Work grievance, no HR Dept, advice needed please

[Sir Fergie]

h0b0 said:

Please tell me you don't report to me! If I have to check everything that my reports do then there is no fking point in having them. It's their job! I'd never get anything done if I had to hold their hands. Fortunately, you don't report to me as I have a team of adults who can handle responsibility and acoutability.

OP, you made your director look like an ass in front of a potentially important client. He got emotional in the moment and has apologized. He shouldn't have lost his cool but clearly he was feeling the pressure. Try and turn this into an opportunity. Tell him you will not screw up again and want to be even more accountable by delivering the presentation.

You could argue that it appears that the director has actually given a vital presentation WITHOUT reading through the information or documentation he was given for the presentation correctly.

Part of the problem here though - is that the OP provided information to ANOTHER person in the company - and that this other person was doing up the full document - with OP providing SOME prices for the document.

What you say about checking everything - is more or less whats being expected of the OP - as they are checking SOMEONE ELSES work.

The blame here lies with BOTH the person doing the formatting (who wasn't the op) and the director.

The person doing the formatting made the actual mistake the OPs getting the blame for - and the director (it appears to me) didn't bother familiarising themselves with the presentation documentation or information.

In fact thinking aloud - how much of the difficulty the director had on the day of the presentation was down to the actual mistake - and how much was down to poor preparation by the director in not reading the documentation.

I can't believe or accept that someone would give vital presentations without being familiar with whats written on the presentation documentation.

Its prudent for someone doing a presentation to read documentation and info provided by others as part of this presentation - NOT to check for errors or mistakes - but to familiarise themselves with a VITAL document on the basis that FAMILIARITY with the document and its information - would help deliver a better presentation.

The nature of presentations is that things can go wrong - you might make a mistake during the presentation, power point might go on the blink at a vital moment.

My impression is that the director has fked up - by failing to prepare.

Again its not a case of reading the documentation to check for errors in it - its a case of reading it to PREPARE for the presentation by being familiar with all the key important areas you need to cover.

I should think if it was me - id be familiarising myself with everything I NEEDED to know for the presentation for MY BENEFIT.

Again - it looks to me that the OP simply provided information for the presentation - but didn't actually do up the actual documentation - someone else did that - and this other person made the error.

I think the incident evolved in this sort of manner....

Monday Op is asked to provide prices for products A, B and C to person X who is doing up presentation documents

Op gives correct prices - product A is £10,000, Product B is £8,500 and product C is £12,500 - Op gives this information - correctly.

Tues Morning - person X types in the prices but in typing/formatting - they put product B as 12,500 and product C is 8,500. This is of course incorrect as product B is 8,500 and product C is 12,500. Person X SHOULD have double checked to ensure the info was inputted correctly but doesn't - hence error NOT spotted and thus not corrected

Wednesday morning - director picks up the documentation which is now "finished and ready" for the presentation.

1 week later - the document has sat in the directors car boot for the best part of a week - he hasn't read it and thus an opportunity to POTENTIALLY spot the error has being missed.

Directors failure to read the documentation costs him dear when the presentation goes badly and he stumbles under questioning by the client WHO HAS spotted the error.

And is understandably not impressed.

That's how it looks to me like events unfolded - and thus that's why I think OP is being unfairly blamed.

But of course if OP gave the information in the wrong way to the person drafting/formatting/doing up the document - they are of course responsible for that error

Edited by Sir Fergie on Friday 26th September 11:59

[Sir Fergie]

The Op says that the error occurred during formatting of the document - and that someone else was doing the formatting.

This suggests that when the OP handed over the information to the other person - everything was in order with the information provided.

Having to take responsibility for other peoples fk ups - quite frankly makes work far more hassle then its worth - because you end up constantly worried about whether person X is doing their job correctly - knowing that you will get the blame even though it wasn't your mistake.

OP - id be thinking of a new job tbh - life is far too short to be dealing with people like this.

To those who say OP is wrong - let me put it to you another way - lets say you make brake pads - how can you be held responsible if the person fitting them fks up the job and the brakes go wrong because of this.

This is the sort of situation the OP is in from my reading of it - again might be more to the story - but we can only go on what we are told

[Davel]

How about saying:

I can understand why you were so annoyed but it really wasn't my fault. However, we have to ensure that this type of thing cannot happen again as it has or could have been an expensive lesson for us all.

- and move on?

We've all said things that we shouldn't have in the heat of the moment and, hopefully, your guy recognises this.

[Sir Fergie]

Davel said:

How about saying:

I can understand why you were so annoyed but it really wasn't my fault. However, we have to ensure that this type of thing cannot happen again as it has or could have been an expensive lesson for us all.

- and move on?

We've all said things that we shouldn't have in the heat of the moment and, hopefully, your guy recognises this.

Would be good to move on for sure - my concern is how to get on and do normal everyday work things if your director now has a "not careful or diligent enough" question mark regarding the OP - when the Op possibly hasn't even done anything wrong.

If the facts are as posted - I feel bad for the OP.

I still think not reading through a document you are using for a presentation that's vital - or not doing so with care and attention - is negligent on the part of a director.

Hopefully the director will recognise that too - id expect someone doing a presentation to be familiar with all information put together for it and all documents relating to it.

The op acknowledges making errors in the past - and the point id like to make in relation to that is - lots of us have made errors has made errors at some point in the past at work.

Errors sadly happen in all walks of life

Edited by Sir Fergie on Friday 26th September 12:37