Your boss is the one who tells you what work you must do and who authorizes your paycheck. Many people tell you to do thus and so, of course, but it remains convention that only one person is responsible for the ongoing decision to reimburse you for services rendered.

Your dotted-line boss, within Acme, is a person who as little or no influence on your day-to-day job, the decision to hire you, and your compensation. However, the dotted-line boss controls policies and larger procedures which are nominally binding on you, as a minion in a lower echelon of the same branch of service.

My boss has given me standing instructions to use any and all means to the limit of the gray area of permissibility to maximize shipments during month end. Certainly nothing illegal should be done or is condoned. However, if something is just rough–impolite, let’s say, and perhaps not something you would do on a usual basis–then it should be done in the ultimate effort expected at the end of every month (and double that at the end of every quarter, and double that again at the end of every year).

Having made those efforts, I was told first by the master planner that my method of execution was detrimental to his work. Then I was told by my dotted line boss that I did not have authority to do any part of such efforts. And then I was told by my boss’s boss to report on the effectiveness of such efforts.

I am not sure yet how it will all play out, as I am trying to force the dotted-line boss to make a play and document his policy, or else back down and leave me alone. Probably it will go right back to don’t ask, don’t tell.

Got it? Don’t tell anybody. And I didn’t tell you.