A reader writes:
I have worked for my present company for 6 years and my current boss, who is the current Chief Executive Officer, for the last 5. A month ago, I had to have emergency dental surgery. My office generally has a very liberal leave policy for salaried employees and this normally would not be a problem if the date of the surgery hadn’t fallen on the day of a very important meeting. I discussed the situation with my boss and he stated that it shouldn’t be a problem and that they could work around my absence as long as I got all my prep work done on the days leading up to the meeting. Even though I was in a ton of pain, I worked the entire three days leading up to the surgery in an effort to make sure that the meeting would be a success in my absence. I had my oral surgeon write a note stating the necessity of the surgery, got the sick time approved by both my boss and the Human Resource Office, and checked in with my boss regularly on the days leading up the meeting (and my surgery) to make sure that my prep work was up to standard and that my absence would not cause a huge problem. He stated that all was well and that, as a true team, everyone could work together during the meeting to help a coworker who needed to be absent. I thought everything was fine. I even showed up early the morning of the meeting before heading to the surgeon’s office to make sure everything was set up and in working order.
After my return to work a week later, nothing bad was said about my absence and my boss stated that the meeting had been a success. However, a week or so ago I heard from a few co-workers that my boss had been complaining about my absence for an “elective” surgery. I thought that my co-workers must have misheard so I sort of just brushed it off as work gossip. I thought surely he would have told me in our initial talk or any of the subsequent talks leading up to the surgery that there was going to be a problem with my absence.
A few days ago, he called me in his office for a surprise performance review, where he included me missing an important meeting as one of the reasons for the review. He stated that he felt I had abandoned him at a crucial time and that I had known about the meeting months in advance. Although I had known about the meeting in advance, I felt that my reason for missing it was legitimate and necessary. I tried to make my case with him and asked him why he hadn’t brought it up when I first came to him requesting the day off. I apologized for my absence causing him or the company any problems and reiterated my love of the job and dedication to the company. He seemed angry and ended the review early, stating that he needed to think about things.
I am unsure of how to proceed. I really wish he had voiced his concerns prior to my absence. It is really hard to go back and fix a situation like this once it has occurred. How should I proceed? Why would he talk about it before approaching me directly? I usually have a wonderful relationship with my boss so the sudden is a bit disheartening and actually very scary. Did I do something very, very wrong in this situation?
I don’t think you did anything wrong in this situation. Your boss is in the wrong for telling you that it wouldn’t be a problem, when in fact he clearly did feel it was a problem.
I would say this to your boss: ”I’m really concerned about our discussion the other day. I feel terrible that you felt I was irresponsible in missing the meeting. I think I have a track record of reliability and showing that I’m here when you need me, and I hate to think this situation wasn’t aligned with that. But I’m also really confused, because when I initially approached you about it, you assured me that it would be okay and that you understood the necessity of the situation. That’s why I proceeded. It sounds like now you wish I hadn’t, but I’m not sure how to respond to that, because I felt you’d been very reassuring to me about taking the time off. I also really tried hard to mitigate the impact, coming in early the morning of the meeting before my surgery. It’s clear to me now, though, that you really wish I had handled this differently. I want to make sure that we don’t have this type of miscommunication in the future, and I’m hoping you can figure out how to avoid that.”
If he says that you can avoid it in the future by not missing important meetings, say, “Understood, and I won’t. But I also took you at your word that it wouldn’t be a problem, and I want to ask that you tell me ahead of time if you don’t like something I’m doing, so that I know and have the opportunity to change course before it’s too late.”
Throughout this, you want your tone to be concerned but neutral — not accusatory. You don’t want to make him feel defensive by pointing out that he contradicted himself; you just want to neutrally lay out the facts and focus on how you can avoid this going forward.
It’s also worth asking yourself if there might be something else going on. Could your boss be frustrated with your reliability overall, not just in this situation? Are you generally reliable and responsible? (You certainly sound like it from how you handled this situation, but it’s worth asking.) Could your boss be frustrated with something else? If so, that doesn’t excuse the way he handled this, but it might give you insight into what’s going on. Alternately, is your boss not especially rational? Does he have a history of saying one thing and meaning another, or of changing his mind? If so, that’s useful information to keep in mind about him.
But your best bet is to have an honest, direct, guard-down conversation with him. Good luck!
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