Lost Between The Powers That Be

Sadly. Sadly.

How do you handle a crisis when your immediate manager is scared?

She's a nice person, generally, but she is totally unprepared to handle those situations where the Powers That Be have different agendas - and we are caught in the middle.

You can see her fright. It's because her Rules are broken. In her world, you follow the company procedures without question. With-Out-Question. This may lead her down blind alleys and wandering meanderings through fruitless paperwork that she will prepare and no one will read, but it is What Is Required and What They Want.

But those Rules don't work right now. Our Veep is breaking them and an opposing Veep is challenging that breakage - and she has to choose sides: follow our Veep, protect his ass, and knowingly break the very Company Rules which are the only things she knows how to follow - or follow the Rules, expose the breakage, back up the other (correct) Veep, and be exposed to our Veep's enmity.

She is so scared, since she has never staked her workplace ethic on integrity before. She just wants to do her job, without making those kinds of decisions.

She is taking a vacation tomorrow, with plans to leave halfway through today on a "just remembered" medical appointment. Maybe it will blow over by Monday.