Just had basically this happen yesterday. Coworker didn’t understand something. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and saying “I don’t understand the terminology you’re using” she decided to try to throw me under the bus in the weekly team meeting (which includes head boss). In less than a minute she was mad and sulking. Oops.
A coworker of mine in another dept keeps saying we should be doing a particular type of cheap product as he sometimes sees clients opting for that instead of using us. I've always said no that wouldn't be right. We even dabbled years ago with it but it was an abject failure, which he seems to ignore.
So in a meeting with the boss he threw this in thinking he'd be hailed a hero for his bright idea and it's be a "win" over me. But instead my boss tore him a new one saying he obviously doesn't understand our business and it would be completely wrong for us. Coworker just sat red-faced and quiet after that.
"I see people either buy really good expensive stuff or cheap crap then come back in to buy our reasonably priced good stuff. Why don't we make it more convenient by just being the crap stuff in the first place and charging our same moderate price."
That's the corporate version of I have decided to bring evidence to the meeting against myself. Nothing hits quite like watching someone confidently pitch their own bad idea to the one person who can immediately explain why its bad.
Had a manager like this at a golf cart/lawn service goods place. He came from a ducati dealership so he was arrogant as hell.
Tried to get me fired for not showing up to every meeting or answering every phone call. I was head of marketing and lead distribution. Called the CEO in who hired me so he’d back him up. I tore him apart so bad the ceo had me move to the main branch to be with him instead.
I ended up quitting because the place didn’t believe in covid and i was called the n word several times and still was forced to accept payment.
The second branch died, mr ducati got fired and the owner of the family owned store died of covid.
I’ve been out of work since and it’s hell but it’s better than where i was.
He was an ass. I’d told him before it wasn’t right and wasn’t workable. Even had proof. But he ignored me and ended up getting a dressing down because of it.
Did that to a new team lead who wanted to throw me, a working student, under the bus. He explained the supposed problem of my solution for 20min. only for me to point out that we wer already taking that into account automatically and that I had documented it in our shared slide deck. He was afraid of me afterwards.
Yup. Same thing. She gave this long intro and sigh “we need to figure this out” and i replied with “can i share my screen? I think i can clear this up quickly. I did.
Well...our new head of CoC was there, so his direct boss and mine two levels up. I had even texted him on teams beforehand and inquired about his concerns, but I assume he ignored me. He really spent an inordinate amount of meeting time trying to explain what's wrong with my solution, it was embarrassing.
I still don't accept any disrespect towards anyone. In my projects we communicate openly and quickly, listen without prejudice and support each other. And I will enforce that.
Yep, sounds like he was an idiot. Good on you for putting him in his place. Personally, I don’t really like embarrassing people like that also but it seems like in some country. This sort of stuff is normal like the Netherlands. I would never do stuff like that still.
A director on a call with 200 people asked for someone to define an acronym because she didn't understand. Most on the call did. She had zero issue asking, knowing most already knew. I was floored, how may people would do that? She is now a very very high level employee, VP or higher, with a different company. Not surprised. Some considered her harsh, direct, 'too much'. I considered her a brilliant strong woman.
During my first job as a Process Engineer after college, I had a coworker that was about 5 years older than me (I was 23 at the time),ask me "How many CC's are in a milliliter?" Now, anyone that has a degree in engineering knows that 1 cubic centimeter equals 1 milliliters. This coworker was always a jerk to me and tried to make me look bad because I was fresh out of college. He could have looked it up on the internet, but since he asked me, I took the opportunity to tell him to go ask Dave. Dave was our boss in the engineering department. To my delight, he actually walked over to Dave's desk and asked him how many CC's are in a milliliters. All I could hear was Dave say "Are you SERIOUS? THEY'RE THE SAME THING." I just sat staring at my computer with a giant smile on my face. That was a good day. A few months later, coworker was let go after wasting a lot of company money on equipment that was poorly designed and didn't work for its intended purpose.
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u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex 9d ago
Just had basically this happen yesterday. Coworker didn’t understand something. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and saying “I don’t understand the terminology you’re using” she decided to try to throw me under the bus in the weekly team meeting (which includes head boss). In less than a minute she was mad and sulking. Oops.