Normally people who have this kind of memory loss are self conscious about it. Just start all conversations with, “So, you remember yesterday when you told me…”. That should work a lot.
On a serious note, if they’re close with the owners, how come the owners haven’t sussed it out. Seems like it would be super obvious.
All good advice.
Another option of you like the person is to help them remember.
Memory works best on paced repetition.
So. In this scenario. Go over it at the end of conversation to confirm. Then maybe drop them an email a couple of hours later. Then try and discuss it with them the next day.
I’m walking out of the office with another peon and a director. Director walks towards guest parking while me and peon head to employee parking. Peon calls him out and the director just shrugs.
Peon says the other day he was trying to just drop off something and parked in guest and security stopped him and told him to go to employee. I say “oh this is easy, just look at them and say ‘do you know who I am?!’ and when they reply no just say ‘good’ and walk by them.”
Blank stare 
Well, over the past 2 months, it turns out that I’ve borne the brunt of this fallout. What should have been a very straightforward process related to XXXX has consumed a ton of time and energy (I have a separate email folder just for this clusterfuck and it’s up to 300 emails already) over the last 2 months and will probably continue to do so for the next few months. Now I’m just hoping for no lawsuit, and I’m not even sure I’m on the right side of 50-50 for that one.
Ah. This reminds me of a fun work story.
When I was working for the crazy gaming payments start up in Manila. The CEO was a psychopath.
We had some money stolen and CEO decided that one of the tech guys should be fired because he looked at them funny (suspiciously he said) as he walked past a meeting room while they were talking about it.
I was new at the time. So I sent an email to them which said. “We have absolutely no reason to fire this person and we shouldn’t. Looking suspicious isnt a good reason either ethically, logically, or legally”.
Of course they fired him anyway.
This email chain went on a little after. Idiot head of technology then forwarded the chain to one of her subordinates who read my note further down and shared it with guy who was fired.
So yeah. We got sued and lost, and he used my email in court. Fortunately it was only 10 months salary. But jesus.
Fucking cowboys all around.
Was your CEO a local? What about the fired guy?
The dude won a discrimination suit in the Philippines?
CEO was british. Fired guy was Filipino.
He won an employment tribunal. Employment law and courts are quite employee friendly there. However awards are normally linked to salaries which are quite low.
Oof. The first rule of email is you do not send emails. The second rule of email is you DO NOT SEND EMAILS.
Fuck it. Wasnt my money we lost. And they deserved it.
Even Trump knows this!
Don’t send emails that implicate yourself - but you definitely should send emails documenting when other people are doing fucked up stuff - particularly when you are tangentially involved and it’s your superior doing the bad thing. If not, they can always try to pin it on you later. Don’t even need to send the email to your boss, just a colleague documenting what you were told to do.
I’ve seen enough lawsuits where company execs get off but the underlings get fucked. Usually it’s because there are no contemporaneous document that underlings were only acting on orders and execs can thus denying involvement.
You may actually be able to protect yourself without pissing off the bosses if you make detailed contemporaneous personal notes and just save them. I was involved in a case like this once and I was blown away by how much legal weight was given to someone’s personal notes that they hadn’t shared with anyone.
If someone’s telling you to do something that you’re worried about getting sued for, you should:
The “just following orders” defense is not a good one (ask the Nazis). “I didn’t do anything wrong” and “it was a good faith mistake” are both much better. And if the thing is so bad that no one will belief you were acting in good faith, sending an email is not nearly good enough.
How easy is it to tell if they are contemporaneous and not just written up last week?
Send an email to yourself. Put it in a CMA (cover my ass) folder.
This was the best piece of business advice I’ve ever had. I’ve had a CMA folder since 2010.
Has an e-mail ever been successfully recalled in the history of e-mail? LOL people who do it and just draw attention to their error!
Not before I read the offending email lol.
Yes. You probably only notice the ones where it doesnt work.
Outlook will tell you whether it has worked or not for each recipient.
Recall works when people send me emails because I spend a lot of time ignoring emails and only go to my inbox at the end of the day and then go through the backlog oldest to newest. So I would rarely read a message before it is recalled.