Too Many Chiefs

My co-worker Shelly(I think that's the alias I settled on) has decided to bite the bullet and actually fulfill her currently empty title of IT Supervisor, because Jan basically told her she had to use it or lose it. Jan's going on vacation for 2 weeks over Christmas and I suspect what happened was she was basically going to put me in charge (at least that's what I'm feeding my ego) because of Shelly's abysmal attendance record unless she stepped up.

I am not pleased. Mostly because Jan did not prepare me of the change in roles before Shelly started to severely curtail my previous freedom and I didn't take it well. Don't worry - I recovered quickly before doing any permanent damage but not before Shelly felt the need to bring out the "you're being argumentative" stick. The thing is - she's 5 years younger than I am (and I'm not that old), doesn't have a degree (she's going to school now for it) and has basically no other corporate experience outside of this company (besides being an asst. mgr in retail and a short stint as a cook in the navy). But she has seniority here and had become a supervisor in one of the customer service dept's before moving into the IT dept, a couple of years before I came along. We get along great on a personal level but professionally there's some tension because we're in similar roles which does put us in competition. I want & need supervisory experience - it's the next step for me, career wise. Yeah, I want her title, dammit!

The thing is - there's only 3 of us in the dept. (+ Jan, the mgr) so there's really not much to "supervise" beyond hours of attendance & schedules. Well, I take it back - there could be more to supervise but I'll be damned if I'm going to let her evaluate my performance and approve my raises or tell me what to do on a daily basis. Which is what I told Jan today when I finally got 5 minutes alone with her to get the scoop on what's going on.

My little paranoid mind had of course suspected that perhaps after our recent misunderstanding Jan had decided she couldn't deal with me and asked Shelly to step up on that score, but after our chat today I'm confident that's not it. It had nothing to do with me - contrary to my egomaniacal view of the universe. So maybe there's no need to go looking for a new job quite yet. Though I know there's going to be some turbulence as we try to find the line as to where Shelly's authority over me begins and ends.