the Office drama

things are crazy at work right now. not workload-wise...just interpersonally. when i started my job the a&i department had about 11 people with 2 team leaders and 1 supervisor. when i became a team leader we started growing the department to its current 44 abstractors, 6 team leaders, and 3 supervisors. the 3 supervisors thing is recent...since i've been back from maternity leave. my former supervisor is now the manager of the 3 supervisors. now, i loved my old supervisor. he's a fantastic person who is so easy to say anything to. he always trusted the team leaders to do their jobs and to know what they're doing, and he kept everyone in the loop about things. i really felt like i could be honest with him (it helps that he's our age, married with babies, and went to a christian liberal arts college...j. and i have had dinner with his family several times).

so having a new supervisor has been an adjustment. having 3 supervisors has become semi-impossible. they all have such different management approaches. my new supervisor is pretty good. he likes to manage from the bottom up, which i like (i've been in the department for at least 3 more years than him, so i appreciate him treating me like i know what i'm doing). he keeps me in the loop and i feel like i can say things to him if i have a problem.

another of the supervisors micro-manages her team...to the point of calling people into her office if they are 5 minutes late. she also moves workflow around...which is completely a team leaders' job that she really has no business doing.

the last supervisor is the one who i have the most difficulty dealing with. she does not respond to email if i have a question to ask her. i've given up trying to email her. she is also very territorial and likes to keep all important decisions close, without any input from the team leaders or myself or e. i have heard frustration from most of the team leaders about her lack of communication and trust. lately this has directly impacted me in that my supervisor informed me that this other supervisor is working on a process that would change the way e. and i conduct feedback. my first response is: why am i not involved in this? why do i have no say? why have i not heard about this from her? my supervisor told me not to tell her that i know about this huge change that is in the works, but he had e. and i write up a document outlining all the reasons why the change she is proposing is a horrible idea.

it is such an awful position to find myself in. knowing what she is trying to change, and not being able to do anything about it is so frustrating. my new supervisor has forwarded me some emails from this other supervisor regarding the change, and her proposal even states things like "b. and e. will probably argue that...blah, blah..." of course we will argue that! her proposal is ridiculous!

today m. stopped in my office, and i had her shut the door. she is the head team leader, who has been with the company since its inception. i couldn't not tell her what was going on, because i knew she would flip her lid. she trained this other supervisor back when this woman was an abstractor. and now this woman is keeping even m. out of the loop about these huge changes of process. m. wrote the manual for a&i for goodness sake.

i don't like this secrecy. i don't like having to pretend like i don't know. i don't like having 3 supervisors to have to deal with. m. said the team leaders walk around on egg-shells in order to avoid upsetting one or more of the supervisors at any given time.

it's so frustrating for everyone.