Ongoing issues, thinking of leaving

Pinch Flat

So here's my issues. Apologies for the long post, but Fridays events really got in on me.

After years of temporary contracts and working month to month due to the recession, I landed a job in a company about 2.5 years ago. I'm a project manager. Usual promises at the time - working on own initiative, promotion etc. My work is project based so working for different clients - some good, some bad. Comes with the territory and I'm generally able to manage well. I'm 20 years in my field.

One project in particular worked out well initially - good client, good team, project going really well, everyone happy. In fact the client team were amazed we could get the project from a standing start to where we were at - largely due to my own drive and having a good team on board. Then a change at client side - extremely abrasive person came on board, new to the company, to cut a long story short it ended up in a verbal warning for me - over a minor issue that I was incorrect on (wrong attachment on an email) but hey it's the client so theyre always right. Thrown under the bus by my director and told to suck it up.

So I knuckled down for the rest of the project and kept my nose clean for what was a very stressful project under very difficult - sometimes intolerable - circumstances. Put up with verbal abuse, bullying, undermining behaviours - all the nine yards - from this client individual. Humiliated on a number of occasions - several times I'd turned up to chair a pre-arranged meeting, only to find the client was meeting on a separate matter and I was told to wait, nearly an hour one day. My meetings would be taken over by the client - different agenda, hard to keep control. I'd requested my own director attend as every other company on the team was represented at director level.

Still, with all this I kept a it calm and professional through out, to the amazement of my colleagues. I internalise a lot of the stress I was under, knowing another alleged false move could mean me being removed from the project and probably losing my job.

All these issues as they arose were reported to my director - but hey, it's a client so just got to suck it up was the general reply. He did little to intervene. Really got in on me at times. Got no support from my director and basically allowed fend for myself. Thankfully, the particular person left the client organisation just as the project finished.

So roll on a few months - there's a few issues to be sorted out post project completion. New client person on board, who I actually dealt with early on the project initially and got on well with.

Unfortunately at this point I'd been hospitalised with a life threatening issue in the meantime - thinking back, like a complete fcuking fool, I dealt with the ongoing issues when on sick leave to keep (as I thought) the client happy and the show on the road. Answers emails, took phone calls and at one point considered attending a meeting. I was really unwell. It's amazing how spineless some people can be, but hey it's business.

When I came back to work after 2 weeks off due to illness, I got a snotty email from the client, copied to my director, saying that they'd been awaiting an update on an issue and had got none - I'd emailed the client informing them during my sick leave I was in hospital with a life threatening issue and would reply when I was back in work. Got a reply "grand don't worry about it". I followed up the issue immediately upon my return and got no reply.

I emailed my director with a detailed status of where each of the issues were at and copied previous emails I'd send while on sick leave advising the client of the close out of the issues.

So basically I was driving the closure of some project issues. 2 of these got up the clients nose, they related to issues which cannot be done until about now due to the availability of a certai product - they were advised of this at project closure a number of months ago - as far as he was concerned, he's been chasing this for months and despite me updating him on numerous occassions, he's still not happy it can't be addressed. It's obvious he hasn't being reading my emails as they advise him of this. Left a voice mail with the client to update him on Wednesday this week - heard nothing back, so basically all my emails and voice mails went unacknowledged.

Anyway an email came from the client today, I was copied, it wasn't addressed to me but copied to my director. It alludes to his frustration of trying to get an answer on issues with no luck. Said that my own update made no sense and hecway going to another team member out of frustration. An email that had been sent To the team previously mentioned me and also mentioned that he'd contacted me but got no reply - this coincided with the time I was in hospital.

The email made reference to a schedule I'd prepared which - according to the client - made no sense, despite advising clearly the date the issues would be addressed mid October. I replied saying the items were in hand.

My director emailed me, copying my managing director, basically saying I'd emailed out of line and that I was to get this sorted verbally and without any more emails. I'd already emailed my director with a symbiosis of the issues with the client between me going into hospital and now.

To be honest, I've started job hunting already, so just looking for an opinion on the above. Thrown under the bus twice. Couple of other issues I'm uncomfortable with as well in other projects and the reply has been just get on with it.

_Brian

Just keep your head down and work harder at job hunting.

Interested Observer

Some of these issues with the client seem minor enough, them moaning about stuff you've already emailed about... that happens all the time. But if you don't feel you've the support or confidence of your own management then it's as above, get on with your job for the time being while you look for something better.

Mrs OBumble

Your management should never have allowed you to work while in hospital. They're out to get you, no matter what's going on with the client. I have no idea why, but that's how it sounds to me.

Best of luck with the job hunting.

TheDoc

Interested Observer wrote: »

Some of these issues with the client seem minor enough, them moaning about stuff you've already emailed about... that happens all the time. But if you don't feel you've the support or confidence of your own management then it's as above, get on with your job for the time being while you look for something better.

Reading how your management have reacted, and taking your side at face value, sounds like you need a new job.

Having worked on both sides of that fence in IT , client/vendor side, there is nothing worse then being vendor side and having spineless, weak management who just bend to the clients will. Clients need to be challenged in that scenario, and most "good" clients will appreciate and respond well to the challenge. They are paying for your expertise and consultation as much as your project/implementation skills.

Your 20 years in the business though as you say, so you should probably know this already. Best of luck with the job hunt, and wouldn't hurt to make sure you have an exit interview where you highlight you felt management didn't defend you and consistently took the clientside, which can be frustrating for staff.

I'll say as someone also who has worked on both sides, that there will be times where I rinse a vendor. Trying to initiate that "client is always right" and stoke a little fire in an office somewhere. Granted this is mostly in cases where a project/implementation is flagging a bit, or I feel the team or project manager I'm dealing with isn't up to scratch or pulling their weight. But I'd never be abusive or harrassing.

Just sounds like you have a bad client (which I know is tough) but to make matters worse you have a weak management, so obviously sweating for the business and the $$$$

Glass fused light

Pinch Flat wrote: »

I'd requested my own director attend as every other company on the team was represented at director level.

All these issues as they arose were reported to my director -

I emailed my director with a detailed status of where each of the issues were at and copied previous emails I'd send while on sick leave advising the client of the close out of the issues.

Anyway an email came from the client today, I was copied, it wasn't addressed to me but copied to my director. It alludes to his frustration of trying to get an answer on issues with no luck. Said that my own update made no sense and hecway going to another team member out of frustration. An email that had been sent To the team previously mentioned me and also mentioned that he'd contacted me but got no reply - this coincided with the time I was in hospital.

My director emailed me, copying my managing director, basically saying I'd emailed out of line and that I was to get this sorted verbally and without any more emails. I'd already emailed my director with a symbiosis of the issues with the client between me going into hospital and now.

>> knowing another alleged false move could mean me being removed from the project and probably losing my job.

To be honest, I've started job hunting already, so just looking for an opinion on the above. Thrown under the bus twice. Couple of other issues I'm uncomfortable with as well in other projects and the reply has been just get on with it.

Keep job hunting, the biggest part of any sucessful project is managing people, your boss has not been doing this with you and not supporting you in managing the client. You should not be in a position of fearing for your job, from having a bad client contact, and after 2.5 years of working with the company. And they did not support you through your illness if they did not take on your workload. You were on sick leave, so should have been the last resort where there was a problem, your boss should have been getting your emails not you and you should not have been working.

On the meetings, if you have been hired in by director level you hold director level authority and should not 'need' your boss in the room but your boss should have turned up for one meeting and made it clear that you had the full support of the company and had the authority needed to do the job.
If titles and authority levels are key issues with clients, you may need to change your external email title from your internal job level to a consultant or some such.

You need more 'management' training on dealing with difficult people and conflict resolution, getting the new guy in a room on day 1 of the bad behaviour and putting professional parameters in place ie behaviour a, b, c will not be tolerated was what was needed, but that can't happen without the support of your boss and your company.
On the meetings first time you were asked to wait and did so put you in a poor position. Your time is as valuable as any one in the meeting, in fact if you think on it, your value is the cost of having all the people who turn up sitting in the room doing the project plus your companies fee, and you are the key in getting them all to work as efficiently as possible, so time is money and as a project manager your looking for a sucess of being in time and on budget.
You should have the authority to find out if the meeting was unexpected and more important than yours, but also have the authority to walk out after 5 min. and reschedule it for the next day etc. I have been in plenty of meetings which overran and a participant will excuse themselves as they had another. If they are critical, the meeting closes and is rescheduled.
If the items were not on the agenda and about the project, first time it happens tell the guy it goes to the aob at the end and force him to wait till the end, but you need to know that when this happens your boss had your back.
Second meeting has a fixed agenda, no aob and instruction that people come back to you before the meeting with additional items or the items go to meeting three. If the guy takes over the meeting and you are closing 'your' meeting, thanking everybody for their time and walking out and getting the problem person to reschedule everyone back when they can deal with the presented agenda, but your boss has to be willing to support this too.

From your company point of view time is money if charging by the hour, but a reputation for bring a project over the line successfully on time and on budget(or as near as possible) can be priceless. The client is not always right and a careful push back, if timed correctly on a small non vital issue can benefit both sides, as it reminds the client employees why you were hired in the first place.


The fact that your boss emailed your MD rather than picking up the phone and talks to you about a problem speaks volumes on how poor a communicator your boss and the company are and you too. I had a guy who would always phone after 5 to try leave a message on voicemail, now most times he ended up speaking to me as he had not twigged that I did not start at 9, for others it was just that I was on the bottom of the list for that day, their issues/problems got more slack than the first guy because I knew that he was actively trying to avoid me. Speaking to the client is in my view very important and even if it's only a phone call it allows you pick up a change in tone and discuss things which you won't put in an email, so it's more fluid. The current guy has been 'promoted' so is going to want to shine in the new role, but you have lost the good relationship you previously had part of this will be the illness but part will prehaps be you not realising how important the sucessfulness of the close out of the project is to the new guy.

You should be speaking to your boss in person about problem clients. You miss so much of the non verbal communication when you use email and for obvious reasons can't be honest and forthright in an email. That he is not speaking to you first, but emailing the MD is poor managent, as to refute what the issues are leaves you relying on his not having read your email or his reading them and thinking you were incorrect in your dealings but not telling you before this.

Some of the problems you have had could have been avoided if you were in a position to force your manager to manage the problems, by sitting in his office, discussing solutions and geting him to approve a course of action and by giving you the support you needed, as this does not appear to be happening on an ongoing basis the best solution may be to find a new position in a new company.
But you need to analyse what failed and if it could be prevented, one of them and a big one was/is that you have no confidence in how secure your job is, and how they dealt with "failure", your belief is that you would loose your job if things did not go to plan. I do understand how important the job is, knowing that you can plan for next month never mind next year is a big weight to carry. This would cripple you in your dealing with the clients as you can't be confident with them if you are not confident in your role. So in interviews be asking the questions to find out what exactly 'own initiative' actually means is it looking out for the bus or help and support available as required.
Best of luck on the job hunt.

razorblunt

Sounds like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place there OP, a tough client and weak management. Usually if the former is the issuer, good management can sort things out quite quickly.

With the wrong attachment leading to a warning, was it client sensitive data email or the back and forth maintaining you were right that lead to the warning?
Unfortunately even though you could document everything like you have done and present it to the MD, you know your Director has form for throwing you under the bus so he's hardly going to hold his hands up and take the blame for not stepping in.

If it were me, I'd put the head down in both your work and the job hunting.

Best of luck.

Roadhawk

Step 1) Control stress so you can focus:

Brief yourself on Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Use the toolkit in www.mindtools.com (my favorite for stress relief techniques)

Step 2) Reverse the table:

If your manager wants you to sort this verbally then call the client. dont leave voice mails...continuously call until you get to speak to the right person. Then most importantly set the expectations with the customer. They are not always right but you must make them think they are.

Step 3) Hammer time:

Get to work to deliver the expectations agreed with the customer. Give them updates on everything good or bad. Show them that you are the only point of contact they need from your company. Excuse the expression but blow smoke up their arse and make them feel like they have no need to contact you.

...if none of that works then best of luck in the new role.

Horrible situation and as always - great advice here. One thing to add... is there a chance that you're waiting for someone (your weak Director) to anoint you with authority? Sometimes that and respect is something you have to seize for yourself and assume as granted and rightfully yours in your dealings with client. Not saying it's fair or right, but how it is... extra difficult to do when stressed or unwell.
Totally agree you need to keep the pedal to the metal with the job hunt too though.