Q: “ ‘Carol,’ our administrative assistant, loves to tell our manager about my problems. Yesterday, for example, I was late for a client appointment because I got stuck in traffic. When I called Carol to say that I would arrive in about fifteen minutes, I assumed she would just explain the delay to the client. Instead, she decided to inform my boss, who blew it all out of proportion. Although my manager doesn’t want to be bothered with these trivial issues, he still gets angry when he hears about them. How should I handle this?”