My office has a lot of different departments and has been holding “consultations” with different stakeholders in the organization about their plans to re-open to in person work, but in reality they have really just been giving everyone the run-around on it, and the workplace is not going to be safe in terms of covid transmission.
I've gotten fed up with them refusing to directly answer stakeholder questions (and other staff being too docile to push them on it), so I decided to take an opportunity to talk to them directly. Let's say I'm from Department A. Recently, they were holding a consultation for Department B. I was free at the time of this consultation, and I have friends in Department B, so I decided to attend. While the meeting was intended for Department B, there wasn't ever any announcement that people from other departments couldn't attend.
No one ever told me that I shouldn't be there, no one asked me to leave, and they actively approved my participation (it was run on the Zoom format where they have to approve you to unmute your mic). I asked only 2 questions at the meeting. I was polite, but stood my ground when I felt they did not adequately answer my questions. When I stood my ground, other staff echoed that they should properly answer my questions. I think this is what set them off.
Now my supervisor has received an email from the *president* of the company accusing me of “taking up Department B's space” and “discouraging” me from attending any more consultations. My supervisor doesn't really seem to care about what I did, but is removing me from a public facing project for a while for “optics” reasons. I'm a bit shaken given this was the first time I've ever been reprimanded at work, by the president no less lol. I've been a bit of a pot-stirrer in the past but they've only ever ignored me before now. F*ck management for trying to intimidate people out of taking any opportunity they can get to discuss pandemic safety.