Responding to requests at work? Am I crazy here?

In My Humble Opinion
81

No, I’m trying to say the impression I get of him is that he is one who will always answer the question asked of him exactly , even if he knows from the last time this happened…

Any impression of this person you’re getting is being generated by your own imagination, because you’ve made up the bolded part of this quote; this simply wasn’t the case. “You don’t know that my favorite color is blue, but if you did I bet you’d pretend not to”. Why would you form an opinion like that?

More generally, some people here seem to feel that work performance reviews are an adversarial shaming session sort of like sitting through church and getting lectured by a superior mind about how sinful/unproductive you are and need to do better (perpetually). And, that the only acceptable way of reacting is to bow your head and beg forgiveness. Now I’m sure there are actually companies and organizations out there which actually do run this way, but it is incorrect to state that this is the way ALL organizations run their performance reviews, and therefore a statement like:

In a performance review with middle management, sheepish contrition is always the right answer.

is simply not true. More over, even if you are in an organization where you’re treated as a defendant in a trial, wouldn’t it make sense to actually defend or justify yourself when the opposition makes false or misguided accusations about you? You’re not supposed to be scared of what your boss could do to you if they don’t like what you say; that’s the very definition of an abusive environment. Sheepish contrition effectively says “you’re right, it’s all me”. This is the way weak leaders (and abusers) make scape goats of innocent people. I highly recommend not tolerating that kind of treatment, even if it means you need to find a new job - it’s well worth it.

For those of you who are in a position to treat others people this way and think it’s acceptable, well, I don’t really think there’s much anyone can say to influence that kind of attitude. Just be aware that many places do not treat people that way, and once employees get some self-awareness they tend to gravitate away from poor treatment.

But yes, it is a free country and if people want to stay in an organization that treats them as a whipping mule, then go ahead. Just don’t try to convince everyone else that they are wrong if they don’t do the same.

82

You’re not a jerk. Not realizing how you are coming across doesn’t make you a jerk. That’s pretty normal, especially for people around here.
I’ve been around here for nearly 20 years, and I don’t insult people. I’m giving you the perspective of a former manager (and a pretty good one - people tried to get into my group) - on how you are coming across. You can’t improve if you don’t realize you aren’t perfect.
I got feedback from my manager once that I was coming across as arrogant in a meeting. I didn’t push back by saying I was smarter than the others there, I recognized it and tried to do better.
Now, your boss absolutely should have given you this feedback at the time of the “infraction” so it wouldn’t go on your review. But none of us have perfect bosses. And lots of bosses hate to be negative. Or even positive.
So you should ask for feedback, and even if you disagree try to understand where it is coming from.
Believe me, my goal is not to insult you, it is to help you get a bigger raise, a better review, and a promotion if you want one. Then you can suffer as a manager also.

83

This is a real problem, probably the number one problem. How does your system work? Do you give input and then get feedback and a rating after the manager level process is done? That’s pretty common, and in that case there isn’t a lot you can do about it.
My part of Bell Labs had a system where the employee gave input, the manager wrote up the response to it, then reviewed it with the employee before the review process was done. The employee signed it (not necessarily agreeing) and all the managers got a book of all the signed reviews.
The biggest reason for this was not surprise criticism but an employee doing something the manager didn’t know about or forgot. Very possible with 15 person groups each doing something different.
We measured an increase in satisfaction with the review process after we put this into place.

You see, that’s a non-response. Chances are there is a disconnect between what you are doing and what the manager wants. It may be that the manager doesn’t understand why you did the thing you did and will admit they made a mistake. But the right thing to do is to understand the criticism. No matter how painful that can be.

84

We all know “the manager is always right” is a load of bunk. They are frequently wrong, but the manager IS always in charge of the team. The manager sets the expectations. If the expectation is that employees will respond to requests, even if the response is “I can’t assist with this.” then that is the expectation. It is his right and duty as manager to set these expectations among the department. He also, as you noted in your OP, had the full support of his manager to set these particular expectations.

And you decide to argue with them about the grammatical minutiae of how the emails are worded, to the point where you made both managers angry at you… during a performance review.

You don’t have to be sheepish about it, you say that you didn’t appreciate that this was an important point for the management team, and will send responses in the future.

85

This is the truth. Usually the negative feedback part is called “Areas of Improvement” - one might think this is bullshit, but it is what negatives should be. You might have some monster managers, but the biggest problems are the ones that basically say nothing but don’t support you.
Now, if one year an employee has a melt down or lashes out at some valid criticism, odds are the next year he or she isn’t going to get any - even if it will do them some good.
Hell, when editing a journal or program chairing a conference, the worst reviews I see from reviewers say “pretty good.” Detailed reasons why the paper is good - or bad - is a hell of a lot more useful to both me and the author.

86

Which part is the real problem, the fact that it hadn’t been discussed before? If that’s what you meant, then yes I agree.

Our system works like this: we do a self-review, based on our list of performance goals and some company standardized questions. Then the manager answers the same questions. (there used to be a peer feedback portion where other people answered questions about you too, but I think due to various issues with honesty and competitiveness, they abandoned that) Then the manager submits your rating to his/her superiors and to HR. Then there is a negotiation process between HR and management about how the available budget for raises will be allocated to the manager’s team. From what I’ve heard from managers, this part is frustrating, because they expect a balance of bad reviews, average reviews, and good reviews, when in reality the manager feels like he wouldn’t even keep the bad review people on his team. Then once they’ve got the approval stamp from HR and upper management, they present the feedback to you which includes your rating. I have had a couple reviews I had glowing feedback but just an above average rating, and the manager has told me that’s the best they could do in the negotiation process. It is a lousy system, put in place by bean counters, and they’re not going to change your rating just because you had a good explanation for some negative bit of feedback. My point in explaining myself was not about my rating at all, I don’t even recall my raise or rating from this evaluation 10 years ago, but I think it was pretty good. Anyway, the point of the discussion was to clear up the miscommunication in the email and I agree I handled it badly.

87

If it was presented to me as, “hey I notice you don’t respond on these, we really require you to respond to all emails, even if the answer is just ‘got it, I don’t know’”. But once the miscommunication became clear (initally I thought he was saying he was disappointed that I didn’t volunteer often enough) then if they had just said “Oh, I see the issue, yeah you should really respond to all of these.” Done, issue over. I would have been like “Ah ok, will do.” But they acted like my misunderstanding was shocking and unbelievable. I kinda felt like they were calling me an idiot for my interpretation of “who has time to do X?” The boss’s boss even said something like “I would never dream of just ignoring my boss’s emails, how could you think that was OK?” And I was trying to explain, “I wasn’t ignoring them, the question he’s asking doesn’t require a response” … anyway, dead horse is dead.

88

Because of this

“No, I’m not saying you need to do anything, I just need a response on the email.” My brain went record scratch Huh?? So if I am too busy to take on a new project and you send an email that says “Who can do this?” you want me to respond with “Sorry I don’t have time.” And he said “Exactly. Every one of these emails deserves a response.”

I was flummoxed by this and said something like, “But that’s not what you’re asking, you’re asking WHO can do whatever task or WHO has the knowledge?” So you want me to respond to all of these with “Not me.” He acted amazed that I’d even be confused by this and said “Yeah of course!” And his manager agreed “Yeah, of course you need to respond every single time!” Then I said something like, “So you don’t see that’s not what you’re asking for, in the email? With the way you are asking, it seems to me that not responding is acceptable.” They kinda got angry at this point and said “Never, you always respond to your manager’s emails! How could you even think of just ignoring it?”

It was a very weird disconnect. I even gave an example of a teacher in a classroom asking a question to the class and it’s like they expect every kid to raise their hand and say “I don’t know the answer!” but they didn’t track with that at all and just kept saying “you need to respond.”

According to his own account , they told him at least three times that they wanted a response because he continued to argue that the way they asked didn’t require a response. That gives me a very different impression than I would get of someone who just said “OK” after the first time - even if that person thought it was stupid and illogical but didn’t continue to argue.

89

Not sure what bone you’re picking here, but this is the comment I was addressing:

And my response is yes, you absolutely should do that. That’s all.

It’s not out of line to say “oh, I wasn’t ignoring it, I just didn’t think a mass email required a personal decline from everyone on the list”, but the next words out of your mouth should be “but I’ll operate under that assumption going forward.”

Then you reply to every single group email they ever send until they tell you to knock it off.

90

…shrugs… well I guess you interpret someone who asks questions when they are still confused as someone who argues. My opinion is that just because one person gives an explanation to a question, that doesn’t mean others understand or accept it. Weak answers to me deserve push back… because in my experience when I just nod along with a non-sensical request or demand, inevitably I’ll do it wrong again since the explanation wasn’t adequate. May as well hash out what they want all at once instead of over several weeks and after several screw-ups.

I was once a utility operator (guy who read water meters and operated residential water hook ups) for a small town with a seriously corrupt/inept town office. I’d have meetings that went like:

Manager: “there are 500 meters left to read; you need to do it within 2 days.”
Me: “But I always have 5 days to do that job. and as you know I can only read 100 per day. Am I to do overtime?”
Manager: “no we changed the timing; you need to be done in 2 days. No over time”
Me: “Nobody told about this change, and now it’s too late to get the job done.”
Manager: “Well you’ll have to get it done”.
Me “well, that’s mathematically impossible”.
Manager “If you don’t get it done, I’ll hire someone else”.

I suppose you could say I was arguing. But to me I was explaining that the request was unreasonable, that I wouldn’t be able to do what they wanted, and that they were going to be disappointed if they expected it done.

A little more to the point of this topic: I also hung disconnect signs on doors that basically read “If you don’t pay your bill with 5 days, your service will be disconnected”. Then management would told me to start disconnecting after 3 days. Of course I “argued” by explaining that the message we gave said 5 days, but what you really mean is 3 days. That’s not going to go over well. “Well just do it Mr. Argues-a-lot”. Ooooookay then…

This same group fired their own peace officers when they refused to hand out tickets for non-existent laws that the town wanted enforced. They gave these kind of nonsense explanations all the time. If you questioned them or argued then you were fired in fairly short order. If you nodded and went along with them of course the task would get messed up, and you were fired for being incompetent or not following the confusing directions properly. Either way you’d get thrown under the bus. I’d rather have a story to tell where I stood up and called them out if I’m getting fired either way.

However, these examples are getting further and further from what the OP was asking about, so I’ll just chalk up my opinion on the subject as:

No, you’re not crazy here… I’d be confused and ask for clarification at the time too. But some people look at the corporate structure in a different way than you and I so expect a range of answers from different people with different perspectives.

91

I think something went wrong and someone quoted me about my impression of the OP but replied to you. I completely agree with your post.

92

The OP said they argued

93

My wife’s boss’s boss’s boss, who sounds like a grade-A toxic narcissist, insists on this as well, and called an all-staff meeting soon after her last promotion to make that clear. She has other strong opinions about email etiquette, including requiring “please” and “thank you” when you ask things of a superior. You can be normal/curt when emailing with your peers, or subordinates. :roll_eyes:

94

What’s the difference? For all the talk of “leadership” and “people skills” and whatever, I’ve come to the conclusion that 90% of management is just keeping track of tasks without being so much of a jerk that people quit.

95

I personally don’t see management that way - I have had the pleasure of working for several managers who did much more than what you’re describing - including advocacy, responsibility development and nurture of individuals in the team, care and development of the team ethic and interaction, devolving credit for achievement, absorbing responsibility or hostile blame for failure to deliver/perform, etc.

Keeping track of tasks is administration, not management.

96

OP, I think your assumption that you didn’t need to respond to say you didn’t have time was reasonable, and that your manager should have communicated better and sooner if he wanted something different. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable in all situations for a manager to want something different.

I am one of a few supervising attorneys in an office with about two dozen staff attorneys and a few “senior” attorneys. Staff attorneys carry their own caseloads and are in court every day. Senior attorneys’ primary responsibilities are to cover for staff attorneys who are out sick or on vacation, and to help out the less-experienced staff attorneys by sitting first chair on their more complex cases involving expert testimony. However, we also make them available to help with various staff attorney tasks as needed because the caseloads are crushing, the work is fast-paced and unforgiving, and the stakes are high. We encourage staff attorneys to reach out to management when they need help, and we check in with the seniors as to their availability before assigning someone. We reach out to the seniors in a small group text message thread, and we do expect a response from each of them, even if it’s “sorry, can’t.” Come to think of it, though, we’ve never made that explicit. It’s never been a problem, I guess because the nature of the work makes it obvious to everyone involved that we need to know if the answer is “no” versus if, say, the person hasn’t responded because they’re on the record at that moment (but finishing their last case, so about to be free.) It’s also rarely the case that anyone is sitting around doing absolutely nothing; everyone is working on stuff with varying degrees of urgency. Part of what we do as managers that separates us from mere secretaries is make judgment calls about whether to burden this overworked senior or that one, or whether to leave it to the overworked staff attorney. Which judge should we make wait–the cranky one who yells at attorneys who come in late, and might even take it out on the clients, but usually finishes their calendar by noon? Or the one who shrugs and takes a break, but ends up continuing lots of hearings, possibly to the detriment of some clients (but possibly to others’ benefit)? If seniors aren’t available, is the situation urgent enough that supervisors need to step in and handle some cases, making us less available to handle our primary responsibilities of hiring, training, mentoring, and observing our reports–most importantly, making us less available to answer their questions? (Remember this is a fast-paced environment; things change quickly and our often-new attorneys need help figuring out how to respond in the moment.) And no, we don’t ask because we don’t know what the seniors are working on; we ask because there are infinite variables that dramatically alter how long those things will take. Sometimes you’re covering just one uncontested review hearing, but the judge ends up calling your case last so you’re stuck there all day. Other times you’re about to call 7 witnesses and the judge conferences the case before going on the record and says “don’t bother; I’m ruling in your favor.” (That one actually just happened; no exaggeration. And yeah, we’re putting that senior to work on something else now!) Sometimes you’re still waiting for your subpoenas to come in and can’t do any more work on your big case until they do. Then they come in and you really need a big block of uninterrupted time, maybe not today but definitely this week, to go through those hundreds of pages of medical records and discuss with your expert witness, and then talk to your client. We don’t always know exactly where they are in this process because we don’t need to micromanage them; we just need to know enough to make decisions about assignments. Quickly.

I don’t know what your work environment was like–if it was obvious, at least to everyone else, that these messages were to be responded to no matter what, or not. I think in your shoes, I would have said “oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you still wanted a response if the answer was no. I’ll do that from now on.” I probably would have felt the way you did, but I wouldn’t have actually argued with my boss about it. Instead, I would have gone to my co-workers to see what they thought. If they all felt the same as me, or at least if the ones I liked agreed with me, I would’ve bonded with them over our shared contempt of our idiot boss, while still placating said boss with a bunch of useless emails. If and when I felt secure enough in my position to criticize the boss, I might then bring up what I saw as inefficiencies in his management style–just not during my own performance review.

97

Re: the OP, if a senior did not respond, wouldn’t you reach out to clarify the policy and not leave it until a “You done messed up A-Aron.” in a review?

98

Absolutely. Hence my first paragraph. I completely agree that, even if this was a rare situation like mine where OP should’ve known to respond, the manager made the bigger mistake in not addressing it promptly.

99

The Notalwaysright.com site had a story the other day about a college professor who complied with a requirement to reply to all emails, forcing an end to the policy in only a few days.

100

To the OP - Not saying your manager’s methods are correct, but what he is looking for is for you (and presumably everyone else) to show that they are “responsive”. Like you should be jumping at the chance to work on that new project! (Or explain why you can’t because you are busy with a dozen other projects).

My experience has been different. 90%* of the managers I’ve worked for basically ran their departments like little fiefdoms (often warring with the other little fiefdoms). They basically spent most of their time self-promoting and treated their people like disposable cogs. And the 10%* who acted in the positive manner you described more or less got fucked.

  • I don’t know the actual numbers.