Clark update

So Clark confronted Step-on-me about her lack of being straight-forward with his promotion. He recently had a discussion with another staff member about their promotion (which happened in a week) and he said it sounded like a case of poor management and that our office might have to be looked into. Yay! So, Clark, after receiving a half-year run-around with upper-management--and who also received the highest raise possible this year for excellent work went to talk to Step-on-me about his promotion.

the following is an edited email by Clark:

Apparantly, Clark received raving reviews on his annual and everyone loved working with him. But, now that his promotion has come up, there is suddenly a problem. Apparantly, Carol said that Debby complained to Carol about him being rude about the literature organizers (WHAT?) and Marge (accounting) complained to Carol that he didn't get her an answer on some mailing question back a month or two ago soon enough and he was somehow being difficult. So, Carol is all of a sudden concerned that he is "rude" to people and doesn't get along with them!

Clark told Step-on-me that he found it all very suspicious that this is all coming up out of the blue, when he is due for his raise. Step-on-me said she felt that way too and that she was aware of both of those instances and that they were being difficult and we were all stressed out etc, and that it wasn't a cause to not give Clark the promotion. However, Step-on-me said that she's talked to Clark about being friendly before and this came up when Clark was a temp and when he took on this job. (totally UNTRUE!)

Clark then told Step-on-me that she never once told him that and that all of the response from people on his reviews were glowing---there wasn't one single NEGATIVE comment spoken about him but now all of a sudden he can be "gruff" and "rude!" Clark has never been accused of this before! If anything, he has been told that he is too nice and friendly.

Then in the next second, Step-on-me tells Clark that yes he's very friendly and she understands that he has never heard this before. Step-on-me said she is talking to Carol again to get some timeline about how Clark's raise is going to work. Step-on-me then told Clark that she doesn't want to lose him and that he's a great coordinator but that they need to work on friendliness (actually, apparantly, the entire marketing department needs to work on it--we are all apparently viewed as rude and unhelfpul by the rest of ICE.)

Since we're the marketing department, we're supposed to be extra nice and happy--even if someone is being an ASS to us. Go figure! Anyway, we're all pretty much dusting off our resumes this month.

I think the next time that any of the ICE staff is rude to us, we'll start complaining to Carol. Apparantly that's what people do here.

(edited to protect the innocent)