Dear Jack...

World’s hardest man, Jack Bauer, solves your workplace dilemmas... Events occur in real time.

Dear Jack,

I work in credit control at a large company. At after work drinks with the rest of my department, I made an off colour remark about one of the managers who routinely takes ninety minute lunch-breaks. The comment was not meant to be hurtful, everyone laughed and I promptly forgot about it until the next week when the manager in question began making remarks to me when he returned from lunch. He now does this every day.

Usually he taps his watch and says something like ‘Dead on time Janet, make a note,’ or ‘Five minutes over, Janet, please forgive me.’

Please help me Jack, this unprofessional behaviour is making me feel victimised and undermining me in front of the rest of the team,

Julie, Hayward’s Heath.

Dear Julie,

You’re right. This is unacceptable.

I think it’s pretty clear that your department’s been compromised. You need to remedy the situation quickly before he harms the operational readiness of credit control or even the whole accounts department.

Say something else defamatory about your manager and then monitor the traffic from the workstations of your main suspects. Once you have the mole, lure them to a secure location and interrogate them until you know exactly how high up this thing goes.

Also, your manager seems to be unable to fulfil his duties as head of such an important department. You may have to circumvent his authority and ‘go dark’ for the good of your creditors.

Remember, trust no one. The situation is probably much, much more complicated than it seems.

***End of Communication***