You Don't Have To Attend Every Argument You're Invited To

Today at work I was called into a team meeting room by two co-workers and basically told it was my fault that an incident occurred yesterday. I told them it wasn’t and provided them a chain of emails showing where I got my information from. Then the blame changed from it’s my fault to “you should have told me when I approached you yesterday”. To which I responded, I’ve never had anyone informally approach me about such topics and they are usually discussed in formal meetings – so I assumed you were wanting to discuss the latest development on the topic not the origin.

And then we find out that the source of yesterday’s incident was due to a fault in a system conversion that didn’t transfer the pertinent information I entered into the system . . .

A system failure and miscommunication lead to the incident but that wasn’t enough for the female co-worker that basically still wanted to have the last word by saying it was a miscommunication but I should have done this or that. Rather than start my neck roll and set her straight, I realized it wasn’t worth it. Some people, no matter how much you tell them, no matter how much evidence you put in front of them, still want to feel as if they ended the case in their favor.

And honestly, she can have it.

The issue doesn’t affect the pay from my job and I have more than enough evidence showing where I correctly entered the needed information and the additional information I emailed her. All that to say, sometimes you really don’t need to attend all the arguments you’re invited to. Do you want to argue and go back and forth with someone who’s just not gonna see the light, or take the agree to disagree route and get back to the people and the tasks that deserve your time and attention? I would rather take the latter. Yes, I was frustrated but the arguing is not anything worth continuing and ruining my day. I left the meeting, vented to a friend for a few minutes and listened to my favorite comedy skits for the remainder of my work day. I’m thankful that I can recognize when a fight isn’t worth the effort before I waste too much negative energy on it – now I just need to conquer a faster method of letting it all actually go lol. No built up frustration, no venting to anyone – just truly let it all go when I decide the fight isn’t worth the time.