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 should not get a tell off at all . You tried to help he refused to accept said help you have done your part . Those above you will need to support you and deal with this junior .
I’m not sure what you do but the juniors I e been getting the last few years are absolutely horrendous . I’m having to constantly remind them of how to follow procedure , when I called one off for a repeated mistake I was greeted with all excuses and lots of crying , followed by missing work due to stress and his mother calling me . I have no idea what’s happening with this new working generation but they take no accountability for their actions .

If you’re asking it means it’s probably pretty bad.

No call like that never ended with the reasonable person wondering if they could have done better. I have been reasonable all day, but when the person that asked me something had evidently not read the email I sent last week (which incidentally said PLS READ, IMPORTANT INFO RE X) I was at first terse, then extremely irked when they claimed it must not have been delivered. Particularly as I re-sent it this morning just in case.

So now I feel inexplicably bad for being irritable.

I think it is a learning experience for me, dealing with difficult characters and still getting results so I think I have to persevere.

my general feedback is that I’m too nice and this guy has just used that.

God there's always one isn't there? I am patience personified but after one to many prods lost my shit with this person, you could have heard us shouting 3 streets away.
Nothing came of it.

Does it? Did you read my posts?

curious if you’re trying to pile on and upset me or it’s actually really bad?

She's trying to pile on OP - ignore her. She probably hasn't bothered reading your posts either. Unfortunately, there are people like this on MN.

Ah Nice! love that. Maybe it’s my jnr 😉

I think you dealt with this well.

As others have said, it’s best to remove yourself once you start to feel riled. This wasn’t a one-off and I think the junior’s behaviour justified you stating that you didn’t appreciate the under-the-breath comments. He was acting unprofessionally and being insubordinate when you asked him to do a task that I assume is part of his job description - you are allowed to pull him up on this.

If people tiptoe around unprofessional colleagues, they are rewarded for bad behaviour. Yes, you must do so in a professional way but nothing you have stated in your posts suggest you did otherwise.

I absolutely would not apologise to him because I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.

I wouldn’t put in a complaint about the incident. However, if he is genuinely acting as a roadblocker to getting necessary tasks done, I would ask your line manager if there is another colleague you can work with so you can side-step them completely

It wouldn't even register with me as a snap to be honest, I saw much yelling and crying and screaming in the workplace.

There will only be repercussions if they already didn't like you. This kind of thing is always about politics.

No, he’s trying to undermine her.

Agree. Many!

There’s another way of looking at this, you sensibly removed yourself from the situation once you had said what needed to be said. You did that rather than staying and letting the bad behaviour (his) continue. I would document it, though, in fact, I would start documenting any of the issues you’re having with him.

Not at all but in my experience people don’t tend to ask if they took it too far unless deep down inside they know they did.

Yes, I read your comments but that doesn’t alter that I wasn’t there. So I don’t know what actually happened, tone, words exchanged, timing of ending the call, the professionalism of hanging up on a junior team member etc. The only fact I do know is that you had an encounter that was negative that led to you posting here. That suggests to me deep down you know you weren’t professional.

I’m really not.

No. You’re fine. I don’t think the softly and gently pointing out how you can support him way is better. I think you absolutely need to be blunt. Not raise your voice but not try and be friendly and pleasant with response. Be firm and hard with your needs. Copy his line manager in to all requests and ask if he is unable to understand or complete task to then ensure he replies to all so his manager can support him.
Time to put the people pleasing woman away and kick ass. Genuinely. He’s messing with you deliberately.

I thought you said you read OP's posts? She didn't "hang up" on the junior member of staff - she announced she was leaving the call and why, leaving her peer group member to continue the call that they arranged with the junior.

Different people & organisations have different views on what "too far" means, and as the OP has only been in that job just over 6 months she may still be unsure of what the limits are when dealing with recalcitrant staff who are pushing it. And clearly some of the behaviours this junior staff seems to be getting away with don't seem to be "too far"!

Also consider the people involved. Nowhere has the OP said what sort of age this junior staff member is - I'm in my 60's and am in a junior role in my current job; I've found the "been there forever" people can be very difficult especially if someone younger comes in senior to them.

in my experience people don’t tend to ask if they took it too far unless deep down inside they know they did I have imposter syndrome, which means I'm always questioning what I've done wrong. Half the time if my boss calls when I'm not expecting it I panic, especially if she PMs me and asks me to call away from the desks - in fact that's usually because she needs and trusts me to do something confidential and possibly quite difficult but I STILL panic & worry!

@Freakedfreaked it may be worth thinking about why this staff member is being so awkward with everyone. It may be because they are just a lazy arse. It could be resentment about someone "new" (possibly younger than them?) coming in at a higher level. There could be sexism involved. Or you said up thread that they have been there ages but quite recently got promoted - could they have not realised until they got there that promotion = more and harder work (come across this before in my career)?

i definitely didn’t handle it the way I’d want to, I’m normally very very composed, but probably too easy going but tbh the guy pulled this shit all last week and it led me having to work late nights to pick it up and deliver on time so when this shit started today, despite emails, a lengthy team meeting conversation on it. It is enraging. And I’m really annoyed with myself. But I didn’t raise my voice, or even swear but I wasn’t as cool as i should’ve been

Utter tosh. Some people give themselves a really hard time about something that most other people would think is totally inconsequential (like OP's peer on the call, her boss and the overwhelming number of people on here, for example). OP clearly worries about doing the right thing and came on her to check her thinking, whereby 96% of people have voted that OP hasn't done anything that warrants a "telling off", apart from a handful of contrarians like you who just want to make her feel bad. Behave yourself.

Ah that’s interesting!

yes I’m younger than him, both the peer and I are. Work wise though I have a lot more experience. There’s a lot of ‘lifers’ at work, whereas I’m new, and there’s a lot of baffling processes and policies, I mean real head scratchers, and wtf sort of things. So I think there’s some ‘she doesn’t know the business’ annoyance. I think this plays into it and undoubtedly being a woman too.

i also have mad imposter syndrome and I’ve always been an anxious person and quite confrontation shy. So it really impacts me

I consider hanging up to be not waiting for people to respond.

Unfortunately if it’s out of character it will always be someone like this who pushes it. I’m not really sure what else to say, I’m not going to tell someone who has themselves said they aren’t happy with how they handled it that they’re the model of professionalism. Everyone makes mistakes. Own it. Move on.

I didn’t vote that she deserves a telling off. Nor did I say that to her.

I think you handled it well, and it doesn’t hurt to show a bit of teeth sometimes. Hopefully he will start to realise he can’t mess around with you. Will be interesting to see if he bucks his ideas up and changes his attitude towards you.