38. Do It Anyway
My boss sent me an email where she said my performance of a task was incomplete. I politely replied that, according to my notes of our discussion of the task, I had done all the things we discussed but please let me know what I missed so I could complete the task.
We went back and forth 2 or 3 times, her hinting that I’d missed something, me replying to please just let me know what it was.
She finally replied with the missed expectation (which I’d inadvertently omitted from my notes) and accused me of “trying to create a paper trail to establish that you’d completed the task.”
Rather than responding that I’d literally asked her for guidance in completing the task in every interaction regarding the task (thus admitting I hadn’t completed the task), the next morning, I got in early and took an index card and created a little paper trail between her parking spot and her office.