Im in a mid management role, no direct reports but do work with people more junior, their job is to support me and my peer in the delivery of key business tasks.
I’m relatively new in the role (6 months) there are some obscure processes and policies I’m still finding out about. My performance in role has been met with praise from exco, so I’m doing well)
there is one jnr who frankly is incredibly difficult to the extent I dread working together because it’s a battle. A simple task is met with a huge amount of pushback and moaning and reasons why not to do something. Things mysteriously not getting saved etc etc. General rudeness. It has been escalated.
this is a persistent issue with everyone but I do feel it’s worse with me.
today, very simple bau task, the same nonsense very aggressive with it too. Then basically tattles to my peer on zoom, who then sides with me and invites me to the call. The junior guy then turns around and flips it on me, saying it’s not his responsibility and how the direction wasn’t clear. To which i pointed out it’s fine to ask a question if the ask isn’t clear but xyz needs to be done. He mumbles some shit sarcy shit about it not being clear, my peer says the email I sent was pretty clear and he’s been in role long enough to know what was meant. He mutters something under his breath. I snapped. I said, you can always ask for clarification and I don’t think the underhanded comments are needed, and it’s making me quite cross, so to that end I’m leaving this call. I think I was calm in my tone of voice, but I was shaking on the inside.
was I hideously unprofessional
my logic was, I’m not getting drawn into an argument of he said she said and playing the blame game, especially when I was feeling quite tense. They really landed me in it big time last week through not doing some key tasks. I had to work well into the night to sort it .
am I going to get a telling off?