What you could say in a performance meeting to defend yourself
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So you’re under pressure from your boss to perform, and you need some reasons to push back. All jobs are a bit of give-and-take on what needs to be done and in what order, and you think what your being asked is unreasonable. Some of this is covered in more depth here, but these are some ways to push back in the meeting.
This is not the job I was employed to do
There are many ways that the job we do is different from what we thought we signing up for. Firstly, jobs evolve over time, and the longer you’ve been there, the more the job has moved, so you can push back on these changes, that you’ve being accommodating to their needs, but you shouldn’t penalized for your niceness.
Secondly, positions desriptions are often out of date (see here). Chances are that whatever position description is in your contract or provided to you when you started wasn’t 100% correct even then, let alone now. Although common, this is still good grounds to stop your boss holding you to a job you didn’t entirely sign up for.
Thirdly, most recruitment processes have a lot of marketing pitch to them. Whether it’s the ad or the interview, there’s probably a gap between what you were told, and reality.
This is how I was trained
Similar to position descriptions and job ads, the training and induction processes frequently leaves a lot to be desired. Most jobs don’t have a training manual, and those that do will be out of date. Most training is buddy training, which is quite effective, but your boss doesn’t really know what you were taught. Sure, they can adjust that, but if there were things you weren’t taught, or were taught wrong, that’s an allowance they need to make.
You didn’t train me, you left me to figure it out, and this is how I figured it out
This is an even more extreme version of the above, although just as (if not more) common. Most jobs don’t start with an induction, followed by a formal structured learning plan. the smaller the company, and the ‘whiter the collar’, most likely you were given a login, shown where the drives are, and then largely left to figure it out as you go, and hope you ‘get it’.
So when it’s left to you to figure it out, it’s hard to say you’ve figured it out wrong. I discuss the problem with intuition here as well, in particular the problem with inituition, but the reality is most of the time we expect (or hope) people to intuitively ‘get it’. But if they don’t, it’s hard to prove fault- the ‘it’s common sense’ argument only gets you so far.
How am I going to know if I’m meeting target or not?
What to do is often easy enough to define; doing it well enough is much harder. Some work output is quantifiable (widgets made, time per coffee, sales made), but most aren’t, especially service work. This is the area most bosses struggle with, so it’s a good area to push back on (see here for more on this). If at the end of the meeting you don’t know what you need to do to succeed, and you won’t know yourself in two weeks’ time without your boss telling you if you are or not, that’s not fair. It can’t be subjective to your boss’ opinion after the fact.
Are these standards the same for everyone?
I include this for completeness, because it’s the most common argument, but it’s probably the least useful. Unless this is genuine victimisation or bias (and it could be), then it’s unlikely you are being uniquely and unfairly targeted; it’s unlikely that you’re being singled out as the only one being held to account if everyone else would be failing the same measures. It’s a limited argument for two reasons. Firstly, not everyone does the same job, and there are always explainable differences. The second is that for privacy reasons they can’t tell you. Many people feel personally and unfairly victimized, and while this may be the case, it’s less frequent than expected, and it’s an argument easily dismissed. Give it nudge if you like, it may work out.
