Well shoot. Talk about an awkward afternoon.
There is some (!!) office tension happening where I work at the moment with our supervisor not happy in her position and a lot of her stress (caused by those higher in the hierarchy) is oozing out and causing stress amongst the rest of the office. At points it has occasionally led to short, angry outbursts. In whole, it has become a not very nice place to be lately.
In the event of today, a staff member emailed around that, if okay with everyone else & supervisor, she would be flexing Thursday off. I heard nothing more of it until late in the afternoon when I was cc-ed into the entire email thread that had been to-and-fro-ing since then. Some things were written from both sides that brought other things to light and well... tension is high.
My problem was a little selfish. I had asked around the office that morning if anyone minded if I flexed off early today (I had thought to get home early to set up a Christmas dinner that I’m hosting for some friends tonight) but had not asked my supervisor yet. Perhaps you can understand my dread at now asking with the above drama occurring in between.
In any case, I sucked it up and asked. I got a positive response but was then conversation-tackled with “and is this because of me as well?” followed by an angry/wet-eyed “I don’t want to be in this job”, “I can’t change who I am” and “I may get angry but there’s a lot of backstabbing going on in this office...”. I was then called upon to give my opinion.
...
No lies, this supervisor has pissed me off at points, caused a LOT of stress these past few months and I have been on the receiving end of a few ‘chats’ in her office as well as being the recipient of at least one good yelling at. I think I handled myself admirably. I remained calm and:
-I told her that she would have to ask the emailer for her point of view on the subject of its contents as I could only guess at what was alluded to.
-I acknowledged she had reasons for her own stress but that it caused an oppressive feeling in the office that only spread the stress further.
-I noted that one of her arguments was similar to one I had previously voiced in a meeting (attended by the entire office) which she had nullified with the statement “you simply have to be more aware of the office”.
In any case, I finally managed to make it back to my own desk and at the time of writing this am watching the clock tick around, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m hoping the afternoon can come to a close without a full out shouting match.
cheerful
contemplative
drained
awake
aggravated
bouncy
accomplished
anxious
envious
confused
grinning like a nerdy loon
blank