Telling people stuff to their face. Rude or not?

[Southwick_Seagull]

Bit of background, I recently started a new job in an office and a reoccurring process keeps happening that is beginning to seriously irritate me and I thought it best to ask NSC in it's infinite wisdom to see if i'm in the minority or majority on this.

Basically a group of new starters (including me) began about 2 months ago and obviously as newbies we all make a couple of mistakes. However instead of an e-mail or simply going and telling the person they've made a mistake the person who has spotted the error will e-mail the culprits 'mentor' or team senior and it will get raised at a latter date. In some cases they won't even mention it they'll just change the mistake and leave a comment that the mistake has been rectified.

Luckily until today I hadn't been flagged up on anything (that i'm aware of) but towards the end of my shift my mentor said that another person had spotted an error and if next time I changed the way I did it. I don't have a problem with that, everyone does it starting a new job but I went over to the chap who e-mailed my mentor and said "Thanks for pointing it out, but why didn't you just come over and tell me?". He stated that they didn't do that as it was rude and it could possibly hurt peoples feelings or knock their confidence.

Is it just me or would rather be told straight away if I was annoying someone or doing something wrong then it festering with someone and it be quietly mentioned in a roundabout way later?

I told him in future just to tell me and that I wouldn't be offended in the slightest.

Am I the odd one for wanting it straight and not softly avoided if possible or are they a bit mental?

 

[willyfantastic]

Bit of background, I recently started a new job in an office and a reoccurring process keeps happening that is beginning to seriously irritate me and I thought it best to ask NSC in it's infinite wisdom to see if i'm in the minority or majority on this.

Basically a group of new starters (including me) began about 2 months ago and obviously as newbies we all make a couple of mistakes. However instead of an e-mail or simply going and telling the person they've made a mistake the person who has spotted the error will e-mail the culprits 'mentor' or team senior and it will get raised at a latter date. In some cases they won't even mention it they'll just change the mistake and leave a comment that the mistake has been rectified.

Luckily until today I hadn't been flagged up on anything (that i'm aware of) but towards the end of my shift my mentor said that another person had spotted an error and if next time I changed the way I did it. I don't have a problem with that, everyone does it starting a new job but I went over to the chap who e-mailed my mentor and said "Thanks for pointing it out, but why didn't you just come over and tell me?". He stated that they didn't do that as it was rude and it could possibly hurt peoples feelings or knock their confidence.

Is it just me or would rather be told straight away if I was annoying someone or doing something wrong then it festering with someone and it be quietly mentioned in a roundabout way later?

I told him in future just to tell me and that I wouldn't be offended in the slightest.

Am I the odd one for wanting it straight and not softly avoided if possible or are they a bit mental?

sounds like total bollocks. if you are new its to be expected, why does the senior person get involved. whoever sent the email should be the one showing you how to rectify it and then leave it at that, if it continues to happen then they might have a case......

 

[Southwick_Seagull]

sounds like total bollocks. if you are new its to be expected, why does the senior person get involved. whoever sent the email should be the one showing you how to rectify it and then leave it at that, if it continues to happen then they might have a case......

It's not even that it goes to the senior person, it's just that they spot it, sit there in silence and then send an e-mail which then has to be spoken about later on by someone else like "This was brought up earlier, are you sure your okay with..." Why not just come over, point out what the error was and then it's done straight away. It's driving me mental thinking someone could be sitting there writing an e-mail or in a huff silently when they could just come over and say it!

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

It really depends on the background of rapport you have with the colleague before the situation, I think.

I've been in situations where someone's had issues with something I've done and tried to deal with it in a way that seemed to me like they were trying to establish themselves as one-up over me. In such a situation, it would have been better for them to go to my manager who had better rapport with me than she ever did.

Other times, if it's someone I've already built a good working relationship with, I would have been annoyed if they'd gone to the manager rather then have a face to face discussion with me.

 

[seagullondon]

This is a hard one for me as I never make mistakes

 

[Ninja Elephant]

In a work situation, you have to let people know when they're doing something wrong. It isn't always neccessarily a negative reflection on the person making the mistake, it's got to be done. If you're not told you're doing something wrong, you'll keep doing it wrong and who gains out of that?

Admittedly, there are ways and means to do it. In this situation, I think a simple word is pretty obviously what's required. When you're attempting to point out the obvious flaws of a stupid old hag stuck in a 20 year rut doing the same things day in and day out, you need a different approach. Lesson learnt.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

In a work situation, you have to let people know when they're doing something wrong. It isn't always neccessarily a negative reflection on the person making the mistake, it's got to be done. If you're not told you're doing something wrong, you'll keep doing it wrong and who gains out of that?

Admittedly, there are ways and means to do it. In this situation, I think a simple word is pretty obviously what's required. When you're attempting to point out the obvious flaws of a stupid old hag stuck in a 20 year rut doing the same things day in and day out, you need a different approach. Lesson learnt.

I think it helps enormously not to frame it in morality terms such as right/wrong, good/bad, correct/incorrect, as people are more likely to take what is said personally.

 

[Justice]

Bit of background, I recently started a new job in an office and a reoccurring process keeps happening that is beginning to seriously irritate me and I thought it best to ask NSC in it's infinite wisdom to see if i'm in the minority or majority on this.

Basically a group of new starters (including me) began about 2 months ago and obviously as newbies we all make a couple of mistakes. However instead of an e-mail or simply going and telling the person they've made a mistake the person who has spotted the error will e-mail the culprits 'mentor' or team senior and it will get raised at a latter date. In some cases they won't even mention it they'll just change the mistake and leave a comment that the mistake has been rectified.

Luckily until today I hadn't been flagged up on anything (that i'm aware of) but towards the end of my shift my mentor said that another person had spotted an error and if next time I changed the way I did it. I don't have a problem with that, everyone does it starting a new job but I went over to the chap who e-mailed my mentor and said "Thanks for pointing it out, but why didn't you just come over and tell me?". He stated that they didn't do that as it was rude and it could possibly hurt peoples feelings or knock their confidence.

Is it just me or would rather be told straight away if I was annoying someone or doing something wrong then it festering with someone and it be quietly mentioned in a roundabout way later?

I told him in future just to tell me and that I wouldn't be offended in the slightest.

Am I the odd one for wanting it straight and not softly avoided if possible or are they a bit mental?

This all sounds a bit girly to me, but then I work on site where you can freely call someone a few choice words if they f*** up

 

[Vegas Seagull]

The other 'junior' staff might not be very competent & may not be 100% correct in their decision making so MAY be sending emails to the Manager saying you are wrong, when you are right. The Manager can filter these out, otherwise someone telling you wrong stuff face to face could imbed bad practice & make you even more grumpy over time...

 

[Finch]

Any new person in our office gets a buddy and they are encouraged to ask questions. If a mistake is made, you just flick the buddy an email and they go over it with the person. No one cares that a mistake was made by a new person, and as far as I know no one gets upset. Its all part of learning a new job.

If anything you have a light hearted dig at the buddy for being a shit teacher.

 

[happypig]

We are actively encouraged to coach people and point out if they are doing something wrong. Not in a "haha, you f***ed up, you spanner" way but in a "can I take a couple of minutes to show you something" way.
Luckily I'm the cleverest one there.

 

[beorhthelm]

i thought this was going to be about telling someone they smell or should wear smarter clothes etc. sounds pretty wet for general work environment. if people's confidence can be knocked by telling them directly they arent going to get far, and will probably fall apart when oneday someone does tell them straight. i wonder if the company or person who introduced this has had an incident in the past. it occurs to me that its a way to protect the mentor's confidence in case they are challenged. certainly isnt rude.

 

[Twizzle]

Gus would have a line!
Instead, people go to the pub to moan about him. Poor chap