OT: Management Dilemma

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Great feedback, thanks.

We're a small group so her actions are more noticeable than they might be in a bigger setting and the emails I'm talking about are being sent Outside the firm to clients, or prospective ones.

I'm not critical of how she tries to be friendly in her communications, its how obstinant she's been with adopting my guidelines ...she simply is not doing what I have asked her to do repeatedly and I feel like I'm being a dick.

She has an incredibly long email signature and submitted her qtly review in BLUE font color. I actually had to ask her to use black the next time.

Diggler ...we hired a hot 24yr old a couple weeks ago but she works in a different area. I proposed a trade with my counterpart and he laughed in my face.

Ah HA! See that Michchamp - I called that shit.

 

[TheVictors]

Just out of curiosity, what was the point of explaining that she is a divorcee with a 15 year old?

Just trying to paint a picture because if she were a 27yr old single dude, my approach would be different. She tends to take feedback personally (which is more common for women than men and I work in a male-dominated business where the women tend to need "thick skin") so I have tried a number of softer methods ...which aren't working.

I've tried anecdotal examples hoping she'll catch on and finally sat and wrote the five email "boilerplates" for her to use. This morning - after having a couple of her emails forwarded to me - I shot her a note and asked her to please just use what I'd given her and to stop "ad libbing," as we've discussed now three times.

Her reply to me was, "Honestly, Victors I am only sending out the bullet points that were provided to me"

And I am looking at the fucking email she sent -- she did not only send out the bullet points, she also included a whole paragraph of poorly worded and over comma'd conversational garbage which makes her (and us) look like an idiot.

I told her to read her emails aloud to herself before sending so they're "proofread" but she couldn't possibly be doing it because if she had, the grammatical errors would be obvious.

And ...in her eleven page quarterly review, she listed 22 "prospecting questions" she asks when on the phone. Somehow, she managed to duplicate the list so that she really only had 11 questions and #12 was identical to #1 ...#13 to #2 and so forth.

She didn't even catch that sort of mistake before submitting her review and when she did turn it in, she made sure she mentioned how she was first in getting hers submitted.

She's a nice lady and a fair bit older than me which is a newer experience for me as a manager. The fact that she's a single divorcee raising a teenager was included just to paint the picture.

Sure it's easy to say "fire her," but that's not a pleasant situation to deal with and why I asked for help.


Thanks to everyoneneedsamil -- solid advice.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Yeah! That bugs me too.

Wait...

HEY!

 

[TheVictors]

Ah HA! See that Michchamp - I called that shit.

yes you did

 

[jever4321]

Yeah! That bugs me too.

Wait...

HEY!

Haha!

 

[jever4321]

Since you have copies of her emails, couldn't you print them and highlight her deviations so you could point blank show her the errors? Maybe she's a visual learner and just doesn't understand that her ad-libbing is the problem until she sees it. I'd bet that she thinks it's a good thing that she's adding her personal touch to her email. Yes she will definitely take the criticism personally... But you could play the good guy role in that you are just trying to show her they way it HAS to be done for her to be successful.

 

[TheVictors]

Jever ...my man. Sitting here after my day at the Phoenix hotel doing precisely what you suggest.

Here is one of her emails:


"Per our earlier conversation, thank you for the opportunity given to my external partner, James, to come into your branch, and meet your advisors. James will cover the following agenda in his discussion on investing and strategies next Wednesday morning, October 23rd. The goals being whether they would be a fit for FAs and their respective business and, if so, how best to support your them.”

This is my suggested version:

"Per our conversation, below you will find the talking points for James ******'s presentation scheduled for Wednesday, October 23rd. Please contact me if you need additional information or if anything changes on your end prior to the meeting.

Kind Regards,”

 

[bdtay1971]

Just trying to paint a picture because if she were a 27yr old single dude, my approach would be different. She tends to take feedback personally (which is more common for women than men and I work in a male-dominated business where the women tend to need "thick skin") so I have tried a number of softer methods ...which aren't working.

I've tried anecdotal examples hoping she'll catch on and finally sat and wrote the five email "boilerplates" for her to use. This morning - after having a couple of her emails forwarded to me - I shot her a note and asked her to please just use what I'd given her and to stop "ad libbing," as we've discussed now three times.

Her reply to me was, "Honestly, Victors I am only sending out the bullet points that were provided to me"

And I am looking at the fucking email she sent -- she did not only send out the bullet points, she also included a whole paragraph of poorly worded and over comma'd conversational garbage which makes her (and us) look like an idiot.

I told her to read her emails aloud to herself before sending so they're "proofread" but she couldn't possibly be doing it because if she had, the grammatical errors would be obvious.

And ...in her eleven page quarterly review, she listed 22 "prospecting questions" she asks when on the phone. Somehow, she managed to duplicate the list so that she really only had 11 questions and #12 was identical to #1 ...#13 to #2 and so forth.

She didn't even catch that sort of mistake before submitting her review and when she did turn it in, she made sure she mentioned how she was first in getting hers submitted.

She's a nice lady and a fair bit older than me which is a newer experience for me as a manager. The fact that she's a single divorcee raising a teenager was included just to paint the picture.

Sure it's easy to say "fire her," but that's not a pleasant situation to deal with and why I asked for help.


Thanks to everyoneneedsamil -- solid advice.

The reason I asked is because I get the feeling that it plays a part in your interaction with her and I would bet that she realizes it too, and uses it to her advantage. It sounds like you got some good advice from everyoneneedsamil. I would bet she is fully aware of your softer methods and therefore isn't taking you as seriously as she should because of it. In a since, if this is something you would consider firing her over, perhaps you are inadvertently doing her a disservice. The other thing to consider is how your other employees feel about your softer methods due to her status? I would recommend dealing with her the same way you would a single 27 year old male but with a different demeanor, which is along the lines of what everyoneneedsamil said. Good luck and I feel for you.

 

[jever4321]

Jever ...my man. Sitting here after my day at the Phoenix hotel doing precisely what you suggest.

Here is one of her emails:


"Per our earlier conversation, thank you for the opportunity given to my external partner, James, to come into your branch, and meet your advisors. James will cover the following agenda in his discussion on investing and strategies next Wednesday morning, October 23rd. The goals being whether they would be a fit for FAs and their respective business and, if so, how best to support your them.?

This is my suggested version:

"Per our conversation, below you will find the talking points for James ******'s presentation scheduled for Wednesday, October 23rd. Please contact me if you need additional information or if anything changes on your end prior to the meeting.

Kind Regards,?

Yeah, her email is rough. Yours is much more concise and professional. So just asks her if she's capable of being direct and concise like your version (without the unnecessary punctuation). If she just can't do it... What alternative do you have?

 

[Michchamp]

Jever ...my man. Sitting here after my day at the Phoenix hotel doing precisely what you suggest.

Here is one of her emails:


"Per our earlier conversation, thank you for the opportunity given to my external partner, James, to come into your branch, and meet your advisors. James will cover the following agenda in his discussion on investing and strategies next Wednesday morning, October 23rd. The goals being whether they would be a fit for FAs and their respective business and, if so, how best to support your them.”

This is my suggested version:

"Per our conversation, below you will find the talking points for James ******'s presentation scheduled for Wednesday, October 23rd. Please contact me if you need additional information or if anything changes on your end prior to the meeting.

Kind Regards,”

I agree that hers is too verbose and poorly written, though I would use her wording instead of "talking points" which has a negative connotation in my mind.

also I would not use "per" which is arguably grammatically incorrect.

so here's how I'd write dat:

"In regard to / In accordance with our earlier / [date of conversation] conversation, below you will find the agenda for James ******'s presentation scheduled for Wednesday, October 23rd. Please contact me if you need additional information or if anything changes on your end prior to the meeting. Spartanmack is a dillhole.​

 

[byco42]

Give her a copy of Strunk and White.

 

[jever4321]

I agree that hers is too verbose and poorly written, though I would use her wording instead of "talking points" which has a negative connotation in my mind.

also I would not use "per" which is arguably grammatically incorrect.

so here's how I'd write dat:

"In regard to / In accordance with our earlier / [date of conversation] conversation, below you will find the agenda for James ******'s presentation scheduled for Wednesday, October 23rd. Please contact me if you need additional information or if anything changes on your end prior to the meeting. Spartanmack is a dillhole.​

Lol!

I like the legal disclaimer edit as well. Nice work!

 

[Michchamp]

oh, also, those legal threats retards put in their email signatures to scare people not to share or disclose confidential email? those have no effect.

the nerve of someone trying to scare innocent third parties into returning confidential email mistakenly disclosed to them because the person sending it is too goddamn stupid to double check the addresses in their email(s) is amusing.

reminds me of when some moron at a direct mailing company put threats on their postage-paid reply envelopes to scare people who were using the envelopes to send them back junk mail. (which I highly recommend doing, and even going so far as to take a few seconds to write highly obscene insults and include them with your return envelopes.)

 

[TheVictors]

Having talking points is a last resort but "James" provides her three bullet points based on the content of his intended presentation ...so the "talking points" would follow the intro text I copied above.

And I'm not a huge fan of "per our conversation" but it is better than her saying;

"Thanks for your generous amount of time on our earlier call"

And this is just the prose and isn't representative of the innaccurate info which is the bigger concern.

This is how her Quarterly Review began:

"I feel hugely transitioned over the past quarter"

WTF does that mean?

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

reminds me of when some moron at a direct mailing company put threats on their postage-paid reply envelopes to scare people who were using the envelopes to send them back junk mail. (which I highly recommend doing, and even going so far as to take a few seconds to write highly obscene insults and include them with your return envelopes.)

haha, speaking of which - in college when we'd get junk mail delivered to us with those prepaid return envelopes, we would send them back stuffed with a bunch of random shit; and usually the heaviest random shit we could find. Still not sure if I feel guilty about doing that lol.

 

[Michchamp]

haha, speaking of which - in college when we'd get junk mail delivered to us with those prepaid return envelopes, we would send them back stuffed with a bunch of random shit; and usually the heaviest random shit we could find. Still not sure if I feel guilty about doing that lol.

you should not. in fact, you should feel good about supporting our postal service, and the economy at large.

direct marketers deserve no mercy, and they would show none to you. and by including all your contact information in direct mailings, they raise your risk of suffering from identity theft and fraud.

there was some buzz on the internet about taking a postage paid envelope and attaching it to a heavy object (like an old tire) so the company mailing them would have to pay for extra postage... but I don't think this works. other articles i've read say that the postage paid envelope must be used to enclose what it's mailing, so you can't just attach it to, say, a pallet of bricks and force Capital One to pay $1000 or whatever to receive it.

I read another article (can't find it) from some farmer who had a metal shop. he said he used to cut up strips of scrap metal and put them in the envelopes to weigh them down, and claimed that this lowered the amount of junk mail sent to everyone in his postal code (the marketer couldn't see exactly who was mailing them, but they could see where in general they were coming from)

though in this day and age, if enough people really started mailing back heavy junk in postage-paid reply envelopes... and it put the squeeze on the direct marketing business, they'd probably respond by getting Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell to ram through a bill that put taxpayers on the hook, requiring the government to compensate all direct mail marketers for any postage paid return that didn't result in a new customer. and they'd call this "small government" and the Tea Party would support it.

and if I complained about it, KAWDUP would defend the practice and say I was just an elitist who thinks he knows things with his books and his big words. and Red would stay on the fence and claim it's important to consider both sides of every debate.

 

[byco42]

you should not. in fact, you should feel good about supporting our postal service, and the economy at large.

direct marketers, and (usually) people who work in marketing deserve no mercy, and they would show none to you.

At least I know where I stand. Although the audience I communicate with is well-defined and closed. Not the general public. And my communications are largely electronic anyway.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Red would stay on the fence and claim it's important to consider both sides of every debate.

Sure, but 1st I'd yammer on about how little it matters as Big Data techniques keep developing.

 

[Michchamp]

Sure, but 1st I'd yammer on about how little it matters as Big Data techniques keep developing.

yet, they still blast out mass offers for credit cards, life insurance, auto insurance, local coupons, etc. like there's no tomorrow.

And look at this, we are now way off topic. Sorry, Vic. I take full responsibility, as I posted that aside on direct marketing mail. :ashamed:

 

[tomdalton22]

haha, speaking of which - in college when we'd get junk mail delivered to us with those prepaid return envelopes, we would send them back stuffed with a bunch of random shit; and usually the heaviest random shit we could find. Still not sure if I feel guilty about doing that lol.

I would usually just tear up all of the crap that was sent to me. I used to do it all of the time but now it takes up too much time.