I sense a disturbance in the force

I've long felt that my department has been an extraordinarily well tempered group, speaking politely to each other, behaving well, and generally acting by consensus.  I've known departments where this is not the case, and hated being a part of them.

But today I heard that my department has now made a couple of really strange decisions over the past few weeks, and it's disturbing.

Yours, N.