In my department we have 2 areas and we interact but not often. When the area I manage was short staffed we asked for help from the other area (2 ppl there) and they said no. We do day to day work and have more urgent matters, theirs is geared towards audit and year end, so not time sensitive until year end.
One lady in particular is late most every day, comes and goes as she pleases and doesn’t offer to help when needed so she has lost some respect of people in our department. Two of the ladies in our area will sometimes go for coffee and sometimes I’ll join them. The particular lady in the other area went to her boss to complain she is being left out. Her boss then went to mine to tell him the same. My boss then went to one of my staff, went in her office with the door closed and asked her to invite other lady for coffee next time.
No one said anything to me until my staff came to me upset that the vp is telling them they have to invite someone. Also, I don’t feel it would have been my place to tell anyone who they can and can’t take their coffee breaks with. I also feel that this should have been dealt with between lady and her boss.
I feel like this is ridiculous and I feel like we’re back in elementary school. I need to know how to approach this. If I should bother talking to my boss about what he did, or how to talk to my staff member that’s not impressed. I can’t say I blame her!