Taking it up a notch

With some organizational changes going on at the moment I've all of a sudden found myself working closer to the sales division manager which only has further highlighted his incompetency in my eyes. So I've stepped up my efforts in my "don't ask I'll tell" policy.

This latest thing happened earlier this week and the scenario is that we were preparing for a meeting with a partner company who distributes some of our products. The product manager had prepared a presentation for it and sent it out to me and the sales manager for feedback. I looked through it and discovered some quite serious errors and misunderstandings about the market that I pointed out to her and after some discussion we changed the questionable items. So far all well and good, no problems really since it was done in good time before the meeting. But nothing in feedback from the sales division manager...

That he provided no feedback and would allow some serious errors about the market situation slip through his check annoyed me immensly since a person of his position needs to have a basic understanding of the market and can't allow things like that to be in a presentation to an external partner.

So this morning I sent an e-mail to him that looked a bit like this:

"I was a bit surprised that you did not provide any feedback on the presentation done by Ms. Product Manager, what is the reason for this?"

(Remember that this is an e-mail to a Japanese person 20 years older than me and higher in rank so this should already humiliate him a bit)

...then the reply came:

"I talked to her before the meeting so I gave my feedback at that time"

...making the trap snap shut and to which I replied with:

"I see, well, the presentation contained a number of serious errors. You need to understand this. I can teach you later"

I've notched up the pressure quite a bit now, but his incompetence is getting to me. Stay tuned. I don't think he's very happy about getting told off by a snotty young foreigner, but since I am right I am not particularly worried.