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Team leader

I work in a hospital admitting office. There is a supervisor, a manager and a “team leader”. The team leader is just like me, a senior admitting clerk, but gets pays a dollar an hour more to be the “team leader”.

Today I went to lunch and came back. We work out what time we go to lunch at with other senior admitting clerks. The “team leader” was not around. If she was, I would have dealt directly with her but it is acceptable to say to someone “I was thinking about going to lunch now”. They would just say “OK” and you go. This way the department knows where you are.

Before leaving I notified someone I was going to lunch. When I got back the “team leader” said in front of several employees as I walked into the office, “do you want to go to lunch now” and I said, “I just got back”. To which she said, “why didn’t you let us know? We didn’t know where you were!” and a few more things along that line. A few more sentences. I told her in fact I had told Kim I was going to lunch. Kim said she didn’t remember right then and there so I was feeling nervous, this all taking place in front of people. Not a crisis but an awkward situation to be in. Team leader then let up on me and things returned to normal.

I was talking to “Kim” a bit later on and then she said, “OMG, I do remember you told me you were going to lunch. I will let the team leader know”. But the team leader had left for the day.

I don’t like being confronted in a group like that and in particular when I didn’t do anything wrong!!!!!!!!!! I want to handle this in a way that will send the message to the team leader that it is not OK to start blaming me for things without speaking to me privately. But am I asking too much? Was it just normal office what have you that she didn’t know where I was and when I said “I just got back from lunch” that she was just being spontaneous by confronting me? I don’t want to be ultra sensitive or inappropriate and yet I am not sure if I should let this fly.

I have been on the job a month and kind of feel I want to let it go and also equally feel I want the team leader to know that I don’t appreciate being embarrased in front of others. But am I asking too much? I wouldn’t want to ask her to speak to me privately next time and then have her run to the supervisor and say something like “gee, that new person is sensitive! I didn’t know she was at lunch (even though I now know she was and in fact had told someone she was going) and when she came back into the office all I did was confront her about her whereabouts. Now she is telling me she doesn’t like being spoken to that way”. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE THIS? Thank you.

Dear Anonymous,

Thanks for your question and back story. Let me throw some thoughts in.

Had Kim remembered that you said you were going to lunch, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation because the situation wouldn’t have occurred. I’m also picking up that you are a very conscientious, dedicated and productive worker. And I’m guessing that there won’t be many situations where you’d be in a position to be confronted by your team leader again, mainly because you don’t seem the type to make many mistakes. I mention this because one option would be for you to chalk this incident up as a misunderstanding that’s been corrected and let it go. After all, you’ve only been there for a month and you may want to get a broader perspective of who your team lead is and how she “manages” others, instead of basing your opinion on this one incident. In other words, lets see how all of this evolves over a period of time and if the problem re-surfaces, then by all means address it.

However, if it goes away, you’ll be glad you held off on confronting this. If, on the other hand, this bothers you so much that it begins to negatively impact your working relationship with your team lead and you cannot let it go, then I’d suggest you do address it with her. The best way is to bring up the “misunderstanding” and to a) make sure she realizes that you did in fact notify Kim that you had left for lunch; and b) ask her, as a favor, to bring any future issues that she might have regarding you to you privately instead of in the open office environment. Tell her why this is important to you and thank her for her willingness to collaborate with you on this issue.

Go to www.askdrmac.com and print out the “Eight Simples Rules to Resolving Conflict and Improving Relationships. It is free and has additional tips you may want to consider. Hope this helps.

-Dr. Mac

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Problems with a Manager, Problem with a peer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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