Warning: loooooooooong rant ahead.
About a month ago, we had An Incident at work that involved me, a coworker, and a manager. The manager (henceforth known as A) oversees two sub-programs. Coworker (henceforth known as B) primarily worked for her, but also did about 8 hours a week on a program that I oversee. B had been looking for another job for over a year, for a variety of reasons. He’s been REALLY open about searching elsewhere, and has had multiple meetings with A about it, as well as telling pretty much any of our coworkers who would stand still long enough to listen to his rants.
B came to me one day and said he got a job offer, but wasn’t sure if he’d take it or not. He specifically said that he’d been talking to A, and that she was super supportive of not only his job search in general but also him going to the new place. A few days later, he posted on FaceBook that he’d had a long chat with his boss and felt that taking the new position was the right thing to do.
I went into work the next day and emailed my boss, plus my former boss and former grandboss who oversee our entire program (I should mention that my former grandboss is A’s boss). I said “Hey, sorry to start your day off like this, but I’ve been informed that B is submitting his resignation. That leaves two people on my team (out of six), with no one qualified to interview. Any suggestions would be appreciated.” I included former boss/former grandboss because they did the original hiring for my team, and because we’ve been working on a new bid on a contract for a similar program to the one I oversee, and having my team significantly short-handed would look really, really bad. Also because I reported to them until about four months ago, and old habits die hard.
Weeelllllllll… it turns out B hadn’t actually talked to A, or told her he was resigning, so she found out when her boss called her at 7:30 in the morning (hey, I’d already been at work for an hour and a half by then! ������ ). He came to me at 11:15 and said “Hey, did you tell (former grandboss) that I was quitting? Cause I wish you hadn’t…” A apparently lost her mind, between B not telling her himself, getting caught flat-footed by her boss, and the fact that B gave one week’s notice instead of the required three.
A’s pissed off at me because she feels like I did an end-run around her, and went outside of my chain of command to do it. I was pretty pissed that B had blatantly lied to me, and definitely didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. A went to my boss and basically unloaded on her; my boss came to me and was all “sooooooo… I don’t think she’s really mad at YOU, I think she’s really mad at B… but don’t do that again, please.” I offered to apologize, got the OK to do so, and sent A a fairly lengthy email where I unreservedly apologized and laid out exactly why I did what I did (while stressing that the information was an explanation, NOT an excuse). Weeks go by and she hadn’t acknowledged it at all, but now all of a sudden she wants to have a meeting with me and my boss ‘to give (me) feedback on (my) long email’ (which, really, I don’t think the adjective was necessary in that sentence).
What’s really surreal is if I’d done what A thinks I should have (gone only to my boss), it would’ve ended the exact same way, just ten minutes later, because my boss would have gone to the same people I did.
Both my boss and current grandboss are pretty much of the ‘OMG LET IT GO’ opinion, and can’t figure out why my email (which both read) can’t be the end of it. Either way, I have to sit through a meeting where the entire purpose is a nitpick of my apology. And I really, really think that if someone genuinely apologizes, you don’t get to nitpick their apology in front of their boss. Accept the apology or don’t, but suck it up, Buttercup.
TL;DR: I have to listen to a (in my better half’s words) candy-coated bitch manager pick apart my apology for an unintentional slight that I made toward her, and somehow manage to not throat punch her.