my employee is patronizing when I correct his work

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader asks:

My employee, who is fresh out of college, is often not very thorough or good at his job. He’ll submit work that clearly lacked any attention to detail. And 90% of the time, there are errors that I end up pointing out. I am fair, factual, and give context to why the error is important to avoid. I never reprimand, just state the facts and move on.

He always responds with an excuse like “oh, I thought you said it was this” (even though I clearly wrote the answer out in the email to him) and then he follows up with a “good job” or “cool, great catch.” It’s always in a tone that feels condescending and patronizing. I’ve been in my industry for years. I don’t really need to hear compliments on how great I was at catching that 1 + 1 isn’t = 40. To me, it’s 100% not the same as saying “oh, thanks for catching that!” It’s like instead of appreciating that I was there to help him fix something, he pats me on the back for doing my job?

It’s really weird and I’m not sure how to address it. Another observation is that he is not like this with my colleagues, most of whom are male, and I’m a smaller Asian woman.

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.