When I was in grad school, I was the ATD for a show where the TD messed up more than once, didn't communicate well, and blamed me for multiple mistakes that were completely things he was supposed to handle. When we had the post mortem for the show, I went in planning to discuss where the failure points had been and make suggestions for improvements in the future. I had the receipts- emails, drawings, work rosters, everything. Instead, I was reamed out by my advisor in front of all of my peers for being difficult for pointing out the problems, and was treated to a lecture about how the real problem was that "men and women think differently." By approaching the build as a series of direct steps (A->B->C), I was wrong, because women are too literal. * Men can strategize and visualize better, so by going A->C, the TD had really just been doing a better job. Because, you know, skipping intermediate steps like the actual size of the stage vs the set elements that resulted in being short over 20 seats for the show or not paying attention to the complexity of the rigging when he built both the elements and drew the rigging plan, and then being out of town for the rigging load in, was actually him being a better leader. I was clearly the problem because both of the issues had been discovered when I was leading the shop and I had had to scramble to fix them with no information at the last minute, and that made me look bad. Trying to point out that I didnt cause the issue was me trying to shift responsibility, and since the problem was discovered on my watch, I needed to own that it was my fault instead of blaming other people.
I am bringing this up now because what I learned was no matter how much work I put in, how many messages I send regarding things, no matter how well I do my job, there will always be an arrogant man who will swoop in, slightly redo or take credit for my work, and blame me for the failures they introduced to the situation. It usually ends with someone telling me I need to communicate better. Even if I can highlight in the original email where I directly spell out expectations and division of labor, it will be my fault because the dude can't read.
