How can I beat my detested rival? I give as good as I get, but he's clever - he never does anything I can complain about without looking pathetic You may think this is petty, but I detest one of the guys I work with. We were hired at the same time about two years ago and were rivals from the start. Now we are fighting a nonstop private battle. He does petty stuff - swaps my chair for a broken one - and bigger stuff like undermining me in front of others. I give as good as I get, but he's clever - he never does anything I can complain about without looking pathetic. Sometimes I want to call a truce, but can't face letting him win. How do I land more punches? Analyst, male, 29 It is pathetic and puerile to spend your time at the office wholeheartedly engaged in trying to spoil someone else's day - but it's not petty. Petty is something piffling. This is something powerful and entirely preoccupying. That is why there is no point in telling you to grow up, to stop fighting and to do some work instead. Growing up takes an awfully long time and most of us never manage it. If you have been fighting like this for two years, you aren't going to be able to stop, just like that. Instead, you have to find a way of carrying on the fight more effectively and in a way that is less wounding to you. I am assuming that one of the weapons you already deploy is to make your work better than his. I also assume this is a weak weapon, as whose work is best is often a pretty subjective matter. If you are losing the political battle, your work tends to get judged badly too. It's not fair, but that's how it goes. So what I suggest instead is to shift your strategy from the aggressive to the passive aggressive. Desist from landing any further blows. Don't reciprocate. Greet his pranks with an ironic raised eyebrow. By being passive, you make the fight much less fun for him. If you stop fighting back, he will feel thoroughly insecure about what you are plotting. What you are plotting, of course, is to get rid of him. You aren't going to be able to manage that on your own. However hard you fight, you'll never be able to get him out as he is as devoted to the goal of winning as you are. To leave the company would be to lose. There is no way that he's doing that. To win you need to increase the size of your army. Find other people who are opposed to him. Start a running joke about his awfulness and his childish tricks. It will make you feel better and do steady damage to him. Watch him really closely and get others to watch him too. Talk about what he's up to. In time managers will catch on - not from bellyaching from you, but from a general feeling of disapproval. If, however, you can't find anyone to agree that this man is awful, you've already lost. Stop fighting and look for a job somewhere else.