A colleague and I had a con call with a vendor this afternoon. Things seemd to be going pretty well up until, out of the blue, she jumped in and started recanting almost everything I had said regarding our intentions, the scope of our project, and the big picture as it pertains to the future use of the products we are considering purchasing. She and I had talked about it leading up to the call, and I thought we were on the same page. It was like she was holding a mirror up to my words or something.
I almost wish I was angrier, so I could post this in the Pit. But, alas, I’ve been f’ed over so many times in this White Collar jungle that I have a heard time getting riled up.
:: sigh ::
Why do people behave so badly torards one another in the office? Really.
Damn, that sucks. Last week I had a small meeting where the Vice President pointed to a project of mine (pretty specific gant charts for large projects) and mentioned that people didn’t really pay attention to it anyway. Keep in mind this is something that takes up a great deal of my time figuring out schedules and assigning people/resources and just the week before the owner of the company had told me that I was the best thing that had ever happened to the schedule. Yep, the VP said that to me right there in front of everybody (well, three people). And then said “Did I hurt your feelings?”
Grrr.
Did you call her out on it after the call?
I don’t know, I really don’t. But, like you, I’ve dealt with some real assholes who seem to have no conscience whatsoever. My wife’s experiences have been even worse – she’s in sales, and the sales profession seems to breed 'em.
I started with working with my current company when it was just me and the owner. I had the luxury of being in charge of hiring and firing, and the one thing I kept my eye out for was toxic personalities, including back stabbers and pot stirrers. I can honestly say that I actually like the dozen people I work with now, and I’m pretty sure everyone else feels the same way (even though I’m about twenty years older than most of them).
So what did your coworker say when you confronted her (I assume you did)? Was she all innocence and wide-eyed wonder? Did she not think that gutting a colleague in front of a client or vendor was unprofessional (except under the most dire circumstances)? Does she not care that she might have ruined her working relationship with you?
Ah, the old conference call ambush. She was listening to you, thinking, “yeah, keep talking” knowing she was going to say what she wanted to when the ient-clay was on the line. I hate that.
I didn’t even wait till the call was over to confront her. She sits two cubes away, and while she was talking shit to the vendor I was emailing her saying “What are you doing?!?” and “We discussed this - did we not?”
So, after the call she came over and apologised, saying she just wanted to get a dialog going with the vendor. :rolleyes:
I took a new job a while ago. I’ve been offered versions of the job before, but “Bill” at work has always considered it his territory and Bill and I don’t get along - so I was always able to. They finally created an official position, moved the job under a manager where it would be effective, took care of some of my other concerns and - since it was now a posting and not a “change in responsibilities.”
I was asked to apply for it by an unrelated Directory - not someone in the management chain for the position. Bill applied, as did a few other people.
Bill didn’t make the first cut. I made the first cut and was offered the job. I was honest in my interview - other people had gotten the project where it was, I was coming in as an outsider, my skills weren’t as technical as the other candidates (including Bill), I was not universally loved by the existing team. However, I had good management and strategic skills - the job would be very different if I did it. I was interviewed by a Senior Manager, a Senior Director and an Executive Director. I was told that while the other candidates were strong, I had universal support of the managment team.
I get into a team meeting of a parallel team after I take the job. Bill is there, he has been representing the team I now lead. I’m congratulated by the team for my new role (I’d been on the team in my previous role). Which he uses as an opening for a twenty minute rant against me. How my technical skills were weak (a known), how this was going to completely ruin the project and the team, how management didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. There was stunned silence on the call.
I asked the manager on the call to speak to my new manager. From this I discovered that this was the second call that day he’d ranted on, earlier that day he’d done a similar rant against me when my new bosses boss was on the call. It was only a stacking of meetings that allowed it to happen twice in one day.
Amazingly, he kept his job and has remained on the team. He has his moments of difficulty. I’ve met expectations at my new job well enough to get an excellent review - rare at my company - in part because I continue to work with him and haven’t demanded his head on a platter.
Ah, so it was “all innocence and wide-eyed wonder.” I find it very hard to handle when someone says that they just can’t see what the hell it was they did wrong.
Dangerosa, I’m glad to see that you’ve been rewarded for handling a tough situation with class. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen.
You made the right choice. They’re pretty cool the first couple of days, but then they start to smell, and they take up way too much space on your desk.
Is the vendor somehow responsible for your performance reviews or salary? No? Then, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see what exactly the issue is here, apart from the fact that she stole your words.
How exactly did this result in you getting “f’ed over.” The right communication went to the vendor. I would have just let it slide. No big deal.
Well, assuming you are working with the vendor on a proposal, getting the vendor to give you a response based on your project scope, intentions, etc. You don’t want the vendor thinking you are the Three Stooges - without clear intentions or a clear scope - all that is supposed to be done prior to engaging the vendor. If it isn’t, the vendor usually thinks you are working on a blank check project - they go off in directions trying to sell you a bunch of stuff that isn’t in your scope.
If you work on similar projects to mine, you get a rather small amount of time allocated to getting a project through scoping and to the point where you can provide a cost. Delays due to confusion over scope can cause the project to not exit this stage in a timely fashion. At my company, if you can’t exit this stage timely - you lose a lot of credability on if the project is needed and if you can pull it off.
My colleague acted unprofessionally, inasmuch as we had discussed our position and agreed on a few key concepts which I expressed on the call, then she assumed a contrary position relative to those concepts (and requirements) in the midst of a discussion with the vendor. Plus, it’s just bad form behaving that way. Seriously.
How did this result in my getting f’ed over? Well… Now my vendor doesn’t have a clear idea of our requirements and expectations, because my dimwit colleague couldn’t keep her fucking mouth shut when she should have. That’s how. And although the vendor is not responsible for my performance reviews and etcetera, the goods and services they provide to my company certainly factor into my preformance reviews, so I guess indirectly they do. And if my colleague stupidly and irresponsibly derails what was a straight-forward dialog to promote her adgenda, or whatever, well… I can’t let that slide.
Not really. We’d come to agreement on the key concepts to be communicated to the vendor, and she reversed course on me. So now the vendor doesn’t know what we need.