Sorry about the long story and thanks in advance.
I recently started working for a company that is a contractor for a global company. After my first week, my manager took 3 weeks off for family, which I understood. However, during this time we had a manager “Jon” from a different location help out since I was new. It came to light very quickly that everyone pretty much hates my manager. This is from everyone in our 3-person group to the client and vendors. This wasn't my impression from my first week working with him but that was only 4 days. After hearing everyone's input about my manager “Jon” and I had a sit-down and went over everything.
We came to the concussion of who and what was the real issue there. During his last day at our office, we both got to meet the Executive Assistant “Kat”. We both learned real quick that she is one person we want to stay away from. That same day “Jon and I took a vendor to her floor and did a quick introduction so she would be aware of what was going on and why he was there. She “praised” me for doing a great job already and picking up the ropes so quick aside from being so new to both companies. It felt GREAT! but it also felt like she was setting me up for something. Anyways 2 weeks later I'm up in her office doing the same thing and she snaps at me real quick. She's going on about how it's not her job to do my job and that I'm being rude and very unprofessional etc….. I took a step back and told her that was not at all my intention, I was just making them aware of what was going on and why he was going to be there. I bit my lip and apologized to her if I made it feel otherwise.
less than 2min later I'm in my office so embarrassed and shocked by the way she treated me and the way she talked to me in front of the people in her office and the vendor. While I'm trying to get it together, my manager asked what happened with “Kat”? I take a breath and tell him what just happened and that she was so out of line and unprofessional. He looked at me and said….. She sent me a long message about how YOU embarrassed her and that if that's how you're going to act YOU shouldn't be allowed in her office again. At this point, I'm appalled by what I'm hearing. I told my manager that is not at all how things went down. All my manager said was I'm sorry this happened to you already that is the type of person she is. That I need to play nice with her and do things her way and leave her alone for a day or 2.
Yesterday I had my second run into her I called my manager right away because he's off again. I tell him the situation and tell him if he could call our Reginal manager and HR and let them know of the situation. He thanked me for updating him on the situation and that he would follow up once he was in the office today. Today of course he wasn't “feeling well” and worked from home. I asked him about how he wanted to handle the situation and he just that he didn't see an email from “Kat” so it was all good water under the bridge.
Today out of the blue “Jon” reached out to me. Which came to me as a blessing. We caught on how things were going for us then he got serious and asked… How are things going over there? I laughed and said how have you heard things are going over here? He laughed and said… I'll be candid with you, I heard things are really bad. I told him yes, and got into details of what was still wrong. He said I know this is over the phone but I can tell you're one foot out the door and the other is almost there too. I told him he was 100% right. We talked some more he said he wants me to stay and would hate to see me go. That he'll look into a solution for me and would get to me by the end of the week. I agreed to wait on him because that's a better answer than my manager.
Today as I'm finishing up my day I come to find out that “Kat” told our temp person yesterday that she knows we hate her so if he plays nice with me and my manager we'll get along just fine with him. That he can play along to hate her too because she fu*ken hates me and my manager, she wants to see us go. At this point, this is so unacceptable and unprofessional of her. Again this was as I'm getting ready to leave for the day. I didn't call my manager to tell him because I'm sure he's going to do nothing again. Going to wait for “Jon” for now.
my question for you is… What is the best way to go about this professionally? should I also tell “Jon” about this? or just go right to HR and my regional manager?????