We had an issue at work where another department was strong arming and pushing our department to do what they wanted for a program.
I’m a cross functional program manager representing my dept, and as such, it’s my job to ensure that our dept provides reasonable timelines and that our requests and needs are met prior to our depts involvement.
Someone who has been at the org longer than I (but is beneath me in the org rankings) took it upon themselves to provide a timeline and corner cutting ways that our dept can go faster to the outside dept (ie. Overpromising and setting ourselves up to under deliver).
I asked my boss (2 steps above the employee who is project managing), if he could help me close the floodgates, because our stakeholders now want what they don’t quite understand, and push out the expected delivery date. He said to let him meet with the stakeholder and to press pause.
All day, I had to deal with 6+ fking pissed off ppl wondering why we couldn’t push ahead, with me telling them that I need to level set with my boss, and then we’ll talk. My boss blew me off for several hours and then comes in the last hour of the day to tell me to just give in and tell the stakeholders we’ll move forward, and confirming that the cutting corners provided by the project manager technically aren’t the right way, but we’ll just do it this time, ultimately setting the expectation with this stakeholder that I am not a viable source to trust and work with.
I let them know we can move forward, and they sent me laughing emojis, like they’re laughing in my face, stakeholders say in response to clarifying questions—“Why don’t you learn a thing or two about how the process works from [project manager] THEN ask questions?”
I was trying to do the right thing. Our dept is 5 ppl down, constantly complaining about being stretched thin, but then this rogue person shops themselves in the foot.
My boss’s boss loved my plan to build in a little time for us to RESPOND instead of REACT, but he was OOO the past few days.
Idk wtf to do.
TLDR; I feel hurt & like my boss didn’t back me up- likely making a long term impact in how stakeholders perceive me.