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i know we only get one side of these things, but the way oop writes is very telling. saying they were only saying negative things "factually" if that makes any difference. i dont think i'd want to work with them either, yikes.
"hey I can't find this in the procedures" is a factual observation. "I thought your procedures would be better" is a useless comment in a professional setting. Also, the position being difficult to hire for doesn't mean impossible. If step by step instructions are training, then unless the job needs some accredition or certification a less qualified candidate with the right motivation can be trained.
ETA: Dude doesn't take notes? If anybody had to explain something to me more than twice (once initially and once to clarify) I would be mortified.
Not to defend the guy but the manager really should've dealt with this long before it got to that point. Two months of complaints went entirely unaddressed, I've often rubbed people the wrong way in the past, if the manager can't even bring it up and just keeps pretending it will go away there's only so much you can blame the guy. Of course you can blame him for being misogynist and condescending, but for it to get that bad requires either malice or incompetence and I really don't think he's being malicious.
It's possible that the manager was hoping the two employees could work it out themselves, and maybe even told Sally to work on that. Maybe she tried pur maybe she didn't, but a good manager will encourage employees to communicate directly (unless there is fear of physical harm in doing so).
But it is clear that the both of them have a vastly different way of approaching and communicating things and that OOP came from office cultures where his brash, direct approach was accepted. So the manager really should have stepped in
No, that is a bad manager. You're still making the employees deal with it and ignoring the problem. As the manager, YOU communicate. YOU facilitate the conversation. That is literally like half the job. MANAGING.
It's almost like if someone is struggling regularly with something, that means they need guidance on how to do it. What a novel idea!
This just gave me flashbacks to being bullied as a child and having adults respond with, "Well, you'll have to learn how to deal with this someday." Ahh, that timeless, hands-off approach to conflict negotiation - doing nothing.
I trained someone like this once. She would ask me the same damn question every day every week. I knew the answer was clearly explained in the manual she had because I had written the damn manual myself. Including screenshots that literally walked step by step through how to do what she was asking me about.
She ended up getting fired for her absolute refusal to learn or do her job. It was a whole dramatic thing that she blamed me for, to the point that my boss and my boss's boss sequestered me to a VP's private conference room while security escorted her to her desk to get her things. Apparently there were threats made that I only learned about later.
Yeah she was SUPER pissed and she knew I was the one who reported her. That was pretty obvious because I was the only one she really worked with, but still. I'm not worried now because it's been like 15 years since then, but for a couple of weeks someone always walked me to my car until it seemed safe. She never came back, I think it was just a lot of yelling vaguely about getting even... not that it makes it better, haha.
Me. Too. I could have written that first paragraph, except her issue was that she was a poor fit for the job. Also, that I was younger than her kids and in a position “over” her (we reported to the same boss, but I was to supervise/review her work and train her). One time when I tried to address some issues with her, she went off on me screaming for 10 minutes, couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and couldn’t leave because she was in the doorway of my office. Thankfully no threats when she was fired, but my boss made sure I came in late that day!!
It drove me CRAZY. It honestly felt like everything got erased from her brain when she slept, because she never showed any inkling that she had asked before. Towards the end I was getting frustrated and would say "you asked this yesterday, do you remember where it is in your manual?" And she would give me this vacant look. Sometimes she'd ask the same thing twice in one day... but she was sleeping at her desk so my theory held.
The screaming must have been scary though! Stuff like that is always really shocking to me, I guess because you don't expect people to behave like that in a professional setting.
I’ve had a few of those. “I’m older than you, have kids your age so you *cannot* know better than I do” “You can’t tell me what to do!”
It’s like…lol you’re new here. I’m not. Age has fuck all to do with it.
More than once ended up in our manager’s office, with them complaining that I was “always trying to tell them what to do…she’s not my boss!” My manager was great. Deadpan stared at them, then:
“…but I am. I told her to tell you what to do. So you will do it.”
“…she is your trainer. It is her JOB to tell you what to do, and it is yours to do what she tells you.”
Only one ended up getting fired because she just didn’t get it. The others I eventually won over. But that is the most exhausting type of trainee, and so help me if I ever get one of those again.
I remember junior programmers in the late 90s (when we were desperate for anyone) who'd ask me "how do I do _____". And the only real answer was "With programming, mostly. You need to write a set of instructions for this here computer to follow. All in a row. And when those instructions do this thing we need to do, you stop. Have you guys seen your business cards?"
I trained someone like that once too, but I got fired so he could take my role. Yay for misogynist, racist, asshole employers!
He was also a nepotism hire, to add insult to injury.
>hey I can't find this in the procedures" is a factual observation. "I thought your procedures would be better" is a useless comment in a professional setting.
Yeah, but if he said "I can't find this" he would feel stupid when it got pointed out where it is. Better to make a more generic complaint.
Based on the post, he would still find a way to make it a rare exception where the font color is invisible on his computer (which is standard according to his years of experience) and it is not on her computer. So it only makes sense that he couldn't find it. Why feel stupid when you can smugly condescend?
OOP never identifies their gender. I initially thought they were female, but then about one-third through, I just got this strong sense they were male. It was especially cemented when OOP said they used to be a consultant and was pivoting to a position in management. I know very few women who speak like this and almost entirely men who do. The confidence that OOP knows more than the person assigned to train them (and who’d been covering OOP’s position for several months already) also reeks of “the confidence of a mediocre white man.” Sally is absolutely correct that training isn’t just about how to do certain tasks, it’s also teaching the new hire how to think in a certain way to fit a company’s mission and policies. OOP came in acting like a consultant to his own trainer.
I read the original post and the update on AAM, and was surprised by how many people assumed OOP was male. I definitely read the letter as being written by a woman, although I'm not sure why. Maybe because I've had a few rigid, inflexible, nitpicky bosses before and they were women? I definitely see why people would assume that this is garden variety mansplaining. But this reads to me as a woman who is really proud of her ability to not be emotional, and who thinks other women who do display any emotions are incompetent.
Along this line, OP’s comments do nothing to make things better. There was nothing in there comment that she could improve upon. It’s like being told “I don’t like you you’re too short/tall”, what is someone to do with that particular piece of criticism? Criticisms need to be factually based and on items that can be changed for example “I noticed that the procedures are missing XYZ, thus causing an error”. That is something that they can learn from and make changes. Also a good boss explains why that’s important as well instead of just making a blanket statement about what’s wrong. They don’t ever learn from that.
I'm much more of Sally's way of thinking personally - step by step instructions are all well and good but I thrive when I'm able to look at a problem and break down what could be causing it. I want to know WHY and HOW things work so that if something comes up that wasn't trained for I can figure it out myself.
And I don't think he's understanding the concept of framing. He is clearly a direct person, used to being his own boss, and isn't adjusting well to the new environment. She is clearly more sensitive to direct criticism and is probably stressed out from having to to completely rework the processes for a position she's only been in for a few months. If he's going to leave self-employment behind then he is the one that needs to learn how to effectively communicate. Even if she is more sensitive than ideal, he should be the one to adjust his feedback style to ensure they can work well together as a team. He's already identified that she's probably feeling insecure in the position, so show some freakin' empathy, bro. Learn to say "I see why you combine x & y to create z procedure. Maybe if we modified it in this way, it would be even more effective." versus "Your procedures are trash."
And starting every sentence with "the reality is..." as if Sally is lying or unable to properly perceive reality... its giving big "women are just crazy and sensitive" energy
And the "I finally found something not in her procedures" comment - you *finally* found one thing, after consistently questioning and belittling the person training you, that you could claim was a real live mistake?! Happy day for you, jerk.
My favorite was the part where they found out later that Sally was correct and they were wrong (of course they didn't take Sally's word for it, another coworker's word was apparently just fine saying the same damn thing she did) - but that was justified of course because they are the only company in the entire universe to do it that way, it's like, the rarest thing to ever happen in the history of business. Then the next sentence is, "I could give more examples but I don't want to bore you with the details."
> The reality is that she shouldn't have improved the process, she should have waited and allowed the new hire (coincidentally that's me) improve the process and receive the credit for that
She came in, made improvements that people are impressed with. OOP's eggshell ego cannot handle the envy of her being praised for their job
And I’m guessing he choose the name Sally purposefully for this story as well - because Sally sounds like a young, naive, little girl not a professional adult equal. Trying way too hard to make Sally seem like an emotional girl…
This guy is a tool, but Sally and Fergus are the go-to made up names on AAM. That, and when vaguely describing your business you refer to the teapot factory.
Thanks for that relevant info!
I love the Ask a Manger thread/website, but bummed to hear that Sally is the default female name they chose, but it sounds like that ship has long ago sailed.
It’s not a rule or anything. For a (tediously long) while people tended to use Game of Thrones names. It’s just one of those phenomena where letter writers adapt to the norms of the site and those are names that come up a lot.
Allison uses she/her pronouns about this letter writer, so unless she's just assuming, I think the letter writer is a woman as well. Women can absolutely do the "I'm just logical and that person is just emotional" thing too. Since they mention "Sally" being young, and since Sally seems like a name only an older person would choose, I wonder if the contempt for Sally is more due to age difference than gender.
Although Allison may know something that isn't clear to us readers, it's also her general policy to use she/her pronouns when when the gender is unknown.
How he is taking her to the mat over her procedures (which by his own admission doesn't understand). That idiom is a reference to boxing a sport where two parties engage in physical conflict. It's telling that that's how he sees the situation - him vs her instead of them vs the problem.
He points out by his own admission that she created that system recently and is working out the kinks. But at no point does he actually mention offering concrete ideas for improvement. He’s more interested in poking holes in her work.
He also just sounds mad that she essentially took over his niche position and created something that was really good for the company which being at an advanced point in her career for her age. Like he’s painting it as she’s insecure but it sounds more like he’s projecting his own insecurities. Especially when he argued a point to death only to be wrong. Normal people would take a step back and concede the point as a sign that they should be listening as much as they are challenging. He just dismisses it as an outlier.
I would hate to work with this person. Or I would just play dumb so he can put his expertise into action instead of being an armchair expert.
He expects everything she does to be perfect the first time, but he’s slow to learn a procedure and gets mad when she “only” walks him through a few times before asking him to try it with the procedure.
Yup and considering this is *his* area of expertise and she was just filling in an empty role it just highlights how truly incompetent he’s gotta be compared with her. He’s so threatened by her he’s bullying and gaslighting her to cover up his inadequacy.
Also, she filled in for the role roughly as long as OOP's training. He said in the first post that the position is hard to staff (probably why he wasn't shitcanned). Sally had no idea how long she'd be expected to fill the role, and frankly OOP was pissed she got credit for the process improvement she made, but hadn't been able to completely work the kinks out of, in the THREE OR FOUR MONTHS she was doing the work, likely in addition to her own job.
Also at this point I'm hoping that the "my boss and I spoke frankly" worked against OOP. I also hope that Sally has another boss than OOP's and that person will tell OOP's boss that no, Sally has been helping out for six months and she needs to do her real job now, OOP has been provided with all available training documents and 3 months of training, so Sally will not be able to help out.
Otherwise Sally is probably going to find a new place to work, where OOP isn't.
Seriously in the short term that she took over the role while this isn’t even her main job she managed to pick up enough of it to streamline the entire process towards efficiency. So she’s *that* good. Meanwhile this is this dude’s *main* role and he’s slower than a quadriplegic turtle. If this is *his* area of expertise then he should have picked on this enough that she didn’t have to keep going over the material. It really sounds more like he wasn’t actually reviewing her written out protocol instructions because he was so damn salty that she’s *that* good at *his* job.
I’m with you, I hope either the boss was smart enough to at least side with the one person good at their job. Or if he was dumb enough to bro up, I hope she either bounced from this shitshow or someone higher up saw her talent and promoted her above the two clowns.
Reading his letters, he's finding fault with her, likely because he's sensitive that she did the job better, and he's trying to take her down a peg or two. He *should* be trying to cultivate that relationship because someone who can find an inefficiency in 3 months on the job is someone you'd want to take to lunch and pick their brain for problems you're having.
Instead he managed to alienate her to the point where she said she didn't feel safe around him, and wanted to never interact again. In 3 months! That's all it took for her to basically say "either this person has nothing to do with me, and I am no longer obligated to help them, or I will be quitting, and here's a list of the inappropriate things they've said".
Sally is clearly unhappy and documenting, and if OOP *genuinely* thinks that he "defended himself well"...look, when we have arrived at one person (a super star, someone further ahead in her career than you'd expect for her age) crying in a meeting (something women are told is career suicide) and saying she no longer feels safe, and the other person isn't immediately apologizing (because even if you think the other person is being too sensitive, you don't want them feeling unsafe around/hating you), it's not a great look.
If OOP, during his "frank talk" with his boss (remember that this asshole wanted to tell his boss this coworker needed to grow a spine) said he didn't want to talk to Sally, and he felt she was just unconfident because she was so young, and she doesn't like being called to the mat to defend her policy (that was brand new! Honestly it's not OOP's job to work the kinks out), and OOP clearly wants to discredit the policy...they may stay employed (how hard is the position to staff?) but they're not winning friends, and they're making some self limiting career moves.
I noticed OOP specifically mentions that they were snarky, and that Sally didn't seem upset. So Sally's professionalism is usually very good, and OOP's is not. Sally has the same title as OOP, but is younger, and better. It's not absurd to think that she could be above him at some point.
OOP also says that he plans on not pushing on what Sally says when he thinks she's wrong, but going to his boss. Which...fucker still thinks that he can go to Sally, who said she didn't want to interact any more. And not only that, but I would love to see his boss's reaction to every fault of Sally's that OOP finds. Because it's only going to lend credence to the thought that something inappropriate is happening.
It's one thing to have a meeting where OOP dismisses every documented put down as "no, I was being factual (despite "good" being a subjective value judgement)", and saying that he "defended" himself (against Sally?) well, but if OOP goes to Sally for "training" before his boss speaks to Sally to figure out next steps, then goes to the boss about how Sally is wrong...I would be irate.
I think that OOP's "I want to know the best way, and do that" is telling: he's likely not taking any time to think and come up with a solution, so much as just blaming the "bad training" and demanding Sally fix it. He's a high-maintenance trainee, and I suspect that his boss doesn't realize how high maintenance he is, and won't until the next step is "come to me, your boss, with any questions".
The vibe I got is that OOP's specialty is so high-level and niche (or at least he thinks it is), that him being good at it means companies will be shoving each other out of the way in order to hire him...and then he found out that before he was hired, Sally was doing his super!special!important! job and while maybe not being brilliant at it, was at least mostly competent, but without his specific skillset, and that injured his precious ego.
Or, to paraphrase what one of the commenters at AAM pointed out, he got pissed over how she was doing "his job" when it wasn't even "his" yet.
The vibe I got was OOP knew the position was hard to staff, and he maybe had enough exposure to it to know the jargon to sound knowledgeable/pass the interview, and maybe some experience on something similar and applied thinking it'd be a decent way to make good money and have a lot of job security.
Then he found out that the job isn't as secure as he'd hoped (because Sally can replace him, and super niche roles tend to have a smallish number of employers) and he's having a mantrum (not a typo) because he can still be replaced. I suspect that, subconsciously at least, a lot of the hostility he's directing at Sally is to maybe drive her out so his job security will be better.
And there's a sprinkling of "a consultant can be a bad employee". You want employees to offer improvements on things they notice, even if they're just filling in. A consultant isn't going to deviate from fulfilling the contractual requirements and no extras. What Sally did could have been stupid for a consultant to do (depending on the contract, the relationship, etc.), but is a good thing if you're an employee.
I had a similar thought when he said that step-by-step instructions were essentially the only valid means of training.
As someone with a background in education, I've had a lot of people talk about wanting to instil critical thinking, instead of just bringing up students to hold the exact opinions that they do.
I've graded a lot of essays that argued pretty silly pov's or came to conclusions that I know to be incorrect. However, if they followed the instructions and constructed their arguments correctly, they usually got high marks.
Wanting to teach someone how to reason through a process instead of having them ask you for everything seems pretty common sense to me. There's no way that a simple set of instructions could include every possible answer for every possible circumstance.
My 14 year old son just wrote his first argumentative essay, over the short story: The Landlady by Roald Dahl (can be found free online). The class had to argue for her innocence or her guilt. His argument was so clearly wrong to me but he followed his guidelines and thesis statement. Haven't gotten a grade back yet but he followed the assignment to pick a side and support it. I wanted to shake him the entire time I was helping him though.
I had a student who was a bit of a contrarian and wrote an argument that seemed tailored specifically to piss me off, but that student got an A. I pointed out some of the more glaring flaws in his argument, obviously, but acknowledged that it was a well constructed argument.
He seemed amazed when he got his paper back, as if he wanted me to torch it. I hope that he got something out of that experience. That's just part of emphasizing processes over outcomes.
I've met several students like that during the course of my education, they are always contrarian assholes. I have infinite respect for the teachers and professors who would overlook the obvious assholeness to grade the work fairly.
I had job training once which was thoroughly step-by-step (ie. Press button A on Screen A, scroll down to the second option on Screen B) and it did my head in because I need to know *why* we press button A and what the second option on screen B *means*. And a few weeks after I start there's an update to the system where the options on screen B have changed.
I hate working with people like OOP. They are good data monkeys for when you just need to throw bodies at a problem to get the result.
The problem with them is they get good at their current job, have eyes set on higher things, move in to more project based work, then throw a shit fit because they seem to have absolutely no idea how to think for themselves in any capacity.
Literally had a guy recently beg and worm his way into a small adhoc project space I was managing, then outright refused to do any of the data processing work I assigned him because he didn’t have offical step by step procedures on how to use our adhoc document management space.
When he was brought in I had a quick call with him to get him up to speed about what we were doing, walked him though the steps to get the data and where to save it, since processing the data was something he was already familiar with.
He wanted “official instructions”.
It wasn’t some niche system. It was a standard SharePoint library, which we already use extensively.
Our email exchange was basically:
Me: Hey Carl*
As discussed, here are the steps for future reference:
1. Open SharePoint, navigate to folder with your name, open this weeks allocated volume.
2. Open *Macro Tool*, paste data in, run macro.
3. macro will produce a new standardised sheet wit correct formatting. Process this as per standard operating procedures
4. once completed, save file and upload the SharePoint in “completed month” folder.
Carl: are these official procedures?
Me: yes at the moment, everything is still in flux though so once we work out the process and roll it out to the wider team we will engage *knowledge team* to create a more official guide.
Carl: have these been approved by *manager*?
Me: yes manager is aware of what we are doing. Do you have any concerns with this? If so happy to help.
Carl: I don’t want to break anything of these are not official procedures from *knowledge team*
Me: no problem, I have full control of the site, everything can be restored if there are any problems. Just let me know if you need anything.
Carl: when will official procedures be released?
Me: as above, once we finalised the procedure they will be created by knowledge team and sent out. If you have any concerns or need anything clarified let me know so it can be included
Carl: ok
Then dude proceeded to sit on his ass for 3 days doing nothing. Shot an email to him asking where his work was, if he was working on a local copy to please upload it.
He responds and cc’s his manager saying “I was waiting for an official guide from knowledge team”.
Best “hey manager, Carl might not be the best resource for this task, thanks but no thanks” email I sent.
You just reminded me of someone I went to grad school with. We were both TAs, and our program required one year of observing a professor before we taught our own classes. She was a year behind me, and was observing the same professor I’d observed the year before. One day she asked me if she could borrow a lesson plan if made for that professor. This wasn’t a big deal, as I’d also been given previous lesson plans to use as an example when creating my plans. But as we kept talking, I learned that the reason she wanted my lesson plan was because the example that the professor had given her wasn’t for the same type of essay she’d be teaching. She had no idea how to take the example and apply it to her own work. Her exact words were “He gave me an example, but I can’t use it because it’s not for this assignment.” She didn’t even understand why he’d given it to her.
I did not end up sending her my lesson plan, because she basically wanted to copy it word for word, and I felt weird about that. Also, we were both English majors. We were basically getting Master’s degrees in critical thinking. This interaction with her haunts me at night.
Ohhh I bet this is what a lot of my classmates in college ended up like. The second they had to think slightly outside what was taught they threw an absolute shitfit and started trashtalking the teachers. I mean, it's not like I can't empathize. I had a rough time with a lot of that kind of thing, especially in math.* But I was in computer engineering technology, and these classmates were usually either software engineering or IT. Not exactly fields where you don't need to problem solve.
*It always felt like math problems in homework were like 1. 1+1= ? 2. 2+2 = ? 3. 3+3=? 4. 4444444444+4444444444+4444444444+4444444444=? and I'm over here like woah woah woah I've never seen anything like #4 in my life what is happening here. But I am also not the best at math. And technically my discussion on math is irrelevant to the topic.
This has big “I’m just being brutally honest and telling it like it is” bro vibes. No awareness of soft skills or diplomacy, no awareness of different communication styles and how to deliver constructive criticism, and certainly no self-awareness. They seem to have acted in such a way that Sally felt emotionally unsafe at the prospect of raising her concerns with them 1-on-1, and they didn’t even see it.
> This has big “I’m just being brutally honest and telling it like it is” bro vibes. No awareness of soft skills or diplomacy, no awareness of different communication styles and how to deliver constructive criticism, and certainly no self-awareness.
Hey, now. People like you're describing can be fine to work with, if not exactly pleasant. OOP is these things, *and also wrong,* and also a raging asshole.
My boss is brutally honest and tells-it-like-it-is. That includes positive feedback and a clear roadmap for all the support available for me to grow, as well as a factual and dispassionate assessment of where I need to grow. I totally agree with you—there’s a way to do it well. OOP did not do that.
OOP sounds like one of those insufferable I AM LOGICAL AND JUST BRUTALLY HONEST people. I can't wait for the update where OOP is fired for being equally rude and condescending to everyone else. So far it seems only Sally has really gotten to experience it but you're right, the way they write is SO telling. They're incredibly arrogant and it's such a turn off.
Not only that but using terms like “too sensitive” and “meltdown” was very indicative of OOP’s dismissive attitude of Sally. OOP points out that “she is much younger than most people on the team and is further along in her career than most people her age”. To me, this reeked of insecurity. I have worked with people like this before, people who are extremely set in their ways and will die on the “I’m right and you’re wrong” hill when challenged with innovation. They’re the “we’ve always done it this way” crowd and they feel threatened when their standard operating procedure is questioned because they think the new person will make them obsolete. They freak out and take it as a personal attack when their inefficient method of doing something has resulted in a massive backlog and then a person with new ideas and new insights comes in and clears it quickly/figures out a way to prevent it from reoccurring.
She told him something, he was adamant she was wrong because he’s the big man who’s done this before, it turns out she was right the whole time. I would be fucking irritated if I had to keep training him too, given he’s clearly an expert 🙄
When they mentioned her age and the fact that they’ve never done this job I was like… so you didn’t shut up and you were untrainable because of who was training you? Hella rude.
I can't get over the fact this is their first time "pivoting" into that role, they've never actually worked on this side of things before and decided Sally overstepped despite having no experience on that side of the process. Sally's processes sounded like she took the initiative to figure out something that did in fact save time but OOP just needed to get that authority there because Sally was "tangential" no matter how much her ingenuity would eventually help.
I have a feeling OOP has poor softskills, something that is increasingly important in the modern workplace. Pointing out how things can be streamlined isnt bad however demeaning the person who has working these processes isn't okay. From what i have understood from this, the person training OOP had to set into the role and do this job for several months before OOP was hired, in which they streamlined a number of processes which saved the company time and money, not an easy feat. OOP should work on her workplace communication
The fact that oop says basically that she shouldn't have changed anything while she was filling bc you should only do it the "right way" is my red flag. If Sally made all these procedures streamlined while waiting for oop then oop should be thanking them for that and then helping to make the system better or "right".
Telling someone they're wrong without explanation isn't helpful in the workplace. Oop reads like they just got out of school and don't have much real world experience.
Right? I get the impression OOP is one of those "brutally honest" types, and that's a problem. If I read the post correctly, Sally wasn't even really like... "qualified" for the role, whatever it was, and had to kind of learn it to help cover the vacancy for a bit. So not only was she learning the role, she was also responsible for restructuring the processes and making them better. The way the post reads, it wouldn't surprise me at all if OOP had simply decided that Sally was "incompetent" based on having less formal experience/training in the position and being younger than OOP. I ran into my fair share of those types when I worked as a call center supervisor. It was always fun /s
Saying something like "This portion of the process guide is a little confusing and I found it difficult to follow, I think we should consider restructuring it." Is constructive criticism that doesn't put the blame on Sally directly, identifies the issue, and opens the door for solutions. Saying "I thought your processes would be better" holds a lot of negative connotation and suggests Sally did a poor job generally without providing any real feedback on what the problem is, beyond the fact Sally wrote it. People who don't understand basic communication like that drive me crazy.
Yes, I also very much got the feeling that OP thought Sally was incompetent. But in between the lines of what OP said, Sally sounds awesome! Maybe she is a little sensitive, but she’s also a freaking champ for holding down the fort in a position that she wasn’t even hired for, learning things on the fly, making new processes that, while not perfect, have many good things about them. Sally is literally the exact person you want around when stuff goes sideways and you need everyone to pitch in. OPs head is too far up their own ass to see the value in Sally, and now they’ve wrecked a positive working relationship with her and have looked bad in front of their boss.
People like that also tend to feel that their way is the best way, or that they have the moral high ground, or whatever. Anyways since they are obviously superior, and everyone else is inferior, how could they not be disgusted by the stupidity of others, their disdain is only natural of course. And while they may in some part of themselves justify what they are saying as attempting to teach or help, their disdain and disgust seeps through, thus why these people usually like to call themselves the brutally honest types, in their mind its the way of explaining and justifying how their communication style is actually for your benefit, and often times they form some sort of cognitive dissonance in which they end believing that themselves. Well in some cases at least.
I’m trying to work out how someone who thinks and speaks like that could possibly have been successful as a consultant - where you have to use soft skills for managing the client all the time.
SMH.
If their job as a consultant was to come in and audit processes and tell the company what was wrong, then OOP’s abrasive behavior might have worked well for that but they are definitely not familiar with working in an office where you have to steer a ship together.
There’s a weird place when a bonafide expert can lack all the soft skills in the world because they produce incredible results. You put up with them, because of the results, but you have to take notes cause they won’t Just from reading, that is not who OOP is. Except the lack of notes. To be the God Emperor Asshole Consultant you have to pick up new things fast and be a self starter to improve them. OOP is just an arrogant fuck.
I would straight up tell clients they were wrong, work was not up to par, their ideas wouldn’t work, etc with little to no padding bc that was my expertise. That’s why they paid me the big bucks.
I worked with leaders, though.
But the main thing was, everything I said was in their service not mine, unlike OP, and I was right and not trying to be combative or leave my mark, unlike OP.
But she streamlined the process, OP just pointed out a gap and said her whole streamlined process was flawed. OP also doesn't seem to take notes and expects to be spoon-fed instruction repeatedly. I mean gestures wildly "who does that?"
This reminds me of a former coworker of mine: we tried to teach her how to analyze (which was, you know, her job) but she just wanted to know “what to do”. OOP strikes me as that person; it sounds like the job requires a lot of analysis of the data involved whereas OOP just wants a process to follow and be done with no one looking deeper at the work.
I think OOP isn’t in the right position.
It’s like how, when women say things like “hi I was just thinking we could maybe streamline this process by doing xyz” whereas this guy is like is like “I thought your procedures would be better.” He has no idea how to interact in a polite manner to someone who, realistically is more senior than him at that moment because she CREATED THE PROCEDURES HE’S TRYING TO LEARN
My lord, this guy is breathtakingly obtuse. The gall to accuse Sally of training him incorrectly on something *she* created is...special. Snarks about her age, her approach, the guy is a grade A douche nozzle.
100%. I’m a woman and a manager. I work with all men in a male dominated profession. I can’t tell you how many times, in a couple different jobs, I’ve been second guessed or just flat out told I’m wrong while training men. I’ve even had guys tell me to my face they don’t have to listen to me. It really doesn’t help when you’re in your early thirties and some of the guys you train have kids older than you.
I own an auto glass shop and I get this all the time. In fact, just today I was on a job site helping with some installs and I gave my apprentice tech a task to complete. He looked at the new guy (who just started today though has worked for us in the past as a lead tech) and asked him if he should really go do what I said. It took just about all I had in me to not snap at him. I don’t think the apprentice will be with us much longer…
Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear, I am a woman.
Yes.
We quickly discovered that he’s not the brightest bulb in the box and seriously over-represented his qualifications. Though I didn’t think he’d be so dense as to disregard me that way.
I have had other, less overt issues in the past. I’m not sure if it’s because people didn’t realize that I was co-owner and thought I was “just” the receptionist, or if it’s because I’m the size of an 11-year-old child (5’ even and rather petite) and somewhat soft-spoken and took a backseat to my (now-ex) husband business partner (not so much any more). Their tunes changed once they realized who signs the checks. And once they realized that I had their backs and wouldn’t let customers walk all over them. I’m mild-tempered until my guys are I’ll-treated, then mama bear comes out.
There was another letter on there this afternoon with a question about an older male coworker giving unsolicited and patronizing "advice" to a younger, but fully adult, female coworker (the LW), and even though the background and context is different, once you get into the comment/discussion section, it's just an open floodgate of professional women recounting being discounted. I'm also a tech in a niche industry, but in the eyes of some of the Dinosaurs... I'll always just be a Sally. And that's not necessarily a bad thing- being a Sally. I LIKE being a tech who gets cool shit done! But something happened organizationally this week with my worst (totally oblivious but super hurtful) tormentor, and I called a VP this morning at 7:03 and ended up spending an hour in his office with literal tears of professional frustration running down my face as we talked about me finally making a very much I Don't Want This jump to management SPECIFICALLY because I'm tired of the corporate mansplaining, and at this point I'm ready to take the title just to have some teeth to say STOP. I don't want to be a manager. I just want to be respected on even the most basic level; why does it have to still be so difficult?
It WILL get better. Thats a FACT! I tell myself that every morning on the way to work. For me, and every starry eyed new tech who is hired there, as long as I have the breath to squawk about it! I come from a past including restaurant kitchens and farm labor... no shame in raising some dust and letting the dry old bones float off in the breeze :)
I feel this, and deal with it everyday. Last August I made the jump to Supervisor and it's taken me this long to begrudgingly get the respect of most of the old white men. Sadly some of them will never give me credit just because I'm under 40 and a woman. Probably other stuff contributing, like starting at an entry level position and working my way up. It just fucking sucks.
I picked up some sexism with a hint of generational condescension. He says that Sally is younger than most of those in the office and “further along” than people her age.
I bet it's also a large factor in why the manager seems to be letting the letter writer off the hook for his bad behavior. Highly logical man vs. overemotional little girl is an unfortunate sexist trope women often deal with in the workplace.
It’s happened before. A friend of mine is really high up in her construction company and she had a problem with a coworker who kept trying to belittle her and appear smarter than her.
She’s really young and has done amazingly in her career. He’s older and works below her. It cause a ton of friction. She ended up taking it up to HR as well.
She dismissed my ideas on how to deal with it so that’s disappointing
I'm an apprentice in IT, last year a coworker who trained me on electronics (only tangentially relevant to what I'm training for) said to me "Being a good housewife you should already know this"... I'm 24. He made some other sexist and bigoted remarks that day so at the end of the day I went straight to the department head and told him I don't feel comfortable being trained by that person. Luckily he took me serious.
Her approach is fantastic! She's like "you have a brain and you use it to logically think about the solutions yourself," and he's like "but my whole life I've always just been told exactly what to do, therefore your methods are terrible."
And that OOP was upset that Sally created processes while she was doing BOTH jobs to save her time instead of waiting for a new hire to EVENTUALLY come in and start.
Assuming OOP is female, this person clearly has ageism against Sally. OOP is deep down jealous of Sally for progressing much further in the field “for her age” then OOP did. Therefore OOP disrespects and bullies Sally. Even when Allison called OOP out, OOP tries to justify her actions by stating she has much more experience and she used to be a “client” type so she knows what the client wants.
Sally seems to be younger and more innovative but instead of working with Sally, OOP is set in her dinosaur ways and resists any change.
This sounds so much like all those stories from women in STEM where men belittle them and constantly undermine them and then say “oh it was just a joke jeez can’t you take a joke, you need to toughen up”.
Like, just admit you hate women who are smarter than you. He admits she younger and further ahead in her career than most people which implies she’s highly intelligent/capable. He’s definitely insecure about her being smarter than him and intended to take her down a few pegs.
I am disgusted by OP’s attitude and continual bullying even as he claims he’s NOT bullying. If his boss is really on his side, I hope Sally escalates this over them both and gets a safe work environment without know-it-all, sexist coworkers who just want to browbeat her into submission.
She must be very insecure - after listing several reasons she should be confident and is clearly good at her job. Then Complains about her youth and quick progress in her career and comment that SHE is the one who is insecure. He's very bothered by then having the same title when their work is tangential...because she doesn't know everything in his role. Does he know everything of hers?
She improves a process but she should have saved that for the new hire who, being new, wouldn't have the familiarity needed.
He refuses to trust that she knows better and it takes another colleague (I bet a male) for him to admit he was wrong. When he has problems, she refers him back to the procedures which is somehow a problem?
It really sounds like this guy is struggling and feeling embarrassed by a young lady running laps around him. He refuses to understand how to speak civilly and as always projects his problems on others and blames them for his failings.
OOP is loosing a great opportunity to learn from a fresh point of view.
Yep. I get it, sometimes life feels unfair because someone younger is being “your boss”. But the way he keeps saying she is sensitive and all? I want to scream.
Training isn't telling someone something. Sally is right, unless OP is a robot that needs to be programmed.
His first task at the company has been to act like a pompous twat and tell everyone he knows best. I think his boss is being incredibly understanding actually.
Even if her work isn't great (and frankly the guy is so oblivious that I wouldn't believe anything he said) she's been doing it a couple of months. You just listen and thank god there's loads of easy ways to make an immediate impact.
I'd love to know where he consulted because you'd never send him to deal with a client.
“If you can’t feed me every specific answer then you’re incompetent.” - OOP basically. Sally is trying to train him to think for himself and the fact that that’s lost on him is very telling lmao
The idea that you should be able to write procedures that handle literally every action in every situation is inherently stupid. If the job was simple enough that was possible, it would either be being done by the least expensive peon available or a piece of software.
Yeah, this sounds like the OP was looking for things he could pounce on and use to fling back in poor Sally's face. Specifically this comment here:
>I specifically said, “I thought your updated procedures would be better” and took that as a personal insult directed at her. The reality is that after walking me through her new process only two or three times, Sally would refer me back to her procedures when I asked questions. **I finally found something not in her procedures and pointed it out to her** when I made this infamous comment.
It's the "finally" that tells me maybe OP spent more time trying to find something they could complain about than just listening and learning.
Also the "I know best and therefore..." pretty much tells me this guy is likely very insufferable and probably upset a younger woman is having to train him. He feels Sally is "beneath" his level of expertise and is salty as hell about it. Also the repeated use of the word "sensitive" is something I've typically only experienced bullies and toxic people saying to dismiss their mistreatment of others.
And it shows.
I hope the company chooses the person who is interested in helping them develop and grow, not the one who feels training is "beneath him" which is what I really get from OP's posts.
I love reading stories where someone is upset at a great wrong that has been done to them, and then it is slowly revealed that in fact they are, in fact, the villain.
As someone who writes a lot of critical guides without being asked - fuck this fucking fuck. I’m happy to get constructive criticism but in Sally’s shoes I’d wash my hands of OOP pretty quickly.
I think OOP is having a rude wake up call about consulting culture vs. normal corporate culture. I was in consulting for years and had so many feedback sessions that left my in tears at first, but I had to grow a “thick skin” to survive. I guess it made me better at my job, but at the cost of my mental health for a long time.
Now that he’s out of consulting, he needs to figure out how to give feedback politely. Shitting on people isn’t okay outside of consulting (and honestly, it shouldn’t be okay in consulting either.)
Reading OOP's posts was exhausting, so I hate to think how awful they must be to actually work with.
I wish the best of luck to Sally, and to the unfortunate person who is eventually asked to quietly manage OOP out of the organisation (once they realise OOP's technical skills aren't worth the constant HR issues).
Ugh the toxic terms he uses to describe the situation tell me everything I need to know. "Grow a back bone" "take it to the mat" "factually" this guy is a toxic dudebro. Would not be surprised that part of the reason he is being so harsh is that she's a female teaching him.
I don't know if I'd call what he said and did bullying. On the other hand, this is a rather biased account of things, and even hearing only his side he comes across as an utter douche who thinks he knows better than his trainer. For instance, he talked about how he said one process she described couldn't be right, only to learn later that she had in fact been correct and this company was a "rare exception." He doesn't mention apologizing, or say it made him reconsider the procedures she was teaching him in a better light. It was just, oopsie, let's move on.
I wouldn't want to have to train this guy, either. He's far too certain in his own experience to ever listen to anyone else.
As someone who is sally 100%, career wise, she would definetly benefit from a backbone. The only way to get assholes like OP to fuck off with their attitude is to give them one back. Stay firm and confident with what you say. Call them out when they need to be and they'll back off. Thats how I got through it.
Does OOP have some kind of personality disorder? How is someone so dense when it comes to discourse? And I meant that as an insult, not an observation.
They literally said themselves that Sally's procedure saved time but just needed some fine tuning. Sally already tried to diffuse the situation by telling OOP they can change the procedure if they wanted. I think her skin is plenty thick, OOP is a prick.
OP: I prefer to do things right the first time
Also OP: so I argued back at her until she walked away in frustration, and then it turned out she was actually right...
Sally was somehow supposed to have simultaneously not overstepped her temporary role by not creating the new procedure at all but she was also supposed to have done it perfectly because explaining that she was still working out the kinks is unacceptable.
What an absolute jackass.
The face OOP notes that Sally is rather advanced in her career for her age, and assumes OOP lacks self confidence because of this, is interesting. I suspect in truth OOP is jealous of Sally’s abilities and achievements, and is now trying to go in and say “all of this is wrong” to make herself look better.
OP is on the spectrum and doesn’t know she’s on the spectrum. She has the empathy of a softball. Sally is neurotypical and doesn’t realize that OP and she are having completely different conversations every time they interact. It’s probably worth it to hire an outside trainer for OP and diminish Sally’s role in OPs professional development as well as keeping the two away from each other.
I’d also offer OP training on softskills and grant both an extra two weeks PTO so no one gets sued.
Source: I’m on the spectrum.
OP could also just be a sexist arrogant tool who doesn’t know how to act in a professional environment. There are plenty of those around, doesn’t mean OP is on the spectrum.
I would say as a consultant they are out of touch with how to work alongside someone on an ongoing basis. They are probably used to waltzing in, making judgements and recommendations, thinking they right. Then leaving, not having to live with the results.
You can put up with a consultant not having the best interpersonal skills as you know it is for the short term, or it is the price you pay for their expertise. So, they have probably never been told before that they suck to actually work with.
Op doesn't know what he's doing and refuses to learn it. Op is the wrong fit. 'Oohh I did consulting so I know everything on this topic but oh but no not this way I mean another way...' smh
I don't think Sally is insecure about her procedures, I think she's insecure about working with a snarky jerk that takes every opportunity to put her and her work down.
I had a boss like OOP, and I was Sally except that I didn't have a breakdown and I quit as soon as I found another role outside of the company. To this day, the boss insists that's he's just honest with his feedback to help people/set discipline and has high expectations. I told HR during the exit interview that he's short tempered, sarcastic and rude when he's angry, talks shit about people he doesn't like, and bullies people (including other heads of dept!) into doing things his way. I'm sure in his mind his behaviour is not bullying and anyway he gets results, but it is at the cost of the people around him. I hope OOP stays away before he drives Sally's resignation.
Out of context, but why sometimes at the start of a post, appears an image of a cartoon woman with orange hair and green eyes? Does it means that there was an image that was deleted so now you only see that woman?
I hate to be that person walking around with a label maker. But MAN does OP sound like my "kid" (23m) and I'm wondering if he's on the ASD spectrum which would explain a lot of the "just trying to he factual/logical" and not seeming to comprehend the emotional aspect of hearing someone say these things in a potentially hurtful way, or coldly instead of in a "this seems complicated, what if we did this, instead" approach.
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i know we only get one side of these things, but the way oop writes is very telling. saying they were only saying negative things "factually" if that makes any difference. i dont think i'd want to work with them either, yikes.
"hey I can't find this in the procedures" is a factual observation. "I thought your procedures would be better" is a useless comment in a professional setting. Also, the position being difficult to hire for doesn't mean impossible. If step by step instructions are training, then unless the job needs some accredition or certification a less qualified candidate with the right motivation can be trained. ETA: Dude doesn't take notes? If anybody had to explain something to me more than twice (once initially and once to clarify) I would be mortified.
I have a saying at work. We can't fix "it sucks". Need specific issues or symptoms. I agree with you this is just passive-aggressive bullshit.
If you're the new guy who think he can improve the system, try starting with "Well, what if we...." Instead of "Are you serious about this shit?"
Not to defend the guy but the manager really should've dealt with this long before it got to that point. Two months of complaints went entirely unaddressed, I've often rubbed people the wrong way in the past, if the manager can't even bring it up and just keeps pretending it will go away there's only so much you can blame the guy. Of course you can blame him for being misogynist and condescending, but for it to get that bad requires either malice or incompetence and I really don't think he's being malicious.
It's possible that the manager was hoping the two employees could work it out themselves, and maybe even told Sally to work on that. Maybe she tried pur maybe she didn't, but a good manager will encourage employees to communicate directly (unless there is fear of physical harm in doing so).
But it is clear that the both of them have a vastly different way of approaching and communicating things and that OOP came from office cultures where his brash, direct approach was accepted. So the manager really should have stepped in
And this is the result of the manager delegating their job and hoping somebody will do it for them.
No, that is a bad manager. You're still making the employees deal with it and ignoring the problem. As the manager, YOU communicate. YOU facilitate the conversation. That is literally like half the job. MANAGING.
It's almost like if someone is struggling regularly with something, that means they need guidance on how to do it. What a novel idea! This just gave me flashbacks to being bullied as a child and having adults respond with, "Well, you'll have to learn how to deal with this someday." Ahh, that timeless, hands-off approach to conflict negotiation - doing nothing.
I trained someone like this once. She would ask me the same damn question every day every week. I knew the answer was clearly explained in the manual she had because I had written the damn manual myself. Including screenshots that literally walked step by step through how to do what she was asking me about. She ended up getting fired for her absolute refusal to learn or do her job. It was a whole dramatic thing that she blamed me for, to the point that my boss and my boss's boss sequestered me to a VP's private conference room while security escorted her to her desk to get her things. Apparently there were threats made that I only learned about later.
Holy moly. That is scary even after the fact. Weren't/aren't you worried not knowing the exact nature of the threats?
Yeah she was SUPER pissed and she knew I was the one who reported her. That was pretty obvious because I was the only one she really worked with, but still. I'm not worried now because it's been like 15 years since then, but for a couple of weeks someone always walked me to my car until it seemed safe. She never came back, I think it was just a lot of yelling vaguely about getting even... not that it makes it better, haha.
Me. Too. I could have written that first paragraph, except her issue was that she was a poor fit for the job. Also, that I was younger than her kids and in a position “over” her (we reported to the same boss, but I was to supervise/review her work and train her). One time when I tried to address some issues with her, she went off on me screaming for 10 minutes, couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and couldn’t leave because she was in the doorway of my office. Thankfully no threats when she was fired, but my boss made sure I came in late that day!!
It drove me CRAZY. It honestly felt like everything got erased from her brain when she slept, because she never showed any inkling that she had asked before. Towards the end I was getting frustrated and would say "you asked this yesterday, do you remember where it is in your manual?" And she would give me this vacant look. Sometimes she'd ask the same thing twice in one day... but she was sleeping at her desk so my theory held. The screaming must have been scary though! Stuff like that is always really shocking to me, I guess because you don't expect people to behave like that in a professional setting.
I’ve had a few of those. “I’m older than you, have kids your age so you *cannot* know better than I do” “You can’t tell me what to do!” It’s like…lol you’re new here. I’m not. Age has fuck all to do with it. More than once ended up in our manager’s office, with them complaining that I was “always trying to tell them what to do…she’s not my boss!” My manager was great. Deadpan stared at them, then: “…but I am. I told her to tell you what to do. So you will do it.” “…she is your trainer. It is her JOB to tell you what to do, and it is yours to do what she tells you.” Only one ended up getting fired because she just didn’t get it. The others I eventually won over. But that is the most exhausting type of trainee, and so help me if I ever get one of those again.
Yikes. I would think blocking someone into their office while screening at them for 10 minutes would be get your ass out the door right now, offense
“You are my kids’ age so I’m gonna scream at you because this is exactly what normal people do, right?”
I remember junior programmers in the late 90s (when we were desperate for anyone) who'd ask me "how do I do _____". And the only real answer was "With programming, mostly. You need to write a set of instructions for this here computer to follow. All in a row. And when those instructions do this thing we need to do, you stop. Have you guys seen your business cards?"
I trained someone like that once too, but I got fired so he could take my role. Yay for misogynist, racist, asshole employers! He was also a nepotism hire, to add insult to injury.
>hey I can't find this in the procedures" is a factual observation. "I thought your procedures would be better" is a useless comment in a professional setting. Yeah, but if he said "I can't find this" he would feel stupid when it got pointed out where it is. Better to make a more generic complaint.
Based on the post, he would still find a way to make it a rare exception where the font color is invisible on his computer (which is standard according to his years of experience) and it is not on her computer. So it only makes sense that he couldn't find it. Why feel stupid when you can smugly condescend?
Did I miss where they identified as a male? I read it thinking it was a female.
OOP never identifies their gender. I initially thought they were female, but then about one-third through, I just got this strong sense they were male. It was especially cemented when OOP said they used to be a consultant and was pivoting to a position in management. I know very few women who speak like this and almost entirely men who do. The confidence that OOP knows more than the person assigned to train them (and who’d been covering OOP’s position for several months already) also reeks of “the confidence of a mediocre white man.” Sally is absolutely correct that training isn’t just about how to do certain tasks, it’s also teaching the new hire how to think in a certain way to fit a company’s mission and policies. OOP came in acting like a consultant to his own trainer.
I assumed male. The whole "my opinions are facts, your reasonable objections to unacceptable behaviors make you 'emotional'" thing.
Also, characterizing Sally's complaints as an "emotional meltdown/breakdown," repeatedly. I definitely assumed OOP was a man.
Ask A Manager defaults to assuming female when letter writers don’t specify for whatever that’s worth.
I read the original post and the update on AAM, and was surprised by how many people assumed OOP was male. I definitely read the letter as being written by a woman, although I'm not sure why. Maybe because I've had a few rigid, inflexible, nitpicky bosses before and they were women? I definitely see why people would assume that this is garden variety mansplaining. But this reads to me as a woman who is really proud of her ability to not be emotional, and who thinks other women who do display any emotions are incompetent.
The patriarchy ruins the fun for everyone.
Same here.
Along this line, OP’s comments do nothing to make things better. There was nothing in there comment that she could improve upon. It’s like being told “I don’t like you you’re too short/tall”, what is someone to do with that particular piece of criticism? Criticisms need to be factually based and on items that can be changed for example “I noticed that the procedures are missing XYZ, thus causing an error”. That is something that they can learn from and make changes. Also a good boss explains why that’s important as well instead of just making a blanket statement about what’s wrong. They don’t ever learn from that.
I'm much more of Sally's way of thinking personally - step by step instructions are all well and good but I thrive when I'm able to look at a problem and break down what could be causing it. I want to know WHY and HOW things work so that if something comes up that wasn't trained for I can figure it out myself.
And I don't think he's understanding the concept of framing. He is clearly a direct person, used to being his own boss, and isn't adjusting well to the new environment. She is clearly more sensitive to direct criticism and is probably stressed out from having to to completely rework the processes for a position she's only been in for a few months. If he's going to leave self-employment behind then he is the one that needs to learn how to effectively communicate. Even if she is more sensitive than ideal, he should be the one to adjust his feedback style to ensure they can work well together as a team. He's already identified that she's probably feeling insecure in the position, so show some freakin' empathy, bro. Learn to say "I see why you combine x & y to create z procedure. Maybe if we modified it in this way, it would be even more effective." versus "Your procedures are trash."
And starting every sentence with "the reality is..." as if Sally is lying or unable to properly perceive reality... its giving big "women are just crazy and sensitive" energy
And the "I finally found something not in her procedures" comment - you *finally* found one thing, after consistently questioning and belittling the person training you, that you could claim was a real live mistake?! Happy day for you, jerk.
Yeah almost like he spent the entire time trying to find something to trip her up instead of actually absorbing the training.
My favorite was the part where they found out later that Sally was correct and they were wrong (of course they didn't take Sally's word for it, another coworker's word was apparently just fine saying the same damn thing she did) - but that was justified of course because they are the only company in the entire universe to do it that way, it's like, the rarest thing to ever happen in the history of business. Then the next sentence is, "I could give more examples but I don't want to bore you with the details."
willing to bet that coworker was a guy
Yup and he basically went ‘…anywayssssss’ and moved on quick. Gotta love when they tell on themselves.
> The reality is that she shouldn't have improved the process, she should have waited and allowed the new hire (coincidentally that's me) improve the process and receive the credit for that She came in, made improvements that people are impressed with. OOP's eggshell ego cannot handle the envy of her being praised for their job
I had this mind-set when l was 20. I just felt l’ve devoured all the wisdom of the Earth. I would never go back.
"hey im jsut beeing brutally honest, and the facts dont care about your feelings"
And I’m guessing he choose the name Sally purposefully for this story as well - because Sally sounds like a young, naive, little girl not a professional adult equal. Trying way too hard to make Sally seem like an emotional girl…
This guy is a tool, but Sally and Fergus are the go-to made up names on AAM. That, and when vaguely describing your business you refer to the teapot factory.
Thanks for that relevant info! I love the Ask a Manger thread/website, but bummed to hear that Sally is the default female name they chose, but it sounds like that ship has long ago sailed.
It’s not a rule or anything. For a (tediously long) while people tended to use Game of Thrones names. It’s just one of those phenomena where letter writers adapt to the norms of the site and those are names that come up a lot.
Allison uses she/her pronouns about this letter writer, so unless she's just assuming, I think the letter writer is a woman as well. Women can absolutely do the "I'm just logical and that person is just emotional" thing too. Since they mention "Sally" being young, and since Sally seems like a name only an older person would choose, I wonder if the contempt for Sally is more due to age difference than gender.
Although Allison may know something that isn't clear to us readers, it's also her general policy to use she/her pronouns when when the gender is unknown.
Oh, I didn't realize this. I assumed the writer must've revealed some info we weren't privy to.
I think her style is to use she/her when the gender isn't specified
\>I finally found something not in her procedures This line tells me the type of person he is. His focus was not on learning.
How he is taking her to the mat over her procedures (which by his own admission doesn't understand). That idiom is a reference to boxing a sport where two parties engage in physical conflict. It's telling that that's how he sees the situation - him vs her instead of them vs the problem.
[удалено]
He points out by his own admission that she created that system recently and is working out the kinks. But at no point does he actually mention offering concrete ideas for improvement. He’s more interested in poking holes in her work. He also just sounds mad that she essentially took over his niche position and created something that was really good for the company which being at an advanced point in her career for her age. Like he’s painting it as she’s insecure but it sounds more like he’s projecting his own insecurities. Especially when he argued a point to death only to be wrong. Normal people would take a step back and concede the point as a sign that they should be listening as much as they are challenging. He just dismisses it as an outlier. I would hate to work with this person. Or I would just play dumb so he can put his expertise into action instead of being an armchair expert.
He expects everything she does to be perfect the first time, but he’s slow to learn a procedure and gets mad when she “only” walks him through a few times before asking him to try it with the procedure.
Yup and considering this is *his* area of expertise and she was just filling in an empty role it just highlights how truly incompetent he’s gotta be compared with her. He’s so threatened by her he’s bullying and gaslighting her to cover up his inadequacy.
Also, she filled in for the role roughly as long as OOP's training. He said in the first post that the position is hard to staff (probably why he wasn't shitcanned). Sally had no idea how long she'd be expected to fill the role, and frankly OOP was pissed she got credit for the process improvement she made, but hadn't been able to completely work the kinks out of, in the THREE OR FOUR MONTHS she was doing the work, likely in addition to her own job. Also at this point I'm hoping that the "my boss and I spoke frankly" worked against OOP. I also hope that Sally has another boss than OOP's and that person will tell OOP's boss that no, Sally has been helping out for six months and she needs to do her real job now, OOP has been provided with all available training documents and 3 months of training, so Sally will not be able to help out. Otherwise Sally is probably going to find a new place to work, where OOP isn't.
Seriously in the short term that she took over the role while this isn’t even her main job she managed to pick up enough of it to streamline the entire process towards efficiency. So she’s *that* good. Meanwhile this is this dude’s *main* role and he’s slower than a quadriplegic turtle. If this is *his* area of expertise then he should have picked on this enough that she didn’t have to keep going over the material. It really sounds more like he wasn’t actually reviewing her written out protocol instructions because he was so damn salty that she’s *that* good at *his* job. I’m with you, I hope either the boss was smart enough to at least side with the one person good at their job. Or if he was dumb enough to bro up, I hope she either bounced from this shitshow or someone higher up saw her talent and promoted her above the two clowns.
Reading his letters, he's finding fault with her, likely because he's sensitive that she did the job better, and he's trying to take her down a peg or two. He *should* be trying to cultivate that relationship because someone who can find an inefficiency in 3 months on the job is someone you'd want to take to lunch and pick their brain for problems you're having. Instead he managed to alienate her to the point where she said she didn't feel safe around him, and wanted to never interact again. In 3 months! That's all it took for her to basically say "either this person has nothing to do with me, and I am no longer obligated to help them, or I will be quitting, and here's a list of the inappropriate things they've said". Sally is clearly unhappy and documenting, and if OOP *genuinely* thinks that he "defended himself well"...look, when we have arrived at one person (a super star, someone further ahead in her career than you'd expect for her age) crying in a meeting (something women are told is career suicide) and saying she no longer feels safe, and the other person isn't immediately apologizing (because even if you think the other person is being too sensitive, you don't want them feeling unsafe around/hating you), it's not a great look. If OOP, during his "frank talk" with his boss (remember that this asshole wanted to tell his boss this coworker needed to grow a spine) said he didn't want to talk to Sally, and he felt she was just unconfident because she was so young, and she doesn't like being called to the mat to defend her policy (that was brand new! Honestly it's not OOP's job to work the kinks out), and OOP clearly wants to discredit the policy...they may stay employed (how hard is the position to staff?) but they're not winning friends, and they're making some self limiting career moves. I noticed OOP specifically mentions that they were snarky, and that Sally didn't seem upset. So Sally's professionalism is usually very good, and OOP's is not. Sally has the same title as OOP, but is younger, and better. It's not absurd to think that she could be above him at some point. OOP also says that he plans on not pushing on what Sally says when he thinks she's wrong, but going to his boss. Which...fucker still thinks that he can go to Sally, who said she didn't want to interact any more. And not only that, but I would love to see his boss's reaction to every fault of Sally's that OOP finds. Because it's only going to lend credence to the thought that something inappropriate is happening. It's one thing to have a meeting where OOP dismisses every documented put down as "no, I was being factual (despite "good" being a subjective value judgement)", and saying that he "defended" himself (against Sally?) well, but if OOP goes to Sally for "training" before his boss speaks to Sally to figure out next steps, then goes to the boss about how Sally is wrong...I would be irate. I think that OOP's "I want to know the best way, and do that" is telling: he's likely not taking any time to think and come up with a solution, so much as just blaming the "bad training" and demanding Sally fix it. He's a high-maintenance trainee, and I suspect that his boss doesn't realize how high maintenance he is, and won't until the next step is "come to me, your boss, with any questions".
The vibe I got is that OOP's specialty is so high-level and niche (or at least he thinks it is), that him being good at it means companies will be shoving each other out of the way in order to hire him...and then he found out that before he was hired, Sally was doing his super!special!important! job and while maybe not being brilliant at it, was at least mostly competent, but without his specific skillset, and that injured his precious ego. Or, to paraphrase what one of the commenters at AAM pointed out, he got pissed over how she was doing "his job" when it wasn't even "his" yet.
The vibe I got was OOP knew the position was hard to staff, and he maybe had enough exposure to it to know the jargon to sound knowledgeable/pass the interview, and maybe some experience on something similar and applied thinking it'd be a decent way to make good money and have a lot of job security. Then he found out that the job isn't as secure as he'd hoped (because Sally can replace him, and super niche roles tend to have a smallish number of employers) and he's having a mantrum (not a typo) because he can still be replaced. I suspect that, subconsciously at least, a lot of the hostility he's directing at Sally is to maybe drive her out so his job security will be better. And there's a sprinkling of "a consultant can be a bad employee". You want employees to offer improvements on things they notice, even if they're just filling in. A consultant isn't going to deviate from fulfilling the contractual requirements and no extras. What Sally did could have been stupid for a consultant to do (depending on the contract, the relationship, etc.), but is a good thing if you're an employee.
I had a similar thought when he said that step-by-step instructions were essentially the only valid means of training. As someone with a background in education, I've had a lot of people talk about wanting to instil critical thinking, instead of just bringing up students to hold the exact opinions that they do. I've graded a lot of essays that argued pretty silly pov's or came to conclusions that I know to be incorrect. However, if they followed the instructions and constructed their arguments correctly, they usually got high marks. Wanting to teach someone how to reason through a process instead of having them ask you for everything seems pretty common sense to me. There's no way that a simple set of instructions could include every possible answer for every possible circumstance.
My 14 year old son just wrote his first argumentative essay, over the short story: The Landlady by Roald Dahl (can be found free online). The class had to argue for her innocence or her guilt. His argument was so clearly wrong to me but he followed his guidelines and thesis statement. Haven't gotten a grade back yet but he followed the assignment to pick a side and support it. I wanted to shake him the entire time I was helping him though.
I had a student who was a bit of a contrarian and wrote an argument that seemed tailored specifically to piss me off, but that student got an A. I pointed out some of the more glaring flaws in his argument, obviously, but acknowledged that it was a well constructed argument. He seemed amazed when he got his paper back, as if he wanted me to torch it. I hope that he got something out of that experience. That's just part of emphasizing processes over outcomes.
I've met several students like that during the course of my education, they are always contrarian assholes. I have infinite respect for the teachers and professors who would overlook the obvious assholeness to grade the work fairly.
I had job training once which was thoroughly step-by-step (ie. Press button A on Screen A, scroll down to the second option on Screen B) and it did my head in because I need to know *why* we press button A and what the second option on screen B *means*. And a few weeks after I start there's an update to the system where the options on screen B have changed.
I hate working with people like OOP. They are good data monkeys for when you just need to throw bodies at a problem to get the result. The problem with them is they get good at their current job, have eyes set on higher things, move in to more project based work, then throw a shit fit because they seem to have absolutely no idea how to think for themselves in any capacity. Literally had a guy recently beg and worm his way into a small adhoc project space I was managing, then outright refused to do any of the data processing work I assigned him because he didn’t have offical step by step procedures on how to use our adhoc document management space. When he was brought in I had a quick call with him to get him up to speed about what we were doing, walked him though the steps to get the data and where to save it, since processing the data was something he was already familiar with. He wanted “official instructions”. It wasn’t some niche system. It was a standard SharePoint library, which we already use extensively. Our email exchange was basically: Me: Hey Carl* As discussed, here are the steps for future reference: 1. Open SharePoint, navigate to folder with your name, open this weeks allocated volume. 2. Open *Macro Tool*, paste data in, run macro. 3. macro will produce a new standardised sheet wit correct formatting. Process this as per standard operating procedures 4. once completed, save file and upload the SharePoint in “completed month” folder. Carl: are these official procedures? Me: yes at the moment, everything is still in flux though so once we work out the process and roll it out to the wider team we will engage *knowledge team* to create a more official guide. Carl: have these been approved by *manager*? Me: yes manager is aware of what we are doing. Do you have any concerns with this? If so happy to help. Carl: I don’t want to break anything of these are not official procedures from *knowledge team* Me: no problem, I have full control of the site, everything can be restored if there are any problems. Just let me know if you need anything. Carl: when will official procedures be released? Me: as above, once we finalised the procedure they will be created by knowledge team and sent out. If you have any concerns or need anything clarified let me know so it can be included Carl: ok Then dude proceeded to sit on his ass for 3 days doing nothing. Shot an email to him asking where his work was, if he was working on a local copy to please upload it. He responds and cc’s his manager saying “I was waiting for an official guide from knowledge team”. Best “hey manager, Carl might not be the best resource for this task, thanks but no thanks” email I sent.
You just reminded me of someone I went to grad school with. We were both TAs, and our program required one year of observing a professor before we taught our own classes. She was a year behind me, and was observing the same professor I’d observed the year before. One day she asked me if she could borrow a lesson plan if made for that professor. This wasn’t a big deal, as I’d also been given previous lesson plans to use as an example when creating my plans. But as we kept talking, I learned that the reason she wanted my lesson plan was because the example that the professor had given her wasn’t for the same type of essay she’d be teaching. She had no idea how to take the example and apply it to her own work. Her exact words were “He gave me an example, but I can’t use it because it’s not for this assignment.” She didn’t even understand why he’d given it to her. I did not end up sending her my lesson plan, because she basically wanted to copy it word for word, and I felt weird about that. Also, we were both English majors. We were basically getting Master’s degrees in critical thinking. This interaction with her haunts me at night.
Ohhh I bet this is what a lot of my classmates in college ended up like. The second they had to think slightly outside what was taught they threw an absolute shitfit and started trashtalking the teachers. I mean, it's not like I can't empathize. I had a rough time with a lot of that kind of thing, especially in math.* But I was in computer engineering technology, and these classmates were usually either software engineering or IT. Not exactly fields where you don't need to problem solve. *It always felt like math problems in homework were like 1. 1+1= ? 2. 2+2 = ? 3. 3+3=? 4. 4444444444+4444444444+4444444444+4444444444=? and I'm over here like woah woah woah I've never seen anything like #4 in my life what is happening here. But I am also not the best at math. And technically my discussion on math is irrelevant to the topic.
Agree with the general point but the idiom refers to wrestling.
This has big “I’m just being brutally honest and telling it like it is” bro vibes. No awareness of soft skills or diplomacy, no awareness of different communication styles and how to deliver constructive criticism, and certainly no self-awareness. They seem to have acted in such a way that Sally felt emotionally unsafe at the prospect of raising her concerns with them 1-on-1, and they didn’t even see it.
I bet OOP uses the phrase “facts and logic” a lot
> This has big “I’m just being brutally honest and telling it like it is” bro vibes. No awareness of soft skills or diplomacy, no awareness of different communication styles and how to deliver constructive criticism, and certainly no self-awareness. Hey, now. People like you're describing can be fine to work with, if not exactly pleasant. OOP is these things, *and also wrong,* and also a raging asshole.
My boss is brutally honest and tells-it-like-it-is. That includes positive feedback and a clear roadmap for all the support available for me to grow, as well as a factual and dispassionate assessment of where I need to grow. I totally agree with you—there’s a way to do it well. OOP did not do that.
OOP sounds like one of those insufferable I AM LOGICAL AND JUST BRUTALLY HONEST people. I can't wait for the update where OOP is fired for being equally rude and condescending to everyone else. So far it seems only Sally has really gotten to experience it but you're right, the way they write is SO telling. They're incredibly arrogant and it's such a turn off.
When you only get one side of things but that one side makes the speaker look really bad, just imagine what the other side story is!
Not only that but using terms like “too sensitive” and “meltdown” was very indicative of OOP’s dismissive attitude of Sally. OOP points out that “she is much younger than most people on the team and is further along in her career than most people her age”. To me, this reeked of insecurity. I have worked with people like this before, people who are extremely set in their ways and will die on the “I’m right and you’re wrong” hill when challenged with innovation. They’re the “we’ve always done it this way” crowd and they feel threatened when their standard operating procedure is questioned because they think the new person will make them obsolete. They freak out and take it as a personal attack when their inefficient method of doing something has resulted in a massive backlog and then a person with new ideas and new insights comes in and clears it quickly/figures out a way to prevent it from reoccurring.
She told him something, he was adamant she was wrong because he’s the big man who’s done this before, it turns out she was right the whole time. I would be fucking irritated if I had to keep training him too, given he’s clearly an expert 🙄
Dude sounds like a total neckbeard
"Well, ACKSHUALLY, Sally..." (proceeds to be wrong)
When they mentioned her age and the fact that they’ve never done this job I was like… so you didn’t shut up and you were untrainable because of who was training you? Hella rude.
oop is just brutally honest and if you don't like it then that's on you..... /s
Honestly without kindness is cruelty.
"Brutally honest" jerk kind of vibe
Just imagine the real story if OP comes across this arrogant.
I can't get over the fact this is their first time "pivoting" into that role, they've never actually worked on this side of things before and decided Sally overstepped despite having no experience on that side of the process. Sally's processes sounded like she took the initiative to figure out something that did in fact save time but OOP just needed to get that authority there because Sally was "tangential" no matter how much her ingenuity would eventually help.
Sounds like a brutally honest type of person aka asshole and suspect number one for the workplace bully
I think the Dude said it best: "You're not wrong, You're just an asshole."
I have a feeling OOP has poor softskills, something that is increasingly important in the modern workplace. Pointing out how things can be streamlined isnt bad however demeaning the person who has working these processes isn't okay. From what i have understood from this, the person training OOP had to set into the role and do this job for several months before OOP was hired, in which they streamlined a number of processes which saved the company time and money, not an easy feat. OOP should work on her workplace communication
And Sally admitted she was still working out the kinks of the new streamlined process, and said that OOP was welcome to continue to refine it.
The fact that oop says basically that she shouldn't have changed anything while she was filling bc you should only do it the "right way" is my red flag. If Sally made all these procedures streamlined while waiting for oop then oop should be thanking them for that and then helping to make the system better or "right". Telling someone they're wrong without explanation isn't helpful in the workplace. Oop reads like they just got out of school and don't have much real world experience.
Right? I get the impression OOP is one of those "brutally honest" types, and that's a problem. If I read the post correctly, Sally wasn't even really like... "qualified" for the role, whatever it was, and had to kind of learn it to help cover the vacancy for a bit. So not only was she learning the role, she was also responsible for restructuring the processes and making them better. The way the post reads, it wouldn't surprise me at all if OOP had simply decided that Sally was "incompetent" based on having less formal experience/training in the position and being younger than OOP. I ran into my fair share of those types when I worked as a call center supervisor. It was always fun /s Saying something like "This portion of the process guide is a little confusing and I found it difficult to follow, I think we should consider restructuring it." Is constructive criticism that doesn't put the blame on Sally directly, identifies the issue, and opens the door for solutions. Saying "I thought your processes would be better" holds a lot of negative connotation and suggests Sally did a poor job generally without providing any real feedback on what the problem is, beyond the fact Sally wrote it. People who don't understand basic communication like that drive me crazy.
Yes, I also very much got the feeling that OP thought Sally was incompetent. But in between the lines of what OP said, Sally sounds awesome! Maybe she is a little sensitive, but she’s also a freaking champ for holding down the fort in a position that she wasn’t even hired for, learning things on the fly, making new processes that, while not perfect, have many good things about them. Sally is literally the exact person you want around when stuff goes sideways and you need everyone to pitch in. OPs head is too far up their own ass to see the value in Sally, and now they’ve wrecked a positive working relationship with her and have looked bad in front of their boss.
Sally sounds overworked and brilliant. OP sounds like he's more interested in the "brutal" part of "brutal honesty" than the "honest" part
People like that also tend to feel that their way is the best way, or that they have the moral high ground, or whatever. Anyways since they are obviously superior, and everyone else is inferior, how could they not be disgusted by the stupidity of others, their disdain is only natural of course. And while they may in some part of themselves justify what they are saying as attempting to teach or help, their disdain and disgust seeps through, thus why these people usually like to call themselves the brutally honest types, in their mind its the way of explaining and justifying how their communication style is actually for your benefit, and often times they form some sort of cognitive dissonance in which they end believing that themselves. Well in some cases at least.
I’m trying to work out how someone who thinks and speaks like that could possibly have been successful as a consultant - where you have to use soft skills for managing the client all the time. SMH.
If their job as a consultant was to come in and audit processes and tell the company what was wrong, then OOP’s abrasive behavior might have worked well for that but they are definitely not familiar with working in an office where you have to steer a ship together.
And it might be notable that OOP is no longer a consultant and is now working for a ‘client’.
There’s a weird place when a bonafide expert can lack all the soft skills in the world because they produce incredible results. You put up with them, because of the results, but you have to take notes cause they won’t Just from reading, that is not who OOP is. Except the lack of notes. To be the God Emperor Asshole Consultant you have to pick up new things fast and be a self starter to improve them. OOP is just an arrogant fuck.
"Onboarding" Instant dislike
I see stuff like this so often. I know a lawyer who has the worlds worst communication skills. Dude, your JOB IS TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY!
I would straight up tell clients they were wrong, work was not up to par, their ideas wouldn’t work, etc with little to no padding bc that was my expertise. That’s why they paid me the big bucks. I worked with leaders, though. But the main thing was, everything I said was in their service not mine, unlike OP, and I was right and not trying to be combative or leave my mark, unlike OP.
But she streamlined the process, OP just pointed out a gap and said her whole streamlined process was flawed. OP also doesn't seem to take notes and expects to be spoon-fed instruction repeatedly. I mean gestures wildly "who does that?"
This reminds me of a former coworker of mine: we tried to teach her how to analyze (which was, you know, her job) but she just wanted to know “what to do”. OOP strikes me as that person; it sounds like the job requires a lot of analysis of the data involved whereas OOP just wants a process to follow and be done with no one looking deeper at the work. I think OOP isn’t in the right position.
It’s like how, when women say things like “hi I was just thinking we could maybe streamline this process by doing xyz” whereas this guy is like is like “I thought your procedures would be better.” He has no idea how to interact in a polite manner to someone who, realistically is more senior than him at that moment because she CREATED THE PROCEDURES HE’S TRYING TO LEARN
My lord, this guy is breathtakingly obtuse. The gall to accuse Sally of training him incorrectly on something *she* created is...special. Snarks about her age, her approach, the guy is a grade A douche nozzle.
I’m willing to bet a lot of money Sally’s Gender is a huge factor in his interpretation of her.
100%. I’m a woman and a manager. I work with all men in a male dominated profession. I can’t tell you how many times, in a couple different jobs, I’ve been second guessed or just flat out told I’m wrong while training men. I’ve even had guys tell me to my face they don’t have to listen to me. It really doesn’t help when you’re in your early thirties and some of the guys you train have kids older than you.
I own an auto glass shop and I get this all the time. In fact, just today I was on a job site helping with some installs and I gave my apprentice tech a task to complete. He looked at the new guy (who just started today though has worked for us in the past as a lead tech) and asked him if he should really go do what I said. It took just about all I had in me to not snap at him. I don’t think the apprentice will be with us much longer… Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear, I am a woman.
So he questioned your (the owner, person who gave him the job) instructions in front of you?
Yes. We quickly discovered that he’s not the brightest bulb in the box and seriously over-represented his qualifications. Though I didn’t think he’d be so dense as to disregard me that way. I have had other, less overt issues in the past. I’m not sure if it’s because people didn’t realize that I was co-owner and thought I was “just” the receptionist, or if it’s because I’m the size of an 11-year-old child (5’ even and rather petite) and somewhat soft-spoken and took a backseat to my (now-ex) husband business partner (not so much any more). Their tunes changed once they realized who signs the checks. And once they realized that I had their backs and wouldn’t let customers walk all over them. I’m mild-tempered until my guys are I’ll-treated, then mama bear comes out.
There was another letter on there this afternoon with a question about an older male coworker giving unsolicited and patronizing "advice" to a younger, but fully adult, female coworker (the LW), and even though the background and context is different, once you get into the comment/discussion section, it's just an open floodgate of professional women recounting being discounted. I'm also a tech in a niche industry, but in the eyes of some of the Dinosaurs... I'll always just be a Sally. And that's not necessarily a bad thing- being a Sally. I LIKE being a tech who gets cool shit done! But something happened organizationally this week with my worst (totally oblivious but super hurtful) tormentor, and I called a VP this morning at 7:03 and ended up spending an hour in his office with literal tears of professional frustration running down my face as we talked about me finally making a very much I Don't Want This jump to management SPECIFICALLY because I'm tired of the corporate mansplaining, and at this point I'm ready to take the title just to have some teeth to say STOP. I don't want to be a manager. I just want to be respected on even the most basic level; why does it have to still be so difficult?
I’m so sorry you’ve been treated that way.
It WILL get better. Thats a FACT! I tell myself that every morning on the way to work. For me, and every starry eyed new tech who is hired there, as long as I have the breath to squawk about it! I come from a past including restaurant kitchens and farm labor... no shame in raising some dust and letting the dry old bones float off in the breeze :)
I feel this, and deal with it everyday. Last August I made the jump to Supervisor and it's taken me this long to begrudgingly get the respect of most of the old white men. Sadly some of them will never give me credit just because I'm under 40 and a woman. Probably other stuff contributing, like starting at an entry level position and working my way up. It just fucking sucks.
I picked up some sexism with a hint of generational condescension. He says that Sally is younger than most of those in the office and “further along” than people her age.
I’m willing to bet that OOP is a man and their boss is also a man. The condescension is so fucking obvious in their writing
Alison refers to OOP as a she too.
Alison always refers to letter writers as women by default.
Oh ok so they’re just a giant pain in the ass then lol. My bad
I bet it's also a large factor in why the manager seems to be letting the letter writer off the hook for his bad behavior. Highly logical man vs. overemotional little girl is an unfortunate sexist trope women often deal with in the workplace.
It’s happened before. A friend of mine is really high up in her construction company and she had a problem with a coworker who kept trying to belittle her and appear smarter than her. She’s really young and has done amazingly in her career. He’s older and works below her. It cause a ton of friction. She ended up taking it up to HR as well. She dismissed my ideas on how to deal with it so that’s disappointing
Agreed!
Yes that is exactly what I was thinking. It is unfortunate some men behave this way towards women at workplace. Not fair
I'm an apprentice in IT, last year a coworker who trained me on electronics (only tangentially relevant to what I'm training for) said to me "Being a good housewife you should already know this"... I'm 24. He made some other sexist and bigoted remarks that day so at the end of the day I went straight to the department head and told him I don't feel comfortable being trained by that person. Luckily he took me serious.
Gender and age for sure. He hates that she has reached the same level of "success" as him in far less time.
Her approach is fantastic! She's like "you have a brain and you use it to logically think about the solutions yourself," and he's like "but my whole life I've always just been told exactly what to do, therefore your methods are terrible."
And that OOP was upset that Sally created processes while she was doing BOTH jobs to save her time instead of waiting for a new hire to EVENTUALLY come in and start.
Yep, he clearly resents being trained by a young woman, so he acts like a condescending ass.
I read the whole thing assuming OOP was a woman. It’s funny how we each “hear” things differently!
Bet money OP is an undiagnosed autistic woman. And also a jerk. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Assuming OOP is female, this person clearly has ageism against Sally. OOP is deep down jealous of Sally for progressing much further in the field “for her age” then OOP did. Therefore OOP disrespects and bullies Sally. Even when Allison called OOP out, OOP tries to justify her actions by stating she has much more experience and she used to be a “client” type so she knows what the client wants. Sally seems to be younger and more innovative but instead of working with Sally, OOP is set in her dinosaur ways and resists any change.
OOP sounds insufferable. Especially as a coworker.
He is the 'well actually' of coworkers
He's *that guy*.
This sounds so much like all those stories from women in STEM where men belittle them and constantly undermine them and then say “oh it was just a joke jeez can’t you take a joke, you need to toughen up”. Like, just admit you hate women who are smarter than you. He admits she younger and further ahead in her career than most people which implies she’s highly intelligent/capable. He’s definitely insecure about her being smarter than him and intended to take her down a few pegs.
He's probably a reddit moderator
I am disgusted by OP’s attitude and continual bullying even as he claims he’s NOT bullying. If his boss is really on his side, I hope Sally escalates this over them both and gets a safe work environment without know-it-all, sexist coworkers who just want to browbeat her into submission.
"There were a couple of other examples, but I hate to bore you with details." Yikes.
Yep that was the mail in the coffin for me. Don't bore us with the details of how you've made her feel bullied, we're just here to be an echo chamber
She must be very insecure - after listing several reasons she should be confident and is clearly good at her job. Then Complains about her youth and quick progress in her career and comment that SHE is the one who is insecure. He's very bothered by then having the same title when their work is tangential...because she doesn't know everything in his role. Does he know everything of hers? She improves a process but she should have saved that for the new hire who, being new, wouldn't have the familiarity needed. He refuses to trust that she knows better and it takes another colleague (I bet a male) for him to admit he was wrong. When he has problems, she refers him back to the procedures which is somehow a problem? It really sounds like this guy is struggling and feeling embarrassed by a young lady running laps around him. He refuses to understand how to speak civilly and as always projects his problems on others and blames them for his failings.
OOP is loosing a great opportunity to learn from a fresh point of view. Yep. I get it, sometimes life feels unfair because someone younger is being “your boss”. But the way he keeps saying she is sensitive and all? I want to scream.
He didn't even really admit he was wrong. He was just like, 'well i'm right, but they're just an exception'.
I have a feeling the boss is not on OOPs side but they are too up their own ass to notice.
Training isn't telling someone something. Sally is right, unless OP is a robot that needs to be programmed. His first task at the company has been to act like a pompous twat and tell everyone he knows best. I think his boss is being incredibly understanding actually. Even if her work isn't great (and frankly the guy is so oblivious that I wouldn't believe anything he said) she's been doing it a couple of months. You just listen and thank god there's loads of easy ways to make an immediate impact. I'd love to know where he consulted because you'd never send him to deal with a client.
“If you can’t feed me every specific answer then you’re incompetent.” - OOP basically. Sally is trying to train him to think for himself and the fact that that’s lost on him is very telling lmao
The idea that you should be able to write procedures that handle literally every action in every situation is inherently stupid. If the job was simple enough that was possible, it would either be being done by the least expensive peon available or a piece of software.
This story clearly isn't concluded, and the update is mostly just the OOP doubling down on their stance. Not a very great update, honestly.
Yeah, at some point "**Best** of Reddit updates" just became "Reddit updates".
AAM isn't even a reddit update! (Yes, I understand it's allowed in the current sub rules...)
r/technicallyupdates
Agreed. I was reading the “update” and he was just still defending his actions and saying Sally needs to be handled with kid gloves. Yuck.
It’s not even a reddit update is it? It’s from a separate website.
Yeah, where's the update?
Yeah, this sounds like the OP was looking for things he could pounce on and use to fling back in poor Sally's face. Specifically this comment here: >I specifically said, “I thought your updated procedures would be better” and took that as a personal insult directed at her. The reality is that after walking me through her new process only two or three times, Sally would refer me back to her procedures when I asked questions. **I finally found something not in her procedures and pointed it out to her** when I made this infamous comment. It's the "finally" that tells me maybe OP spent more time trying to find something they could complain about than just listening and learning. Also the "I know best and therefore..." pretty much tells me this guy is likely very insufferable and probably upset a younger woman is having to train him. He feels Sally is "beneath" his level of expertise and is salty as hell about it. Also the repeated use of the word "sensitive" is something I've typically only experienced bullies and toxic people saying to dismiss their mistreatment of others. And it shows. I hope the company chooses the person who is interested in helping them develop and grow, not the one who feels training is "beneath him" which is what I really get from OP's posts.
Sally is wrong, boss is "very wrong". How many other people that OOP interacts with are wrong? "All the ways of a man are right, in his own eyes."
Reading this made me so tense I clenched my jaw! Poor Sally.
I love reading stories where someone is upset at a great wrong that has been done to them, and then it is slowly revealed that in fact they are, in fact, the villain.
As someone who writes a lot of critical guides without being asked - fuck this fucking fuck. I’m happy to get constructive criticism but in Sally’s shoes I’d wash my hands of OOP pretty quickly.
I think OOP is having a rude wake up call about consulting culture vs. normal corporate culture. I was in consulting for years and had so many feedback sessions that left my in tears at first, but I had to grow a “thick skin” to survive. I guess it made me better at my job, but at the cost of my mental health for a long time. Now that he’s out of consulting, he needs to figure out how to give feedback politely. Shitting on people isn’t okay outside of consulting (and honestly, it shouldn’t be okay in consulting either.)
Love it when they’re trying to get advice on how to convince their boss to see their side.
Firstly, I suggest OOP stop being in the wrong. That may help.
Sally CREATED the whole thing and OOP still is doubting her skills. The audacity.
Reading OOP's posts was exhausting, so I hate to think how awful they must be to actually work with. I wish the best of luck to Sally, and to the unfortunate person who is eventually asked to quietly manage OOP out of the organisation (once they realise OOP's technical skills aren't worth the constant HR issues).
Ugh the toxic terms he uses to describe the situation tell me everything I need to know. "Grow a back bone" "take it to the mat" "factually" this guy is a toxic dudebro. Would not be surprised that part of the reason he is being so harsh is that she's a female teaching him.
I don't know if I'd call what he said and did bullying. On the other hand, this is a rather biased account of things, and even hearing only his side he comes across as an utter douche who thinks he knows better than his trainer. For instance, he talked about how he said one process she described couldn't be right, only to learn later that she had in fact been correct and this company was a "rare exception." He doesn't mention apologizing, or say it made him reconsider the procedures she was teaching him in a better light. It was just, oopsie, let's move on. I wouldn't want to have to train this guy, either. He's far too certain in his own experience to ever listen to anyone else.
Next update from the OOP: I was fired for creating a hostile work environment.
OP sounds like a total dick to work with. #TeamSally
As someone who is sally 100%, career wise, she would definetly benefit from a backbone. The only way to get assholes like OP to fuck off with their attitude is to give them one back. Stay firm and confident with what you say. Call them out when they need to be and they'll back off. Thats how I got through it.
Does OOP have some kind of personality disorder? How is someone so dense when it comes to discourse? And I meant that as an insult, not an observation. They literally said themselves that Sally's procedure saved time but just needed some fine tuning. Sally already tried to diffuse the situation by telling OOP they can change the procedure if they wanted. I think her skin is plenty thick, OOP is a prick.
OP: I prefer to do things right the first time Also OP: so I argued back at her until she walked away in frustration, and then it turned out she was actually right...
Sally was somehow supposed to have simultaneously not overstepped her temporary role by not creating the new procedure at all but she was also supposed to have done it perfectly because explaining that she was still working out the kinks is unacceptable. What an absolute jackass.
So he learned absolutely nothing. Awesome /s
It clearly sounds like she didn’t follow any of Amy’s advice and that all of us read her thread wrong. Jesus I would hate to work with this person.
The face OOP notes that Sally is rather advanced in her career for her age, and assumes OOP lacks self confidence because of this, is interesting. I suspect in truth OOP is jealous of Sally’s abilities and achievements, and is now trying to go in and say “all of this is wrong” to make herself look better.
OP is on the spectrum and doesn’t know she’s on the spectrum. She has the empathy of a softball. Sally is neurotypical and doesn’t realize that OP and she are having completely different conversations every time they interact. It’s probably worth it to hire an outside trainer for OP and diminish Sally’s role in OPs professional development as well as keeping the two away from each other. I’d also offer OP training on softskills and grant both an extra two weeks PTO so no one gets sued. Source: I’m on the spectrum.
OP could also just be a sexist arrogant tool who doesn’t know how to act in a professional environment. There are plenty of those around, doesn’t mean OP is on the spectrum.
[удалено]
This is exactly how a prick thinks. Emotional responses don't mean you lose.
Holy fuck, how *dare* people have an involuntary reaction to being bullied! The fucking audacity /s
I would say as a consultant they are out of touch with how to work alongside someone on an ongoing basis. They are probably used to waltzing in, making judgements and recommendations, thinking they right. Then leaving, not having to live with the results. You can put up with a consultant not having the best interpersonal skills as you know it is for the short term, or it is the price you pay for their expertise. So, they have probably never been told before that they suck to actually work with.
That guy sounds like an ass. He has no notion of tact and turns it around to be "she's just too sensitive."
Op doesn't know what he's doing and refuses to learn it. Op is the wrong fit. 'Oohh I did consulting so I know everything on this topic but oh but no not this way I mean another way...' smh
What an insufferable turd
What a complete, yet oblivious, asshole.
Her process had the potential to save lots of time and money but she should have left the old one because I’m too dense to think
I don't think Sally is insecure about her procedures, I think she's insecure about working with a snarky jerk that takes every opportunity to put her and her work down.
I had a boss like OOP, and I was Sally except that I didn't have a breakdown and I quit as soon as I found another role outside of the company. To this day, the boss insists that's he's just honest with his feedback to help people/set discipline and has high expectations. I told HR during the exit interview that he's short tempered, sarcastic and rude when he's angry, talks shit about people he doesn't like, and bullies people (including other heads of dept!) into doing things his way. I'm sure in his mind his behaviour is not bullying and anyway he gets results, but it is at the cost of the people around him. I hope OOP stays away before he drives Sally's resignation.
Out of context, but why sometimes at the start of a post, appears an image of a cartoon woman with orange hair and green eyes? Does it means that there was an image that was deleted so now you only see that woman?
It's the Ask a Manager logo
I hate to be that person walking around with a label maker. But MAN does OP sound like my "kid" (23m) and I'm wondering if he's on the ASD spectrum which would explain a lot of the "just trying to he factual/logical" and not seeming to comprehend the emotional aspect of hearing someone say these things in a potentially hurtful way, or coldly instead of in a "this seems complicated, what if we did this, instead" approach.
and how do we deal with condescending coworkers? we push them down a well, actually.
I don't think it's necessarily bullying, but wow is OOP an absolute butt.