And I am, but only when it comes to my department's budget.  A co-worker in another department has come up with a "Great Plan" for increasing revenue for her department, but, it's going to increase my departments expenses.

Since I asked how these extra expenses are going to be covered, I'm petty.  But I know when the year end financial reports come out, if the budget I'm responsible for meeting is over the plan, I'm the one who has to answer.

And the biggest problem?  Co-worker and I had this same exchange in February, and I'm tempted to send her the e-mail where we discussed it and decided against it then.

Any suggestions for keeping my responses polite and diplomatic, as opposed to what I really want to say?

When's your meeting?  I'm curious how it went.

We had a great time using trivia about staff.  Each staff member was handed index cards and asked to write something no one at the company knew about them, 1 per card.  It was a lot of fun trying to guess the employee, and the prizes were from the dollar store! (it was 9 years ago and I still remember being surprised to learn my boss had raced go karts as a child)

I've re-read my e-mail,and had someone else read it, so I don't think it came across as harsh, but CWA's boss has a history of coddling her employees and she doesn't want anyone to hurt CWA's feelings.  But I realized that CWA's boss knew shortly after 9:00 that CWA wasn't going to be able to set up the presentation, and didn't call either. So it's more a departmental failing.  

I understand things happen, but this wasn't a local or employees only presentation, this was a national event, with attendees from across the country from like organizations.

Co-worker A (CWA) was scheduled to meet presenter B at 9:00 am to set up presentation in the auditorium for 9:30.  At 9:15, presenter B called me, CWA had not shown up. I go try to help, but it's a different system than I'm used to, and I cannot figure out how to make the presentation work.  At 9:45, Presenter announces to the audience we cannot make it work, lecture will be at 3:30 in different location. (one where I can work all the components).

I send out an e-mail to the organizers, stating why it was re-scheduled.

At 10:30, I get a phone call from CWA's boss (who I had copied on the e-mail) telling me not to be too hard on CWA.  She wasn't here because she locked her keys in her car at the hotel where another presentation was taking place at 8:30 for same group.  When I said CWA should have called to let us know so we could find other assistance, I was told that Presentation was the last thing on her mind and she shouldn't be expected to remember to call.

Am I wrong in thinking CWA dropped the ball by not calling?  The hotel had phones she could have used, if her cell was locked in her car as well, but she didn't.  Thoughts?

The staff has been warned about the need to clean up the e-mail.  There are instructions on the intra-office site, hard copy instructions, and the IT guy has walked at least 3 people in my department through archiving.

We will have an adequate system soon.  The Powers that Be decided it could wait a couple of months, maybe now they will change their minds.

And, it's a matter of training employees (a museum is not filled with tech savvy folks).  One user had over 20K e-mails in their in-box. Our poor IT guy is pulling his hair out, explaining the deleted folder is not the place to file e-mails you want to keep.

I had this happen 5 years ago at another company, but let myself grow complacent, and didn't back up my contacts. Luckily, it's a slow time, the Boss is heading out of town and I will be re-entering contact information.  I will be backing up weekly from now on.

The unthinkable has happened- our company server crashed and all e-mails, calendars & contacts vanished.  The e-mails have been recovered, but calendars and contacts are lost.

I had not printed a hard copy of contacts in about 6 months, and will spend the next few days re-entering contacts and calendar events (luckily I keep a paper calendar for reference when I'm in meetings).

Please, take a few minutes and back up all your info.

I cannot type fast.  After years of courses, I finally realized it's due to ADD.  So I came up with shortcuts- if there's a standard type of letter- make a template to use. I always format as I go along, so I may take longer to produce a letter or document, but it's ready to go out, normally no editing needed when I'm done.  I also use a notebook- a physical reminder I can carry around to jot down notes.

I remember being overwhelmed in a job, leaving a message for the senior paralegal I reported to, telling her I was not up to the tasks, it wasn't fair to the company to have to wait for me to learn.  She called me back, said I was crazy, if the company, and more importantly, if she didn't believe I had the skills, I wouldn't have the job.

Take a deep breath, make your to do list, and work your way down.

Good luck!

Yesterday we had layoffs, well, terminations really where I work. My Boss (VP) had let me know who, and how my job would be impacted by taking on duties of one who was let go.

The problem is the person let go was a Directors assistant.  I already help this Dir. with seminars, registrations, etc.. And we've had conflicts in the past, she will throw me under the bus at any given moment.  Nothing has ever come of this, mainly because I'm good at my job, and I always keep records of what she asked me to do and when.

The additional duties I'm being assigned will effectively remove one area of the job from her section, and she will have no input on how it's done. She's a very emotional person, and is taking this re-org as a personal insult.  I need ideas/suggestions on how to deal with her animosity towards me while maintaining a professional front, since we have a seminar to host in 4 weeks, which means a lot of one on one time before the event.

The seating diagram is also useful if you know person A, but not person B, and they sat next to each other you can then ask Person A the name of B.

I also number each position, so when taking minutes I write 3 motioned, 4 seconded; or Discussion by 2 led to motion ..It's shorter than names.

The meeting was an overview of what where and when, and most of the planning was done by a different department, under a different Boss. This was the first year he's ever indicated he wanted to be involved, and then after the fact. Had I known he wanted to be in on the planning, I could have reminded him, but I wasn't included on these planning meetings.

The previous Boss led by, well, by doing nothing. Most of the staff has been here decades, and New Boss only 3 years. I need help in making staff keep Boss in the loop, and training Boss to let me know what he wants to change. I am going to borrow your "better response" when I meet with him on this.

Thanks!

Small update- Boss had a meeting with Dir of Ed. and her assistant about making sure he was in the loop. When Boss asked why he didn't know about event- instead of letting Dir. field the answer, assistant replied "it was discussed in the meeting in September, you needed to remember it". Not the best response to the Boss, any boss.

Part of the problem is that he doesn't make it clear what he wants to be involved in, or what projects he wants to just " handled".  The other part is that he reads the e-mails, but they don't register until later, and by then he's deleted them. My role with him is quite defined, it's his interaction with others that's the problem, they don't realize he has to be updated frequently because he's involved in so many different projects that sometimes he forgets about ones where the discussion was months ago.

I just realized he was at a meeting of everyone involved in this event at the beginning of the month so he had input on planning, and when he's reminded he was there, he'll be apologetic, but it won't erase the fact that he blasted his Ed. Dir and her assistant over something he "forgot".  This is what I need to address, to keep him up to date, and prevent this from happening in the future.

My boss can be a micro-manager, but he's also the typical absent-minded professor type, so he forgets he's micro-managing some projects and not others.

Case in point- Dir. of Education just staged our Holiday Open House last Saturday- music, decorated rooms in the museum, hot cider..same as she's done for 15 years.  It went off without a hitch.  Today she's depressed instead of excited because Boss sent her a terse e-mail asking why he wasn't included in the planning and logistics for the event Saturday. I never heard him say or indicate he wanted to be involved with the planning for this, it's an annual event, and this is his third year here so it's not a surprise. This event has been on the calendar for one full year, and we covered it in a meeting 3 months ago. Another department under him is in charge of St. Nick day, and he's not involved in that either, don't even know if he's aware that it's happening.

How can I point out that these events are going on, and if he would read his e-mails, he would know?  The Dir. of Education sent an e-mail to ALL STAFF on Wed. with a schedule of events for Saturday and the Boss never responded, waited until after the event to protest not being involved.  

Any suggestions for how to handle this?