Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Work Vent
Because I can feel my blood pressure rising & if I don't vent to someone I'm gonna bust!
So... a few months ago I made a mistake. A.. .medium-sized one. Not tiny, but not huge. Basically, it caused my GM some inconvenience while he was travelling. That's it.
I did what I could to fix it, and I felt horrible about it.
Well, my direct supervisor just informed me that following that mistake - one mistake - said GM questioned my reliability, and my ability to complete my tasks effectively. Actually approached my supervisor about how I manage my tasks & discuss my "reliability issues".
WTH?!?
I've been here over six years. Due to budget cuts I'm doing the work of two positions. I lead numerous projects (successfully, I might add).
And, what's more, is that I have on more than one occasion, busted my butt for this GM, arriving early, staying late, etc. so that he can have what he needs.
I thought we had a good working relationship. I actually had a lot of respect for him, and he's always been good to me (too my face, at least).
Now, because of ONE mistake in SIX years, he questions my reliability?
WTF?!?
Oh, I am so ticked! My supervisor never told me because he said he did what he could to ease the GMs concerns, and what-not, but still... I can't believe because of one mistake he would do that! Nobody's perfect!
Oh, and this just happens to come at a really bad time, because I'm now up for a promotion of sorts (internal interview is tomorrow), but obviously the GM gets a say, so...
Grrrr.
Ugh.
I just had to get that out.
I mean, I really did feel horrible that I had inconvenienced him (mostly because I did hold him in such high regard), but seriously... nobody's perfect. I've seen the VP chew his butt out more than once.
Ugh.
Thanks for listening. Er, reading.
Re: Work Vent
A trick I have learned when dealing with this type of thing is to always keep an ace in my pocket - preferably a recent one. By ace - I mean something I did that was wildly successful.
And then when a boo-boo comes up, I have two responses I dust off:
1. "Wow. I didn't realize GM was so upset about that after I fixed the situation and apologized. I'll call and talk to him for a minute to smooth things over. However, I'm not sure his ongoing concerns about my abilities are justified. I've done ace for him recently that went extremely well, along with many other successful ventures in the past. Hmm. I think he just needs a phone call from me to feel better about it.
2. "Ouch. I did apologize to him and fix the situation as quickly as I could. It surprises me that he's holding on to that. It really upsets me that one mistake could overshadow my upcoming promotion discussions - especially when I have such a long history of good work here. We just closed out ace the other day and I was really happy with how well that went.
Then after #1 - you call the GM and essentially repeat the same words with an "I heard you were upset about that and I wanted to call because we have a good working history which I don't want to damage. We've done so well together on other projects, I don't want this one mistake to overshadow our working future."
With the fact that the GM is still holding on to this - it's not about what you did or didn't do. It's about some part of the situation either hurting his feelings or bruising his ego. He feels damaged. And you need to deal with that to get him back on your side - the same way you would try to bring around a crying two year old - soothing words and then distraction. Pet the ego with the repeat apology and distract by focusing on your successes. He's your customer and he feels like he had bad customer service, what would you want done if you were a bruised two-year old in his shoes?
Man, you are good!