Sigh.

One of the things I'm dealing with in work is a rather large project involving several big systems. Until recently, that was KfW2's baby. Then I took over, got mega-stressed (on top of the already elevated stress) and was dealing with an imbecile of a man. KfW2 was on-hand to help - an agreement she had with my current boss (her old boss). We were ready to deliver at the end of August, but the dates changed. KfW2 was no longer available, at least on certain dates and she reported that back to The Imbecile.

I'd already said that KfW2's contribution couldn't be assumed as she wasn't in the meeting that changed dates and it was up to me to see if she could help.

This was repeated (by me) in an email only a few days ago - KfW2 couldn't be assumed to be on board because the dates had changed. However The Imbecile emailed my manager expressing this exact assumption. KfW2 promptly replied saying she was unavailable. Between you and me, I'm pretty sure she did this because The Imbecile doesn't listen and has been a thorn in her side for months.

This morning, current boss takes me into a room and claims that The Imbecile has reported KfW2's unavailability to senior members of staff and this has come back to Current Boss. He's unhappy. I should have told him. It was in the email that KfW2 sent, I pointed out. Not good enough. Current Boss has nearly 2000 emails to get through, for various reasons. I had plenty of time to let him know, he claimed. I didn't. I only found out minutes before KfW2 sent the email. (This is the truth, but Current Boss doesn't know I heavily influenced KfW2).

We got into a slightly circular conversation after that. I tried to tell Current Boss that The Imbecile is out of order, that KfW2 was under no obligation to help out once the dates (and by association, her agreement with Current Boss) changed. He told me I wasn't making sense and that something that my boss from last year said now made sense - that I tended to state something, then clarify it, only in "softer" terms. I don't know if this is correct or not - I don't see it as necessarily a negative if I'm clarifying myself immediately - recognising that I'm not being clear. But it was implied that this counted against me last year and could again this year, if I kept this up. This is the first time I've heard this criticism.

Then it came back to the fact I hadn't told him about KfW2. Eventually he backed down - it was less than 24 hours ago and he had been unavailable for most of the day, so I had some leeway. But I didn't consider the KfW2 thing worthy of reporting to him anyway. I would have, had he not been part of the conversation, I guess. And then he started contradicting himself:

• He's confident in my ability but KfW2's unavailability is a BIG RISK!
• I should have told him about this vitally important piece of information that is not vitally important

Not once did he say that The Imbecile's behaviour was unacceptable or that it had been blown out of all proportion or anything else he might have said about The Imbecile given the amount of times myself and KfW2 have told Current Boss of our criticism.

And it kinda reminded me about the feeling I have about being further along the autism spectrum than most - my ability to verbally communicate isn't great, especially when challenged, under pressure, stressed and mentally exhausted. And as well with the reporting - logically, telling Current Boss didn't make sense to me. I don't know how I change how I think. Is this something with how my brain is wired or something else?