Harumph.
Last night, I got an all-company email from the president of the company giving a breakdown of the state of the company. It's called the "state of the State" email.
This state-of-the State email praised Lindsey (the new director) for coming in at a 330% increase in Contribution to Overhead in January and February compared to last year at this time. She also extolled Lindsey for getting 5 contracts signed with the school district. People sent out reply-to-all emails extolling Lindsey's work.
The problem is, Lindsey didn't do it.
Lindsey wasn't here until March. The CTO increase had nothing to do with her. The contracts that were signed (a) I had signed before I resigned as director or (b) were signed immediately after my presentation to the district last Friday.
I realize that I sound like sour grapes, and I don’t want to minimize Lindsey’s good start as director, but it angers me that I was so blatantly passed over in order to give credit to someone else. Lindsey did help make a few follow-up phone calls, but 95% of the work was done by me, and I wasn't even mentioned. I don't want to dengrate Lindsey's successes, but I think it only fair that the president of the company give credit where credit is due.
I hope it was an oversight and not deliberate.
Has this ever happened to you? How did you deal with it?
Contribution to Overhead, for those non-accountant types is (essentially) your income less any expenses. In the simplest of terms, it's how much money you turn over to the company after you deduct the costs of providing your service to customers.
Posted by: Jen McNamee at March 24, 2004 11:53 AMIn a perfect world Lindsey would email a company wide 'thanks but I didn't get here til March so the kudos should go to Jen' note.
Posted by: susan at March 24, 2004 12:53 PMYeah, that would be the classy thing to do. Lindsey's out of town right now and doesn't have access to her email. We;ll see if she sends an email like that when she gets back.
Posted by: Jen McNamee at March 24, 2004 1:17 PMif she doesn't, and since you are prepared to quit at any moment (right?), i'd send a letter back to just upper management telling them how amazing she is for getting so much work done before she was hired. but then again, i'm mean like that.
Posted by: kat at March 24, 2004 1:38 PMAw.
I don't think it was deliberate, and to tell you the truth, I doubt Julie realizes that you still get those emails. . . .
So I'll say it instead -- GREAT JOB JEN!
Posted by: Lyn at March 24, 2004 2:13 PMStuff like this tends to happen to me a lot because I am quiet and not quick to point out how well I do things. I have learned that it is just part of this world and that *I* know that I have done these things and that the praise from other people isn't all that necessary.
Posted by: JennySmith at March 24, 2004 5:26 PMi think it's one thing to decline praise, but another for someone to falsely praise someone...the question is: will she take credit? after meeting her once, i don't think she will.
Posted by: kat at March 25, 2004 10:51 AMYou're right, Kat. When Lindsey got back, she sent out an email to everyone very modestly putting the praise on me.
It gave me the warm fuzzies. Thanks, Lindsey! You did the right thing!
Posted by: Jen at March 25, 2004 1:09 PMCool. So that means it must be a perfect world!
Posted by: susan at March 25, 2004 1:20 PMkudos to lindsey! good for her! and kudos to jen for being patient. :)
Posted by: kat at March 25, 2004 4:17 PM