Office whatdafuck

One of my favorite things about the internet: anonymity. I can bitch candidly about work without it affecting my job.

I manage a small sales department. In the time I've worked at this company and managed many, many people I've learned a textbook trait of salespeople: the better and more experienced they are, the more difficult they are to manage. As a result I've adopted the cardinal sales management rule: pick your battles. If I nitpick every single issue, it severely deteriorates morale and makes those goons feel unappreciated.

This is particularly the case with one woman who works for me. She is an excellent salesperson, makes a positive impression on clients, and works well with little supervision. On the downside she constantly complains when things are not going her way, revels in a coworker's shortcomings (yes, I have read her personal emails), undermines the effectiveness of my outside sales representatives to other salespeople, and does not accept constructive criticism. This became evident today at about 3:30 PM.

While tracking some of her work on a client that has been in the pipeline for months, I read through an email she sent earlier today. For lack of a better term, this email was the grammatical equivalent of the way cat piss smells. I should have stopped reading at "we are gonna be in your area this month and wanna no if you have time to......". I crap thee not. As diplomatically as I could, I offered to help her with her emails, wrote a new email template to use, and showed her how to save typing time by using the email template.

Well, about 15 minutes later she returned from a cigarette break, complained about not feeling well and stormed out of the office. Another salesperson told me that she was incredibly offended that I humiliated her by insulting her and criticized her in front of the entire office. When I asked that salesperson if she heard any of the conversation (she sits closest to this woman) she said she could hear us talking but did not hear what was said.

So..... now what? If she is as offended as I'm led to believe, she will likely create a scene in the morning and I have a feeling this will go to upper management with a completely convoluted version of the story. I'm kind of in a bind - I could pull her into the executive office and reassure her I'm only trying to help, or let her continue to undermine me to my subordinates and of course upper management.

Oh, and I should also mention: she is the mother of the president of the company and my direct supervisor.