[Cerek]

Originally Posted by Variol (Farseer) Elmwood Thanks again, I think most of the stuff I put down, won't come up. I just hope I can make them see that this is something I do not need to do, in order to commission, or get my numbers. I'm hoping to keep everything in a positive light. Edit: BTW, the manager her is the department manager, not my team manager. She just sent an email saying that our team manager is out sick today and the team meeting we were supposed to have, will be rescheduled for Thursday. The meeting with HR and her are supposed to be before the meet one. Kinda strange, but probably unrelated. I wonder if I should ask to have this meeting rescheduled for Thursday as well. They pay my mileage for going in, it will save them some money. Edit 2: HR just emailed to say they re-scheduled it for Thursday as well.

Re-scheduling definitely works in your favor. If there is any way possible, I think your team manager should be included in the meeting as well. Not only is it relevant to his team's performance, but he can also verify your productivity and value to the team over the last several years. It's probably the closest you're going to get to a "champion" for your cause. At the very least, your team manager should be more inclined to help lessen the severity of the reprimand for you than anyone else in the company.

I agree completely with Bung - DO NOT GO TO THE MEETING UNARMED!!! Take absolutely EVERYTHING you think might POSSIBLY be relevant. Look at it this way, if you were in a gang and a rival gang member challenged you, but told you to show up by yourself and without weapons cause you and him were just gonna fight it out with fists, would you trust him? BZZZZZZZZT! I don't think so. Chances are, he would show up with his whole gang and they would be armed to the teeth. It isn't the best analogy, but it IS very appropriate.

You can bet your butt your department manager will have everything she feels she needs to prove her point. And the HR rep is clueless (like you said), so you need to have stacks of documentation showing your productivity and compliance with company policy. You also need the manual and copies of ALL communications related to this reprimand. Document dates and times of calls, who you spoke with, etc. You're still doing a sales pitch, only this time the "customer" is the HR rep. If you can provide documented evidence to counter the dept manager's claims, your sales pitch will be the stronger of the two. Whoever has the most impressive documentation will make the biggest impression on him/her.

This meeting is going to be your chance for you to stand up for yourself. My suggestion is that you be very straightforward about your productivity and performance. You may even go so far as to suggest there appears to be some bias towards you individually. You might point out the peer who was recently promoted to manager had much the same activity in her style - but do that only as a last resort and be very cautious in your approach.

The idea is to be assertive, but not aggressive. Control your emotions and let your track record do most of the talking for you. When I got fired at the hospital, the CEO called me in his office and had another Assistant Administrator there as a witness. There was a 2nd Asst Admin on duty that day (the DON I mentioned earlier that had cost the facility over 25k through negligence) but she did NOT attend the meeting. I'm certain it's because she knew it was BS and didn't want to be a party to it. Anyway, when the CEO accused me of wrongdoing and said I was being terminated, I simply stood up and turned in my keys. I knew there was no point in arguing. However, looking back, I realized that made me look "guilty" in the eyes of the Assistant. After all, if the charges WEREN'T true, why didn't I even bother trying to deny them? I had already been through that with the CEO a couple of days before, but I realize now I should have stood up and told the CEO to his face that this was BS and that we both knew it. I should have said "This has nothing to do with the printer cartridge. Your firing me because I've had two major surgeries and jacked up the expense to our insurance carrier" The CEO was a gruff, bully type, but I feel now if I had stood my ground and challenged his BS, he might have backed down. He certainly wouldn't have expected that reaction and - at that point - I literally had nothing to lose since I was being fired anyway.

My personal recommendation would be to state that you feel the reprimand is unwarranted and you feel like you've been individually targeted. When the dept manager points out that "the rules are very clear", you can counter with the fact that you understand and respect the rules, but every successful sales rep and manager realizes that sometimes you have to work around the rules in certain situations. You might point out that this particular infraction is a common practice among the top-producing sales reps for Staples and other firms as well. It's like speeding...you understand and respect the speed limit, but there are times when you have to exceed it to get the job done.

Just be very careful in this approach. You never want to come out and say "Well I know I was breaking the rule, but everybody else does it too". The idea is to show that you tried to work within the rule, but this situation required a judgement call on your part. That allows you to apologize for using poor judgement and to acknowledge that you will be more conscious of such actions in the future. That also gives your dept manager an "out" to reduce the reprimand to a verbal warning and still say she was "right".

You don't want it to be a case of I'm right and she's wrong (even though it may well be). It's better to say "Perhaps I could have done this better". That way, you're conceding to the dept manager's authority without really admitting you ignored or deliberately broke the rule.