Unprofessional

[Kearney]

I am a 'professional'. The organisation I work for is 'heavily invested in IT' but the systems are clunky and frustrating to navigate. They are not intuitive. The organisation has no process map or instruction manual so employees are reliant on memory or seeking advice. I asked a senior 'professional' in my multidisciplinary team in a different strand a question via email with regard to how a particular process worked. Senior wrote back, did not answer my question and told me that I was 'unprofessional' and was 'surprised' by my attitude and behaviour. I simply wrote an email seeing advice, guidance and clarity regarding a particular process. I have read and re-read my question and I cannot see how it could be interpreted as being unprofessional.
I am incandescent with rage by senior's response. I am also upset and surprised by my own reaction. I simply want to get a job done, and not let the people reliant on me down. I need to do something about this but I'm not sure what. Any advice much appreciated.

@SpongeBobJudgeyPants

Can you run it by your line-manager, assuming not the same person? Or would that make it worse, depending on the culture of your organisation and the personality of line-manager. I agree, if we had a bit more info, without being outing, we would be better-placed to comment.

My line manager suggested I send the email.

Not sure where you work OP but if you work for NHS/Social Services did you breach someone’s confidentiality? That’s the only reason I can think of for a response like that. Without seeing your email and knowing what it pertained to makes it impossible to give an honest opinion.

Speak to your line manager.

You keep saying they told you to send the email, so show them the response and no doubt they will give you their views. You might feel better just to hear that you haven't done anything wrong.

@RandyLionandDirtyDog

Senior wrote back, did not answer my question and told me that I was 'unprofessional' and was 'surprised' by my attitude and behaviour.

It’s pretty obvious, I’d have thought.

Senior hasn’t a fucking clue either, so they immediately resort to the blame game, rather than admit, they don’t know, as that would make them feel foolish and they mustn’t lose face at any cost.

Yes exactly this - senior feels threatened.

"Unprofessional" is such a non specific catch all complaint.

I'm always a bit wary of people who use it. It often boils down to " you didn't act the way I would have done in this situation". Or simply "You didn't do what was best for me".

I'd always ask exactly what they mean by it.

I know your line manager suggested you send the email but have you sought their advice on how you worded the email and if they can see the issue the recipient saw?

I would discuss this with your line manager. They can give insight into if you said something wrong or if it is the other person being odd. I don't think anyone here can really judge.

You keep saying they told you to send the email, so show them the response and no doubt they will give you their views.

I agree with this. Push it back on your line manager; they told you what to do and they need to see what the consequences have been, and to advise you on where to go from here.

Discuss with the line manager as others have suggested. There are some people who are just rude whenever they can be it seems.

The organisation I work for is 'heavily invested in IT' but the systems are clunky and frustrating to navigate. They are not intuitive.
I can believe this. UX is a specialist area. Some front ends of applications are poorly designed.

The organisation has no process map or instruction manual so employees are reliant on memory or seeking advice.
There should be instructions or documented procedures.

I asked a senior 'professional' in my multidisciplinary team in a different strand a question via email with regard to how a particular process worked.
Without seeing the e-mail, I can't tell if it was unprofessional, but it sounds reasonable to me.

At a guess, it was interpreted as you criticising them or their system.
I'd show the response to your line manager, and between you issue a request for the process to be documented.

Any chance the copying in of your manager may have riled them?

I really hate it when people do that for no apparent reason.

Most of the time it's being done either passive aggressively or because the person lacks the confidence just to ask a question without having their manager back them up, in either circumstance I find it really unprofessional and a bit childish.

pastabest you may have a valid point, or they may hate your manager and be taking it out on you.

We have friends who are quite smug about their designing an IT system for their company twenty years ago or more - and nobody else really knows how it works and they're about to retire youngish. You have my sympathies. Nothing insurance related?

Just forward it to your manager and ask them to deal with it.
Reply to the email thanking them for their response and telling them you have forwarded it to your manager so that they can deal with it.

@DelphiniumBlue

Just forward it to your manager and ask them to deal with it. Reply to the email thanking them for their response and telling them you have forwarded it to your manager so that they can deal with it.

Way to lose credibility with your manager and scupper any chance of promotion - Cause a shit storm then hand the problem to your manager to clear up the mess!

Daisychain, not at all.
D id you miss the fact that the manager told OP to send the email in the first place? The manager should have done that themselves. O P won't lose credibility, everyone already knows that neither sh e nor her manager knew how to deal with the issue. The manager actually needs to take responsibility here.

Well no, I didnt miss the fact that the boss suggested the OP sorts it out by liaising directly with "snotty Manager" but surely it's not beyond their wit to send a follow-on email to said manager to try and get the information they need and move things on from the "unprofessional" comment.

Who knows, we're all guessing because we haven't met this Manager nor have we even seen the emails to make a judgement who got out of bed the wrong side that day - hell, maybe they were both equally grumpy and need their heads bashing together. It's all guesswork like a lot of these posts that half describe something and expect MNers to magically have all the answers!