How common is it to throw a colleague under a bus as an arse-covering exercise?

[JockTamsonsBairns]

It's happened to me this week, and I'm a bit taken aback. The details aren't particularly relevant, but I've been working hard on something for months which has required some input from my line manager - I've been asking for this frequently over the past two months, but it's been pushed down his priority list.
I have always had a good working relationship with him, and I fully accept that his workload has been overwhelming lately.
I emailed him on Friday of last week, giving him a final nudge, and saying that if we didn't make some changes then we could be facing a potential complaint against us.
I didn't hear anything over the weekend (fair enough, but we do regularly keep contact out of hours), and so I rang him first thing on Monday morning. Call went straight to voicemail, and I left a message asking him to ring me as soon as he got a chance. He didn't.
Tuesday morning saw the completely predictable complaint. Almost word for word, it lists what I have been asking my line manager to do since November.
On receipt of this complaint, the entire dept springs into action, and starts to implement the measures I've been trying to introduce for three months. Ok, I'm happy that things are finally moving forward.

This morning, I was summoned to my manager's office. He was sitting alongside the top director person, which I hadn't expected, and began a spiel about how we could have done things differently, and what lessons we could learn from this.

The outcome isn't relevant here, but I'm very interested in how common this is? Do people generally fuck over their team members, in order to cover their own arses?

I'm reeling.

This is more common than you think. Having been there on more than one occasion my advice is you have to escalate this now. You are standing up for yourself not dropping him in it. So not only do you need to be absolved you need to make a complaint about him passing the buck on to you.
He won't thank you for covering for him. He'll need rid of you as you are a constant reminder to him of his duplicity and incompetence.
I learned the hard way that no matter how much you like someone if they do this to you then they are not to be trusted. They won't appreciate you covering for them, they'll just see you as weak.

@Dyrne

Best way to handle this is to drop manager in it from a great height. Don’t just forward the emails, that might just piss big bosses off that you’re doing a tit-for-tat.

Raise it in a way that looks like you’re just trying to find ways of implementing lessons learned - “how to improve the escalation/prioritisation process” or some such bollocks.

This is spot on.

Make it sound like you're genuinely interested to know what you should have done differently so next time around you can take the correct course of action.

But make sure that in doing so you include all of the things you DID do. This is absolutely critical. If you don't include this you'd basically be admitting guilt.

Between us, we know you did exactly the right things and it fell down with your manager, but your manager's manager doesn't know we know ;)

A colleague did this to me many years ago. Just at appraisal time. I potentially had a disciplinary to face. I also had a meticulous email trail showing what I had done. I forwarded it to my manager with a summary timeline to show this. Over the weekend I had the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever had from my manager apologising for taking colleagues word against mine with no checking. Excellent appraisal/bonus followed.

Colleague stayed in organisation and I have no idea what, if any, action was taken against her. She then tried the same stunt but with our manager! She left while I was on maternity leave so not sure of exact circumstances.

But I stuck up for myself. Produced my proof and my reputation was intact. I appreciate it is your manager here, but I would supply the senior manager with your evidence.

Work relationships are fake. It is every man/woman for themselves I’m afraid.

You need to set up an urgent 1:1 meeting with your manager to discuss this. No forwarding emails etc. Face it head on.

Reputation is everything. Yours is being besmirched but you have the ammunition to push back and you should use it.

He'll need rid of you as you are a constant reminder to him of his duplicity and incompetence.

Yes to this, and he'll worry that you'll be letting other colleagues know what a shit he is. Watch your back, he'll be the first to sign your 'sorry you're leaving card'.

Personally I never trust anyone I work with. I am nice, open, friendly but I always ensure I'm covered. Chucking someone under a bus is very common.

Print off the emails, now. You could lose access to all the evidence at any point.

Do not accept this. He has shown zero loyalty to you. You owe him nothing.
Get paper copies of all emails or back them up. Then take today to make your case in a calm and concise way. You have to back yourself. You did everything correctly.

Get copies of the emails for yourself.

Get them also together electronically and email them to the director saying thank you for the meeting and for raising the very good point of lessons we can learn. I would like to add to that that information given should be acted on. Please find attached emails that show I have been highlighting this issue since X. Then follow up with something about perhaps putting a policy in place that escalates an issue through up through management if it is not acted on within a certain timescale.

Obviously worded better than that though.

Yes, the time it happened to me was pretty mild but it did come as a shock. Since then I confirm anything that could come back to but me in the ass in emails.

People will call, rather than email, specifically to create that uncertainty so I always follow up those calls with a quick summary email and cc whoever needs to be cc'd.

I can't really begrudge them when it comes down to it. People will always put their career and what it funds (be that family or lifestyle) over casual work acquaintances. Being paid to sit next to someone does not make them a friend.

Extraordinarily common!

At the end of the day you have to decide whether your professional reputation or your relationship with that manager is more important. I think the suggestions of handing over your evidence to the senior boss under the approach of improving the process in future would be a good way to go. Ultimately you don't want this to happen again, and so go at it from that angle. You can remain professional about being thrown under the bus, if anyone asks about it. 'Well I was a little surprised about the conversation, given my efforts to avoid this, and the warnings I gave manager, but I really think what is important is making sure this can't happen again.'

Yes it happened to me yesterday.

Because big boss thought it was my fault I wasn't even invited to the meeting about the cock-up, so weak line manager could pin it all on me.
I'm trying to leave, cultures like this don't change.

Totally agree that you should present the proof. Possibly, if you think this, say that with hindsight you should have escalated it sooner; and make a suggestion for future improvement.
Don't feel guilt. As a manager I have no respect for those that blame others, I would far rather someone say they've made a mistake and work with them to fix it. I hold my hand up when I cock up, it's human to err.

Yeah, happens a fair bit in my line of work, which is notoriously accommodating to psycopathic work practices as long as the money keeps rolling in.

My MD has it down to such a fine art that not only will she Chuck you under the bus, if you attempt to stop it with any of the techniques people already mention, she’ll use it as evidence that you’re really bad at your job, because why else would you need to cover your arse like that? there’s a demented genius to it, like Olympic level bus chucking. You’re under the bus, she put you there, then she reverses over your head and denies that she ever knew there was a bus 😂

I’ve never worked anywhere like it, but hopefully change will be afoot soon, as there has been a change of big boss.

Seen it where I work and had it done to me but the minute the email trail was posted everything went quiet. We needed to 'learn and move on'. I did learn and said I wouldnt do a job like that again if they tried to change what they said

Sounds to me like you don't owe him anything. Ultimately you'll only be being honest.

@SeahorseoramI

Id forward the email trail to them and say, yes i agree, sadly fuckface didnt.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I was going to suggest forwarding the email trail with a line saying you agree and asking for advice on how you can get people above you to action requests.

But I think your fuckface comment is far better

I would forward the emails to him. In the end, if the LM is his buddy it won’t matter what you do, though. Some people get protected when they behave badly, because of their mates or the productivity they otherwise bring.

My DH was thrown under the bus in his old job. He now has a better job and looks back on it as a bad experience. We happily discourage people in our line of work to avoid the place.

I meant encourage them to avoid it. Not discourage them from avoiding it... duh.

Personally I would go back to the director and state that you were a little confused and taken aback by the meeting and by the feedback. Outline that you've been trying to address the issues for a while, demonstrate some of the evidence and could he please clarify where he feels you could personally improve things.

I find feigning absolute confusion whilst handing over hard evidence works in these situations - I've been both the employee and the director!

Another team manager tried to blame me for his team’s errors. Luckily my manager raised his eyebrows and said ‘does that sound like DelurkingAJ?’ and then asked me for the paper trail. Which I had. Never trusted the other team’s manager again, everything in emails from them on in. Was a great shame as it hindered my working relationship with his wider team.

@Serendipity79's approach is exactly what I would suggest.

As a fairly senior person in my team I would be mortified if I was misled into taking the wrong person to task for something and very disappointed in the person trying to deflect blame.

DEFINITELY drop him in it. You did nothing wrong and he didn't think twice about fucking you over.