Brutal email from disgruntled person

[Weddingblues23]

Just had an absolutely brutal email sent to me and feeling really upset. Something happened with a person I dealt with at work and they sent a really nasty email, said i had been rude, demeaning, unprofessional etc. He found my bosses' email addresses online and cced them and threatened to complain to a related client and a professional body about my conduct. I explained everything to my boss (at like 11pm) and they said everything I had done was reasonable, and actually the bit which the person was complaining about was all recorded on video and i can send it to my bosses to look at. I've watched it again and I really wasn't any of those things - i was smiling, apologising, telling the person we would be in touch etc, but I'm just feeling so upset about it. It's hard to explain exactly what happened without being too outing but essentially the person was trying to join a meeting I was hosting but having some tech issues, I tried my best to help but also needed to deliver the meeting to the rest of the people so had to leave them to sort it out, by the time they had overcome the issues they had missed the opportunity to participate in something and I had to let them know that we weren't then able to include them at that point but would be in touch.

No point to this other than the fact that I feel really shaken and upset and everyone is asleep so nobody to tell! To top it off I have my 6 month review tomorrow which I am feeling nervous about 😓

Sounds horrible but sounds like you were not in the wrong and don't have anything to worry about. Great that you have the recording to back you up. I'm awake mulling over an exam I think I failed today!! Just been and made myself a nice cup of sleep tea and having a little MN browse to switch of my silly brain!

How fantastic that it was a recorded meeting, and that your boss has your back.
I feel sure nothing will come from it.

You know you did nothing wrong and there's video evidence to prove it. Really, try not to worry. I think the person who accused you should be very worried though: making completely unfounded accusations and writing such a nasty email will reflect badly on them, and I would expect some sort of disciplinary action to be taken.

Message back and say you OK, or are you always this rude?

They weren't joining in a professional capacity so there won't be any blow back for them. It really was such a horrible email but we will need to placate them so they don't cause a stink so I'd imagine I will have to apologise myself 😞

Oh no bad luck! What was the exam? I'm sure you did better than you think!

Thank you for your nice message, starting to feel a little better ☺️

Yes, silver linings and all that. I really did the very best I could in the situation and my boss knows that and will protect me. It was really stressful trying to run this very complicated meeting which was being recorded for an important client and also diffuse the situation with this person in the middle of it. It's just disappointing because I'm going for promotion at the moment and it's not a good look to be attracting this kind of attention, however unjustified it is.

Some people are just cunts. That's it really.

Look them straight in the face and apologise with a smile whilst your eyes blaze Fuck You's at them. Then don't give them another thought.

Send the video.

If your boss has anything about them they will take it up with the client and offer to sit through the recording with them to go over their concerns.

It will be interesting to see their response to that offer.

If I’d done nothing wrong, I would absolutely not be apologising. I doubt they will cause a stink when faced with the truth rather than their truth.

Try not to worry.

I'm currently doing my prescribing course so it was related to that. I hope so!!
You're welcome, I'm sure your anxiety about your review is unfounded, you sound conscientious and professional so I'm sure you don't need to worry. The email from that horrible person is bound to make you feel crap, some people get off on belittling others. Think about how you can use the calm and professional way you handled him blustering as a way to demonstrate how great you are in your review tomorrow. Good luck!

And what @SpringingJoy said in their first sentence.

Thanks so much! 🥰 Best of luck with the results 🍀

It happens. If you want some light relief here's my story

A customer called me a cunt. And then put a complaint in saying I was rude
It was on a recorded line, so they played the recording to him, which was him constantly swearing, me politely asking him to stop or I would terminate the call and then him calling me a fucking stupid cunt
When they asked if he wanted to continue his complaint he strangely changed his mind..

Haha oh my goodness, you did well to keep it professional! What a horrible person!

If you have to apologise remember you can be sorry they felt as they did (stressed, angry, frustrated etc) without saying you were responsible for them feeling that way.

This is a really good point, thanks. And I totally can understand why they were feeling frustrated. But they didn't have to be so utterly vicious about it, they could have relayed things in a more neutral way and it could have been resolved without all the drama - we were going to contact them tomorrow anyway to sort things out but they got in their first with their aggressive email to my bosses.

Honestly I think they need an email from your boss which is polite, but very firm that any abusive or horrible language they used was not to be tolerated. There is an element of bullying here, to you, and no bullying should go un challenged. This needs to come straight from your manager.

I’d be saying to your manager that you feel that you’ve been bullied/abused albeit at a lower level but still, it’s there and ask to look at your company’s bullying policy and ask your manager how they can protect you and support you.

Having read your posts OP it strikes me that
a) your initial actions during the incident,
b) how you’ve informed your bosses of the facts since,
c) how you now reflect on this, and
d) how you deal with this from here are all most excellent learning points and opportunities to help you gain insight into your self and your motivators and therefore will be excellent material for you to
a) raise in your review tomorrow and
b) bring up in future promotion processes as examples of a time when you have dealt with a challenging professional situation.

Reframe. Reframe. Reframe!

Hoorah!

And a merry Christmas to you!

Yeah that's an interesting point. I know that my bosses will be loyal to me, but at the same time we'd like to avoid this going to the client, not because I've done anything wrong but just because this kind of thing obviously doesn't reflect well on our company (as a service provider). I do feel upset, but I also recognise that a certain element of playing the game is required and i also won't need to communicate with this person again so we just need to smooth it over and move on.

I've just realised that they actively looked up my email address online as I hadn't had any correspondence with them before the meeting. That makes me feel a bit more weird tbh. I hope they don't email me again.

Haha this is great! Thanks 😊

You can always block them OP, or set up a rule to put any emails from them into a different folder so they're not in your inbox.