TL;DR Another supervisor wants to dictate my mother's schedule.
Hey folks. I want yall's opinion on this.
My mother (call her Mara) and I work in the same office. She's been an admin for one of the department heads for 6+ years and I've heard plenty about this place. Lately, a persistent problem has popped up again. There's this supervisor (call her Beth) who has been hounding Mara about WFH.
Now, when the big C started, work (a non-profit research and medical school in the Midwest) decided that department directors would dictate how WFH would go. Mara's director (who was her DIRECT, key word, supervisor) had allowed her to be out of office most of the week. Even after restrictions calmed and most came back to the office. Unfortunately, said director was let go because he was irrresponsible (that's another story) and now the department is in leadership limbo. In the meantime, the dean of the department (call him Gerbo) has taken a more active role.
Mara has not been told who to report to officially, but, so far, it's Gerbo. He is questionable in his capacity as a manager, but still he allows Mara to WFH at least a few days a week. Beth on the other hand, seems to think she is Mara's supervisor. This isn't the first time Beth's tried to do something like this, but now she's claiming she talked to Gerbo about her coming to the office more. Last week, she sent an email about Mara's WFH schedule:
Hi Mara,
I hope I am not bothering you on PTO day, and if so…. read this next week. With the whole pandemic thing behind us and with staff shrinkage I wanted to know if you were still doing the WFH schedule? If not, it’s a moot point. If so, I wanted to relook at where we can assist both sides in covering gaps and have everyone in house every day. I talked to Gerbo about it and he thought it was a good idea.
I am on PTO next week, and will be in/out Monday, but we can talk when I am back.
Happy Friday!
Beth
- Mara only told one other coworker about being home that day and not using PTO for it.
- Mara and I are pretty sure she is bullshitting about talking to Gerbo. She's done underhanded things before and no doubt will do some more.
- Beth. Is. Not. Her. Supervisor.
Mara's asked for some advice and I'm not quite sure what to say to her. This is the first office job I've had and all I can say, don't trust anyone. I feel like the best tactic is to talk with Gerbo directly about who Mara actually reports to. And about Beth trying to undermine authority.
WWYD antiworkers?