so my boss.. lets call him John. Weve always got along okay. He is a bit of a joker but he is professional when he needs to be. We have always had a pretty good relationship and banter but he pulls rank when he needs to and I am fine with that. I work in a wonderful kind hearted team. We support each other and those we work with. It was idealic.
Now a year or so ago I wrote a report to ask for another worker to work within my role due to the large workload. We got her and we will call her Kate.
When she first arrived we got on well but I found as time went on Kate tended to slag off all of my lovely colleagues to me so I decided to keep my distance and leave her to it. I spoke to my boss about it in the past who asked me to keep an eye on it.
Now I think they are having an affair. Both have partner and children but that isn't my business.
We work with vulnerable people and due to this we need a good and positive work environment. However, Kate has alienated herself from the team. Whatever I hear about her it's always that she had made a nasty comment about someone and we are all scared to talk infront of her of fear of how she will use it against us.
Her and my boss leave for lunch seperately but always return together. They will sit together at every oppotunity and flirt freely infront of us all. On our christmas do they left for two hours without telling anyone and took leave on the same day only for my colleague to catch them together.
Kate is creating an extreamely toxic work environment. She also does a lot less work in comparison to the rest of us and bitches about it all the same. She continues to say nasty things about us all to one another which is difficult. We all agreed to try to be really nice to her to make her feel more intigrated but she then called us all 'pathetic' to one another for doing this.
I went to my team leader (one below my manager) who said she would keep an eye on it but she has done nothing yet. I can't go to my managers manager as they are close and don't want to create unneccisary chaos.
My manager has done this before and I spoke to him about it then and he was defensive so I don't feel this is an option.
I feel stuck. I love my job, my team and I have been here a long time but do not feel confortable when Kate is around. I don't know what to do. Please give me suggestions!