Dear Prudence,
I work for a small company and supervise two people. Over the last two months, I had to take several weeks off to help care for a parent in hospice care. After the funeral, I returned to work to find out that the work I had to delegate to my staff was either undone or only partially completed. I also found out that they had taken numerous complaints to our director about how I was overworking them while I was away. I have always treated them with respect and overlooked any attendance issues and limited work output because they have young families. I didn’t have to work when I was raising my family, so I can only imagine how hard it is to have to be a single mom. Their workload is very light in the summer months. My boss has never approached me about any issues they brought up, and I am confident he understands that they were just complaining because they had to actually work hard for two months.
My problem is that I cannot get over the betrayal I feel toward them and their efforts to stab me in the back while I was caring for a dying parent after all I have done for them. I have always looked out for them and gone to bat for them. I have used limited funds in my budget to get them expensive training in cities that they couldn’t afford on their own. I usually don’t have a “victim” mentality but cannot get over this betrayal. How do I do that
—Backstabbers