Long and short of it is that a colleague (will call him A) shamed me on a call in front of 20 people at work. Shaming was based on telling me that my expertise was irrelevant to what we were discussing, even though he’d agreed to the call being set up and the topics being discussed and my Involvement. He hijacked the call then fed into two other male colleagues (will call them B and C) who agreed with him and I was silenced. I cried when I came off but did not show I was upset on the call. My direct boss wasn’t on the call (this is relevant.)
Straight after the call, A started calling me incessantly but I could not speak as I was back to back with other meetings and told him so. It’s been 36 hours and I have not returned his calls (he has called about 7 times in total), 1. Because I feel pissed off and I haven’t worked out what I want to say/do about it and 2. Because I have been very busy and have very young DC who have not been sleeping. There is no deadline that needs to be met or anything necessary to delivery of work, I am assuming him calling me was to justify his behaviour.
Today, 36 hours after my non response, A called my direct boss and made a complaint about me. He told him that I was unresponsive and rude and that I had a track record of this and B and C agreed.
My direct boss came to my defense and said I have young children, it is not urgent, and if other people have a complaint they can tell me and him themselves. He told A he was a bully and that he had heard he shut me down on the call and it was not a surprise that I would not want to speak to him afterwards. Besides, my boss said, I thought you were her friend? A responded by telling my boss that we weren’t really friends and the only contact we’d had was me complaining about my boss (so he threw me under the bus even more.)
I am happy that my boss has come to my defense. I arranged a call with colleague A tomorrow to “sort things out.” How would you suggest I behave and what would you suggest I say?
From an objective viewpoint I haven’t really done anything wrong, have I, apart from not responding to calls due to being busy? Why is my colleague A escalating this so much?