“He said that I was undermining his authority, that if I had anything to say to one of his team members, I needed to go through him and he would deliver the message. Otherwise, he said, Hands Off.” Sylvia was off balance. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Well, I told him I was sorry, that I didn’t realize I had overstepped my bounds on his team and that I would try to be more considerate in the future.”

“And how did he respond?”

“He started talking about professionalism and that if I had worked where he used to work, that I would have been written up,” Sylvia replied.

“So, this place where he used to work, was this some sort of policy, that managers could only engage people one layer down in the organization?”

“Exactly. He said that if I had worked for a real company, I would have known that.”