The Unrelenting Manager from Another Department

There was a bit of a kerfuffle at work this week, but the story actually started a few weeks ago.

One of my responsibilities at work is to copyedit documents that address changes to products or policies.  The change is usually something small, like a product made in the factory in China will now be made in the factory in Mexico.  These are internal documents, but if customers need to be informed about the change, a letter will be drafted for them, though they’re usually just like the internal documents but without certain details (because the information is irrelevant to customers or it’s something the company doesn’t want made public).  I do not write either of these documents, I merely copyedit them.  The document author is usually an engineer and a non-native English speaker, so some wording hiccups are expected.

This is not one of my main responsibilities and I’ve even been instructed to not copyedit anything beyond these documents (unless instructed by one of my direct managers) because as the only English-speaking technical writer in a global company, I could easily spend all of my time copyediting and still never finish everything.  However, the internal documents and customer letters are the exception.

A few weeks ago, I went through the same process where I copyedited the two documents and sent them back to be approved and distributed.  This time, however, I left in some company jargon in the customer letter because I didn’t recognize it for what it was.  When some of the upper managers saw it, they panicked.  I got a call from a manager I had never heard of (apparently, he’s right below the VP for my segment) to go over the letter.  He was polite and didn’t blame me for what had happened and was instead focused on how to fix the problem.  I quickly made the changes he asked for and submitted it.  So, an unfortunate mishap occurred, but we quickly fixed it.

A couple of days later, I got an email from the new manager of Product Information (they handle document coordination and archiving) asking me and the other people involved to explain our roles in the process of handling these documents.  I noticed that my boss, Magda, had not been included in the conversation, so I forwarded her the email and told her how I would respond, to which she agreed.  I explained my role to the head of Product Information (PI) as I did above and I thought that would be the end of it.  Well, the next week I get another email asking for a more information: not only was I to better define my own role, but I was supposed to also define the roles of everyone else involved.  Again, Magda was left out of the loop.  After we talked and made sure we were on the same page, I wrote my second response (and had Magda read it to make sure it had the right tone) and I sent it off.

That brings us to last week.  I had my seizure on Monday and only worked the second half of the day, but I had emailed Magda about what was happening and she was very supportive.  When I came into the office, I saw that I had missed a meeting, even though I knew I had no meetings scheduled.  It turns out that I had been sent a meeting request around 1 AM on Sunday and my calendar updated automatically.  I don’t check my work email outside of work hours, nor am I expected to, and sending me a meeting request to Skype at 9 AM the next day is at least the very least discourteous.  Guess who called the meeting?  The PI manager.  I was too out of it to care, so I ignored it and moved on.

Monday of this week, I got an out-of-the-blue Skype request from the PI manager to discuss what the meeting was about.  Apparently, my role in the document creation process is going to significantly increase.  Now, I’m supposed to still copyedit the internal document, but write the customer letter by having a conversation with each product engineer.  According to the PI manager, the engineers don’t like writing and I should help them more.  I protested and said that I had other responsibilities and I don’t have time to take on these extra roles and even if I did, I don’t know the company jargon to know when to challenge if something was appropriate to share with customers.  She said that I would need to learn the jargon through these conversations.  Remember, all of this came from a meeting I didn’t attend because I didn’t know about it and I was recovering from a seizure.  She didn’t know about why I came to work late, but she was still dumping a lot of work on me when I hadn’t had a chance to be a part of the discussion.

While I was Skyping with the PI manager, I sent Magda an instant message to let her know who I was talking to.  Once again, my boss, the person who actually decides how I spend my day, hadn’t been involved.  Magda said she wanted to talk when I was done.  So, my conversation continued with the PI manager and every time I explained that something wasn’t my role, she simply responded that it made sense for it to be.  I decided to stop fighting (she wasn’t listening anyway) and just let her talk.  At the end of the conversation, I said “I assume you’ve already talked to Magda and [Magda’s boss] about this.”  I knew she hadn’t and I thought that was a reasonable way to call her out.  She said she would email Magda right away so that she could get onboard.  Finally, the conversation ended.

Magda had left for a meeting, but before leaving, she left a note saying that I call should her cell as she was driving.  I was really hot-blooded at this point, so I went for a walk outside to cool off and called Magda.  Unsurprisingly, she was mad too.  The PI manager had crossed the line from being discourteous and was firmly in unprofessional territory.  Magda explained that she would talk with her boss, but assured me that the PI manager wouldn’t get her way.  The next morning, I walked into the office and saw Magda talking with her boss.  While they weren’t talking about my ordeal when I passed them, Magda later confirmed that they had discussed the situation and agreed that my role won’t change.  My position exists to support the office I work in, not the entire company.  I have done work that has impacted the company on a global scale, but that was because I was trying to solve a local problem and it was easier to make a major change so that other segments wouldn’t be working against us (it can happen with companies our size).  I help out with the internal documents and customer letters as nice gesture, but my main responsibilities are not on a global level, nor were they ever meant to be.  Magda sent the PI manager an email explaining everything and hasn’t heard back yet.

If history has taught me anything, this isn’t the end of this ordeal.  Here’s hoping that I’m wrong.