[anfedorov]

Sounds like there was bad blood or a general cultural problem there already. I can't imagine a well gelled team of people who like each other ever being unable to solve this kind of problem.

An employee should be comfortable going to their manager and their manager's manager about problems like this, and a manager should "nip it in the bud" when an employee begin running such "little pseudo-managerial experiments" on their colleagues instead of voicing your frustrations directly. What even is a managerial experiment? Colleagues and subordinates are not experimental subjects.