Have you ever received really bad feedback at work and how did you deal with it ?

[flowtruck]

A few months back I received some pretty bad feedback at work. I was pretty devastated.

I worked with this manager 10 years or so ago and then started working under him again last year.

After a few months he asked me ' what had happened to me ?' ' why was I so under confident' when I was explaining a tricky situation in an account I was working on to him.

He also made some remarks that the stuff I could get away with some years ago in terms of my 'cute quirks ' didn't fly anymore now I was in a more senior position.

It really absolutely devastated me and has just destroyed my confidence. I left the company not long after, not just because of that but generally I felt everyone just thought I was shit at my job.

I'm not sure how to come back from it.

It doesn’t sound like this was good or reliable feedback. Unless he was pointing out specific issues with examples and then giving you advice on how to improve, it isn’t meaningful or worthwhile. His comments were vague and personal.

I honestly think you can disregard them as being his issue, not yours.

Sounds like there is quite a bit of residual which you need to work through and process - including whether it is actually valid or not.

Have you got a coach or mentor you could spend a few hours with to unpack it all and work through your thoughts on the matter? If dealt with probably and faced into these things will become usual developmental opportunities for self improvement.

Or it is not a fair reflection of the situation and just the perception of one person, which you will also be able to move on from one you have that squared off inside your own mind

Sitting and letting it fester or trying to work it all out on your own without external stimulus is less likely to help

Thanks for your comments. It's a tough one isn't it. I still feel cut up about it all and have just tried not to think about it.

I did have some coaching to work through some of it at the time.

This doesn't sound fatal, OP!

I was thinking you meant something like "You are not meeting performance expectations in this role and we are initiating a PIP"

This sounds like a person leaking thoughtless stray comments. He's not everyone! He's just a hapless human making the same mistakes in life as anyone, saying stupid things and crashing about.

It really sounds like his problem/error, not yours. How can you find a way to let it go?

This isn't anything to get worked up about. I'd guess you feel his feedback is accurate and it's hit a nerve for you to feel so strongly about it

That sounds unprofessional to me, TBH. 'Cute quirks' is not a term you use about an employee. I also think it is a bit odd to focus on your apparent lack of confidence, rather than giving you substantive feedback on what it was you did or didn't do.

So, TBH, I think it's a case of 'him not you' and try to move past it.

I'm very sorry you have had unhelpful feedback and hope that you get the right circumstances to work through it in a way that can set your mind at ease rather than knock your confidence, as his sort of clumsy reaction seems to have done.

Genuinely helpful feedback, properly handled can be a really effective way to grow.

This doesn't sound as if it were that.

Okay, so first of this wasn’t feedback this was your boss being a dick and undermining you.

So recently I got hung up on a similar thing (albeit an email) and this is how I found the best way to get over it…

Firstly write down his “feedback” and his context as a story including what characters felt and what contributing external factors there may have been. Then take yours and his emotion and supposition out of it so it becomes a factual list of events.

After that try using the factual list of events to answer the question “explain a time when you received feedback in the workplace, how did you deal with it?”

By the end of this I was completely disconnected emotionally from my example and had it down to the cold hard facts of

1. it was my day off I had no obligation to respond to you but did and when you failed to continue the conversation I took my initiative to limit the impact on stakeholders.
2. We had only been working together 3-4 months and you were already avoiding meetings on my work and so preventing me receiving useful feedback and clear expectations, which meant I was struggling to take forward my tasks effectively.
3. You and the director changed the deadlines previously agreed with the external person and as result they called you out on this. I’m not at fault for your interpretation of other external people’s emails.

The rest of the email was him being an arse and punching down because he felt out of his depth, nowt to do with me and more to do with him. I suspect this will be the conclusion you will end up with - it really wasn’t you and it really was him!

I had some negative feedback from my current boss. The whole situation was very weird because they accused me of being aggressive (amongst other things) during a meeting with a lot of other people in. I checked in with the other 8 people in the meeting and no-one else thought I'd been aggressive. My boss also couldn't give me any precise examples of aggressive things I'd done.
The irony of it all was that my boss was pretty aggressive (and very personal!) when they told me this!
I was pretty upset at the time, but am now basically treating it as more their issue than mine. The feedback was not constructive, nor I think justified, so I've just disregarded it and lost some confidence and respect for my boss.

I got really terrible feedback once after working at a company for nearly 6 months. My stats were great and I was genuinely confused. They said they would have to extend my probation. I told them straight that they were being ridiculous and showed them my stats. A week after I was offered a promotion as someone on another team had quit. Apparently they always tried to keep people on probation as long as possible. I realised then that the company was utter shite and that it was all just office politics.

I had been in a new job as a housekeeper for 3 months when the woman came home early to sit me down and basically destroy my character in one fell swoop, right down to how I couldn't charge my phone at her house while working. I didn't dust inside her wardrobe etc..apparently her previous housekeepers had done so much more with half the hours and 2 more dogs to care for (funnily enough she got rid of one who couldn't cope with the workload)
My response was to hold it all in until she left then break down crying like a child and ring my husband who told me to just quit cos she is a bully

Ps I looked up company feedback at a later date as she was ceo of her dad's company and a lot of it called her a bully

They sound like an awful manager! I manage a team and would never speak to anyone like this. Everyone at times feels like they aren’t performing as well at work - a mangers job is to ensure you have the right tools to perform, and that includes coaching, helping build confidence and certainly not alluding to anything that amounts as agism (when younger your cute quirks - I mean WTF). Don’t ever feel that kind of talk is acceptable. Should you have had a dip - so what, life incl work, is up and down. You have skills and experience - you certainly can build your confidence up again. Hugs X

Often managers will post their own weaknesses/issues onto you. For example, a partner at an accountancy firm fed back that their PA could dress more smartly/professionally. Totally untrue but very upsetting for the PA concerned but guess which partner was often seen wearing his breakfast or lunch on his tie and shirt. I think sadly this manager is projecting his own shortcomings on you.

You no longer work there, you will shortly be working in somewhere much better for you... leave his comments behind and start afresh with whichever version of you, you want to be!

that feedback isn’t constructive and you should give him feedback about his delivery and how it has made you feel.

But when feedback is constructive it can be helpful. I’ve worked at my company for nearly 12 years and I love it, and over that time I have worked with lots of people and had lots of line managers. All of who have given me feedback along the lines of “you always get the job done and get it done well, you just don’t always go about it the right way.” - my current line manager who was quite honest about how I can change that. Since I got that feedback I’ve changed a lot. I don’t always get it spot on, but it’s a marked difference.

So whilst hearing ‘bad’ feedback can be hard, it’s important to know where we’re falling down so we can fix it.

I recently had 45 minutes of negative feedback after a lesson observation. I was basically told that the children hadn't learnt anything and I was a bad teacher. It really hit hard and I forgot all the positive feedback I have had over the past 25 years.

However much I tried to rationalise it and ignore it I found it lingered. I am now struggling to get a new job and found the first few interviews very hard because I wasn't promoting myself but that is now changing.

That isn't feed back it's bloody sexist. I'm a bloke and would never describe a colleagues actions as "cute"

Personally I've reached a stage in life where I'd tell him to fuck his job, walk into hr tell them I'm jacking and why.

Only ever done something similar once in my life when I worked in a pub and the landlord was a drunk and left me at 19 to deal with 20 sailors fighting...didn't bother...took my wages from the till and walked out...felt so good!