Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Situational Awareness; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure
I was working the R-side at Sector XX and XY combined. I had military MOAs; ATCAAs; and refueling active but all military aircraft were off frequency. I was working about 7 other aircraft. One of the aircraft was landing Buffalo so I needed to descend that aircraft but had traffic in the way. I vectored the landing aircraft away from traffic and descended it to an altitude that was wrong for direction. Also had to point this aircraft out to 2 other sectors. At this time the CIC informed me that Sector XY was to be split out. I advised the CIC that this was a bad idea at the moment since I had a situation I needed to clear up. I was told that it didn't matter; the Area Manager had called down and ordered it to be split. I did as I was told and took my attention away from running the sector so I could handoff aircraft and give a briefing to Sector XY. This included the aircraft that I was vectoring. I also reset my altitude limits; sector map; filter buttons; dropped data blocks and other things associated with splitting a sector. As it turns out; none of the aircraft were on the right frequency; so more time was spent coordinating back and forth and changing frequencies; including the aircraft I had vectored; which at this point I had dropped off my scope; was on a vector in another sectors airspace; and wrong altitude for direction. Confusion mounted; and I lost the picture in my own sector. Luckily no errors occurred; but I feel that this was a prime opportunity for anything to happen. We have area managers making operational decisions effecting traffic and controllers in the area. This is dangerous. They are non-operational personnel and should not be making operational decisions. They are completely unfamiliar with the traffic flow and situations unique to any particular area or sector. Also; at the time this happened; we had two supervisors for my area in the building but still had a CIC in place. This is common practice in my area. The supervisors on my side of the schedule spend little time actually working the Supervisor Desk. Traffic was not heavy at the time and would have been perfectly fine; even boring; had I just been left alone and allowed to work the traffic without interference from the front desk.
ZBW Controller described an Area Manager directed 'sector split' event noting when non-operational area managers make decisions without on the spot operational knowledge; safety can be compromised.