Comebacks at Work by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

Author:Kathleen Kelley Reardon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

RETALIATE

This one was left for last, and for a good reason. It should be used only sparingly. Yes, there will be occasions when someone “burns you,” to use my son’s words, so badly with what they say that you’ve little choice but to “burn” them back. In his lingo, “burn” means “I got you good that time.” It’s a victory over the other person, who is left at a loss for words.

A list of comebacks wouldn’t be complete without this kind. After all, life can be tough. Work can be brutal, especially if your workplace is politically pathological,1 but retaliation should be attempted only when dealing with truly vicious situations. After all, usually you have to work with people again. In most circumstances, there’s little to be gained by scorched-earth comebacks that make that impossible. Remember the famous line “I’ll see you again—on your way back down.”

One memorable interview for this book involved a situation that would provoke most people to feel like retaliating. Michael Brophy has a successful career in commercial art layout and design in eastern Pennsylvania. He gives respect to and receives it from the people he works with at all levels. But when Brophy was working his way up, working conditions and employers were often tough.

One of Brophy’s clients was a building supplies company where the in-house art director berated everyone who worked for her. Indeed, Brophy’s advantage seemed to be that he was the only person who could stand working for her for more than a week or two at a time. As a result, he would obtain projects of a month’s duration, or even longer—such as major brochures or annual reports. There was a considerable amount of stress: sleepless nights and piles of work material by the bed.

Normally, exchanges with this art director would proceed along the lines of “Michael, I made a few changes and moved a few things around. Now clean it up.” These changes would usually be due the following day. He was a good, reliable performer, and she did not treat him as poorly as she did most of the people who worked with her.

One day, however, in front of at least six others, she “got right in my face about something I had done.” When Brophy says “right in my face,” he means it literally.

“She stuck her face no more than six inches from mine, placed her two outstretched hands on either side of her face right between us, and yelled:

“ ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and then she repeated it even more loudly: ‘What’s wrong with you?’

“Everyone just stood there and looked at her as if to say: ‘You have to be nuts to treat somebody that way.’ I was shocked by it.”

What would you do if you were Michael Brophy? What if someone had done this to you? Clearly she was beyond any threshold of reasonable work behavior. She humiliated him, though she did the same for herself at the time. Brophy decided that she’d done enough damage to herself.

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