I might be going to war soon.

The person who is second in comand to me (ie: the Business Manager) in my company, has been causing me no end of grief the last few months. She's way too stressed by her job and hates it more every day and takes it out on everyone around her. And everyone complains about her. And today I got the distinct feeling that a.) she has been soliciting some of the newer staff into "her camp", meaning they think she's really great and can do no wrong and I'm a big screw up and b.) people whom she thinks might be in "my camp", she treats like shit. Now, I have to say that until today, I never thought of things this way. I thought we were all a team. But I'm starting to think I might be wrong about this. She's so seriously unhappy and I think she might be trying to poison things around her to justify her unhappiness. And the crappiest thing is that I know that the people who matter (for the most part) would be on my side. I don't want to go there at all, believe me, but I'm starting to feel boxed into a corner.

She's one of those people who are always unhappy and bitchy and take it out on those around her and I've never really thought her capable of this before, but I'm stating to realize she's perfectly capable of undermining me within the company, maybe out of her own unhappiness, maybe out of jealousy for me, or whatever. I don't really know what to do about this and I've never been great at confrontation, but I feel one coming on soon. I talked to the President of my Board last night and she made it clear that the Board expects me to do something about the situation, because they're not happy with her either.

The shitty thing is that we've worked together for a lot of years now and I've come to rely on her as the other person holding up the heavy load, and she knows it, and I think she resents me and knows that she can play this to her advantage. With my old boss having had the brain injury, I lost the one person that I was used to talking to about the whole thing and getting feedback on whether or not I was right or wrong and how to handle situations like this. Now it's all in my hands, and if I take this step and deal with her, it will be even more in my hands alone and I don't know if I'm ready to deal with this. I'd really prefer to go lie on a beach somewhere. Fuck.

In other news, my doctor finally gave me some antibiotics, so I'm hoping to finally get well. Maybe. Sometime soon. It's been a month now.

I fucking hate responsibility.