeah, ignore it and move on. The problem is she is new to the role and I believe the said manager is taking advantage of her. Seeing as though she is quite a tough cookie and normally things like this don't bother her. The woman who did the job before, and trained my wife, was never spoken to like this, but she was a hard faced, battle axe type.
 
Suck it up I'm afraid - she screwed up and the manager got annoyed - we've all had that at some point in our careers. Unless he became "abusive" then no point going to HR, nothing wrong with raising your voice from time to time. Don't apologise again either - it'll make things worse, just pretend it never happened and make sure it never happens again.
 
She should respond by notifying people properly when amending schedules.

Yes it sucks when you screw up. We've all done it. We deal with it and move on.
 
TaKeN said:
So she swapped his room round for another group without asking him first?
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Well there are 4 conference rooms. He had booked the largest one which caters 18 people, but there are only 4 people using it. The other 3 are smaller but another group needed it. I think she realises she should have phoned and checked first, but obviously the way he spoke upset her.

The best thing would be for her to suck up to him I suppose and if he speaks to her like that again, raise it or tell him not to.
 
TaKeN said:
So she swapped his room round for another group without asking him first?
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Sounds like there isn't a process for booking a room and also recording why you want that room in terms of the features it has, so to someone handling bookings it might make sense to shuffle groups around so everybody can get an appropriately sized room for the participants.

She probably hasn't been there long enough to know off the top of her head that certain rooms have certain features and to check if they are being used with the meeting arranger.
 
It was a mistake, they happen, she needs to try and get passed it. There's no point in dwelling on it as it's like a seed in your brain which will grow and get nasty. The manager has probably forgotten about it already.

Tell her to blame the IT department, that's what usually happens :D
 
No point in making a fuss, lesson learnt, always check with bookings and no point in making a fuss. She'll get over it.
 
Didn't she check first before swapping the rooms - yes shouting is probably out of order but I'd probably be a bit miffed if the room I booked was swapped without a quick email asking or a ping on IM. Lesson learnt I guess but yes probably out of order on a personal level.

I'd mail him and say - sorry ****** up but in future I'd appreciate it being discussed as adults and not the hairdryer treatment
 
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