What to do when boss said I had not finished assigned work
New analyst here.
Basically, an associate assigned some PowerPoint pages to me and asked me to update the data. She said something like "do the pages assigned to you and you can see your name on them".
So I finished those pages, sent her back at 4pm yesterday. She came back at 11am today and told me that I did not finish the assigned work and she had to do it herself because it was urgent. She even told me what pages I did not finish.
The problem is, those pages were not assigned to me. Tripple check and I am pretty sure I did not delete my names on them.
Think she's a bit mad at the moment. Haven't gotten back to her for a few hours. So what should I do?
Appreciate any comments.
Resign
Just tell her apologies for the misunderstanding as you didn't see your name on those ones and you'll doublecheck that in the future. And then next time she assigns something like that, send her a note and say you want to confirm your pages are x,y,z and have her agree.
This is the best advice. Sorry about that though, sounds like not a very good associate.
how normal is this
Sounds like a shitty associate
prob a post-mba associate too
Maybe she re-updated the slides in the middle of the day and put your name on more of them after 4pm and just forgot to tell you.
Going forward, as soon as you finish having a conversation with her about work, send her an email confirming the assigned work:
Example: Hi Associate,
As was discussed, I will update slides 5-6,9,14, and 17. If I have the wrong information, please let me know.
Best, Analyst
If she complains again about you not updating the correct slides, refer to the email. If her argument will then be "I didn't read your email", reply that after the first time when we had a disagreement about the slides that were supposed to be updated by me, I wanted to ensure there was no misunderstandings and sent an email summarizing the task. How do you recommend that we prevent such misunderstanding in the future?
Save these emails, and then when having a review with the staffer, bring this up and send him/her all of those emails to expose what a piece of shit that associate is.
"If I have the wrong information, please let me know." - is inorganic and confrontational?
Inorganic? I don't see how.. Confrontational,not sure I see it that way as it's clear you're trying to communicate with the associate that you want to work on the correct slides.
Imo, analyst has to pick between, either having your associate complain to your staffer that you don't do what is assigned, or you send an email that might irritate your associate but will cover your ass. I don't think this associate will be looking out for this analyst, so I would pick the latter every single time.
"Pretty sure" is not sure enough. Check version history of the file before taking any action.
Yep 120% sure. She literally said "update the slides with you name on" yet she came back saying I did not update other slides.
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