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Change Your Location if You Have To

When do you need to move your chair? Carla had to consider that question while dealing with a micromanaging team leader. The woman would rewrite Carla’s reports and, by many accounts, make them worse. She sometimes took credit for the research, but if she accidentally inserted an error, she blamed Carla. When Carla complained, the woman retaliated by “forgetting” to pass on information about last-minute meetings.

Carla’s misery didn’t end there. She sat next to the woman, who often commented on Carla’s conversations with clients. Carla spoke with the woman’s manager several times. That stopped the retaliatory behavior for a while but it always resumed. Finally, Carla asked for and was granted a transfer to a new team and a new seat.

She considered herself weak for being unable to rectify her situation, but the bottom line is that if your location prevents you from doing a good job, you have to change your location.