Under New Mismanagement, Part 4

(I’m the supervisor of my department. A previous coworker once complained about not having enough to do, so the boss decided to give this coworker some of my duties. The coworker soon moved on, and her replacement just assumed that my duties were part of the position. Then my boss moved on, and I got a new boss. I didn’t know this arrangement baffled the new boss, until we had this conversation at our weekly productivity meeting.)

Boss: “Hey, how come [Coworker] always sends you to these meetings? How come he never comes?”

Me: “He doesn’t need to come because he’s not the supervisor. I am.”

Boss: “That can’t be. His e-mail signature says that he’s the supervisor.”

Me: “No. That’s my e-mail signature.”

Boss: “If he’s not the supervisor, then why does he do supervisor stuff?”

Me: “The last person in that position complained about not having enough to do, so your predecessor said he could do some of my work.”

Boss: “So if I go to the filing cabinet over there, and pull out your personnel files, it’s going to tell me that the supervisor is…”

Me: “ME.”

Boss: “Well, maybe that needs to change.”

Me: “I’m glad you brought that up. When [Coworker] was hired, I asked if we wanted to maintain this arrangement. And since you hadn’t started yet, I was told to save the question for you. Now that you’ve brought it up, let’s settle it. How would you like it to change?”

Boss: “Um, er, um… Whatever you two decide is fine.”