Thursday, December 5, 2013

So I got in trouble at work

We got sent to work at a client's office and they are expanding into the suite next door to theirs. Lots of construction is being done, and it's very dusty. On Monday I picked particles of something out of my mouth. At the end of the day I wanted to vacuum out fiberglass (not really sure that's what it was, but I decided that's what it felt like) from my lungs and eyes. The dust was so bad that it was creeping under the door into the office we had been working in. Our client told us to work from home Tuesday. Our manager was on vacation so I emailed him to let him know we couldn't stay in the office while all that construction was going on. The other two guys I am working with decided the client is always right so Tuesday they would be staying home from work.

On Tuesday I went to our office instead of our client's. I was able to get about five hours of work done for our client and then did another two hours of random admin stuff. Today I went back to the client's office and it was MUCH less dusty. It was very cold - they'd left the windows open overnight to air out the place. Today our manager was back from vacation, and showed up totally furious that we listened to our client and didn't show up.

Even worse than that, he totally humiliated me by announcing to the two guys that at least I worked on Tuesday. I am a little confused about what we did wrong. They are always telling us to do what the client says, jump when they say, follow their dress code, listen to the client. But apparently when they say to do something that would be fun for us, we shouldn't listen to the client anymore? I don't understand. Work is hard, yo.

3 comments:

Abby said...

That's nuts. What were you supposed to do, show up and inhale toxic garbage after your client had specifically told you otherwise? You didn't do anything wrong. I think the issue was more that your client told you "work from home" and your colleagues took that as "take the day off." I could see your manager getting annoyed at that, but not at your following the client's direct instructions.

Karen said...

You did the right thing. I'm sorry you felt that your manager embarrassed you by using you as an example of good compared to your two team-mates. I assume they DID work from home.

If you have the time, schedule a brief tag-up with your manager to make sure you understand the rules of working from home. At my job I'm supposed to send a note to my boss describing what I worked on from home and how much time I spent on it. Usually I don't do that and it's ok because I'm a senior employee and he knows I'm honest. But sometimes I will send him a note because I think he appreciates the info and he can use it when he communicates with HIS boss.

When you have that conversation, it can be an opportunity to open up a bit and admit to being embarrassed by him using you as an example to the other employees. See what he says.

Anonymous said...

If the client instructs you not to come in to the office of the client, then you need to follow that instruction.

The client, however, can't tell you what to do instead -- that's your supervisor's call.

You seem to have handled the situation fairly appropriately given the circumstances, while your colleagues did not.

If you want to follow up, ask your manager how you could have handled the situation better.