ASK AMY

Dear Amy:

I work at a small company. "Ted" is the owner. "Kelly" is our supervisor. Kelly is a liar and a bully. She makes our lives as miserable as possible. It is unclear whether Ted knows about the full extent of her attitude toward her staff.

Kelly has weekly meetings with Ted, and she will come out spouting all sorts of "he decided" nonsense. These are usually things that will get her out of doing work or that give her an inflated sense of power -- for instance, she is telling us we need to get permission from her to take a break.

The problem is that out of 100 things she comes out "decreeing," 25 things are actually true, and it is hard to distinguish the lies from the truth.

Most of the staff goes along with whatever she comes up with because they are afraid of having Kelly come after them.

I thought about going to Ted, but there are a couple of problems with that. I don't want to be labeled a troublemaker, and we aren't really supposed to go over her head unless it is a serious problem.

Should we just suck it up and do whatever she wants, or is there a way out of this? I can't tell if Ted really likes her or is somewhat intimidated himself, but he does give her a lot of leeway and doesn't reprimand her.

A

I think this qualifies as a "serious problem," but because you don't know whether Kelly is doing Ted's bidding, the best way to approach this is with a neutral attitude of information gathering. If you have any kind of regular performance review, that meeting might be the best time to raise these issues.

Organize your thoughts, present Ted with questions and ask for clarification. This isn't being a troublemaker -- this is seeking information that will make you a better worker.

You can say something like, "Kelly has told us that some of our duties and your expectations have changed, and I'd just like to clarify that because I'm confused."