Shafted with incorrect info

[shortsaint]

My dept is under 'special measures' for overspend. No surprises, there are legit reasons and I understand why. I've prepped with my team actions to mitigate etc etc.

There was a big crisis meeting today - loads of people there from other teams - many of whom I do not know.
As background in my area of responsibility I have a new boss (v new, knows nothing about my area) and he gave his boss (most senior person) who was leading the meeting - and reading the riot act - incorrect figures in my area that were read out as one of the 5 crisis slides at the 3 hour meeting.

I'm livid. It makes me look incompetent - he made a point of saying 'now, these are figures that were given to me by your boss shortsaint'. (New boss was not there).

I was blindsided and tried to defend myself but didn't have a ready answer at that point.

The fact was the figures were utterly wrong.

I am irrationally upset about this and have been dwelling in it all day. A colleague realised and sent me home to calm down which I did but I am still indignant that I was made to feel a fool. To make matters worse it was then circulated to all the people (many, and from loads of different areas) at the meeting.

I want recourse. Most of our situation was not of my making (Covid has contributed). How do I rectify it? I have already contacted my boss and he just said he got the (wrong) figures from a budget not actual spend. But I look like a knob.

I also in all this want to say. Fucking men.

Thanks for listening.

Is his name Martin?

I mean, it sounds like a “crisis averted” situation?

The senior manager needs to know the figures he was given were wrong, and that the situation isn’t as dire.

This ultimately looks the best coming from your manager- for them to own up to their mistake.

The issue is, whether your manager has the backbone to correct this or whether they’re happy for you to be the scapegoat. You could get your manager to put in an email that he made the mistake, and then you could forward this on to his manager if you feel it’s appropriate

I was blindsided and tried to defend myself but didn't have a ready answer at that point.

personally I would have gone with “I need to
double check those figures and will respond by email, thank you for raising this” or something.

Also to add to my earlier post, try and swing this in your favour with a “saving the day” spin, by bringing the erroneous data to the attention of the senior manager.

I need to clarify. There is a financial crisis at top (dept of 50, I'm just in a team of 5). One of boss's measures is to cut costs and he focussed on my team. Said too much budget, too many staff. But gave an example of a year (Covid) when we had 1 staff and massive budget. We spent £0 that year and hadn't got a full team. Now I am back to pre Covid staff levels with a normal budget, which is what we need to help us recover. The implication was a veiled threat of redundancy for being too damn profligate.

@itswednesdayy And I can think of so many bloody great retorts now but in that moment - arghhh.

And I also worked my absolute butt off that Covid year. I love my job and my dept and know my stuff.

No thanks for all this, just this response from a 'I've met you twice but I'm an expert consultant and this is what you need to do' man.

give yourself some credit - you likely handled being on the spot well enough at the time. Retorts are satisfying but might not come across as intended in a formal cross-team setting like this.

the situation is that your team need to formulate a response to the senior manager’s concerns. Do this in tandem with your manager as a united front. It might be that you can say the budget utilisation actually already decreased to X on Y date and we are implementing solutions with A, B, C to help address the points you raised. You can turn this into a storm in a teacup situation. You can mention how the extra work you picked up during that Covid year meant you found efficiencies could be made and the year ended with low budget utilisation/low actual spend etc etc

I would recommend keeping management on side if redundancies are flying around. Your own manager is either

1. inexperienced with your area and you may need to train him up
2. sceptical about the budget, which is why he used the wrong figure and why he’s not fussed about sorting this or giving you a head’s up - you may need to get him on your side