Address Messy Situations with Coworkers Head On

Claire, the Director of Marketing, was upset.

“Why,” she asked me, “didn’t Nate come and talk with me first?”

Nate was in charge of operations and Claire couldn’t believe the changes that his team had made, seemingly unilaterally, to her team’s working space.

“It has nothing to do with the actual work of the company,” Claire clarified. “But Nate’s team just came into our workspace, switched out a bunch of furniture and equipment, and then left a mess behind. They didn’t even ask what we wanted or where we wanted things. Tables were in the middle of random places, the chairs were uncomfortable, and some of our posters were removed from the walls with no explanation.”

That wasn’t all. “When I asked one of the guys what he was doing, he just brushed me off,” she continued. “He told me that they had their orders and they had to obey new fire regulations about what’s on the walls and where the furniture goes — and it all had to be done before an upcoming inspection. No one even told us this was happening!”