I Walked Out of a Meeting at Work

On Friday I walked out of a meeting at work.

The situation was a sales colleague, Mike— I'll call him Mike because that's his name— and I were "discussing" the next steps we'd take in working with a prospective customer. I quote discussing because a proper discussion requires mutual respect. This interaction did not have that. Mike was instead hectoring me, assuming poor intentions on my part, focusing on trying to manage my time (when he's not my boss!), and not really listening to my position on the issues at hand but instead demanding repeatedly that I take a specific action he was ordering me (again, not my boss) to take.

My boss was in the conversation, too. He'd offered to broker the meeting when I showed him a string of demeaning things Mike wrote to me in Slack. I told him I found them unprofessional as was preparing to tell Mike that in simple, blunt terms. He suggested we call Mike together to "straighten this out".

My boss and I were both at the same training summit Friday. It was winding down by noon Friday, so we found a quiet spot out in the hotel hallway and called Mike on speakerphone. That's where Mike continued his hectoring, this time aloud, along with improper focus on criticizing how I am prioritizing my time at work. His criticism was not only inappropriate, BTW— inappropriate because, again, he's not my boss— but also factually wrong. I am actually already spending time on the category of things he told me should be my main job responsibility. I'm just not doing the thing he instructed me to do because I disagree that (a) it's the appropriate next step and (b) that's it's my responsibility... it's actually his as the account manager.

During the call I stated a few times, "Mike, you're not listening to me." When he continued criticizing my time management— falsely— and went back to hectoring language, I stated outright and simply, "Mike, you're being disrespectful, and I don't like that."

His response? "You're disrespectful!"

Really. His response was straight off an elementary school playground.

At that point I told Mike and my boss— remember, boss was standing next to me— "I'm done with this for today. f you can't be respectful toward me, find someone else to work on this project." And with that I picked up my bag and walked away.

What happened next: I regrouped and came back to give my boss a verbal warning!

"I know a guy. Tony."

I've written recently about making games roleplaying games like D&D more exciting for everyone by asking "What's this game about?" and then simplifying or eliminating bookkeeping tasks like counting encumbrance. Bookkeeping is almost certainly not what any game is about!

Tracking the weight each character is carrying and looking up its impact on their movement rate is definitely one of those high effort, low reward, bookkeep-y type tasks. Another is figuring out how the characters turn loot they've found in an adventure into cash they can use. A sack of silver coins found while raiding a bandits' lair is easy to spend... but what about the nice mail shirt one of them was wearing, the fancy rapier another had, and the set of jeweled drinking cups they had?

One solution, often the default one, is the players try roleplaying bargaining with various merchants to get the best possible prices. That's a time sink because as much as tracking encumbrance is not what the game is about, haggling with merchants over the value of a slightly scratched suit of armor is also almost certainly not what the game is about!

A better solution is to meta-game the trading. The GM can replace all the role-play haggling with having the players make an appropriate skill roll and telling them what they get. That makes it more of a question like, "Can I jump over this crevice in the rocks?" Roll the dice, get the answer, move on to the next challenge.

The thing is, trading takes time. Especially when there's a lot of loot, selling it takes more time that backing up a few steps to get a running start to leap over hole in the ground. That was the challenge in my D&D game last week. The characters had a lot of loot they wanted/needed to sell but they were strapped for time. Oh, and none of them actually have skill in trading. The players recognized they'd spend a lot of time on the effort and still not get great results.

"I'll bet we know someone who could help us," Hawk suggested. Her character, Astrin the paladin, is a social networker in town. It was an excellent idea— though Astrin was not the one who had the best contact.

This is where I passed a note to Bobbi, playing the prissy, nobly born mage, Meraxes:

“I know a guy. Tony.”
Selling all this gear— suits of armor, weapons, etc.— for a good price will take time. And it’s totally not your forte. But you know a guy… Tony! Actually his name is Otonio (Tony is his family nickname) and he’s your little brother or cousin. While you went to fancy-pants mage school he apprenticed to Uncle Kenji’s younger brother, Keyevan, a respected trader. Give him an agent’s cut of the sales and it’ll be a win-win.

Bobbi read the note, nodded in amusement, and in a classic Brooklyn accent— exactly the effect I was hoping for— said, "I know a guy. Tony."

Once again my technique of passing clue-notes worked beautifully. Bobbi offered the solution in-character as Meraxes, in her own voice (albeit suddenly with a Brooklyn accent 😂) instead of me proposing it directly as the GM. Otonio took a cut of the money, strengthening the group's relationship with him as an NPC, and even after his cut the group netted more than they would doing it on their own. Oh, and while Otonio was busy for a week haggling for the best prices, the group spent their week (and more) training up to the next level and resupplying to head back out to The City of the Dead.

It was a win-win-win. I hope they gave Otonio 5 stars on NPCer!

I Walked Out on a Meeting, part 2. Shots Fired.

On Friday at work I walked out on a meeting. One of my colleagues, Mike, was being disrespectful but using antagonizing language, ignoring my point of view, and treating me like a servant instead of a peer. I told Mike I found his behavior disrespectful and didn't like it and wanted him to stop. All he did was snap back, "You're disrespectful." I told him I was done with the conversation for the day and walked out of the room. This all happened as I stood next to my manager, BTW. I walked out of the room, leaving my manager behind.

I was steamed about the situation. I had discussed the communication problem with my manager beforehand. I had showed him beforehand that Mike was being disrespectful in a written Slack message to me. He acknowledged that there's a pattern of poor communication spreading across our team (it's wider than just Mike) and offered to help mediate. I expected him to address it as it continued live, in front of him. But as Mike berated me further all he did was try to redirect to the underlying technical issue. I don't need my manager to help address a simple technical question. I needed my manager to address the improper workplace behavior.

My heart was pounding when I walked away. It's one thing to call someone out.... It's firing a shot, and once fired that shot cannot be taken back. But unlike calling out a friend or soon-to-be ex-friend (which I've done recently) the shots fired here have consequences on my job, my career, my livelihood.

I found a private spot and called Hawk. Fortunately she was able to take my call right away and offered words of encouragement. As a manager she deals with these kinds of issues— and unlike my manager she doesn't act like the right way to deal with repeated inappropriate behavior is to ignore it and hope it stops eventually. She helped crystalize for me two things:

— First, wrong behavior is wrong, and calling out wrong behavior is not wrong. When a person is behaving in an insulting fashion, the person being insulted has every right to call it out in a proportionate and workplace-appropriate fashion. "Mike, you're being disrespectful, and I don't like it. Please stop." In the mandatory workplace harassment training we receive every year they roleplays of people objecting to bad behavior exactly that.

— Second, walking away from hostile behavior is legit. Mike was being insulting and was not acting in good faith to solve the underlying minor business issue. He was demanding I take his directions and badgering me until I agreed. When a colleague is being insulting and refuses to stop when asked, it's legit to walk away. The fact that doing so left a minor business issue unsolved until another day is not unprofessional. The unprofessional behavior is unprofessional, and the harmful consequences it causes (e.g., some little task left undone) are due to the unprofessional behavior, not the person targeted by that behavior objecting to it.

Hawk also suggested I make clear with my boss that I didn't just walk away in a snit, that I object to the unprofessional behavior he witnessed and that I find it unacceptable. Furthermore, "Put a deadline on addressing it," she suggested. Like, "This pattern of adversarial behavior is a serious problem. If I don't see significant improvement in 4 weeks I will have to consider external action."

I circled back around to find my boss, as much to let him know I hadn't left the building as anything else. And I emphasized with him the seriousness of the problem. I told him what we both heard was unprofessional, I reminded him how he agreed already he sees it as just one instance of a broader and pervasive problem, and I emphasized that I consider it a serious problem. I didn't put a deadline on action but I did make it clear that I consider the situation unsatisfactory and need to see significant improvement soon.

Talk about shots fired. I felt like I'd just given my boss a final warning.