Broken Trust with my Boss?

I had a really weird situation this week. I work in the equivalent of an inside sales role B2B. I had a prospect reach out on Monday that I went back and forth with and she laid out some times for potential meeting slots. She got those slots to me Tuesday and I didn’t respond until Wednesday. I got a call from my boss on Wednesday asking why I hadn’t responded to the prospect, even though my boss wasn’t on any of the original emails, because someone “called her and said they were waiting for my response”. I of course apologized, said I was coordinating calendars since there were 4 other people on the call, and that I would respond as soon as I could. I set a meeting time and got it sent out within the next hour.

Well, then instead of addressing the situation with me directly and telling me how I could improve or do better in the future, she went over my head/behind my back to both a senior coworker and my boss’s boss. I got an earful from both of them saying how communication is a top priority and that responding to emails promptly is one of the most important things I can do. My boss’s boss then said he’s concerned that my communication may not be up to par, which makes me think my boss blew the situation completely out of proportion to him, painting me in a very negative and incapable light. This is the first time I’ve ever let something accidentally fall through the cracks.

So now all of a sudden it makes me seem like I suck at my job, despite my boss telling me up to this point that I’m doing a great job. I feel like she broke my trust by not addressing things with me directly, and feeling that she had to pull other people in to get the message across. The whole situation has really pissed me off and is making me reconsider even taking this job in the first place (been in the role about 4 months).

I want to bring this up to her, but I’m not entirely sure how.

I’m stuck between wanting to charge head on into this position, despite my new reservations about my boss, and patch things up with her, and also just wanting to say F this and find a new job if this is how she is going to behave.

Any thoughts/suggestions are welcome.

Update: Scheduled a one-on-one with her Monday morning. To my surprise, she admitted she was at fault in the situation and that she overreacted. That said, she didn’t admit that she went over my head and around my back to two other people so I have no idea if she cleared the air with them as well, or if she’s blowing smoke at me. I did let her know she can always address things with me directly so if I’ve messed something up I can rectify it and know to do things differently in the future. We’ll see how the next few weeks go and if this happens to crop up again. And if it does, I’ll be leaning in to finding a new job.



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