Delicate fellowship situation

[Anonymous]

There's a prestigious 9-month fellowship overseas for mid-career government professionals. I have an employee (an attorney-advisor) I think would be wonderful for it. She has a bright smile and a magnetic personality. She is always an early and immediate adopter of our office and agency initiatives. She is always first to sign up for our office potlucks, and is sure to make a delicious AND healthy dish each and every time. She is a terrific help at our conferences, helping me rebook travel when I have a networking opportunity crop up. She also is a terrific note taker; any memo she writes about a meeting is sure to capture verbatim who said what. I also love dropping in on her and chatting about who knows what. She's just a team player, through and through.

So what's the problem? Well, I learned of this fellowship from one of my division chiefs. He in turn learned of it when one of the members of his team approached him for support in pursuing the fellowship.

Now, the issue is not whether I would sign off on this other employee participating. I have no problem shutting him down. He's technically very skilled, but he has a Master's in Public Policy rather than a JD. He also asks a lot of questions about why we work as we do, and will even critique MY drafts. He's not nearly as respectful as the attorney-advisor. He forgets that his asking questions of me undermines my strong leadership, which is critical to our program's success.

No, the issue is that if I guide the attorney-advisor to get this fellowship, it will be obvious I sandbagged the MPP. Unfortunately there are people jealous of the attorney-advisor, and the MPP has some fans (including his supervisor). I also have a mild concern the union would get involved.

Ideally I'd fire the MPP tomorrow, but I can't get that through (b/c his manager won't give him bad reviews). One might say it'd be great to get the MPP out of my hair for nine months, but I can't bear to see him get such a prestigious honor.

Has anyone BTDT? Am I stuck just refusing to support the MPP? Or is there a good way to clear the deck and push my star through (the attorney-advisor). I'm only in my second year as Head of our Office, and I'd like to navigate this without throwing up in the process.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

You lost me at office potlucks.

[Anonymous]

Oh dear. The other person who ONLY has a masters has dared to question your wisdom. Of course they must be fired. How dare the peasants question the attorneys!

I do put think this thread is going to go the way you hoped it would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You lost me at office potlucks.

I didn't even make it that far

[Anonymous]

Um, what now?

[Anonymous]

Is this a joke? She takes great notes?! She has a great smile and signs up for potlucks?! OP, I'm assuming this is sarcasm but it's pretty bizarre.

[Anonymous]

What fellowship is it? I have never heard of this type of thing.

[Anonymous]

So you want to screw over a guy who you admit is good at his job because he doesn't have correct degree and doesn't kiss your ass. You would like to set up your office pet for the fellowship you previously did not realize exists, just because you are a jerk and really want to teach that guy you hate a lesson. Did I summarize that correctly?

[Anonymous]

Clearly your leadership skills are not as strong as you think they are. Do you have a crush on the attorney advisor? Because you are focusing on all the wrong things. She sounds like a pretty puppet, not a strong thinker.

[Anonymous]

You supervise a mid-career attorney and the key achievements that you are able to list involve note-taking, booking travel, and potlucks?

How is her penmanship?

[Anonymous]

I'm calling troll on this post.

[Anonymous]

I thought law education fostered critical thinking and courage to conduct healthy debate. But evidently in your organization it is easier to get ahead by kissing ass and running errands.

[Anonymous]

You are clearly insecure. And a female boss who is factoring in things like potlucks and friendly chats which makes female bosses look like we are emotional and caddy instead of results oriented.

He sounds like a critical thinker. And you are threatened and are making it personal. A boss should be objective. I feel bad for your underlings. The girl you like sees you for who you are and is just sucking up...

[Anonymous]

OP here. I am shocked at the cynical comments when all I sought was info.

For your information, my "pet" went to a Top-14 law school. MPP? He went to a directional state school.

Also, any meeting "Pet" runs starts with an icebreaker and ends with a pleasant note of thanks to everyone for their participation.

MPP? On multiple occasions I have had to smooth over ruffled feelings because MPP highlighted some issue, be it a factual error or some sort of math thing. Rather than quietly tell me so I could decide whether to tell the person, he's just pass on the info. When it's someone in a much more powerful department, or someone with friends high up, that's really problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm calling troll on this post.

After 21:49 post - def a troll.