As far as teamwork with the other clerks, our jobs are really completely separate/different so there is no real teamwork and only one of them was upset with me.
Teamwork has nothing to do with individual tasks and everything to do with how the group, as a whole, functions in the work environment. I am the only person in my department who does what I do yet we are a team of people working toward a common goal/objective. We work collaboratively and cooperatively. That is teamwork.
Now, to the original question. As a co-worker I would have been angry and hurt that you took my conversation with you and brought it to management. If I had wanted them to know how I felt I would have told them myself. Now potential, in their eyes, I am an employee who could be out looking for a new job because I'm nervous/unhappy/unsatisfied with how my current job is going. This will, in turn, affect how they deal with me. You have just placed me in a very awkward position with the potential to hurt my chances for getting better assignments or more responsibility. As a co-worker, I don't trust you any more.
As a manager, I wonder about your motives. You say your office is small and you are new there. You say you are just doing this until the new VP comes. I question why you felt it necessary to come to me with this information. I begin to question if this information was given to you in confidence and, if it was, I begin to question your ability to handle information within the company...information that might be confidential and have serious effects on the business. You will be working for a VP...you will have to deal with some fairly high level information that is not to be shared. Can I trust you with that? Now I'm uncertain.
Based on the information you told us, I'm going to assume you've been at this job maybe 2, possibly 3 months tops. You haven't been there long enough to gauge the office and the politics/undercurrents there. You've placed yourself in a very difficult position there by doing what you did. Listen to what the others are telling you and learn from this experience instead of arguing with them that you did the right thing.
Maybe it will work out for you. I suspect that it won't work out the way you thought it would. The best thing you can do now is be pleasant and polite, do your job, lay low and hope that it all blows over quickly. My experiences with small offices is that things take about 5 times longer to blow over because of the dynamics involved. Learn from this mistake and apply that knowledge going forward.
