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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Was I wrong for speaking out at staff meeting today

214 replies

Safarigiraffe · 26/04/2023 22:53

Had a staff meeting today after work, boss goes round asking everyone at the end of the meeting if any of us had any questions or anything to say so I said that staff in a particular room are not doing their part in what they have to do to help us out so then both my bosses tell me to watch my tone of voice & not to mention names (I mentioned no names only mentioned the room in particular) made me feel uncomfortable, guilty & awkward after for saying something. So should I of kept quiet or were my bosses being unreasonable for telling me to watch my tone of voice & not to mention names

OP posts:
GoodChat · 29/04/2023 07:01

Whochangedmynamec · 29/04/2023 06:07

In fact when you email it over you can do this:-

  1. positive and complimentary statement, however 2)problem
  2. how it is impacting you- eg work not done, causing you to finish late
  3. solution, give you the work earlier positive future result of solution eg increase in productivity all targets hit etc

It's all about phrasing- instead of Lucy and Sandra are shit- productivity has been affected negatively by the late submission of. Use the passive tense to avoid apportioning blame as you have to continue working with them.

You don't have to create a shit sandwich for incompetent people.

SparklyBlackKitten · 29/04/2023 07:04

That was a huge mistake op...some things are meant to be talked about in private.

SquidwardBound · 29/04/2023 07:58

what were you expecting from this thread?

You behaved unprofessionally. You’re going to have to make significant effort to make amends and not be a nightmare colleague.

Issues like workload are things that you raise with your manager who resolves it by working with the manager of the staff affected.

Invitations for anything anyone might have at the very end of a meeting are for quick announcements/invitations for minor stuff you’d like people to pick up with you separately (not discuss then and there). It’s ‘I’m doing the local half marathon for X charity’ or ‘I’m running a quick session about X next Tuesday lunchtime; there is room for a couple more if anyone is interested‘ territory.

Even if there was going to be a staff meeting discussion about how to handle last minute requests, ‘just want to say about the xxxx room not to bring us things at the last min expecting us to do it for them’ is not an appropriate or professional contribution.

JenWillsiam · 29/04/2023 11:10

Safarigiraffe · 27/04/2023 20:01

Got a verbal warning over this at work & they spoke to me about being unprofessional & it came across as very harsh.

It’s not harsh.

That was not the forum for feedback like that. Completely inappropriate.

Lollingabout · 29/04/2023 20:16

Everyone needs to back off now - this thread is days old and the poor OP accepted she got it wrong pages back yet you people are still hopping on the bandwagon and queuing up to throw stones. Like bloody vultures it’s shameful.

cherish123 · 29/04/2023 20:29

It's a bit cheeky of them to tell you to watch your tone. You are not a child. However, I can see why they would say don't name names. In hindsight, it's probably not a good idea to tell tales.

Blogswife · 29/04/2023 20:42

It’s not appropriate to discuss your gripes with colleagues in an open forum . For obvious reasons your boss won’t want to discuss the situation in front of everyone . You needed to have a word with your manager in private and give them time to investigate your complaint.
It’s hard to comment on your tone of voice without being there but as 2 people mentioned it, perhaps you were coming across as aggressive.

Hellno45 · 29/04/2023 22:52

You should raise performance things privately. It's unprofessional to do it during a team meeting. I imagine your tine was down to nerves.

Thirdsummerofourdiscontent · 29/04/2023 23:46

Public criticism of people can often be seen as bullying.

Jourdain11 · 29/04/2023 23:57

JenWillsiam · 29/04/2023 11:10

It’s not harsh.

That was not the forum for feedback like that. Completely inappropriate.

I think OP means they spoke to her saying that she needs to be more professional, because what she said came across as very harsh.

ColourMeBlue · 30/04/2023 00:02

I think the bosses were actually sticking up for you in a way.Yes,it should have been brought up at another time,but also by reminding you to "watch your tone" ment they were covering both themselves AND you,incase word had gone back to said party.i honestly wouldn't worry about.

Matchymatchylemonscratchy · 30/04/2023 01:31

Wildly inappropriate behaviour from you. Suspect you won’t be very popular going forward. This should have been discussed with your manager and the other team’s manager only.

bd67thSaysReinstateLangCleg · 30/04/2023 01:34

PicaK · 26/04/2023 23:04

Your boss was looking for queries or for positive input, ideas. Your response was negative - it was inappropriate for the situation and potentially very damaging for interdepartmental relationships. Therefore your boss publically censored you. Not brilliant management either.
You sound 5 tbh with the "well he said to Say" defence because in an adult world it's obvious what input was needed.

in an ablist world designed for neurotypical people's convenience it's obvious what input was needed.

Fixed that for you.

Autistic people take instructions very literally and are then confused and hurt when the normies start yelling at us when we have done exactly what you asked us to. OP's account mirrors numerous past incidents in my working life.

I'm not saying that OP specifically is autistic. I'm saying that you can expect people not to obey "unwritten rules" (aka expectation traps) because autistic people exist, so if you want people not to say uncomfortable truths about colleagues, your end-of-meeting closing question needs to explicitly state that concerns about other teams or individuals should be not be raised here.

Chezza2502 · 30/04/2023 01:44

You were all asked if you had anything to say and you said what you needed to say. Maybe your bosses were miffed that you had said it because it brings to light that they are probably lacking in doing what they are supposed to do. As for your tone of voice, did they expect you to talk like you're speaking to a child. If the other team are supposed to help out and they don't, then I don't think it was unreasonable for you to highlight this.

MyEyesAreBleeding · 30/04/2023 01:58

Lollingabout · 29/04/2023 20:16

Everyone needs to back off now - this thread is days old and the poor OP accepted she got it wrong pages back yet you people are still hopping on the bandwagon and queuing up to throw stones. Like bloody vultures it’s shameful.

Totally agree. Typical mumsnet. 😔

Northernsouloldies · 30/04/2023 01:59

When bosses ask any questions, they usually don't want any it's a way to conclude a meeting. If they want a question it's usually a rehearsed one, nothing controversial. Op would have been better talking in private. She knows that now as I'm sure she ended up with a verbal warning.

rowanoak · 30/04/2023 02:00

That was really unprofessional and not the right way for you to address grievances with your co-workers, nor the right tone. When your boss asked if anyone had any questions, she probably meant in general or about what had been discussed previously at the meeting, etc., rather than inviting anyone to publicly call out someone else! And by saying a particular room, yes, you were naming names as in the staff who work in that room.

I own a company and this kind of reminds me of a time when I had an employee who was constantly trying to air her grievances with other employees publicly, calling them out on what she thought they were doing wrong and telling them what they should change about their jobs, etc. She wasn't their manager- in fact, she would even speak like this to the manager about his job- and no one had put her in charge of policing others but she seemed intent on doing so.

I would have had no problem with her coming to me and telling me of an issue she had with other employees or the manager or myself that was preventing her from being able to do her job as well, or that she thought was inappropriate or maybe even suggestions as to something she thought was going wrong or how work could be done better by others, etc., but it was completely inappropriate for her to do in a public forum.

She was otherwise a good employee and very productive and I relied on her for a lot but she wouldn't stop being like this and I couldn't allow her to constantly be ruffling the feathers of other employees. It came to a head when she tried to tell the manager he was doing his job wrong and snapped at him in a rude way on a public channel in Slack (this was during Covid/remote work) and he messaged her privately to tell her that he was sorry that he had accidentally done something to make her job harder and that he's open to feedback but that it isn't right of her to talk to him like that and get him attitude publicly calling him out for what she thinks is him not doing his job well enough. He asked her to speak to him politely and to address any issues one on one so they could communicate and solve it together and she completely ignored him and didn't respond to him at all.

So, I had to get involved and I tried to talk to her privately simply to reiterate that she needs to address her colleagues in a civil, professional way even if it's on Slack (trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that she might not understand online communicate etiquette even though we had been over similar things with her communication style in person during office meetings pre-Covid, etc.), and telling her that I need her to communicate with the manager and try to work out any issues with him rather than ignore him, and to discuss any issues she has about his work with him one on one, or with me one on one if it's something she wouldn't feel comfortable telling him, but not publicly and not disrespectfully.

She totally blew up at me and said that I'm wrong and that I owe her an apology. She wanted me to take her side in what she believed was a dispute between them I guess, but which I viewed as a simple workplace communication request. I honestly didn't care who was right or wrong about the issue but my problem was with the format and tone in which she had chosen to address it, and her refusal to speak to him about it one on one after calling him out publicly on it, or to even hear another person's point of view and consider it and calmly state her own point of view instead of snapping at people and then completely ignoring people (let alone her manager) or blowing up at people (let alone her boss, me, haha) for not automatically agreeing with her or seeing things her way.

It resulted in her saying that unless I apologized to her and agreed that she was right, she would quit. I said that I was not going to apologize for speaking with her about an issue that I thought needed handling when I'm the boss and she's the employee, and that we were obviously at an impasse. She said, "You're right, we definitely are, this is ridiculous, I quit."

I was really glad she quit as it saved me the hassle of having to worry about an unemployment claim or prove that she was fired for cause after repeatedly being talked to about the way in which she addressed issues at work or tried to boss other people around even when she was the subordinate, etc. (I don't even like all that workplace hierarchy stuff and try to run a casual ship, which I guess was the problem because she took that to mean she was in charge and threw a fit whenever I'd remind her that she wasn't.) But if she hadn't quit then I would have had to have fired her since she was being too difficult in the workplace and causing problems for other employees and now me. Although there were a lot of things she did that I had to start doing myself while training someone new to do instead, it was worth it to be rid of her because she was too much of a headache.

All of this to say that you should work on your etiquette and communication style at work if you want to be there for very long (or anywhere else really). Asking if someone has any questions or something to say is not an invitation to attack your co-workers' work publicly. Causing drama or hurt feelings unnecessarily will get you canned unless you are stubborn enough to quit unless everyone agrees with your way of doing things and communicating about things, like my former employee was.

There are really better ways and places and times to have addressed your concerns. I'm not even sure if it was any of your business but if the staff not tending to the room enough was influencing your work then you could talk to them about it one on one in a civil, professional manner to see what the problem might be and how it might be resolved in a mutually agreeable way, and if that didn't solve it then you could respectfully approach your boss privately and let him know that your ability to do your job was being impacted by someone else's failure to do theirs, and even then, you would want to frame it in a more neutral way than you did at the meeting.

You should say something like, "In order for me to do X, Y needs to be done first, and Y has not been done on dates Z, A and B so I have had a really hard time doing X, and so I wanted to bring it to your attention and see if you can help solve this problem." Then the boss might ask if you've spoken with the employees who are supposed to do Y and you can say that you have but they disagreed with your take on things or refused to do the job etc. and so you escalated the issue.

Sometimes if there are severe personality clashes or a toxic workplace or something like that where you don't think it's a good idea to talk to the co-worker directly, you might go directly to your boss but it should still be privately and in a way that keeps the focus on your own job and on helping you be able to do it, rather than seemingly pointing the finger at other people just to call them out on things like it seems to me that you were doing at the meeting. (Although I don't have the full context since your OP was very brief.)

I wonder if your workplace has some kind of inter-personal communication skills training that HR offers or if not, you might want to read some books or watch some videos on the topic if all of this sounds foreign to you. From your OP It sounds like you're flabbergasted as to why what you said/how you said it wasn't well-received, so it seems like something you should probably educate yourself on just for the good of your own career.

rowanoak · 30/04/2023 02:14

MattTebbuttsDenimShirt · 27/04/2023 01:19

I knew someone would say this.

Especially because diagnosed in my late 40s it was exactly the sort of thing I'd bring up in a work meeting. You get asked a question - you answer it truthfully. Work is a minefield with all this professional behaviour. It's two faced, everyone is two faced, why doesn't everyone tell the truth, then we can deal with it.

Highly qualified, can't hold down a job 🤣

I'm actually on disability now because of it. I'd speak the truth, get sidelined or whatever for doing so. Go home and self harm.

If team xxxx are shunting all their work over last minute, and you're doing it for them, then sing it from the rooftops the lazy slow bastards!

No, don't do that. Just keep gob shut next time and understand that the last the the manager wants to hear is the truth.

Nod and smile, roll your eyes, nod and smile. Or actually speak up. It doesn't go down very well.

I learned diplomacy from the Homer school of Simpson Putin.

But the problem is that she doesn't know that room X is being lazy or slow, etc. Maybe things are being brought to THEM late or come up late at the last minute, etc. There are often two sides to every story and it's wrong to assume bad behavior on someone else's part without at least bringing it up to them first and getting their side of the story, or phrasing it as a workplace issue as a whole in terms of trying to figure out where the delays or other obstacles are happening and what can be done to stop it. It's wrong to think that one's own perception of what is happening is "the truth" or to publicly chastise people without privately giving them a chance to explain.

rowanoak · 30/04/2023 02:23

liste · 27/04/2023 08:54

I think you took the "any questions/things to say" a bit too literally. It doesn't mean that it's appropriate to say absolutely anything. Surely you know there's a line? Would you say the following are appropriate?

"I just wanted to let everyone know that Dave and Lisa are having an affair"

"I just wanted to tell you that I hate this place and hearing you drone on makes me want to gouge my own eyes out"

Presuming the answer to the above is "no" then why not? Your boss said you can use the time to ask questions/say anything?

The reason you don't is because it's unprofessional and inappropriate. Presuming you understand that my extreme examples aren't appropriate, then what people are telling you is that what you said also crossed the line into unprofessionalism.

"Any questions?" means things like "would you like us to prioritise the task we just spoke about the the task we were assigned last week?" or "would you like the first draft emailing over or shall I wait until it's finished?" - Small, easy questions to finish off the meeting.

Things to say are things like "I just wanted to let everyone know that the printer on our floor is out of order so you won't be able to use it today but it will hopefully be fixed by the morning".

It's not an appropriate place to criticise your colleagues in public and throw them under the bus in front of everyone. That's something that's more appropriate to do in private. It comes across like you were trying to have a dig and get them in trouble in front of your bosses.

I just wanted to thank you for injecting humor into this situation because I enjoyed literally laughing out loud at your post.

Toomanylatenightprogs · 30/04/2023 04:02

If it had been the other way around and the boss had said in front of everyone Safari your room is holding everyone up, slowing the whole process down, wouldn’t you have felt embarrassed, singled out? Wouldn’t you have preferred the boss to take you aside and speak to you in private about it?
We all need to say things at work that affect others, but there are ways of saying the that are effective and professional.

Thoughtful2355 · 30/04/2023 06:49

Rip but i dont even work and i know the questions thing at the end of a meeting more means does anyone have anything to say regarding what weve talked about in this meeting. not literallly anything.

Was your comment made in front of the XXX room?

YABU to not have pulled your manager aside and told them

Scienceadvisory · 30/04/2023 10:19

bd67thSaysReinstateLangCleg · 30/04/2023 01:34

in an ablist world designed for neurotypical people's convenience it's obvious what input was needed.

Fixed that for you.

Autistic people take instructions very literally and are then confused and hurt when the normies start yelling at us when we have done exactly what you asked us to. OP's account mirrors numerous past incidents in my working life.

I'm not saying that OP specifically is autistic. I'm saying that you can expect people not to obey "unwritten rules" (aka expectation traps) because autistic people exist, so if you want people not to say uncomfortable truths about colleagues, your end-of-meeting closing question needs to explicitly state that concerns about other teams or individuals should be not be raised here.

I don't think it's ablist to expect someone to not slag off their colleagues in a public meeting. None of the ND colleagues I have would ever be so rude or mean - they would also be horrified if they had inadvertently been so. Not all bad behaviour is down to neurodiversity.

I think it's unrealistic for meeting chairs to have to list out everything they expect not to happen I.e. any thoughts or questions but please don't, 1. Slag off your colleagues , 2. Swear, 3. Bring the company into disrepute, 4. Tell us about your weekend plans, 5. Tell us what a shit meeting this was etc.

SquidwardBound · 30/04/2023 11:34

I also (and I am neurodiverse) don’t think that it’s ablist to expect professionals not to respond to an end of meeting request for comments or questions with an obvious dig at another team.

It’s not just ‘being honest’ or ‘telling the truth’. It’s a bitchy comment and attempt to tell another team off/what to do in public (‘just want to say about the xxxx room not to bring us things at the last min expecting us to do it for them’). If there’s an issue with this there are clear and obvious channels for raising it.

It isn’t actually helpful to ND people to shout ablism at this stuff (especially when an OP has said nothing about being ND). If someone needs more support to be able to navigate staff meetings at work, they should have a reasonable adjustment to coach them and ensure they’re raising issues in appropriate ways. But insisting that unless a chair reminds everyone that they shouldn’t have a whinge about other people in the meeting it’s some sort of ablist discrimination is silly.

bd67thSaysReinstateLangCleg · 30/04/2023 11:52

SquidwardBound · 30/04/2023 11:34

I also (and I am neurodiverse) don’t think that it’s ablist to expect professionals not to respond to an end of meeting request for comments or questions with an obvious dig at another team.

It’s not just ‘being honest’ or ‘telling the truth’. It’s a bitchy comment and attempt to tell another team off/what to do in public (‘just want to say about the xxxx room not to bring us things at the last min expecting us to do it for them’). If there’s an issue with this there are clear and obvious channels for raising it.

It isn’t actually helpful to ND people to shout ablism at this stuff (especially when an OP has said nothing about being ND). If someone needs more support to be able to navigate staff meetings at work, they should have a reasonable adjustment to coach them and ensure they’re raising issues in appropriate ways. But insisting that unless a chair reminds everyone that they shouldn’t have a whinge about other people in the meeting it’s some sort of ablist discrimination is silly.

I am recently diagnosed autistic (late last year) and I have walked into this expectation trap and others like it many times.

The problem with your "fix the autist" approach of coaching is that we don't all have a diagnosis with which to get that reasonable adjustment put in place. I am still waiting for my case management conference to agree reasonable adjustments, meaning that I still struggle unsupported.

The workplace should be made to work for the undiagnosed as well as the diagnosed. As soon as I started thinking of "normal workplace" as actually being the set of adjustments made to suit allistic people, this all became clear.

bd67thSaysReinstateLangCleg · 30/04/2023 14:27

especially when an OP has said nothing about being ND

A year ago, I would have said nothing about being autistic because I was yet to have my diagnostic assessments.

I think it's unrealistic for meeting chairs to have to list out everything they expect not to happen I.e. any thoughts or questions but please don't...

A common feature at conferences etc is a written code of conduct (CoC). This helps to set expectations about behaviour in an environment that may have attendees from different countries where behavioural norms are substantially different from each other. CoCs are also helpful to autistic people because they codify the "unwritten rules" that allistic people live by. I would argue that CoCs constitute an example of intangible "universal design". I've been in classrooms and meeting rooms that have a written CoC (often titled something like "learners' responsibilities" or "respectful meetings guide", but it's recognisably a CoC) prominently displayed on the wall. My point being that the chair's behavioural expectation management can be summarised as "questions should obey CoC".

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