How to deal with a false accusation by your Program Manager

Hi there!

I’m a project manager of 5 years, who always receives an amazing feedback from people I work with. But not this time. During my mid year review my manager shared a feedback by a Program manager I work on the project with, who got promoted very recently and she was working on my team as a project manager before and I just always felt like she didn’t like me.

The Program manager shared a lot of things that are not entirely true, like me not being available/online for majority of the workday. This is a complete BS, as I work at my computer sometimes with no breaks at all. The Teams status turns idle after 5 min of inactivity within Teams, and most of my work is done outside of Teams. I feel that it is a very unfair assessment as no one (including my boss) has ever set that expectation that being shown as active is Teams is an indicator of your activity during work hours.

I went through my chat history with this person and I always replied back to her in a timely manner, 1-5 min response time on average. While I was doing it I noticed that her responses were actually extremely delayed and her average response time is anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes.

But she also shared in the feedback that I complain to her a lot which prevents from having a positive work environment. I’m not even sure where that’s coming from as I try to limit my communication with her as much as possible. I would never complain to her as we just don’t have that level of relationship.

There were other things that weren’t entirely true, as the events were altered to paint me in the bad light and I just feel it’s an attempt to prevent me from getting a promotion that I was promised at the end of last year, which would make me her peer. But now it looks like that out of the window, thanks to that lady.

My question is - what’s the best way to clear my name? These accusations are completely false and they have no proof. I’m debating about reaching out to HR, but I have a feeling they wouldn’t care.