I snapped at work… how bad is it?

[Freakedfreaked]

Im in a mid management role, no direct reports but do work with people more junior, their job is to support me and my peer in the delivery of key business tasks.

I’m relatively new in the role (6 months) there are some obscure processes and policies I’m still finding out about. My performance in role has been met with praise from exco, so I’m doing well)

there is one jnr who frankly is incredibly difficult to the extent I dread working together because it’s a battle. A simple task is met with a huge amount of pushback and moaning and reasons why not to do something. Things mysteriously not getting saved etc etc. General rudeness. It has been escalated.

this is a persistent issue with everyone but I do feel it’s worse with me.

today, very simple bau task, the same nonsense very aggressive with it too. Then basically tattles to my peer on zoom, who then sides with me and invites me to the call. The junior guy then turns around and flips it on me, saying it’s not his responsibility and how the direction wasn’t clear. To which i pointed out it’s fine to ask a question if the ask isn’t clear but xyz needs to be done. He mumbles some shit sarcy shit about it not being clear, my peer says the email I sent was pretty clear and he’s been in role long enough to know what was meant. He mutters something under his breath. I snapped. I said, you can always ask for clarification and I don’t think the underhanded comments are needed, and it’s making me quite cross, so to that end I’m leaving this call. I think I was calm in my tone of voice, but I was shaking on the inside.

was I hideously unprofessional

my logic was, I’m not getting drawn into an argument of he said she said and playing the blame game, especially when I was feeling quite tense. They really landed me in it big time last week through not doing some key tasks. I had to work well into the night to sort it .

am I going to get a telling off?

You are unreasonable to call that snapping and to be all worried about it. You did nothing wrong, and removed yourself rather than go along with more of the nonsense. You took issue and checked him on his behaviour in a reasonable way.

Snapping would be to lose temper or control and yell or say something 'unacceptable', such as 'you are an incompetent trouble making waste of space' - which would be true. You clearly have a problem with a truculent male junior with an attitude and possibly a personal animus. It needs to be sorted out by his manager making clear that he needs to pull up his socks and work co- operatively with all colleagues or face a management process.

How odd that even your boss considers him difficult and indeed gives guidance how to handle him… but yet nothing seems to be in place to deal with the issue ie pip

Yeah we spoke and i apologised if it was dramatic, not my intention, he said it’s fine, he was also very exasperated, and it was a case of him not wanting to do it again

jnr has been there a good few years

Poor showing on the side of the company then

I don't think you were unprofessional. Diffusing the situation by putting some space between you when you felt things were getting heated was the right thing to do. I didn't see it as a "flounce" at all.

It sounds like he has had plenty of chances after being pulled up politely and some sharper words were warranted, even if they were shaper than you had planned!

I was in this position with a junior who was somewhat workshy and had an insolent attitude about being (very politely) corrected. On one occasion I was having to address with him why he'd missed a deadline especially since his timesheets were short i.e. it wasn't that he didn't have capacity for the task. He pulled a face and said he was "fed up with always being moaned at". I pretty much saw red and told him that his rudeness was not appreciated and I would bear that, and his sloppy work attitude in mind when the department head asked the team for feedback at the end of his probation. It was out of character for me (I try to keep my feedback positive and supportive) and I did wonder if I'd gone too far, but he got much better after that.

Where I am is very resistant to performance improvement and I think he’s been here a while and there may be personal things in the background. Which I’m totally sympathetic to, and if that was voiced, it would be another thing.

On balance given the circumstances one can see why you reacted in that way. The disappointing/ annoying thing is that this worker will now use this as an example of your mismanagement if a grievance is raised.

Obviously in a perfect world you would have thought on your feet and made an excuse to leave the call, like “sorry team, so and so is calling me so I have to go but please reach out if any more questions” HOWEVER you are only human and you were pulled into the call so probably not enough time to get into the right mind set and it could have gone a lot worse. On a scale of unprofessional, leaving a call is a lot better than saying something you would regret.

I very much doubt you’re going to get in trouble or anything like that, what would they even say “OP left the call abruptly”? In the unlikely event this happens you can just say “yes I apologise for leaving so abruptly, I was invited onto their existing call to offer my opinion and I thought the matter was settled and had some work to get back to, but thank you for the feedback I’ll take that on board when finishing future calls”.

Truly don’t sweat it, just take the lesson (flouncing off always makes you feel worse) and move forward professionally now.

And remember, even though you know you flounced off, they aren’t in your head so their impression of you leaving is probably less dramatic than it felt to you. In their shoes they probably just felt like you were invited onto their call, then left again after you answered their questions - remember the call wasn’t in your calendar so they have no idea what important task they interrupted you in the middle of!

Sounds like you did the right thing tbh, far better to remove yourself from the situation than let it escalate further

the head of department knows but as it occurred outside of work time I’ve not flagged it as such, only let the head of know just in case I’d be 10 mins late to log on.

but this was an issue brewing and last week was pretty bad from the jnr they caused some pretty serious inconvenience to a good few people, mainly me.

I've got up and left physical meetings when I've felt it was a waste of time. It should be normalised! 😂

I think you're safe because the colleague heard and had invited you to the call because the other tried to blame you

Seems to me you need to raise a grievance with HR and ask the nice colleague (in fact anyone else who has had enough of his shit) to join you. One person alone is easy to ignore, a number of you is more of a roar.

Frankly I think you handled it brilliantly

I’m not their line manager, so there is no mismanagement I guess, it’s more my general footing in the business and my general
progression. I feel like he sort of did it on purpose tbh

In which case I don't see it as a massive issue.

So he’s a poor performer
Doesn’t accept responsibility
And incapable on following clear instructions
and he is like this with everyone and even the boss is aware of his failings

and he remains employed for a “good few years” by them and remains so

Sounds like a pretty shite business

Ask yourself how would you feel if you were an observer in this scenario e.g. if your peer is the one who left the call. I expect you'd feel they were justified in doing so and you wouldn't think less of them for it?

I said, I’m going to leave the call though, bye. I did feel connected. Waa.

now I’m just overthinking this. Feeling like a right idiot. But I didn’t want to get angrier but my peer messaged me back and was like, ‘you’re fine lol’ so can’t be that much of a big deal? Right?

Would this be in the public sector by any chance?

I feel like he sort of did it on purpose tbh

did what on purpose? Making out he did not understand your instructions? Bit of an odd tactic considering your peer also saw your instruction email

It’s happened to me here too actually, someone didn’t like someone else’s ideas so just said, I can’t deal with this and left. It was a bit awkward, can’t lie. I’d probably check in on them, if I was the observer

you were fine. Do not over think this as you have done nothing wrong.

when he musters under his breath, say. Please can you say that aloud. Then make a show of writing it down. Document document document.

. I snapped. I said, you can always ask for clarification and I don’t think the underhanded comments are needed, and it’s making me quite cross, so to that end I’m leaving this call.

but actually

**, I’m going to leave the call though, bye. I did feel connected. Waa.

Yeah, making out I hadn’t explained it very well. Even though there’s an email and it’s a bau task and it was mentioned on a team call.

it’s a tried and true trick. Blame someone else, so you sort of get bamzoozled and distracted so he’s not culpable. He sort of stonewalls you. It’s one of the thousand roadblocks he throws up, to either run down the clock so someone else does it, or so you just give up and do it yourself

Yes I said the underhanded comments aren’t necessary, and it’s making me quite cross, im going to leave the call…

so it was clear that those things were all connected so i cant be like i was hoping into another call

How did you guess?