HR’s Arrogance – When They Couldn't Criticize My Work, They Went for a Game Incident

Hey everyone,

I was somewhat upset due to an event that occurred at my workplace lately, and I simply need to vent it out. I have worked in this marketing firm a total of 7 months and I thought I would have seen it all but this was a big surprise to me.

Thus, we do the 1st, 3 rd, and 5 th Saturdays each week but we have the 2 nd and 4 th Saturdays off. These are small team building games organized by the HR, and they are not serious. They had a game last Saturday and we picked chits with ad taglines or dialogues and we were required to guess them. Pretty simple, right?

I was late to some extent as I still had to complete some work, and when I came to join, my team (Team B) had already begun. I chose a chit since I was a late comer. The ad that was on my chit was a vintage advertisement by the name Center Fruit. I instantly knew it and provided my response. Nevertheless, in the case of the game, the HR hosted, I was informed that I was mistaken even though I was confident that I was not. I did not attach much importance to it, but they appeared to be a little excessively tough without a reason.

The manner in which HR addressed me, however, was what really rubbed me the wrong way. they told me to shut my mouth when I attempted to point out that the answer I gave was a correct one. I was appalled, HR is meant to be professional, right? But this time I was the one who was reprimanded about such a little thing.

The backdrop is as follows: HR had been desiring to have a conversation about my performance some time and I knew they were out to berate me. However, when my manager defended me claiming that I was among the best performers, they said that nothing much they could say about my work. Rather, HR chose to present this petty game incident as an excuse to attack me. They could not attack my performance so they chose something that was totally disconnected.

I had the impression that they were merely seeking a reason to lower me. It was not about the game at all but how HR attempted to use this minor occurrence to attempt to bring me down. I found it distasteful because I am not usually so preoccupied with doing my job and getting my work done.

Ultimately, it simply made me understand that there are those in superior positions who will always use anything within their reach to pull you down even on the tiniest or petty issues. You have to be ready to handle such situations in case you are new in the corporate world. And never give in, particularly at the time when it becomes obvious that it is not good favoritism and petty concerns that are involved.

I am not making a big thing out of this, but I just decided to share this in case any one of you has gone through something like this. How would you go about circumstances where you get to realize that you have done your job better, yet people get to bring you down over the most trivial things?