My coding, on the other hand, is definitely Not Cool. :smack:
Emphatic agreement with Harriet the Spry’s assessement of HR’s role at work. They make sure laws are observed and thereby cover the organization’s ass. I’d add that while they provide guidance for managers, they don’t usually welcome the attention. Work can be a bell jar for employee quirks and sorting out the unpleasant from the actionable can be difficult. Removing entrenched problems like Frank can be a nightmare–and I say ‘removing’ because I’ve seen damned few stubborn problems who were willing to adjust their behavior much. Jane, as nice as she is, knows that Frank is a problem. He won’t change or go lightly, but she knows HR will tell her exactly what she already also knows: she needs to grit her teeth and start documenting. It might force her into action, but the fallout in resentment might not be worth it to you.
I’d say not to worry at all about Frank’s reactions. So he has his shorts bunched; sounds like a chronic condition with him. You haven’t lost points with other employees who doubtless know quite well he’s just being an ass as usual. Placating bullies is pointless; it never works. You did what your supervisor assigned. He needs to take it with Jane if he doesn’t like it. And that’s your best route, IMO.
The criticism about how you did the task? Stupid and tactless, but probably nothing more than incestuous workplace weirdness. They weren’t attacking you as you, just underlining some bizarre point important to them for reasons that don’t have a thing to do with you. You just happened to be in the way. Just blow it off. You’d probably gain most by quietly asking them what you should do. Give 'em a chance to realize they caught you in the crossfire, but let them save face. That kind of action speaks loudly in workplaces. It would give them room to back off you (maybe even apologize!) and aim at the real target of their discontent. It would also establish you as a reasonable guy who could have shot back in kind–but didn’t. Reasonable and trustworthy are good things.
But refer Frank’s bitch to Jane, Linty Fresh. If she isn’t looking for documentation, she should be–and this is gold. Put it in a memo, but make it very dispassiate and work-centered. She assigned you a task; Frank interferred on the basis that you didn’t have the right to do it at all. You need clarification about what you are supposed to do. It doesn’t have to be confrontational at all. It’ll work much better if it isn’t, in fact. Be upbeat, positive, solution-oriented, blah, blah. Maybe it’s just a communication issue!
It’s not. Frank is an entrenched problem Jane hasn’t dealt with, but that’s her job, not yours. He’ll continue to be a putz to you but it sounds like he’s a putz to everybody. Just look bland and ignore him. (It drives bullies crazy.)
And don’t worry much at all about fitting in, Linty Fresh. Libraries are no worse at clicques and factions than most work places, but it pains me to admit that they can be magnets for obsessives, especially in the technical functions. It’s the downside to all that precision. (Folks in the public service side usually have to be more flexible, though I’ve met some humdinger martinets there too.) Picture them as really batshit obsessive CPAs, actuaries or computer support. Don’t even try to argue or defend; they’re fixated. It’s Jane’s job to socialize them enough for the workplace.
Who might get flamed for her comments on obsessives but half of the attraction of libraries are so many people so genuinely passionate about arcane things.
I’m going to differ: your boss has made this alleged screw-up public. You neither want nor need a bad reputation. You need to cover your backside. So I think you should send her an email stating the facts of the matter and requesting an apology, with a BCC to her boss.
Well, the thing is that this being a small desk, anyone’s screw-ups quickly become known, so I’m not sure this is an issue. I see this as more of an embarrassment and loss of face than anything else.
Sigh, part of me is saying that I need this shit like I need a mercury enema, and that I could probably find another similar job if I really wanted to. The thing is, though, that after all these years of flitting from one part-time job to another during my 20’s and early 30’s, I want to learn how to settle down a little, especially now that I’m married and in a city I really like. Even if I don’t want to work here for the rest of whenever, I do want to learn how to work through workplace conflicts.
The other part of me says that it’s bad to just run away at the first sign of discomfort or trouble. I don’t want to be the guy that keeps running away. I don’t want to be the guy who can’t stand up and work through discomfort or conflict. If it really gets unbearable, I’ll find something else, but I don’t want to do that just because of a little trouble.
My main worry is, not having the experience in full time jobs, how do I know when the situation is unbearably bad? The situation might be mild, or it might be royally messed up. This might be a minor thing that happens to everybody once a month or so, or it might be signal a really bad problem that’s going to lead up to termination. Maybe I should just let it roll off my back, or maybe I should leave before they show me out. Perhaps that’s what’s really irking me. It’s not that I’ve run into a situation–Everybody runs into situations, and life would be boring without situations. It’s that I’ve run into a situation which I don’t know anything about.
FTR, I’m leaning toward just forgetting about it and letting it roll off my back. What’s done is done, and as Jack Ryan says, there’s no point in trying to defuse a bomb after it’s already gone off. I don’t think anyone’s trying to get me fired or make me quit. I say let it go, enjoy my weekend, and come back in next week ready to start fresh.
Any thoughts?
I don’t know what exactly the job was, but since it was something that you had to email everyone in the department about, is it possible that Jane had to email all of them to explain something about what had been done because it affects their work? For example, if you set up something that everyone else would be using, and they would have been using it incorrectly unless someone modified the instructions?
I’m just mentioning this in case Jane had a legitimate reason to email everyone. I don’t know the tone of her email, but if it was businesslike and was informing people of something they had to know to do their jobs proerly, then it could be completely innocent.
I think you have nailed it. Have a great weekend! Getting over the petty crap, then coming back and being productive makes you a valuable employee.
While that might be true, it certainly shouldn’t be anyone’s first assumption.
Email is a funny medium. It looks like the OP copied a bunch a people when she completed the job. This didn’t appear necessary, but there’s nothing wrong with it. When the boss felt the job wasn’t done correctly, this too went to a broad (could it be the same?) distribution. It might even be a case where the boss felt that whatever that job was, there isn’t enough information here to tell, it was necessary for others to know it wasn’t done yet.
I’d suggest shrugging it off.
Mayhap, but it’s been done in writing. You need to set the official record straight before it becomes impossible to do so. The right thing to do is often not the easy thing to do.
You are asking excellent questions here, and learning to sort “stand up for yourself” situations from “let it go” situations at work is an extremely valuable skill.
One thing to keep in mind is that you are still a human being, with all your inalienable human rights intact at work. If these rights are being stepped on, you should speak up about it.
Another thing is that assertiveness is always allowed at work - aggressiveness is not. Figure out where your boundaries are, and don’t worry about defending them (politely and accurately).
From what you’ve described, you’ve had a couple of boundaries stepped on in a minor way - I would recommend defending them also in a minor way. I would clarify with Jane what she wanted done, and I would mention to her as someone mentioned previously - praise in public, correct in private. You can’t tell your boss what to do, but you can tell her when she did something you didn’t like (in private, of course). Use “I” statements and tell her how you feel about it, rather than attacking her. Actually, her reaction to that will probably tell you if this is a job you want to stay at or not.
Don’t be afraid to defend your boundaries with Frank, either (again, I recommend doing so - bullies only back down when you stand up to them).