Conversation posted to the wrong Slack channel.

19 Comments

1. AnonymousJuly 23,2022 at 5:41PM UTC

   It seems that you are upset by the Slack conversation and that you feel a level of guilt. Perhaps you feel that the conversation was the equivalent of talking behind the back of the male coworker. Also, it sounds as if waiting for the potential fallout, if any, is eating you up.

   Are you able to schedule a meeting with your boss, either one-on-one or with you, your female coworker and the boss? Maybe you could have a discussion with the boss to address the issue as a desire to help improve the outcome of the entire team's work? You indicated "...nobody else seems to offer feedback for improvement". It sounds as if this is where the issue lies and why there was this Slack conversation in the first place.

   If you or you and your female coworker were to present to your boss a short list of ways to improve the quality of work output, you would not be singling out the work of this one coworker. It would be helpful to cite examples: we did this, and this is what happened, but if we had done something else, the outcome might have been this, which would have been better (provide evidence and explain how the outcome might have been better - think efficiencies like cost and/or time savings). Is there a way you can have an offline brainstorming session with the female coworker to draft such a list?

   Maybe the male coworker's subpar work is not solely the result of his unwillingness to accept help. It might be part of a larger problem related to processes that could be improved.

2. AnonymousJuly 24,2022 at 3:04PM UTC

   This suggestion — to use the original conversation as a jumping-off point for process improvement — is genius. It depersonalizes the original conversation and provides an opportunity to assist, not attack, the colleague who is experiencing difficulty. Kudos!

3. AnonymousJuly 23,2022 at 7:14PM UTC

   Here's my read of your post: you and your coworker (while not disparaging this colleague) were saying unsavory things about him on a group chat.

   You recognized your mistake and you're afraid of getting caught with your pants down so have shifted much of this post to pointing out your colleagues inability to ask for help.

   If one of us here on FBG were on the receiving end of this gossipy chatter, this board would be in an uproar! Hostile work environment, discrimination, call HR, my god...call the National Guard while we're at it!

   March yourself into the boss, disclose this conversation, be an adult and take full responsibility for yourself and your actions. There's no work around here. If your coworker saw this convo, I promise you they're feeling like shit right now. This was not one of your finer moments...you owe this person an apology. If anyone else saw this convo, I promise you your colleagues are wondering if you bad mouth them behind their backs, too.

   If you and your colleague were genuinely interested in coaching this person, you would have approached this in a professional manner and brought this shortcoming up in private instead of on a slack channel.

   I was on the receiving end of someone's nasty comments, A Skype message was sent in error to me (about me) and it represented an inflection point, a new direction with both this colleague and employer. It was a horrible experience.

   You're clearly an intelligent woman, do the right thing and address this head on.

4. Michelle S.July 25,2022 at 1:48PM UTC

   Thank you for the recap, in case none of us could read it for ourselves the first time. PS. this person isn’t The supervisor. So why would they give that feedback to the person? It’s not their job.

5. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 5:06PM UTC

   i totally agree with your comment that these two women aren’t this person’s supervisor! If they were truly interested in improving this situation, however, they would have approached the boss with constructive ideas on how to remedy things. Gossiping about it is immature and unprofessional and you run the risk of being exposed…which is exactly what happened here.

6. AnonymousJuly 24,2022 at 3:27AM UTC

   I would pretend this never happened.
   There's a decent chance that the subject never heard any of this and bringing it up would just open a can of worms that does not need to be opened.

   And who would you be making feel better? Yourself. If this person doesn't know what happened, why would you want to purposely make them feel bad by telling them about this?

   People feel guilty and think that telling the other person "is doing the right thing" when what they're really doing is trying to relieve their own guilt.

   If this comes up, I would downplay it, make it not be that big a deal and just say exactly what you wrote above - you weren't trying to hurt his feelings, that he could be delivering better results and that he really needs to ask for help when it's offered.

7. Michelle S.July 25,2022 at 1:47PM UTC

   The only issue with pretending it never happened is one, it did happen and two, you always get a notification box with the first three lines of a message. Sometimes more. So they know that something was sent in depending on where that phrase was, they might’ve even seen it already. The only way she can get away with this, kind of like a child would handle it in my opinion, by just ignoring it is if they clicked out of the notification and never read it. And if they had email notifications activated, the same thing would be in there, maybe even in FULL… Much better to own up and then have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s always better to take accountability. In my humble opinion

8. JenniferJuly 25,2022 at 1:37AM UTC

   I haven't ever used Slack for work, but if it works like most messaging/chat tools (Teams, etc), then people likely have the option to enable notifications with previews. The text of the message is visible within the notification itself. When you delete the original message, it doesn't remove the notification, so someone can still see what had been written. I've experienced this. I can read the message, but when I click through to the app, it's gone. I would operate as though it has been seen. If anyone else read it, it will probably be discussed, just maybe not with you or female coworker.

   I'm not sure if the focus on the word the "disparaging" is due to an Employee Code of Conduct (and thus potentially an HR matter), but you obviously understand that it would make male coworker feel bad if he read it, particularly since it was implied this has been a repeated issue.

   Trust is critical in a team for members to feel comfortable asking for help. If, for whatever reason, he doesn't feel professionally "safe" asking for help from you and FC, then learning that you and FC discussed this repeatedly is definitely going to make things worse. If I were MC, I would be upset that this was some repeated problem, yet neither your nor FC ever had the courage or enough respect to have conversation with me directly. If there was something that you were doing that caused repeated issues, you'd want a coworker to let you know rather than just talking about it behind your back, right?

   I think you need to own up this and apologize to MC. Tell him that you should have had a conversation with him directly. That you respect him, shouldn't have things this way, and that you're sorry.

   It's amazing how much a genuine apology can do to help build, and rebuild. trust. Taking accountability and apologizing requires courage and vulnerability, and it shows that, despite whatever transpired, you respect the other person. Speaking about the situation directly is usually a relief to both parties. The alternative is bottling it all up and moving forward with distrust.

   I don't intend for this to be preachy. I've just found that getting comfortable with the discomfort of proactively saying, "Hey, I messed up, and I'm sorry," has been incredibly liberating.

   Good luck.

9. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 12:18PM UTC

   In my previous place of employment, I was the target of some mean ladies in our office. The type of women that would get real quiet anytime I walked into the room, making it so obvious they were talking about me. One time, one of them accidentally sent me an email about me, meant for one of the other mean girls. The email called me a bossy bitch, and rude, all because I asked a few questions about a project. Literally, no one else in my career has called me bossy or rude.

   That one email created such a psychologically unsafe environment for me because I actually knew how they felt about me. I began dreading going into the office. I was depressed; it was terrible. I never took the initiative to talk to my boss about it; I didn't want to also be a tattle-tale, I mean I was already bossy and rude. I still get upset when I think about how mean these grown ass women were.

   You and your coworker have probably talked poorly about this male colleague before, you wouldn't post the first disparaging comment on Slack.

   Grow up, tell your boss what happened, and please stop talking bad about coworkers. If you have an issue with them, be an adult and talk to them face to face.

10. Michelle S.July 25,2022 at 1:44PM UTC

    I say with love and grace, you tell this person to grow up yet you never approached anyone or those coworkers and instead let it fester and become something that you are very sensitive about.

    There are times that all of us could grow up. Unless you’re going to offer feedback that is kind, critical even but with respect, don’t feel like you need to say anything at all.

    Just from your response, I feel like maybe you should’ve taken that feedback from those coworkers and thought through it a little bit more. Rather than take such extreme offense and shut it down.

11. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 2:00PM UTC

    Your answer to this women's response to a disparaging email wouldn't fly in an office that has respectful workplace policies. It's never the person's role who was victimized to step up and try to make amends; it's those who created a psychologically unsafe workplace through their actions that need to do so. If you had done this to any of my 120 staff, you would receive a warning letter. If you did it again, you would be fired. This woman does not need to "grow up" but needs to speak with her supervisor about having the women who sent the email change their behaviour.

12. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 2:06PM UTC

    You're right. I let my emotions in this situation get to me, and it brought back some painful memories for me, and I was clearly projecting on the person that posted this.

    I took extreme offense because it was months of them talking about me behind my back. Months of text messages going between the two, months of silence when I entered the room, months of the silent treatment. And in my experience, posting negative feedback about someone on Slack or email typically isn't the first time people have had something negative to say about someone.

    Now, I refuse to engage in any kind of gossip or badmouthing in my office. If I hear one of my direct reports has bad-mouthed a colleague, I immediately talk to them about it to find out the root of the problem.

    Too many people in our workplaces never outgrow high school behaviors, and it's hurtful, especially when life is tough enough these days.

    So thank you for pointing out that my response was not being mature, helpful, or insightful.

13. Saudia SantureJuly 25,2022 at 1:55PM UTC

    I have always found that my gut will tell me what to do - in this case, yours is clearly telling you you've done the wrong thing.

    I'd go straight to the co-worker and tell him what you think - ask him why he didn't ask for help. Tell him that the presentation was incorrect, and that you would have helped.

    Perhaps he didnt ask you (or her) for help because he can tell you're judging him and he is uncomfortable with that. So this whole situation is a catch-22.

14. Bernadette M MartinezJuly 25,2022 at 3:08PM UTC

    This doesn't read like you're upset that you may have hurt someone's feelings.

    You're really upset that you may have gotten caught gossiping about this coworker's perceived inability to ask for help from the two of you and looking for ways to CYA.

    If you think this coworker's work is so inferior to what the two of you could do, why not just discuss your concerns with your manager?

    Like others have said below, Slack will send the entire convo via email if users have that enabled and at best they'll get a few lines in a notification on their phone.

    Realistically, your boss will likely speak to the two of you independently when the person you were trashing brings it to them anyway. And you'll have damaged your working relationship with that individual, possibly irreparably.

    I once got an email from a person I was going back and forth with on a tech issue in a Google chat. They accidentally sent me the entire email chain with them saying some really unprofessional things about me. They unsent it via Outlook, but I had my email forwarded to my work Gmail account and saw it anyway. To say I was LIVID was an understatement. I reported it to my team lead, my assistant principal, and my principal and let them know that I was escalating this to HR the same day. The result was that I never bothered to reach out to that department of two again and they were apparently reprimanded pretty severely since it wasn’t the first time this had happened with them (so I was told when HR followed up with me).

    Stop trying to justify what you know was plain bitchy behavior by y'all.

15. Ruth SathreJuly 25,2022 at 4:17PM UTC

    I had reached out to another department for a training program that was done by them. I was accidentally copied on the email chain within that department that I should be told to go away. I giggled when I read the chain (someone had replied to all). I replied to my contact on the chain and asked for an update. I got the training!

16. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 3:50PM UTC

    I agree with some of the comments. The best thing to do at this point is to be honest and straightforward. Instead of talking behind someone’s back, deal with it. Go to the manager. Go to them directly. But the best way to make this less about gossip and more professional is to just take up your concerns with someone who can make change or help with the team dynamics. I just always like to treat others how I want to be treated. It makes for a better work environment for myself and others. And my mental health at the workplace is better.

17. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 3:55PM UTC

    For additional context that may help. I trained someone that was like this person you described and they also stopped asking for help and would make mistakes that caused for more work for the team. I let my manager know in a way that was solution based and professional. Broke down how it impacted the team and work for others. I let my manager know I was going to speak with him directly and I did. He was very thankful for and my manager said to me that he knows when he upsets the team and he is very aware so he valued that instead of going behind his back I spoke to him directly. Overall it strengthened my team dynamic and gave me more empathy for his type of personally and work style.

18. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 6:52PM UTC

    Thank you all for you thoughtful, gracious--and in some cases, raw, heated and emotional--responses.

    I didn't expect those from some of our FGB ladies. If you have never expressed frustration to a colleague about another colleague's work/behavior, have never made a mistake, have done everything perfectly, making 100% righteous and virtuous judgements, you must be an angel living and working in utopia. I appreciate the sentiments but the caustic, self righteous and angry comments caught me off guard. I am on this platform to find even-keeled career advice and feedback that FGB ladies generally offer. I do appreciate those who offered enlightened comments re: how to handle it in a way that is professional and transforms a challenging situation into a positive. Thank you for the insightful responses. These will help guide how I handle things moving forward.

    I didn't make this clear in the original post that we (me and female colleague) have tried to work with him directly. He would not be surprised by any of this. We not only offered help in the past, but partnered up to explain what needed help where, and why, with specific feedback on how to make changes (some of which we did for him), in an effort to be collaborative and supportive. And yet the problem persists.

    As someone stated earlier, we are not his supervisor so now we're asking the question, "At what point do you escalate something like this?"

    Ultimately I do intend on having further discussions with the team to work on the issue. These will be open, candid conversations. I do intend to apologize for posting a single comment stating a fact that our male colleague will have not been surprised to read on Slack. He doesn't deserve to feel bad. He deserves more respect that this and I am 1000% sorry (and will state this). My FC who started the conversation will have to choose her own path to resolution.

    Thanks again for all of your feedback.

19. AnonymousJuly 25,2022 at 10:40PM UTC

    He sounds nearly identical to a person I work with. It’s a lot of work. IMO it’s an ego thing. I wish you luck.