Inter-departmental politics
or: "Oops!"
Last year, I helped with a fairly large project that was ultimately owned by a different department. It was complex, expensive, time-consuming, and totally worth it, in terms of the end result. Our new asst. dean asked a question that related to this project (i.e. tell me if you have X piece of equipment, and this project does). I responded, and copied the main architect of the project in my response. Main architect then proceeds to blast me completely to pieces because I was apparently trying to piss him off.
He was in a bad mood already, and has never been one to respond gently if he feels strongly about something, but I was a bit taken aback by the vehemence of his response. I apologized immediately, but he did the IM equivalent of walking away - he logged out.
I can see this two ways. I was responding mainly because I know he's insanely busy and I'm not as busy, so I was just trying to save him the trouble. I guess he saw it as me trying to take away credit for his project in the eyes of the new asst. dean.
This is not something I'm good at - not the anger, I'm more or less OK with that, and I've known this guy for a couple of years now and I know he's got a pretty fiery temper. I'm not good at seeing whatever it was that made him mad. Part of me wants to go relate what just happened to someone over him (the asst. dean) and apologize that way, by saying that I wasn't trying to steal his thunder but was instead just trying to help him out. Something tells me that this would just make whatever-it-is worse, though, so I'm not going to do it.
But... it still bugs me that this guy is mad, is thinking whatever he's thinking, and assuming that I'm out to get him in some way when I was only trying to save him a bit of time. How do I get better at seeing this type of thing? What danger signal did I miss?
Last year, I helped with a fairly large project that was ultimately owned by a different department. It was complex, expensive, time-consuming, and totally worth it, in terms of the end result. Our new asst. dean asked a question that related to this project (i.e. tell me if you have X piece of equipment, and this project does). I responded, and copied the main architect of the project in my response. Main architect then proceeds to blast me completely to pieces because I was apparently trying to piss him off.
He was in a bad mood already, and has never been one to respond gently if he feels strongly about something, but I was a bit taken aback by the vehemence of his response. I apologized immediately, but he did the IM equivalent of walking away - he logged out.
I can see this two ways. I was responding mainly because I know he's insanely busy and I'm not as busy, so I was just trying to save him the trouble. I guess he saw it as me trying to take away credit for his project in the eyes of the new asst. dean.
This is not something I'm good at - not the anger, I'm more or less OK with that, and I've known this guy for a couple of years now and I know he's got a pretty fiery temper. I'm not good at seeing whatever it was that made him mad. Part of me wants to go relate what just happened to someone over him (the asst. dean) and apologize that way, by saying that I wasn't trying to steal his thunder but was instead just trying to help him out. Something tells me that this would just make whatever-it-is worse, though, so I'm not going to do it.
But... it still bugs me that this guy is mad, is thinking whatever he's thinking, and assuming that I'm out to get him in some way when I was only trying to save him a bit of time. How do I get better at seeing this type of thing? What danger signal did I miss?