Office Politics: When and How do you stand up for yourself?
How do you deal with "office politics", where you feel that you are unfairly blamed?
- Example:
Doing a model/pitch book/memo that associate asks you to do. You turn it back, ask the associate if there are any questions, gives you markups/comments and then you do your thing. Once done with the markups you show it and says it looks fine.
Then you have a discussion with your director about the material and he's asking all this stuff about analysis/stuff that he thinks should be there.
What should I do in this situation? I thought I didn't want to be get into a "my word against your word" with the associate and look like some petty dude in front of the team, so I didn't say anything and just made whatever adjustments. Afterall, most important is the client gets the material done well at the end.
- Just wondering if and when I should stand up in these various cases and if so, how should I go about doing it?
Thanks.
I can't speak from experience as I've never been in these scenarios (thank God), but I do have some ideas about how I'd react in situations like that.
Scenario 1 - if they threw me under the bus saying "Yeah I told you to do that, didn't it?" I most likely would have replied with a non-aggressive "I don't recall having that discussion but I'm more than happy to add in that analysis"
If something like that goes on with an associate for an extended period of time, I'd have a discussion with one of the directors/MDs and let them know you're concerned that associate X keeps throwing you under the bus unjustified and feel that it will adversely affect you in regards to bonuses/future recruiting, etc
With senior guys telling you to do something then saying "no I told you this", I would try to have some written record of their request to point back to, be it an email with their requested comments or a physical printout of the book marked up.
You can't let yourself continue to get denigrated, because you're right - it will affect you eventually. There's a way to do it diplomatically without hindering the process of getting work done.
Deleted.
Fuck being petty. Asshole like that can use that shit come bonus/promotion season to say "he doesn't listen well" or "doesn't always follow instructions". In both cases, written proof (email, comments or whatever) is your kevlar and you should ALWAYS use it. Don't be an ass when using it but a simple "I can double check, but the email thread we exchanged with sections to edit did not include that part. I'm happy to forward it to both of you" is fine. People who are bad at managing and simply throw juniors under the bus should be held accountable just as much.
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