Two strikes on this project, one last chance... Ugh.
February 12, 2016 12:40 PM   Subscribe

Coming to the tail end of a project and am stressed/depressed. Clients are highly critical and my boss isn't providing sufficient support to satisfy their high expectations in a timely fashion. How to deal with the dread of continuing, and grow a thicker skin?

A large aspect of my work is handling invoices and information from companies piecemeal - can be very hard to keep things organized. I've only been doing this sort of thing for just over a year now, "sink or swim approach". This particular project has been bad for the information received being unorganized, repeated, frankly messy. Too many hands in the pot in organizing/processing info has also been an unfortunate casualty of the situation, and it's been my mess to deal with. The company is also only communicating through a channel and therefore we often only get partial answers to our questions.

I'm used to getting a lot of peer review prior to issuing work to clients in the past, and unfortunately my new boss is the only checker... And he tends to just skim if he's short on time. We've paid dearly for that - the extremely fussy client blew some mistakes in one report way out of proportion in an email copied to all parties involved. The client talked to the company directly at one point as well, and came back accusing us of not doing our job getting info. Subsequently we showed no miscommunication occurred, inferring they had interpreted things incorrectly without outright saying it.. We've done our best to take it all on the chin though and smooth things over, striving to impress the hell out of them with all our future work.

I've been working so hard on this latest report, wrangling juniors to assist and trying to pin down my somewhat absent boss for input. But my boss doesn't actually give much priority to this project, so my report waited on his desk for 2 weeks (despite pressing him) until the deadline loomed because he's avoiding having to deal with these jerks. And then he reviews and decides a major overhaul is required within 2 days. I'm glad he decided to rewrite it himself to get the verbiage just-so (he sometimes does that, fine by me) and I could just rework the data. It was hugely stressful to do the revisions in time.

Well we got the clients a draft last-minute for discussion and they told us we're on 2 strikes so one more mess-up and we won't get work from them ever again. I'm confident that report is bulletproof on the numbers though my boss cut so much out to simplify I'm worried they will harp on us for lack of info... They've complained before.

In our industry reputation matters a great deal and these guys will have suffered for being such rude jerks to us... But we must preserve our own reputations still and not get mad back, we must suck it up and handle it all with as much grace as we can muster. It is exhausting to navigate. I take criticisms far too personally, I know, and my boss has said he feels it is his failing that this project has not gone smoothly. But I feel both like a failure and like I've been really let down on this project, and fear it will reflect on me poorly because I didn't do a good enough job, though my boss has been the one directing strategy on reporting the whole time. I have been so residually stressed out I've just taken a break all morning, and will be taking next week off for some much needed vacation.

How do you handle jobs where you have to be the client's kicking dog, but can't afford to tell them we're no longer interested in having them as clients (for protection of reputation)? How do you deal with having control taken away from you but are probably still saddled with the culpability for the work? How to grow a thicker skin?
posted by anonymous to Work & Money (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
maybe a clueless comment form me will provoke someone more capable...

i can't really help you with the client side, as i am awful at that, and i sympathise with your predicament. but it seems to me that you could be more forceful inside work - you could either get your boss to do something sooner with the report, or make it clear that he's the one responsible for fucking things up. again, i'm going to recommend the book asserting yourself (or one of the million similar tomes), which i think describes DESC. so....
i gave you the file for XXX a week ago and have asked you twice to review it. i am worried that extensive changes will be needed. please can you you review it today. if i do not receive feedback soon i may not have time to produce a revised report.
if the worst comes to the worst, you have a written record you can show someone higher-up, and the knowledge that it's clearly not your fault.
posted by andrewcooke at 1:21 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Btw, I have no idea what type of report you are doing, but whenever I had extra data that was likely relevant, I would stick it in an appendix so the reader would have it if they wanted it or could ask me about it.
posted by AugustWest at 1:27 PM on February 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


If this is a role you're going to continue to occupy you're going to need to do more managing, particularly both your clients and your "boss" or supervisor.

If information gathering is shoddy and confusing, and if work gets ignored of avoided until the last minute, you need to turn that ship around. This is called rising to the occasion, i.e., leadership.

On top of that, you must never rely on your supervisor or manager to catch typos unless it's part of your internal process. Managers are busy people and so must be able to add value to the process (such as finessing the language of the finished product). Catching spelling mistakes and calculation errors is not adding value and is not a good use of their time.

Indeed I hate letting typos make it into the copy I am submitting to a key stakeholder (I guess you would call it a "boss" but I'm too old and experienced to have a boss anymore). It makes you look weak, and you are there to help the organization be bulletproof... with the caveat that you are "managing up" and identifying problems and potential solutions.
posted by My Dad at 1:27 PM on February 12, 2016


I'm in an industry that operates the same (it might not be the same, but even if person A finishes the project within the timeline, many other people have an input, person C-E make 90th hour changes, the client wants things and yesterday, and everyone points fingers at someone else.) I also had a boss that operated just like yours, for everyone and every.single.project.

Some of these are things that I've done, and some and some things I've seen companies do
(I have no idea how much influence you can have, so....):

After a fiery exchange from a client, I would simmer with the info for about a week and then re-evaluate and ask myself a series of questions: Why did the problem happen (on rare occasions, the client is the cause or is just angry about the moment), but if it is something to do with you and/or the process, how can that be changed (ie, I used to keep a list of things to do for all project related to client X in the future.) Sometimes you can ask for things- at one company, we found a way to get supervisor's to approve and basically bless additional training, or of things to be changed in the process. But it does help deal with the feeling because 1) some of the time it is not you, it is the client, or 2) next time, it won't be, and it will be a better product.

A very good response that I saw one company do was to increase the amount of contact with the unhappy client. This mean weekly calls with a team (ie, if you have a project manager or someone who is very good at business interactions, they are great for conducting and holding the call). But if the client understands they are heard, the feelings die down.

One thing that concerns me when I read your list, OP, is that I wonder if you had much training (it sounds like they threw you into it). If that is the case, sometimes you can up your game by .....looking to other reports (I don't know what you do, but sometimes, the best published reports in the industry can be studied, or find someone who does this at your job and work with them during lunch or whatever works for you.). Also, if you are this stressed, the likelihood is so are your coworkers - so you can create an internal "I'll proof your report, you look at mine" type arrangement.

You didn't ask this, but further thoughts as to your industry and your boss:

-I've seen some coworkers find happiness by switching sides (going to work on the client side).

-Observe your boss. Is he like this with everyone? If so, the problem is internal and...I found temporary happiness at that point by....interviewing at other companies, carefully feeling out and evaluating the potential supervisor and procedure from afar, and then taking the job. Best decision ever.
posted by Wolfster at 2:21 PM on February 12, 2016


From a more general perspective, I work directly with clients a lot and if / when a project is going poorly, I (try) to do the following things:

1. Be Honest - but Gentle with Yourself
Assess the situation as objectively as possible. Pinpoint where forks in the road occurred and what caused the situation to go down the shitty path instead of the better path. Be honest with yourself about your own culpability, but don't beat yourself up. That's self-defeating and there is no reason to - own any mistakes you've made, but everyone makes mistakes and any project can go belly-up even with careful planning.

2. Be Empathetic
Sometimes it's easy in a difficult situation to get defensive and be like "Well the client is being terrible!" Try to catch yourself when that's happening - that may be a reflexive, defensive stance. Try to imagine yourself as the client. Seriously, imagine yourself sitting in their desks, at their conference table, receiving the deliverable. Try to imagine how they got to the point where they misinterpreted something. Is it possible that the relationship was already faltering? If so, was there anything that you could have done differently on your side? (The answer might be no :) but it's still good to evaluate)

3. Evaluate Process and Take Strong, Confident, Positive Control
From a quick review, it sounds like the system you're using could benefit from:

Concrete timelines - There's no reason a report should sit on your boss's desk for 2 weeks. I know you prodded him, but was there a concrete timeline with repurcussions you're going off of? You need to be able to say "Boss, timeline requires feedback within 48 hours otherwise the final deliverable will be pushed back or we risk delivering a less-than-ideal product"

Or "Boss, based on your availability, I've set up a 1 hr meeting on Friday to review together and generate feedback on this report. I've also set up a meeting next Friday to review the final report before delivery Monday" When things are rushed, mistakes are made.

Concrete QA Process - Are you able to present this client with a rehauled process that's like, "Client, we hear you and take seriously any concerns about potential errors. We share these concerns and these are the steps we take internally to address potential errors:
Day 2 - X, Y, and Z review
Day 4 - Boss reviews
Day 6 - Rd 2 - reviewed by X, Y, Z
Day 8 - Rd 2 - Boss reviews
Day 10 - Final"

Post-Mortem Process - Once a major deliverable occurs, sit down with your boss / other stakeholders and pinpoint positives, negatives, and what can be done differently in the future. This is another great thing you can present to a client, like, "We have instituted a post-mortem process and will deliver findings within 2 weeks of final deliverable" Obviously, some findings may need to be for internal-eyes-only. But getting honest feedback internally and also seeking honest feedback from a client may be useful to know how to improve in the future.
posted by Uncle Glendinning at 2:39 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oh and PS - this client does sound like they are not approaching this relationship from a good-faith, positive "want to make this work" perspective. This especially jumped out at me:

"told us we're on 2 strikes so one more mess-up and we won't get work from them ever again"

There are a hundred ways they could be approaching this, like why not say, "We're grateful for all your work but have serious concerns about errors because it impacts us in X, Y, Z serious ways. We value our relationship and want to work with you going forward. Please ensure that this report is 100% error free." I mean, I understand they're pissed, but I'm getting a bad vibe, so be especially kind to yourself about this.
posted by Uncle Glendinning at 2:59 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


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