My response to the boss

Flakey,

I feel things are getting out of control here with regard project management's methods - as in they are handling the situation badly and I have a headache now. Here are the facts:

Lliam just came and sat next to Paul and asked him something about a meeting and then came back and said that Midge has refused to pay overtime.Paul replied that he has done all his hours this week, so will either stay and take the time off next week or go.

Lliam then became sarcastic and started to ask what Paul has been doing all week and had he really booked the whole week to a working on a 5K file. Paul replied yes and asked what Lliam wanted to do. Lliam then walked off and said I will cancel the meeting today and schedule for Monday, and assume you will be in then.

Two hours notice are required for a meeting, not just 30 mins and clearly Paul did not refuse to go to the meeting - he offered to stay and take the time off next week.

General situation

Personally, I find the situation un-professional and totally unnecessary and it seems to have been self-inflicted by the PMs not controlling the situation and then over-reacting totally before going running their superiors (because they have no direct authority) and subsequently getting stuck in an endless loop.

They never, ever bother to tell me anything either about the work, the changes to the work plans or whether they need any of my team and choose to berate them directly and then escalate it - i.e. they choose to cut me out of the loop, alienating both me and my team members and then are "surprised" when said team members are not as friendly on their next conversation.

To make matters worse, I believe that T, the packager who is meant to be working with Paul on the X problem is playing Machiavellian games; I am afraid this now dips into the realms of playground tittle-tattle:

Lliam told me that T has told Lliam he had been trying to get hold of Paul "all day" but when I asked for evidence the exact opposite true.

The fact that it boiled down to a breakdown in communication seems to have been ignored and Paul has been held accountable (i.e. blamed) for "holding things up", when he was doing nothing of the sort and yet the project managers felt it perfectly acceptable for T to go and get his new X5 on Wednesday and not get asked to come in because he was "too far away". This conversation occurred in front of my desk, with one PM getting assurance from the other that "that was all above board and OK".

Summary

Paul, has yet again been made a scapegoat of other people's inability to control a piece of work and of another team's lack of communication skills leading to the apparent gullibility of one PM and compounded by the inequality of other PM's treatment of staff and the worst thing is it was all so totally unnecessary.

The result is that trust has now officially left the building, closely followed by morale.

Going forward

I want the games by other teams to stop, PMs to stop harassing both my staff and come to me and only me if they feel there is even the a hint of problem so that I can deal with it professionally and productively without stress as such stress is no good for anyone's health, least of all mine.