I'm in a book. It's not as bad as it could be.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A former co-worker has written a book. He is a wonderful man who has gone through some pretty amazing things – he’s a former fundamentalist Christian, former Marine, and current gay man.

Anyway, he and I had one interaction that I rate as probably the lowest point in my career. He did an assignment for me, and what I got from him was not the best work. I had to redo it myself. I remember being angry, because my family was in town and I had to cancel lunch plans with them to rewrite the document. After it was all done, I knew I had to talk to him about the project and where he went wrong.

And my position, essentially, is that he went wrong by not telling me earlier that he was having trouble. No one is perfect and we all have bad days. He had two days to do the assignment; I spoke with him once the first day, and twice the second day. Each time, I called him to see how it was going, and each time, he told me it was fine.

So I called him into my office to tell him that it wasn’t his best work and, in the future, he needed to tell me earlier if he’s having trouble so I can help. I found a couple things he did well in the document, and started out with those. As I turned to the bad news, he interrupted me to say, “I’m sorry. I need a minute. I’ll be back.”

He left – the office, the firm and, ultimately the law.

For a long time, I thought it was me, that it was my fault that he’d left. I told myself that I handled it poorly and should have done a better job talking to him so as not to break his spirit. He told me later that I bear no responsibility – that his whole life was falling apart at that time, and that I had given him “the nicest ass-chewing possible,” and the fact that he couldn’t handle me was the final indication it was all out of control.

I still feel awful, and reading about that incident in his book has brought all that emotion back to me. Don’t you ever wish you could turn back the clock and do something differently? Ah, well. It’s not going to be a good night.

2

To me it would seem that you shouldn’t feel bad or want to change how you handled the situation. If you had handled it another way would he have still been led in the same direction he ultimately ended up going? It at least sounds like a pivotal (or at least memorable) moment that eventually helped the guy. :slight_smile:

3

From you post I don’t see anything that you did wrong. Don’t be so hard on yourself. :slight_smile:

4

Something similar happened to me once. I was doing QA at a call center and did a review for someone. She failed it pretty badly. In the comments section of the review form she wrote “I quit” and walked out of the building. I freaked a bit, got my boss involved (too late to stop the employee though) and felt bad for a while about it. Later on I found out that the employee was a recently-relapsed alcoholic and her life was going to shit as a result, so I got over any lingering guilt about it.

She has not, to the best of my knowledge, written a book about it.

5

While I understand the negative emotions, from where I sit, you Did It Right. I’ve had detailed and extensive leadership training, and your chosen way of addressing it seems pretty much optimum to me, considering the circumstances. Nobody likes chewing out a subordinate, especially if it’s someone they’ve trusted with important assignments - Not if they’ve got any empathy at all.

Cut yourself some slack… He doesn’t blame you, and I can’t see any reason for you to blame yourself.

6

I feel bad because I had an opportunity to save someone from pain and didn’t do so. Did I mention I’m a marshmallow? I am. Totally. Seriously. Tell me your sob story.

By the way, here’s the book.

7

You can’t save others from pain.

You can’t make others happy.

You can avoid causing pain willingly.

When you are happy and equilibrated, you spread happiness and equilibrium.

It took me 30 years to learn that I wasn’t responsible for my mother’s happiness and well-being; the process almost killed me.

So, repeat with me:

You can not save others from pain…

8

From the looks of the synopsis this is obviously not the worst thing that ever happened to him. On top of that, would he have ever written the book had he not decided to leave your office?

9

Or gotten his life together decently, or without much more pain before he finally decided he had to do something? If you had to be a turning point in his life, it sounds like you really fit into the role as gently and beneficially as possible.

10

Sounds like you acted just right. Are you really so disturbed in spirit? Was the angle of the comments re you in the book more negative than you’re retold it, or do you just feel bad because he has written about his breakdown?

On review, I see your comments - and have read the book review. Sounds like prime material for posting on the Straight Dope, this guy!

11

If his life were made into a movie, my part would be so small that in the credits, they’d refer to me as “blonde woman in office” or something. (Even though I’m not blonde, it’s a movie, so they’d cast a blonde to play me.)

He was kind to me in the book (others didn’t get the same treatment), and I know that I didn’t do anything wrong and that I didn’t cause anything to happen, that the train was well in motion before my three minutes with him, that if he’d done a better job or I hadn’t reprimanded him, something else would have happened over the next few days to lead to the same inevitable conclusion. He’s assured me of that, and I think it’s true.

It’s just that, at the time and for probably four months afterwards, I didn’t know that. I believed that it was my fault. So finding out yesterday that he’d written a book and included that episode was like a punch in the gut, and all the old feelings came back. What if it truly were my fault, and he said so in the book?

12

Well you should feel bad: sounds to me like you turned him against his country, against God, and made him queer! This is why we say “please” and “sorry” and stuff.

just kidding- actually, it sounds like if you’d been an asshole-boss he might have killed himself