AITA for refusing to let my coworker use my name to cover for something I had no part in?
So this happened last week and I’m still going back and forth on whether I handled it right. I’m 29F and I’ve worked at the same architecture firm for almost four years. There’s a guy I’ll call Marcus (34M) who works on a different team but we share a project manager. We’re not close, more like friendly-professional, grab coffee in the elevator type of thing.
About three weeks ago Marcus apparently told our shared PM that he had “already run the revised timeline by me” and that I had signed off on it being realistic from a resources standpoint. He said this in a meeting I wasn’t even in. The problem is that conversation never happened. He never came to me, never emailed, never sent a slack message, nothing. The timeline he presented was genuinely not feasible and the PM greenlit it partly because she thought I had already reviewed it. When the project started slipping the PM came to me first because she assumed I was aware. I had to tell her I had never seen the timeline at all.
When I went to Marcus he said he had “meant to loop me in” and asked if I could just go along with it to avoid making things messy. He said it wasn’t a big deal and that the timeline issue was going to get sorted out anyway. I told him no. I told the PM clearly that I had not reviewed anything and that I didn’t want my name attached to an approval I never gave. Marcus is now being asked to explain the discrepancy and he’s been very cold to me since. Two of his close friends on his team have made comments about me “escalating unnecessarily.”
The thing is I don’t think I escalated anything. I just refused to lie. But my own friend at work said I could have been more diplomatic about it and maybe talked to Marcus again before going to the PM. I dont fully disagree with her but I also feel like I was put in a position I never consented to and my professional reputation was used without my permission. Was there a softer way to handle this that I missed, or was I right to just be straightforward?
