I messed up. Again.

The BBQ Pit
1

I messed up at work last Friday. Yeah, I sent an inappropriate email. Again. I have a problem with that.

So now the boss has come to the difficult decision, after something like four years, to maybe, kind of, be in charge. Horrors! The boss might act like the boss! She insists to me that what I did was kind of the last straw, but it was a lot of other people doing certain things, too. It would take too long to explain the details, and it would be too boring.

Anyway, I feel really bad about it. But the others at work have been supportive of me, saying it is not just my fault.

However, this one person comes to me at the end of the day and says, “Why do you keep doing things that will make you get fired? I think you have a subconscious desire to get fired!”

He came downstairs and found me specifically to say that. Now he can feel great all evening and all day tomorrow (my day off), while I feel awful.

I have been the kind of person who blames myself for everything. All my life. But this man that I work with–well, it’s always someone else’s fault. It couldn’t be his fault because he can do no wrong. The boss can’t possibly be intimidated by his golden-boy self because everybody loves him!

She (the boss) has been paralyzed in her work since starting this job, mainly because the perfect man is always on hand.

But I have the audacity to tell the truth, which people do not like to hear, and oh my god, I’m trying to get fired! Well, don’t do me any favors.

:mad:

2

Who are you pitting here, again? Your boss, who’s given you a lot of leeway, but you keep testing? Your coworker, who is demonstrating concern for you, despite the fact that he’s a good worker and you like testing boundaries? Or yourself?

3

I got myself fired from a job that I couldn’t afford to get fired from once, years ago. I started there with a girl I had befriended, and we talked too much while working, and it got us both fired. I have never before or after acted that way at a job, and I could blame her influence, but no one made me talk to her instead of telling her I had work to do so get lost. Are you taking responsibility for your own part in your situation, Lilith? It’s hard to tell from your OP.

4

I am also confused.

Are you pitting yourself for lack of self control with inappropriate emails? Was it inappropiate in the sense of bad language or naked people or was it sent to a client with lack of tact?

Are you pitting your co-worker for pointing your mistake to you?

Are you pitting your boss for lack of a backbone?

What the hell are you talking about? :confused:

5

Whatever comes in life, no matter how hard, gets easier when you take ownership of your part in it.

No one who hasn’t a gun to your head, ‘makes’ you do anything. That’s self delusion. You are an adult who made your own choices for your own reasons.

The question now becomes; are you adult enough to live with your choices, owning them instead of casting blame on others?

Your boss may be shitty, the golden boy may be enabling her and the whole thing may be highly dysfunctional. None of which mitigates that you made the choice to, once again, send an inappropriate email, even after you’d been warned not to do so.

Were I you, I would look a little more closely into the golden boy’s questions. They don’t seem so far off to me.

6

Sorry to be preachy, but YOU are 100% responsible for your own success, and YOU are 100% responsible for your own failures.

YOU and no one else.

7

Kinda sounds like it was your fault, at least according to this :

So you messed up, you did something inappropriate, not for the first time; in fact, it is a habit with you. And it’s not your fault again why?

8

Horseshit. A hundred things a day can happen that make the difference between success and failure, and they can all be completely out of the control of the person to whom they are happening. This kind of new age “The Secret” crap is so fucking ridiculous. I’m not saying Lilith isn’t responsible for this specific situation, but to generalize like this is just ridiculous.

9

it sounds like there’s a 100% Grade-A Bullshit master at work, and Lillith Fair got herself in trouble by being a little too blunt over it.

10

Horseshit yourself. Nothing “secret” or “new age” about it.

11

Not knowing what kind of “inappropriate” we’re talking about, it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on. If the email was “inappropriate” in terms of being poorly worded/too blunt/etc. and that could have been avoided by the boss actually acting like a boss, that’s one thing. Sending sexual or other of that type of “inappropriate” email is something no one but the OP could prevent. If it’s the former, the “golden boy” intimidating the boss certainly doesn’t help. Hard to know.

12

Really. So, if my goal is to run a marathon, and I train as hard as anyone ever has, and do everything anyone could expect in anticipation of running a marathon, but someone steps on my foot at the start and sprains my ankle, causing me to drop out, that is 100% my fault? Really?

As **Otto **said, horseshit.

13

Okay, first of all I don’t really know that much about pitting, so I don’t know how to do it.

Golden Boy. He has intimidated her from day one. She is also not cut out to be the leader, yet she was assigned the job and accepted it. Golden Boy is not qualified to be the boss, by the way, so that is not a possibility. So the boss will not step out and lead which has caused all of the staff to try to do their jobs kind of going around her.

I’m the bookkeeper and can’t pay the bills because of a financial crisis. My mistake was not going to her with the problem. I emailed the staff and chair of the finance committee. It made the boss look bad. I agree that what I did was wrong.

So suddenly she sends out this memorandum about rules and regulations, not talking outside the office, not talking to each other about our jobs, not telling each other our problems, and we must start acting more professionally. These are all good ideas.

I said in a small meeting where she was announcing these things that I felt this was all my fault and maybe it was not necessary to scold the whole staff and she insisted it was not just me. But she would not elaborate. Then the others left and she held me back and we talked awhile more and she again insisted it was not just me, it was several people. And I’ve had two people tell me they thought it was something specific that they did that caused her to get upset and finally try to take charge.

I guess I’m pitting the Golden Boy in a roundabout way because he always comes out clean. He’s nasty behind her back. He can’t stand working with her. I am usually trying to keep the peace between them because I don’t like conflict.

But yeah, I have a certain amount of unprofessional-ness about me. I need to find something else to do. I’m good at doing small things like paying the bills. I’m not good at figuring out how to get rid of that nasty deficit.

[We are a non-profit organization and depend on donations and most of our expenses are fixed so it seems like a never-ending problem.]

14

Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m kind of getting the feeling your scared. Don’t be. This is much harder to do on the internet than it would be in real life. I feel like you need a hug and to have someone by your side. It’s always easier to face things with a friend to back you up. I know this is stupid but I got your back.

15

This happened to me 2 years ago for sending what was called a “personal” email. Albeit, very unappropriate, i was suspended for 3 days without pay. Since it happened on a Friday, i had a 5 day weekend and rather enjoyed myself. I went swimming, the National Zoo, hiking at Great Falls Park, built a deck with my dad at his parent’s house. If it weren’t for H.R. telling me “next time your employment will be terminated” i would sorta feel like doing it again. But i don’t want to test the Man again.

Some good might actually come. Don’t be so hard on yourself my friend.

16

I am having a little problem understanding why you don’t want to leave this job. I mean, getting fired is not a great thing, but hanging around in a place where you will never get credit for what you do, and always get blamed for things you didn’t have any chance to change seems self abusive.

Look for work, girl! Look long and hard, and look fast. In the end, every day you spend in a job you hate is a part of your life you have thrown away. I lost twenty years doing that, and finally took a fifty percent pay cut to stop doing it. I love my job, now. In fact, I am beginning to look at ways not to retire.

Tris

17

Lilith Fair, I hope things get better.

Fritz, pretty much any blanket statement you can make about anything is going to be incorrect. Including yours.

18

Going over your boss’s head, bypassing the chain of command, is not usually a good idea, no. But in this case, maybe you did some good and caused the boss to take responsibility and do her own job. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

19

These are not all ideas, especially at a not-for-profit. Maybe it’s legitimate to discourage discussions of personalities and personal likes and dislikes, but being a professional means involving each other in identifying problems and solutions as a team or in groups.

If everyone is being told not to discuss their work with anyone else in the office, something is seriously wrong. Seriously.

Get out now.

I’ve worked in not-for-profits pretty much my entire adult life, and I have never encountered an environment like you describe.

20

It is horseshit. They don’t have laws protecting whistleblowers for nothing. There are any number of reasons why people fail, some of it has to do with themselves and some it is bullshit out of their control.