Ask Your Wingman – Missing in Action and Then Coming Through

So if you noticed, there was not an article for last week’s “Ask Your Wingman.” Although there is no excuse for not coming through, I must say that some events that happened last week totally f-ed me up and I will share some of the story with you so that you don’t make this mistake yourself and learn something from this. For some of you, this story will sound very familiar.

At my second job, there was a miscommunication between two co-workers of mine in determining the schedule – specifically my schedule – for last week. I have the ability to work at different hotel properties around Boston and because I’ve been flexible with things, I haven’t minded – until now. The miscommunication, you ask? Well, the base of it all is that no one actually communicated. I was told that I was going to work at a different property other than where I usually work and they were going to follow-up with me to confirm. Seemed pretty straightforward, right?

Well, nothing happened. I no one put out an effort to contact me. Some of you are probably wondering why didn’t I call myself to confirm. Well, there are two reasons. The first is that when they explained this to me the first time, they sounded so confident that I felt assured things were being taken care of – something you would expect from someone “in charge.” The second, more stubborn, reason is why should I call them? They told me they were going to call me. They changed my schedule. Ultimately as people in charge, it’s their responsibility. I am one to stick to that.

You make the mess; you take responsibility to clean it up.

Well, when I showed up for what was supposed to be my first workday of the week at the other property, I was greeted with blank stares and question clouds over people’s heads. So there I was, realizing that I just lost 4 workdays and a good amount of money. With them knowing I was being screwed over, they try to remedy the situation. I was only available to work one day in the week as a result because I had already booked my off days with coaching appointments.

Later, I got a text from my co-worker at my regular property asking if I can help him out and work for him that next day. I said sure and when I went to work that day to check out the schedule for the week (to see who they replaced me with), I found out that I have been scheduled to work there pretty much the whole week, including a day I told them I don’t even want to work. Needless to say not only was I confused. I was pissed.

The next day, I may have received well over 10 calls from 4 different people talking to me about the situation when I had nothing to do with the screw up. Everyone was talking to the wrong people and it almost seemed like they were looking for someone to blame – namely me. Of course, I don’t tolerate that nonsense but to wrap up story, someone called a superior and that superior got fed up, dropped the hammer, those who messed up were given a talking to and I ended up working at the right location.

I’ll also briefly get into how planning the rest of the week went with these guys with the following line.

It was a disaster.

They tried to make me work Thursday and Friday and I refused. They were pissed but I didn’t care, I already scheduled my commitments and wasn’t going to budge. They needed to be more considerate of the circumstance – especially since it was not my fault – and they weren’t at all. For that, they get no love.

I pretty much stated that if that happened again, I will request to be moved to another location and I’ll no longer be willing to “help” out whenever called on.

Let this be lesson to make sure that lines of communication are always open with you and those who are important to you in your life. If you are being blamed for something you didn’t do, don’t take it, no matter what the consequence may be. It may cost you sometimes, but in the end you have be congruent with who you are and maintain your integrity as a person.

I will update you next week on how to re-establish lost communication at your job in order to maximize your work experience.