Name something BAD you did this week. :: RunningForums.com

kristin31 wrote:

For what? Or not discussable?

.

Below is the text of my comments to HR, substituting Cat Lady for another employee and Boss for...well...Boss.

During the week of December 19th, 2004, I was assisting Boss with completing her performance appraisals in that I was taking dictation for the comments section and working with the excel spreadsheet. Copies were printed of each and e-mailed to the appropriate parties. Several documents that were due to HR that week were copied and forwarded as well. I placed the copies I had made, as well as a few other documents in her in-box once Boss had left and Scott had conducted meetings with the AE’s.

I left Boss’s door open while she was on vacation because I misplaced her key and I needed access to her reports and to drop things in her inbox.

On Tuesday, December 28, 2004, to the best of my recollection Cat Lady was still in the office and was the only one in the office when I left. I received a phone call on my cell phone and then at my home from Crazy Cat Lady asking me if while I was in with Boss during the week of the 19th or in passing if I had heard any comments by her regarding “her integrity”. I told her that no I hadn’t and asked where she had learned this. She told me that she had had a conversation with someone who had shared this information “in confidence”.

I questioned her as to whether something I had said to someone could have been construed that way, and she said “No. It did not come from you.” I probed further but she would not reveal who it was she heard it from. By this time, I had remembered that the evaluations that had been printed were in folders somewhere in either my space or in Boss’s office. I called Boss on her cell phone to ask her how I should proceed. Boss advised me by voice mail on my cell phone to continue reiterating that I know nothing.

The next day, I looked to see if I could locate Nancy’s evaluation in an obvious place and I found a copy of it in Boss’s inbox under Cat year-end file (A file that had her name on the tab). Boss called and got the complete story from me and advised me to continue as if I know nothing.

Later that morning, Cat Lady then asked me to speak with her in private and asked me how to gain a better relationship with Boss. I told her that Boss was very numbers driven, and that if she had read something somewhere that Boss had written or saw a copy of her evaluation or heard something from someone, she should either take it up with Boss or not let it bother her. I then asked Cat Lady what her motivation was for calling me on my cell phone and at home, and she said that “Since I am the assistant and I was in her office a lot, that I might have heard something and could say something that would make her feel better.”

When Boss returned to work on Monday, January 4th, we discussed the situation and I reiterated the fact that her door had been left open as I had misplaced the key and that I had seen a copy of Cat Lady’s evaluation in her inbox along with other like paperwork. I was told by Boss that I need to tell Cat Lady that I am being held responsible and to find out where Cat Lady got that information. Boss said that I should confront Cat Lady and to let her know when I am ready to do that. Boss went further to say that if I hear Cat Lady say anything about a lawsuit that I was to tell her because she is “out of here.”

I feel that my letting Boss know of the situation the moment it happened and sharing with her again the ensuing events, while accepting the responsibility for the door having been left open, that I have fulfilled my capacity as a Sales Assistant. I am not trained in conflict management and I am certainly not authorized to demand that Cat Lady tell me where she got her information. Boss even asking me to assist her in the evaluations, if indeed that is where Cat Lady got her information regarding comments by Boss, has placed me in the awkward position of knowing more about these individuals than I should.