I'm a Mechanical Engineer working a white-collar/cubicle/desk job for a large corporation. Been there for 3 years now. I'm currently in the process of being considered for a fairly substantial promotion and pay increase based largely on performance.

When I started with the company, I was assigned a mentor ("Bob"), he's about 5 years older/been at the company 5 years longer. Nice guy, we get along, I consider him a "work friend". After 6 months or so, he transferred to a different department... still saw him every once in awhile, but didn't work together anymore. Fast forward to last summer... he had been promoted to project engineer, and I was assigned to work on his crew for a 2 month long project in a different city. He was the lead engineer, supervising about 10 engineers including me. It was my first experience on this type of project. When the project ended, he gave me a good review and didn't really have anything negative to say about my performance. Performance in this project is a critical component of my potential promotion.

My cubicle happens to be 2 down from my Department Manager's office, who I also like and get along with. Today I was in a training class that was supposed to last all day, but it ended an hour early so I was back at my desk unexpectedly. I notice Bob is in DM's office BSing about fishing or whatever. Like it or not, I can hear everything they're saying. Neither knew I was at my desk. At one point in their conversation they get on the topic of me on his project team. Bob proceeds to tell DM that I'm a "bright kid" but that I "sometimes didn't follow instructions/advice" and "didn't seem to try very hard to solve problems on my own".

I personally disagree with his critique, and am not really sure wtf he's talking about for the most part. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, but I feel like this criticism is something he should've offered to me personally in my review, rather than to my DM several months later when I'm in line for a promotion.

So... Do I:

Confront Bob angrily about ratting me out to DM?
Confront Bob humbly seeking explanation?
Bring up the overheard conversation with DM/offer explanation?
Or am I totally unjustified to bring this up to either since I shouldn't have been listening, and should just swallow my pride and hope it doesn't affect my promotion qualifications?

You can't ever bring this up. Ever. You'll be that douchebag who eavesdropped for the rest of your career.

What is a good idea is to try to stand out at one of those perceived(and, imo, contradictory. Bob sounds not very bright) flaws. Don't get angry at this, it's an opportunity.

Go back to school, get a Chemical Engineering degree, and blow the place up.

lololol, i love it.

Anyways, serious advice, take advice and direction better, and work harder on solving problems on your own.

Don't bring this up to anyone.

Treat it like inside information and use it to your advantage. Start taking more initiative where you can.

The last thing you said.


Never. EVER.

If this is honestly true, I don't think you have anything to be embarrassed about--but I still think that it's a bad play to mention you heard the conversation; there's too many ways for Bob to take that the wrong way, even if it was unavoidable.

One thing that comes to mind, after very little thought, is that you can catch up with Bob (phone, e-mail, bumping into him at the cafeteria, whatever) and mention your upcoming possible promotion (which you know he knows about) and ask him whether you did well on the project where you worked for him. Mention that you want him to be honest and that you are personally unsure how well you did--which apparently is untrue, but try to draw out the answer he gave your boss.

If he says you did well, and specifically says you didn't do anything wrong, AND you're sure he wasn't kidding with your boss, then you have my permission to kill Bob in his sleep. I HAAATE people who lie to others about their performance to make them feel better.

Also, kick ass at the things that Bob said you did badly, of course.

Yeah, If the OP gets asked about his faults while talking to the boss he can bring up those traits that his ex training brought up and say that he has been working on improving them and stuff.

Definitively and opportunity to make himself look better.

You just got insider information. Use it and profit.

lol

srsly, op, what do you think can be done at this point?

the "damage" (if any) has already been inflicted -- do you think you can get bob to go back to this dude and say "hey, actually, remember that thing i mentinoed about that kid? yeah, you probably don't remember at all what i said cause it was random and in passing... anyway, yeah, i totaly didn't mean it, he's awesome"

I assume he means I asked too many questions without first trying to find the answer on my own...

but ya I obviously already plan to try to improve in the areas he described, just was kinda annoyed at the whole situation.

Office politics, you now realize whats really going on. The next play is to begin by impressing DM and discrediting Bob. Theres a lot of ways you can do this, depending on how close you think DM and Bob are the easiest office ploy is the CC: line on your emails. If they aren't that great of friends start sending and forwarding all of bob and your e-mails to both parties. If they are pretty good friends, you have to dig up dirt on Bob and make sure DM overhears it casually. It's in spots like this where you either decide to quit the game and go somewhere else or play and slit some ankles.

It's pretty hard to find a place with little office politics, it happens sometimes when people have worked together for a long long time. Otherwise, office politics especially in the corporate environment where people are drafted randomly runs rampant. Learn to play your cards and trade up, it's as important as actually being good at your job.

Oh, confronting is never the option. Confronting not only allows him the moral high ground, but sacrifices your element of surprise. If he doesn't know you're working to discount his negative opinions he can't employ counter-measures to stop you. You then have initiative and the boss is going to be biased toward whatever your word is before he hears anything else.

op it's annoying but unless this DM guy is super impressionable or an idiot himself, what bob says, in passing, randomly (and not in his formal review of you) will have about 0 impact on your pending promotion, so i would really relax

and this:

is completely idiotic

If you don't think your goal at this moment is to distance and discredit Bob secretly you're insane. Maybe I misunderstood OP but he wrote good things on his review but when questioned he pushed him behind. While more dynamics of the situation need to be introduced, most likely Bob has some reason at the moment unknown for saying what he did about the OP not being a problem solver. Most people when questioned about a work buddy that they are not in competition with will provide a definitively positive response, UNLESS THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO GAIN. So you're an idiot for not reading in between the lines and thinking that the office world is as hunky dory no competition as the big teddy bears want you to believe.

are you totally insane? if you get this worked up abotu every little slight in the treacherous waters of corporate office politics ur gonna have a heart attack / go postal / stab someone in a couple months.

people throw people under the bus all the time -- what bob did isn't even that bad. smarter managers / co-workers figure out that alot of playing the game is not wasting time on small stupid ****

do you overthink / go berserk over every little thing at your job? how the f do you get **** done?

lol ok actually, i changed my mind --

yes op, do your best to discredit and make enemies with the guy whose reference you need to get the promotion -- i'm sure your worklife will be vastly improved after you do so cause likely you will get him fired and never have to deal with him again

Maybe you don't understand what I proposed. I'm not talking about getting Bob fired, nor letting him know what the **** is going on. I'm talking about doing everything you can when opportunities present themselves to invalidate Bob's opinions about you. Since he has proven hes going to throw you under the bus regardless when you perform well, and hes going to do it behind your back you don't know what consequences might occur.

Rather than waiting to find out you got ****ed you might want to start putting up barriers against getting ****ed. This means that you need to discredit Bob's opinions about you in seemingly unharmful moves. You have to be very tactful, but precise in doing this.

And no you don't get worked up about every slight in corporate politics, but you do have to deter them when you can. As for your naive comment about making enemies with the guy who you need references from, you're silly. You don't have to make enemies with him, and he certainly doesn't seem to be great friends with you. You also are a ****ing idiot for thinking you can rely on his reference, as it has most definitely proven that it may or may not be a positive one. This guy is not an important player in your promotion, it's the DM.

I do not understand how you don't see what a problem it is that Bob is saying that an engineer is not a problem solver while telling OP that hes a great worker. This is a huge problem as a source of significant credibility on your abilities is telling the boss that you're nothing special. If you don't quell things like this they keep stacking on, because next month it's going to be Mike who is angling. When people start throwing you under the bus and your response is okay, but lemme get under in the middle you're going to have a fun time getting up in the corporate world.

I find it ridiculous that you (The Owl) would ignore a lightly veiled comment questioning the validity of your problem solving skills(incredibly important). The DM isn't going to come away from that conversation with "OH, OP IS A GREAT WORKER." The real response is going to be "OH, I NOW NEED TO BE CAUTIOUS AND AS SUCH BIASED TOWARD LOOKING FOR AREAS WHERE HE FAILS AT PROBLEM SOLVING." 1-2 Doormat?

Dude srsly, go work on your reading comprehension then come back to the thread, from the op:

why the f do you think the op is worked up in the 1st place? bob's opinion will *always* matter in the situation...

hahaha ok srsly - u think cc'ing a bunch of bob emails to DM, or trying to "dig up dirt on him" (wtf this isnt' the presidential primary race), or trying to f him over secretly is the best line here?

Quit being a ****ing simpleton, who do you think makes the ultimate decision. Do you think hes going to take the word straight from the mouth of Bob, or the word on paper when making his decision? Have you been in a workplace because you quickly realize that these so called performance reports feign in comparison to credited word of mouth.

Why don't you do a little roleplaying. Roleplay that you're the DM, and a supervisor of one of your employees writes an "A" performance review for that employee. Upon further conversation he says Eh he did good but he can't solve problems. Now, in your mind are you thinking "OH I'LL JUST DISCOUNT WHAT HE SAID TO ME IN CONFIDENCE, INSTEAD HIS PERFORMANCE REPORT IS WHAT I'LL USE?" When you go to beaches do you dig out holes just so you can stick your head in?

No, but make it a policy when doing things that exhibit your problem solving to find some bull**** reason to include the DM. As for dirt on Bob, I mean situations where he has his own professional failings that you can exhibit casually in a non-threatening manner. Do you think ignoring the fact that one of your supervisers says you don't have problem solving skills when YOU'RE AN ENGINEER is the correct line?

I honestly don't think Bob had ill intentions (in the sense of screwing me for personal gain)... we're not in any sort of competition... he's not even in my department anymore.

This is basically an anomaly in an otherwise pleasant work environment.

Office politics can kind of blow. I have someone who I consider a very good friend (in terms of work...not socially, at all, actually) but we barely even acknowledge each other at coffee/lunch because I take breaks and sit with a 3-4 person crowd with which he doesn't work-socialize.

All people involved are 25-35 years older than me, and I kind of feel bad whenever he comes in and I'm sitting at a table talking baseball or laughing away with the guys at their jokes when someone who's been there just as long as they have is pretty much never included. I don't know if that is his choice or theirs, but it irks me from time to time. I say hi when this situation occurs, but it's not like he ever tries to pull up a chair or anything.

for what it's worth,
In this case, OP, I would not say anything at all.

Okay, if this is the case you still need to discredit Bob's opinions about you and kill any ideas that you're not a problem solver. The means by which you might get there are probably more apparent to you, but you do need to address the issue.

You have an advantage here in knowing that the DM is probably going to think about and scrutinize your problem solving skills since they have been brought to his attention. This is sweet information to have and you need to cull any doubts.

nah dude you're totally being naive. i hope you started getting your dossier together on bob so you can successfully parry his next move to f you over

uh, no -- i merely pointed out that going in attack mode and trying to discredit bob himself (not his opinion) is probably pretty stupid

dude srsly what industry do you work in? i feel bad for you -- i've worked in finance and hollywood, i would say both fast-paced and cutthroat, and you sound like a f'in psycho to me