On getting defamed

I haven't used this blog to air my dirty laundry, especially since a few people I work with read this blog. But something happened recently that I feel the need to talk publicly about; partially for catharsis and partially to share what I learned from this.

I work with a lot of non-engineers in job capacity. At first, I didn't like this, but I've grown in to it fairly well. I pride myself on being able to explain technical problems to non-technically minded people without sounding patronizing (A hard drive is like a book...). Additionally, I've kept my optimism about how Amazon works. I came to Amazon believing that it is truly a customer-centric company, and still think it is.

Sadly, I got caught up in a political power play three weeks ago by people more concerned with their own agenda than actually helping our customers. I won't go in to details, but to be brief: Something I said was taken grossly out of context, and the way it was taken out of context makes me believe that this was done with some malicious intent, either towards me or my team. A person in a senior position used this remark to further his/her agenda, and in doing so, made me look foolish to a large and important audience. I got in a fair amount of trouble, spent the entire weekend cleaning up this mess and lost face with my team and partner teams. It's the last part that I mind the most. Having a reputation as an intelligent and dedicated person is maybe the thing that I'm most proud of in life, and this person ruined a lot of it.

It's been a few weeks, and I put off any kind of retaliatory action. I'm very conflicted on what to do. As far as I can tell, my options are

1. Let it go. I don't have concrete evidence that this person really conspired against me, or acted with the intention of damaging me. It's self-centered for me to act the victim here. Typically, I've ignored direct threats at work, figuring that I can win over the aggressor at some point in the future through quality work.
   The problem with this is that if I let incidents like this go, I'll get bullied forever. As Picard would say, "The line must be drawn here."
   
2. Confront the aggressor. I haven't had a large amount of interaction with the person in question. Walking up to them and saying "You done me wrong" is liable to backfire. Furthermore, what would satisfy me? I would deem a private mea culpa insufficient, because the offense was public.
3. Be passive-aggressive. Every request from this person, I'm going to sandbag and stonewall. I don't enjoy playing politics, but I know how to fight dirty at stuff. But playing turf wars isn't customer centric. Additionally, I will probably lose in the long run to someone with a better understanding of the workings of the company.
4. Write anonymous feedback about this individual, explaining how they defamed me. The problem is, my feedback won't be anonymous. My name is in the mix, and anyone reading it would know who was doing the complaining. Additionally, the person in question is far more senior than I, and will likely escape any real harm from negative feedback I give.
   
5. Break in to their car and hide tarantulas. This is expensive, and live tarantulas are difficult to obtain.
   

It's not the nicest thing to say, but retribution feels damn good. So the central questions to weigh are

• If I seek retributive action, what doing the target the ideal amount of harm, without injuring anyone else?
• If I let this incident go, what is the probability of it reoccurring?
• Would any retributive action really make me feel better, especially given that I'm still upset weeks after the incident?

I think what I've learned is to be more careful about what I say. There's a saying: "It's not paranoia if they are really after you." Now I know that's the case, and since I know the offender has read this blog, they might know that I know. Going forward, I'm not going to volunteer long explanations, and I'm not going anywhere with rough estimates. Essentially, I'm going to Miranda myself, because anything I say can, and will, be used against me. When anyone asks for information, I'm going to make sure I understand why they really want it. And it's not that I don't trust people I work with, but I now realize that their objectives aren't always aligned with mine.