AIBU Re threatened Disciplinary

[MrsMaxwell]

Manager (who will no longer be so in a few weeks as having a new manager) was asked by their manager to send an email to organise a meeting.

After 3 weeks she hadn’t done it and asked me to do it as she was about to go on leave.

I did it as it needed to be done urgently as was regarding the project I run no longer being funded.

I asked what she wanted me to say (she was vague and unspecific) so I wrote it, got a colleague to check my wording was ok (about the LA no longer funding this project and looking for a way forward) and sent it to various invitees.

Senior management (and elected members) saw it have gone ballistic. New email sent by managers manager basically saying the same thing I did but longer and more corporate.

My manager now has done my PDR with me and said that she has spoken to HR and decided not to take me to disciplinary but has written several things on it re my “attitude” being mindful or emails and communications I send (apparently it was a direct attack on a desicion that was made) and being disrespectful about senior management (we went through a restructure and everyone including me was slagging off the manager who delivered news to staff in a huge meeting that they were being made redundant and we all said how disgusting it was).

What the fuck do I do? Ignore as she will no longer bey manager? Send an email in reply to PDR outlining that the task was actually hers to do in the first place and she didn’t support me when I asked her to or go to my Union?

OP you have my full sympathy. This thread has made me break out in a cold sweat because I worked in local government for 15 years and I recognise exactly the sort of environment you describe. It is hard to convey to people who have been lucky enough to only work for reasonable employers and bosses. Incompetent and lazy managers, bullying, favouritism, buck passing, scapegoating, resentment and persecution of anybody in a low grade who has the temerity to be good at the job or even worse to challenge unfairness of speak up about anything. Whispering, being ignored, deliberately withholding information. But sucking up and sweetness and light to elected members. Ugh! I could go on. Utterly toxic. Stick up for yourself, don't back down. Good luck.

You are clearly working somewhere with a blame culture as opposed to a supportive one and you are just as guilty as your manager.
All tasks come from senior management and are passed down - so it's irrelevant that a more senior manager delegated to your manager. It was a task then delegated to you. You have 2 options.
1 - Advise your manager at the time you are incapable of sending a professional email
2 - Accept the task and subsequent feedback and learn from it

Right now you aren't taking responsibility for a task you accepted and did badly and so these events will continue

OP please just try to move on. If you get this worked up about a manager having a go, you will get stressed and ill, and no job is worth it, really. Especially if the manager is leaving anyway.

If you used the word "cuts" in the email and that is inflammatory (though LAs must think people are completely stupid if they don't know what "budgetary constraints" means) then accept the criticism and move on. Nobody will care once this manager has left.

I do understand your frustration. I am in a similar but different situation in that my job has changed substantially from what it was. I had a poor-ish appraisal in which my manager said my job role hadn't changed (it really has). So I am leaving at Easter to go to a job which hopefully will suit me much better. I could have stayed (I have a new manager now) but a job came up which suited me down to the ground. You have the same choice - move on with your new manager, or look for a new role internally or externally. But it is no good stewing on things, life really is too short.

Well as I learning and development person I would use this as an opportunity to get yourself on the bolloksy corporate communication course.

Dear senior manager

I would like to apologise for my wording of the email. It was sent with the best of intentions to help out a colleague and I see that it fell below the required standard. I was wondering if they may be a possibility of being able to develop my skills in this area by having some coaching or attending some training. I would really appreciate some extra guidance in this area and I think it would be good for my personal development.

I have had three conversations in the last week alone with employees who have genuinely zero clue how their communications could be seen as unprofessional or antagonising. And yet I've had everything from low level sniping to full on sobbing on my shoulder as a result of them, so the fact is that they are.

(Yes, insane workplace culture, but I have just been promoted into a position where I can start to tackle it)

OP, apologies, but it feels quite likely from.yoyr frustration on this thread that you did say something antagonising. And bollocksy corporate speak? Yes. Absolutely necessary when you write things down, to communicate with colleagues in a professional environment.

I would ask for more guidance when you're delegated tasks that involve communicating on behalf of management.

You can't throw your manager under the bus because everyone knows what happened. Her manager knows she was given the task and delegated it to you. The chain is quite clear. There are no secrets to reveal.

tomselleck 's suggestion is a good one.

If you feel the need to try to 'cover your back more' (although you should have done so at the time rather than retrospectively) then respond that you were concerned you did not have the necessary skills hence why on xx date at xxx time you asked her to approve the final content of the email. Since she was unable to do so and since the resulting response shows that your wording was not in keeping with her expectations, you would like to suggest a sign-off process for such future communications and/or that you would like to attend the corporate communications course.

The fact is the upper management were annoyed by your email. But you're still refusing to see that there were any differences between their email and your's. That points to a lacking in your communication soft skills. You can't learn from this until you can see the difference between those two emails so ask for support and training to help you.

OP, I am torn as to what to do here. If someone threatens a disciplinary, I would always try to put my story in writing for the record. But I also don't like to burn bridges especially if the manager is still with the organisation, just not your manager and others may have concerns with your communication, which presumably went out quite widely.

I think the way to go is to do both. Start with a light sum up of the context i.e. that the task was delegated at the 11th hour and the time constraints with getting sign off . You realise in hindsight it was a sensitive communication and should have been handled better ... continue with grovelling ala itstime's bollocksy corporate speak, which is really quite good.

Tbh, the minute I read in your OP that this was to call a meeting " regarding the project I run no longer being funded", an alarm was going off in my head about who this communication was going to, did those persons know about the funding cut and how sensitively does it need to be couched even if it was to persons who knew of the cut. I don't even work in local government or anything that requires funding.

If it was sensitive, I agree that your manager should have done it instead. You were working in less than ideal circumstances.

I also agree with KateAdies that if you cannot see the difference in communication between your email and the other one which went out that was drafted by senior management, then you need a course to be able to draft in the correct corporate 'mandarin' speak, however silly it may seem to you.

There is nothing more jarring to senior management when you use the word 'cut' if 'budgetary constraint' conveys the same meaning but in a more nuanced way [not sure if that was the actual sin]. For development purposes, it would be an idea to compare word-for-word the difference between your and the revised communication.

Otherwise, it is these jarring communications that will, I am afraid, unduly colour management's eyes as to your competence and promotability to manager-level.

A few points:

1. The decision is to not discipline you.
2. You are getting a new manager in a few weeks.

In your situation I'd leave it but take the opportunity to reflect on the wording and whether or not you can continue to work in a highly politicised environment. Your wording may have been ok in any other environment, but it could be that your approach is incompatible with the job you currently have.

I've worked in a similar environment for 15 years. It's definitely an acquired skill set. I enjoy it, but it's thrown its fair share of challenges at me over the years. It really is a difficult thing to achieve - finding a balance where you think you've made your point, but in a way that is palatable to the powers that be. Yes, it's corporate bollocks and you have to decide if you're willing and able to play the game.

And I say this as someone who fired off a well worded but laden with frustration email yesterday and fully expect to be bitten by it.

This thread reminds me why I left the public sector. The whole “it’s not my job” “I want it in writing” ethos that is prevalent therein.

*OP, I would tread carefully here because it sounds like the management above her will be the same and will have their eye on you.

I suspect senior managements view is that you were pissed off with the way your manager delegated the work so you did a deliberately half arsed job with the intention of passing the buck to your manager for delegating it to you badly with the intent of dropping her in it. Your manager should have been more on the ball with ensuring an important message didn’t get sent out in a poor fashion and they can’t prove it was deliberately shoddy which is why you’ve had no disciplinary. And probably because they are hoping the issue will go away when your manager leaves. I think they probably realise that your frustration with your manager is quite justified.

But I don’t think you would get away with pushing it much further. It’s all a bit ‘innocent face’. If you keep insisting that the email was poor because you weren’t capable of writing it you’re basically shitting on your own doorstep because you’re insisting that you are not capable of communicating in appropriate corporate language. Do you really want to do that? And I think if you push it too far then questions might start being asked about how innocent the email was because senior management will feel like you’re insulting their intelligence.

In the circumstances I would ask to add comments to the PDR (as above) and concentrate on impressing your new boss with your talents so your next PDR is stellar.

Also, if you push this ‘not my job’ ‘I wasn’t capable’ stuff too far it will backfire on you because your new boss will be filled in and will micromanage you to cover their back. You’ll have to have everything checked and agree to all tasks in writing etc.

This was an email about a project that you run, OP. That's what you said in your OP. So I think it's very likely that you do know the type of corporate language used to frame things, and ignored that because of your frustration.

Don't claim it was your manager's job to send the email, not you. It was delegated from her manager, delegation happens, you can't pass the blame upwards on this one I'm afraid. Ask if you can add a comment to the PDR and ask for training if you think it's appropriate.

But - I suspect you don't need training, your frustration got the better of you and you sent a message that you knew wouldn't go down well. You're not being disciplined for it, so think about adding a comment in to your PDR and let it go. By taking it to the Union you are going to be making it a far bigger thing than it needs to be.

Yes, delegation happens. But as this was clearly the manager's responsibility, she should have made sure the email was worded properly. Especially as it was about a sensitive issue.

OP, you should have asked for someone to check your wording, even if not the manager herself.

Regardless of whether you or she are right or wrong, I would not be a fan of mentioning one specific incident in a PDR (assuming that is some sort of annual performance review?) and would ask that it be removed and that the discussion for the PDR be more generally around my performance (over the year) - the issue could come up in the discussion as an example, but to note it in the PDR seems wrong.

Lizzie she did get someone to check it, but I suspect it wasn't someone who was appropriately placed to check re. political sensitivities.

Someone higher up the management structure, maybe the senior manager who asked for the email to be written? That's what I would have done.

I very rarely comment on this stuff OP, but I feel really strongly that you shouldn’t make a fuss on this one and take on the chin as others have suggested.

The risk you run by ‘getting it in writing’ that it ‘wasn’t your task’ is that you will be perceived as massively inflexible, unwilling to support and that you are calling out that you can’t send out a meeting invitation with a little bit of context. That’s not where I’d want to be perceived if I’m charged with leading projects. In my organisation, The most junior staff are expected to send invitations with brief, sometimes vague context. Don’t give someone an excuse to say you are not capable of doing tasks that the most junior staff can do. If it suits your senior management, they will structure a narrative around this that will have much longer term impacts than what has happened so far.

I think some of this is just down to experience. I’m in a senior role, but quite often end up setting up meetings for my boss if the subject matter is so sensitive that he doesn’t want his PA to know. It’s sometimes so sensitive that I don’t know what it’s about either... but I’m expected to get an invitation in diaries where there’s usually no slot that works for all attendees and compel them to prioritise this meeting over others. Not always easy - my trick is to simply say ‘xxx has asked me to organise this meeting to discuss project xxx. Detailed agenda to follow by xx date.’ I then sort out the agenda with my manager nearer the time. This doesn’t go in the invitation so nobody who has access to attendees’ calendars can see what’s being discussed, and therefore no risk of leaking the message.

If I’m missing something, then apologies, but if you were only asked to organise the meeting, would something like this have worked? If so, I’d take that as your learning and move on.

I’d worry that your proposed approach could be massively misconstrued and be used to show you in a negative light from a competence perspective.

I have read all of the thread and totally agree with myboyamelie. You kick up a big fuss about this and you're kind of proving the point that she made in the original PDR about attitude.

If you get the chance to put commentary in the PDR then I would mention the pertinent point you have made here which is that you ran the communication in question past a colleague as your line manager was not available to discuss it with you and it had a tight timeframe.

I'd also add the communications training to your development plan so going forward you're able to structure your communications effectively.

Everyone makes mistakes - I do it frequently - but generally people are understanding provided you take the learning point on board - bonus points if you come forward yourself before they have to point it out to you.

Your current manager is leaving and your new manager should base their opinion on people based on how they see them and work with them, rather than a previous PDR. Therefore I think it would be much more sensible to put this behind you rather than making it into a bigger thing than it is already.

Yes the LA comments are correct (it is that situation of shite management and the task should not have been delegated to me BUT I didn’t use the word “cuts” and was vague.

I spoke to my Union rep today (left a message).

My current manager will still be on my team but we will share a manager.

You’re involving your union? Over this? Seriously?

I spoke to my Union rep today (left a message).

And this is why union members and public sector workers have a bad reputation...

I wouldn't take an informal warning over this. And I would involve the union as well. If something comes up in the future (as is the way of local government) they will use this incident as a stick to beat you with. Unfortunately have spent too many years working for local government to know exactly how this works.

NoqontroI

Exactly - and I pay £15 a month to be a member of my Union so Inam perfectly entitled to ask their advice.