Would this be considered potential constructive dismissal?

"I recently gave a talk at a conference on an aspect of my job. There was something in that talk that my boss subsequently took to be a criticism of her personally (I was basically giving examples of good and bad practice, and one of the examples of bad practice turned out to be something she had personally worked on, unbeknownst to me at the time). It gets worse though... The person chairing the panel I was on was my boss' boss, and, because of Covid, this was a video conference broadcast online all over the world."

Yes, i guess i must have read that wrong? Wut?
 
ivry - clue: unbeknownst ;)

Has any discussion between you and your boss taken place about the presentation?

Have you asked for an opinion? If your boss is watching you present something and you knew they were watching - they will be inclined to provide feedback, I would guess during your next review.

If the review discussion turns to the presentation, explain your example and rationale for slating, why it was bad practice... Carefully rationalise why you honed in on as an example - might win them over. Will be awkward though as you might come across as a know-it-all, factors such as extenuating circumstances, were not aware of the full picture could have resulted in the less perfect practice etc. If its a case of genuine bad practice, well, there are normally formal escalation / reporting routes...
 
Ninco! said:
ivry - clue: unbeknownst ;)

Has any discussion between you and your boss taken place about the presentation?

Have you asked for an opinion? If your boss is watching you present something and you knew they were watching - they will be inclined to provide feedback, I would guess during your next review.

If the review discussion turns to the presentation, explain your example and rationale for slating, why it was bad practice... Carefully rationalise why you honed in on as an example - might win them over. Will be awkward though as you might come across as a know-it-all, factors such as extenuating circumstances, were not aware of the full picture could have resulted in the less perfect practice etc. If its a case of genuine bad practice, well, there are normally formal escalation / reporting routes...
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No. The snarky email I got immediately after made me want to just avoid the issue, hoping it would blow over. Then at our first one-to-one later she didn’t seem interested. She wanted to talk about the ethics issue. In hindsight though I probably should have forced the issue.

I do find that really strange though, that she would reopen an old ethics application that she had nothing to do with initially, where there was no pretext for doing it, and where the outcome was to shut down this project she didn’t approve of. She did eventually find an issue with the ethics application, but why would you investigate in the first place unless you wanted to find something?
 
Double down, give another talk and use this current situation as an example of more bad practice.

as its uni, a woke hell I recently escaped, sorry graduated from, announce your thinking of transitioning, frame the hate as anti trans or sommot, go to town lol
 
Got a link to this presentation?

Thank my lucky stars my job does'nt involve "ethics applications/issues"
 
kissenger said:
I do find that really strange though, that she would reopen an old ethics application that she had nothing to do with initially, where there was no pretext for doing it, and where the outcome was to shut down this project she didn’t approve of. She did eventually find an issue with the ethics application, but why would you investigate in the first place unless you wanted to find something?
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Not strange. It obvious she is trying to manage you out. This won't change. She is going to pick holes in everything you do, so she can to make you look bad, HR will take the easy route for the organisation. HR are not your friend.
 
Do another global presentation on protecting whistle blowers and how the organisation should learn from it's own mistakes. If we can't be critical of the framework we all work within, in a constructive manner, then the org won't realise the improvements that it could.
 
SPG said:
Also employers are not allowed to give bad references anymore. Get HR to do it anyway.
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They can if it's factual but most cba with dealing with the hassle these days. I know of companies that even outsource references :D

But yeah Op the threshold for constructive dismissal is high! I'd just be looking for another role if I was you
 
How bad (or not) was the negative comment!?

It sounds really stupid to be so offended by something if indeed it's an industry wide issue. I work in construction and every now and again I attend presentations on continuous improvemtn and the only way to improve the industry is to put your hands up and admit when things are being done improperly, so that everyone can learn from it. Admittedly, the presenters never name the company or persons, but only the issue at hand.
 
DB_SamX said:
How bad (or not) was the negative comment!?

It sounds really stupid to be so offended by something if indeed it's an industry wide issue. I work in construction and every now and again I attend presentations on continuous improvemtn and the only way to improve the industry is to put your hands up and admit when things are being done improperly, so that everyone can learn from it. Admittedly, the presenters never name the company or persons, but only the issue at hand.
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It wasn’t that bad. I explicitly said, “here’s and example from my department, but this is by no means atypical. Virtually every university does it the same way.” And I was very complimentary of my workplace in other respects.

The thing is, I can see how if you had written the exact document you would be annoyed at it being used as a bad example. Not to this extent where you would launch a vendetta (it’s not like her name was on it, and I know she based it on guidance she’d got elsewhere anyway), but still.
 
kissenger said:
It wasn’t that bad. I explicitly said, “here’s an example from my department, but this is by no means atypical. Virtually every university does it the same way.” And I was very complimentary of my workplace in other respects.
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And the bit i've bolded is where you went wrong, if your going to offer a less than complimentary example of bad practice don't attribute it to your dept for reasons that you've now found out about, for future reference, should you ever find yourself ever having to make this kind of presentation again, phrase it as an example that's common place, because ego's, especially from a professional point of view are a fragile thing.

As for your predicament, your card's marked, go to HR to make them aware of the issue & to have a frank sit down talk with the person concerned because i suspect she'll just escalate things to try & force you out & HR really need to know whats going on before you reach that stage.
 
Kill_Phil said:
They can if it's factual but most cba with dealing with the hassle these days. I know of companies that even outsource references :D

But yeah Op the threshold for constructive dismissal is high! I'd just be looking for another role if I was you
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That is not the same as a bad reference.
 
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and all the advice you guys have gave. It seems like my options are:
  1. Say nothing and seek a move ASAP.
  2. Meet with my boss 1-to-1 and try to smooth it over. I can still look to move in the summer.
  3. Go straight to my boss’ boss. This might **** her off, but he might be willing to help.
  4. Go straight to HR.
The more I think about it, the more I’m favouring option 3 or 4. Someone who’s going to the lengths she is isn’t going to suddenly start being rational and nice again. Like several people have said, my card is marked.

The question is, do I trust her boss to do the right thing, or is it better to go straight to HR?

One other complication is that I should learn the outcome of a promotion application within the next few weeks. I’ve been told I’ve got a good chance, so maybe I wait until then? Fortunately my boss is on annual leave for the next couple of weeks anyway.

Edit: I do have a ready made excuse to talk to her boss, so if it’s better to keep it informal I could bring it up in a meeting with him about something else.
 
Is your manager involved or aware of the promotion application?
If they can't influence the promotion, then getting the promotion and a lateral move would be best.
Very unlikely the big boss will side with you over an existing long term manager.

If it all falls through and your stuck where you are.
Then perhaps if you are in a meeting with both your manager and their manager, bring it up publicly apologize and clear the air.
I'd also make it known to both that you took down the video, that you realized it could be misconstrued.
 
Quartz said:
You've screwed up by criticising your current employer and your manager. Rule #1 is to never talk about failures at your current employment; you could be deemed to have brought the organisation into disrepute. Talk to her, but start looking for another job.
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Around late 2009 I was called into the office and told that very serious allegations had been said about me, I had been slagging off my boss and Trust on Facebook.
I asked them to follow me to a college PC where I logged on to Facebook and gave them full access to read everything including private messages and then went back to my desk.
Around 1 hour later they must have got fed up of music related posts and apologised.

SPG said:
Also employers are not allowed to give bad references anymore.
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My current boss wrote a reference for a former colleague two years ago and all it said was:
"*** has worked here for 364 days and in that time he has had 59 sick days."
It was factual.
 
Issue with a lot of people at work is ego. Stuff goes wrong all the time. I've worked on loads of things that have gone down the pan. We learn and move on. I've talked at events on **** that hasn't gone right, this is a part of helping others learn too. As long as it's not **** slinging and petty BS then it's not a problem. Your boss has obviously taken this personally, which highlights petty ego, so I'd personally go to HR, and her boss, while looking for a new job. She'll always be like that.
 
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