While I was making my previous post, something happened that has me really ticked off, and it was something where I had to assert a boundary quite strongly.
-- My friend Karen works for the sales department. Now granted, she is a rather erratic person with her schedule, it's been an issue, but she seems to have worked things out, relatively speaking, even though it must still be an issue with her boss (see what's to come).
This all gets a little confusing because our reporting relationships and structure are so weird here.
She ALWAYS gets her work done, and never lets anything go. It doesn't matter the time, etc. She's always there for the salespeople, and she supports 14 of them singlehandedly.
But when they're not around, she has nothing to do, like now.
The finance guy just said goodbye on his way out the door. Then he asked me if I was still online, I said yes, thinking he wanted something from the internet.
He asked me to send an email on his behalf to our (Karen's and mine) boss, telling him that (her initials) was still here at this time, but hadn't done any work for (I can't remember the time or amount of time, might have been quarter hour, might have been something else.)
I told him no, I wouldn't send it. (His blackberry wasn't working.) (Respectfully, I told him.)
In the first place, it is unethical and unprofessional for him to ask me to do that, considering it's nature.
In the second place, I wouldn't do it if it were about anyone in the office, never mind her. It is just inappropriate.
In the third place, what he's doing is illegal, anyway. If my boss wants this guy to notify him that she or anyone is here/not here, etc., then legally, she needs to be informed or it would not hold up even if they tried to fire her.
In the fourth place, although he works in this office and is the finance guy for our division, his reporting relationship is not through our division. He does not report to our company president, he reports to a finance guy who has several divisions under his authority.
I am so pissed off!
He asked me if I would at least send him an email reminder to send the email to my boss tomorrow, and I refused once but he asked me again so I capitulated. But I didn't include the specifics in what I sent.
I am SOOOO ticked off.
I was going to ask whether I should tell my friend what had happened, but she just came out so I told her. I wanted her to send her boss an email so he knew she was here until 6, which is when she's supposed to stay.
My boss always treats me just fine, but he's got at least two people spying on this girl. It's not right. If she needs supervision, then it's his job to supervise her, not someone else's. (We knew he has these two people telling her everything; the finance guy was not news.)
Probably wasn't a very self-protective thing for me to tell her, but ... I did.
But I am proud of myself for sticking up and saying no to him. That is SOOOOO hard for me. Fortunately we have a pretty good relationship (I think). He said he understood why I wouldn't send it and that was okay. I hope he really does understand that it's not just because of her, that it's because it's wrong.
--- just don't have the words for this!!!! ---
