A female attorney I once worked for had a habit of confiding to me how terrible her former assistant was. While I appreciated the implied compliment to me, I found these remarks bothersome. The previous assistant was — apparently unbeknownst to my boss — my friend. And, not surprisingly, my friend’s perspective on the situation differed markedly.
Being well acquainted with both women, I perceived a more or less equal distribution of blame for their failure to work well together. They were nice people whose personalities did not mesh well. During several years of working together, while they outwardly displayed friendliness, a very different emotion brewed inside each of them. Every miscommunication, however slight, melted into a simmering pot of contempt that, in turn, produced ever more serious complications.
