Work Lessons

This week I had a phone call at work that involved a manager from a different department. I need to write about this interaction so that I can recall it in the future.

This call was about a survey my team had sent to all departments to ask for their feedback on standard definitions of data fields collected by the application we had built. The goal was to ensure that everyone is on the same page about what the data within the application refers to.

I wouldn’t say that she was irate or rude… she was intent on her position and did not want to compromise. She started by saying she “didn’t understand” why we did something. When I explained why, she defaulted to saying that we shouldn’t have done that, we should have done things a different way, and that THIS was probably above my level and she needs to speak to my boss or even the boss above him.

I think I was more anxious about the possibility of the conversation turning confrontational than I was about the actual conversation going on. I tried to respond directly to her questions with the extent of knowledge that I had. I tried to stay calm and empathetic when she voiced her concerns. I felt that I was perfectly cordial when she requested to speak to my bosses.

Ultimately, there was nothing I could do except take the beating. She came into the conversation with the intent of accusing us of doing our work wrong and I couldn’t dissuade her from that. All I could do was understand what her perspective was, try to not make the situation worse, and then give my bosses a heads up.