Re: FWD: RE: Troublesome Writers

[Marilynne Smith <marilyns -at- qualcomm -dot- com>]

Why not fight back?  I've been in a situation where the part of our group 
was regularly busy with character assassination - if not my character, then 
someone else's.  Anyone's character.

It was what they did for entertainment and no one stopped it.  Finally one 
of my clients overheard what they were saying about me and told me about 
it.  I went to my manager, then to her manager when she refused to do 
anything about it.  My feeling was that this was a bad habit, and it wasn't 
good for the department or the company.  Worse yet, they were doing this in 
the presence of our clients.  In my case, the event they were talking about 
had little basis in reality.  It was just someone's take on what had 
happened with no understanding of what they saw.   (They saw me talking on 
the phone for hours when I was on overtime.  They interpreted it as my 
talking to my friends.  In fact, I was taking changes from a client in 
another city who had missed his deadline, but whose opinion was crucial.)

My company did do something about it, and we were the better for it.  It's 
tough having people make up stuff to entertain themselves and having other 
people take it for truth.

Marilynne

At 09:55 AM 12/16/00 -0700, you wrote: