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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work at a company with the general rule that any work you don’t want to do can be delegated to an intern. (Our interns are all paid and students.) Interns often find themselves assigned random menial tasks, like reformatting a PDF for a manager who can’t be bothered. On the reverse end of the spectrum, interns will sometimes be assigned projects that far exceed their pay grade — e.g., before I came on as head of learning and development, they tried to have an intern write a new-hire training program for every department in our entire business. Essentially, if the necessary knowledge or inclination to perform a task doesn’t already exist within the business, everyone figures an intern can research the area and come up with something.

The interns are hired for a specific role (like sales intern or marketing intern) and we don’t hire “general” interns, but this distinction isn’t always observed. A transportation manager might have a sales intern fix the font on a non-sales document, for example. As you can imagine, the interns object to being given random tasks they weren’t hired to do. They also find themselves overwhelmed with some of the larger projects that a full-time employee would normally be accountable for.

I manage a few of these interns. If they come to me and complain about the ineffectiveness of this arrangement, I sympathize and do my best to improve the situation. For example, if they’re asked to do something wildly beyond their abilities, I’ll reason with whoever assigned them something and get it reassigned. If they say “people should really learn how to format their own PDFs,” I’ll chuckle and say, “Don’t I know it!”

The problem is, by taking their side on the larger issues I think I’ve been giving these folks the idea that because something is a stupid idea, they shouldn’t have to do it. I’ve run into the issue of an intern asking me to refuse menial tasks on their behalf — even ones that could ostensibly fall under their umbrella. I agree with their general complaints — the way work is arranged here is sooooo stupid. And, if I had it my way, it wouldn’t be arranged like that and everyone would put on their Big Boy pants and learn how to format a PDF. But it’s extremely unlikely I will ever have things my way, and I thought that was clear to the folks who are interning. Lately, I’ve been saying, “I understand that’s frustrating, but you still have to do it.”

Still, I’ll hear them talk amongst themselves sometimes (or even to me, on occasion) and they’ll be up-at-arms about something that was a Stupid Idea. Some of these ideas are REALLY stupid, mind you, but there are stupid people in charge of lots of places and folks still have to do the work assigned to them.

So, my question is this: where is the line of refusal for an intern? How do I advise them? In truth, it’s not fair to treat every intern like your personal secretary. And it’s certainly not fair to make them accountable for large business-critical tasks (like running a whole L&D initiative!). Even so, refusing to reformat a PDF is a bad look and doesn’t address the actual issue.

Are you involved in the intern hiring at all? Because the best thing you could do here is to make it really clear what they’ll be signing on for before they accept the job. If they’re clearly told in the interview process what the internship is like — and that they’ll be doing a lot of support tasks like formatting PDFs and so forth — then it will be a lot easier to respond to their complaints after they start.

If they’re not being told that up-front, that’s a huge problem. People generally assume “internships” will have a fairly significant learning component. That doesn’t preclude being assigned support tasks; in fact, a very common intern set-up is that in exchange for doing support tasks, they will get exposed to a bunch of aspects of their desired field that they wouldn’t otherwise get, such as getting to sit in on client meetings, seeing how decisions are made, etc. But you do need to be thoughtful about what’s included in the “in exchange you’ll get X” portion of the trade — if they’re just doing everyone’s support tasks and not getting anything out of it for themselves, then framing it as an “internship” might be the issue … and you might be better off hiring real admin support, not interns.

To be clear, this would be a much bigger problem if you weren’t paying them (because then you’d be required to meet federal rules for unpaid interns, which require that the internship be for the benefit of the intern, not the employer, with an exception for nonprofits). You’re paying them so you don’t have those same obligations, but it’s still worth considering if framing these jobs as internships is contributing to the problem.

Of course, you might not have control over any of that. You might not even be involved in their hiring (although if not, hopefully there’s at least room for you to give this input to whoever is).

If that’s the case, the best thing you can do is to lay out for your interns really early on what to expect — for example, that the office relies on interns for help with tasks like X and Y, but they’ll also be given opportunities for ___ (insert whatever is true here, even it’s just that they’re getting the opportunity to learn how to navigate an office; spelling that out can help).

You should also pay attention to how you’re talking about these issues with your interns. If you’re literally calling tasks “stupid,” that’s probably contributing to the problem. It might be honest, but interns who are brand new to the work world don’t have a nuanced frame of reference yet — and it would be very easy for an intern to hear their manager talking that way about work and leap to thinking they can talk that way about all work or otherwise miss the nuance that you’re experienced enough to understand but they aren’t. I’d also be concerned that their inexperience means they’re missing the politics of it all — for example, if you can overhear them complaining about their work, other people probably can too, and they could be messing up their reputations with people who could have influence over their next professional steps (and thus missing out on a big benefit of interning in the first place).

That said, I do think there’s a lot of value in sharing an honest assessment — it can be hugely educational for early-career people to hear, “Yes, this set-up isn’t ideal, the problems you’re seeing are real ones, but this is the system we have, and it’s unlikely to change this year because of A and B, and pushing back on this sort of thing takes capital that you develop by doing things like C and D.” (Explain what capital is too, because they probably don’t fully understand it yet.) But the key is to make it genuinely instructive, like with that framing, rather than just “yeah, this sucks.” It sounds like you might be doing more of the latter without enough of the former.

None of that answers your question about where the line of refusal is for a paid intern, and that’s because I think the issues above are bigger ones — and if you iron those out, that could fix the whole thing. But for the sake of answering what you actually asked, I wouldn’t normally expect a paid intern to be refusing tasks at all, unless something is unsafe or unethical. (An unpaid intern has a lot more room to raise concerns, both because of the legal requirements and because they’re volunteering their time.) Certainly if they’re assigned something that’s obviously beyond their abilities (running a whole L&D initiative — what?!), that’s different. But if they just don’t want to do menial work … well, that’s part of the job (just as it’s part of many internships) and ideally they should hear that’s part of the job before they accept it.

If you or they realize that the job isn’t what they thought they were signing up for, either of you can (and should) initiate a conversation about that to figure out what to do … but usually that would be about figuring out if it makes sense to stay in the job, not about reconfiguring the role into something your organization doesn’t actually offer.

This post, was I wrong to quit my job? , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I’m wondering if what I’m feeling about my resignation is normal, and how I can best position myself to still start my new role with confidence despite my fears.

I gave notice at my job last week. My company is extremely small for our industry compared to the one I am going to (think: tech startup vs Apple). I did really well in the role and my boss’s feedback became increasingly geared towards my taking her job in the future. But I was miserable for so much of my time there. Our workload was immense and there was constant pressure to be perfect, particularly because I worked with our company owners every day. I always doubted myself , even when I was told I was doing great, because it was so easy to make mistakes (especially as my boss isn’t the most effective manager, which is another letter entirely). Every other member of my team was either on a performance improvement plan, just off of one, or fired for poor performance. It felt like being a living wife of Henry VIII; I never knew if it was skill or luck that saved my head.

At the new job I accepted, I’ll be working on more complex projects and will have more flexibility, better internal standards, and a much higher salary. Of course, I knew there would be potential downsides, too. I will be one of many on a huge team (which I wanted after my most recent experience), and working for a large public company comes with higher risks than my small but stable employer. I’ll be starting from scratch building relationships with colleagues who live both locally and abroad. It is a big step, but I thought that I had weighed every pro and con before reaching my decision.

But now that I’m in my notice period, I feel like I’m always ten seconds away from calling my boss and saying, “Never mind! I want to stay!” I know at least some of this comes from nerves over making a big change, and I still suffer from a lot of the self-doubt that characterized my time in my current role. But some of it has to do with what has happened since I gave my notice:

* My boss has begun making offhand comments that make me doubt my decision like, “I would never work for a company that big,” “You should know we’ll be going into a second Great Depression so layoffs are coming,” and “You were my choice to replace me so I guess I’ll be sticking around for a while.”

* I received a heartfelt email from our company owner explaining that they don’t want to lose me. We also had a call where she shared the downsides of working for companies like the one I am going to and the perks of working for a small organization that “takes care of their people.” She said that losing me was an “unfathomable” loss for the company and that I should call her directly if I want to come back at any point.

* My old employer made me a counteroffer for about half the salary increase I’m getting in my new role, along with some other perks. While this was tempting given the conversations above, I opted not to accept because I couldn’t say for sure I wouldn’t want to leave again in a couple of months, and I’d rather keep this bridge intact than burn it by quitting a second time later.

There are other reasons for my nerves, too. I’m seeing articles about regrets over the Great Resignation, boomerang employees, etc. On top of the many great reviews of my new company, there are bad ones too. And I’ll miss the colleagues, work, and opportunities at my old job.

At this stage, my decision is final and there isn’t really any point to agonizing over it any more. So why am I? And how can I move past it so I’m not carrying this worry into my new job with me?

You can read my answer to this letter at New York Magazine today. Head over there to read it.

This post, updates: the nosy coworker, not oversharing as a manager, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, when I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

1. My colleague won’t leave me alone after my former employee died

I want to start with a huge thank you to the AAM community. The messages of support and advice were very helpful in reframing things for myself moving forward.

Myrtle has not texted me at all since I wrote to you, but she did try to bring up my former employee’s death in our next meeting. When she asked if I had heard anything else, I responded “I am upset about [employee’s] death. Out of respect for her and her family, I think it’s important not to contribute to the rumor mill. Now what do you need from me for the X project?” Myrtle seemed a bit flustered, but did refocus and has not brought it up again.

Alison, you were right about their being a much larger pattern of boundary-crossing behavior from Myrtle. In the past, she has brought her children to work events and left them for me to babysit (ignoring my shocked “No! I cannot watch them!”). There’s more, but other details would be too specific for anonymity. Unfortunately, Flitwick and several key managers in my organization also ignore boundaries. The more time I spend in this and similar roles, the more I get the sense that overly-personal work relationships are not abnormal for my current industry and are a fact of life in my geographical area. Hopefully I can use some free resources in the next few months to train for an entirely new career, leave my current organization for good, and move somewhere else in 3-5 years.

In the meantime, I have politely declined any one-on-one meetings with Myrtle without a clear work purpose, thus severing the mentor relationship. We are having to work closely on a special project Flitwick assigned us, but as it is new for both of us it has been easier to maintain an assumption of equal footing. Flitwick and Myrtle are both on information diets – I have been practicing using your past scripts when asking for leave (sick and annual) without providing details that could be used to question my health/state of mind/need for time off. Some of the comments helped me realize that I am not nearly as good at setting (and maintaining) boundaries as I want to be, so I am going to do some self-improvement reading and see if I can find a new therapist to assist me.

2. Not over-sharing as a manager while trying to de-stigmatize mental health

I wanted to write with a very quick update, first to thank everyone for the thoughtful comments and feedback, and also to say that my anxiety level about these issues went down about 5000% when I formally changed my first name and pronouns to reflect my nonbinary gender identity. :)

I realize the gender stuff wasn’t really the focus of my question, but since coming out and changing my name, everything just feels, oof, so much easier. It’s honestly hard to explain, but it’s like a lot of things I used to really intellectualize – “how do I be exactly the right amount of honest/authentic but not uhhhh so much so that it causes problems??” – just don’t require strategizing about anymore. I just am myself and it’s out there and everything else follows from that.

(That’s not to say navigating manager-employee boundaries for the first time isn’t a challenge! It just doesn’t feel like this totally intractable mess anymore.)

Sending all my love and encouragement to any other readers who are on a gender-nonconforming-in-the-workplace journey. I believe you, and believe in you!

3. My employee gets their work done but has a terrible attitude (#2 at the link)

After reading the response and comments, I took the course of action most people had recommended: laying out the specific behaviors I’d like to see changed. I met with Jan, discussed the behaviors that were causing challenges, and shared a very brief, straightforward list of the specific actions I wanted to see as follow up. As many of the commenters suggested would happen, Jan begrudgingly agreed to it and almost immediately failed to meet the actions laid out in it.

Unfortunately, while I had initially received encouragement on developing this plan, my boss did not back me up when I went to him with this update. Instead, he directed me to pull back the plan. Going back to Jan with that had the effect of undermining whatever respect they had for me in the first place, so the situation has just gotten worse. Since it’s now clear there will be no consequences, Jan pretty much does whatever they want, including ignoring asks from me unless my boss is involved somehow. At this point, it feels like my boss should take over managing Jan, but he isn’t willing to (despite Jan asking).

Although I like my job outside of this, I am starting to explore other opportunities. I feel defeated and alone trying to navigate this situation, and I can’t see any positive outcome. I appreciate all the advice from the AAM community. Wish I had a happier update for everyone!

4. Friday good news (#1 at the link)

This is a good (but chaotic) update to the good news that I sent in in August 2020. I was the OP whose organization (Organization A) gave me a 30% raise because 1) I was extremely underpaid for my industry and 2) the need for my role (professional support staff at a nonprofit-type organization …. think IT) expanded greatly due to the pandemic. My plan after that raise had been to quit my contractor role (in a related area, but more specialized) at another organization (Organization B) so that I would have more time in my life. Well, a few months after my raise, two things happened at essentially the same time:

• Organization A drastically cut their benefits to all employees. They had “paused” employer-sponsored retirement contributions back in May 2020, but still have not outlined a plan for putting them back in place… I should note that although this organization has had to make large investments to accommodate the pandemic, they have NOT lost revenue, and I know that they got a large PPP loan. So morale in that department was already a little low, and then they rolled out a plan to eliminate the employer-provided group health insurance (during a PANDEMIC!) and instead provide “individualized health benefits counseling” where they contracted with these consultants to advise employees about joining their spouses plan, getting an ACA plan, or… and this was the real problem … getting a Christian health-sharing plan. Organization A is ecumenically Christian, but employees come from a broad spectrum of beliefs and many were not on board with the idea of having something that is explicitly not health insurance and requires signing a conservative statement of faith. During the rollout of this plan, HR and the higher ups kept emphasizing that the goal was for each employee to have equivalent or better coverage for less money, and the idea was that employees would choose an “individualized” plan, and then Organization A would pay a certain percentage of the premium. However, it eventually became clear that Organization A would only contribute to the cost of health insurance if the employee chose the plan that was recommended to them by the consultant. And, of course, many employees were recommended to get the (very inexpensive, very limited coverage) Christian health-sharing plan (including me). So, the organization effectively eliminated employer-sponsored coverage.

• One of the directors that I worked closely with at Organization B left their job somewhat unexpectedly. Knowing this, I reached out and essentially said that if they were interested in having me continue my role there, I would be interested in a full-time role. I have worked as a contractor with this organization for 2 years, and have great relationships with colleagues there. It took a few months, but eventually they offered me a full-time role with an additional 10% increase in compensation! Alison, this offer is AMAZING. I have never had good benefits before. I will be able to meaningfully save for retirement in the first time in my life.

So, here I am in 2021, soon to be making almost 40% more than I was a year ago and with 1 job for the first time since I was 16. Hopefully there are no more professional changes in my immediate future. I’ve given my two-weeks notice at Organization A and my immediate supervisor is upset, because he will be very overwhelmed when I leave, but he understands where I’m coming from. Every day I hear more complaints from other employees there about how there will be a lot of turnover (at a historically low-turnover organization) in the coming year.

This post, open thread – April 16-17, 2021 , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything work-related that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to talk to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

A reader writes:

I’ve worked for four years in a research laboratory and my supervisor is an associate professor. Her husband is a professor and a director of the research group (and that’s how she easily got her position). As part of standard procedure, the university requires all employees to complete what is called a performance development review.

In our meeting, she highlighted two development goals. One was to improve individual conflict management skills by reflecting on all instances of conflicts and how those can be handled better. The second was to improve my skills in communication and dealing with feedback from other colleagues, especially staff members who are on a higher academic and professional level than myself, and to write and reflect on all instances where inappropriate responses were provided to queries by other staff members.

I replied that I disagreed that these should be listed in the development goals on my personal form, as the conflicts are common and have largely resolved by various means. Also, the conflicts were a thing of the past and I do not want to recall them. I agree that they can be improved on, but I do not want this to be on my permanent record, as it reflects badly on a HR record. For the second point I replied to her saying that I would have appreciated if private feedback was provided at the time rather than only bringing it up during the performance development review. (And to keep a long story short, I didn’t agree that my response was inappropriate. My [negative] response was based on the decisions made at that time.)

This was her response:

The development objectives will stay recorded in the PDR system because they are areas that I as your direct line of manager has identified that you need to DEVELOP in. The activities are activities created by me to make you reflect on some of these instances and identify ways you can mitigate future conflicts. They do not go into the online talent system. At the next PDR meeting, the report by me will be “have you achieved the goals set out by me pertaining to the activities or not?”

You can choose to go through with this PDR process set out by me as your direct line manager, or you can choose to ignore it. At the end of the day, I submit a report and that goes on the record.

My conflict management strategies in the past pertaining to all the complaints against yourself have been to work out the entire situation by listening to all parties, set up meetings and work it through with everyone including yourself. The example provided is just an example and not an isolated incident, nor is it only coming from a particular individual. It is simply the most recent example.

I just felt that it was very insensitive and bossy response, not to mention her already insensitive way of putting such items as “development goals.”

Oooooh, no.

You need to do what your manager is asking.

She’s clearly saying that if you don’t, it will be insubordination and likely have serious consequences for you.

When your manager tells you that you’ve had multiple conflicts with coworkers and you need to reflect on those incidents and figure out how to handle them better in the future, you cannot dismiss that by saying those conflicts are in the past and you don’t want to have to think about them. She’s saying clearly that she has determined that, in order to succeed in your job, you do need to recall them and work on alternate strategies.

There’s no option here to just say, “No, I don’t want to.” Or rather, it’s an option, but it means you’ll be putting your professional standing and your job in jeopardy. If you worked for me, that would put you far along the path to getting fired.

The multiple conflicts themselves are already a serious problem. Refusing to work on it when asked is a real F-you to your boss … and really reinforces that you’re a problem for the team. (In fact, it reinforces the very feedback she’s giving you.)

And make no mistake, based on your boss’s email to you (both the actual content and the clipped, frustrated tone), she already thinks of you as a pretty big problem, and she sounds ready to to act on that.

Now, should she have addressed issues with you as they came up? Yes. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have standing to address it now, and if you fight her on that rather than addressing the problems themselves, you’re going to look like you’re deflecting, missing the point, and continuing a pattern of combativeness that’s already been flagged as a problem. You’ll have much more luck if you first do what she’s asking and then later say you’d like to receive feedback in a more ongoing way, rather than hearing about problems for the first time in a formal review.

I’m not sure why you thought her response was insensitive (it was certainly direct, but in a context where that was necessary) or bossy (she is in fact your boss), or why you find framing this stuff as “development goals” to be insensitive. These are development goals, and there’s nothing weird or insulting about calling them that. It also seems to be the terminology your organization uses. Personally, I think it’s rather soft; I would call them “performance requirements” because they would be!

The best thing you can do is to drop your instinct to push back or defend yourself and just … do what she’s asking you to do: reflect on the past conflicts and how you could have handled them differently. That’s a reasonable thing for a manager to ask, and it sounds like it’s based in real necessity here.

my boss asked me to reflect on my conflicts with coworkers and I don’t want to was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am writing to you as a last resort because my workplace has spiraled beyond dysfunctional and I don’t know what else to do.

I recently started my first full-time job. One of my coworkers, Marley, was assigned to be my mentor and train me on how to navigate the company software, which is very complex, and help me with my projects. Now, from what I understand, Marley does not get along well with our manager, Andi. There is some bad history there from before I started working there, but even I can tell from the snarky tones and general impoliteness that Marley uses to address Andi.

Recently, a new policy was introduced which would change the way we handle our workflow and the priority level of certain projects. Marley took personal offense to this, and some of our coworkers encouraged her to complain to Andi to “stick it to her” and “show her who’s boss.” I missed a day of work because a family member went to the hospital, but when I came back, I learned that Marley had essentially threatened to quit.

I was very shocked and worried, because there were many things I hadn’t been trained on and wouldn’t be able to complete without a mentor. The office environment also became very tense and toxic around this time. For whatever reason, even though Andi sent out an email saying that Marley would be leaving the company, a bunch of people are saying that Andi isn’t really going to fire her or that she “doesn’t have the guts.” Marley also keeps talking to me and working with me as though she has the upper hand and nothing is wrong. She seems really sure that once this is over, there’s going to be some kind of repercussion for Andi. Marley has been here for almost two weeks and there isn’t any official word on when she’s going to be gone.

Half of the office is really involved in the drama; they’re the ones actively taking sides and being really vocal about whether Marley is going to stay or not. The other half of the office is just keeping their heads down and not saying anything; that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks but it’s getting to me and I don’t know why management isn’t doing anything about this. I tried going to my HR rep, but so far the only response is that “the issue is being handled.” I just want to cry because it’s so obviously not and I feel like the office is three steps away from a mutiny.

I come into work feeling like it’s a battlefield. The politics are way over my head and I spend half of my day paralyzed with anxiety. I’m scared to ask questions when I need help because I don’t want to get entangled in one of Marley’s tirades, but there is also a sort of unofficial shaming if anyone looks like they’re taking the manager’s side. I just sit in my seat for 10 minutes planning out how to ask my question and then escape. I can’t eat lunch in the office anymore because I’m scared that Marley will try to talk to me about this. Because I’m the newest employee, everyone seems to think I’m neutral or won’t say anything and keep using me as a sounding board to have these types of conversations with. I’ve been looking for a new job but I’m scared because this is my first full-time job and I haven’t been here for a full year yet.

I just want to be able to do my work without feeling like I’m about to get drafted into a civil war.

Oh my goodness, none of this is your problem. None of it.

Some random pieces of information, and then some advice:

* I don’t know what’s gone on between Marley and Andi, but I can tell you that someone who thinks it’s okay to routinely use “snarky tones and general impoliteness” with her boss is someone with no idea how to handle workplace conflicts and isn’t someone you want to be aligned with. From what you’ve written, Marley is a serious problem, regardless of what Andi’s shortcomings might be.

* Coworkers encouraging Marley to “show Andi who’s boss” are overlooking the highly pertinent detail that Andi is the boss. Marley’s belief that she’ll cause some kind of repercussion for Andi is probably delusional. (Without knowing all the details, I can’t say for sure — but it’s pretty likely that Marley is being naive, which would make sense given what else we’ve seen from her.)

* If Andi has already sent out an email saying that Marley is leaving, Marley is probably leaving and either resigned or has already been told to leave. That could change, of course. If Andi is a weak manager — and it sounds like she is — Marley could try to rescind her resignation and Andi could allow it. That would be a huge mistake on Andi’s side, but there are plenty of bad managers out there.

* If Marley does leave, you will be assigned someone else to train you. If Andi doesn’t realize she needs to do that, you can ask for it to happen. But people leave jobs in the middle of training new staff members all the time, and life goes on. You will be fine.

* You say that when HR told you the issue was being handled, it was obviously not true … but you don’t actually know that. It’s certainly not being handled as swiftly as it should be — they should have shut this all down two weeks ago, if not longer — but that doesn’t mean they’re not handling it at all. Some companies move slowly on this kind of thing, but they do move; it just may take longer than you want it to (and longer than it should).

Okay, now some advice for you:

Most importantly, stop feeling like you have to be involved in this in any way. You don’t have to have any feelings about this other than irritation that it’s impacting your work environment. You don’t have to listen to people’s tirades, and you don’t need to stop asking work questions. If anyone talks to you about what’s going on, these are your new mantras:
* “It’s important to me to stay out of this. Sorry! But I did want to ask you about (work topic X).”
* “I’m way too new to understand any of this, and that’s probably for the best. But can I ask you about (work topic X)?”
* “I’m committed to staying neutral on this one. I’m just too new. So I’m going to bow out of this conversation!”
* “I don’t feel right hearing this, since I’m so new. Can we talk about something else?”

Second, consider talking to Andi and letting her know that the situation is making the environment untenable. She may not have any idea how much Marley is talking about this, and hearing that might give her some additional urgency in acting. I assume you’re worried that if you talk to Andi, you’ll be penalized by coworkers for taking sides, but Andi is your boss. The situation is impacting your ability to get your work done, and she needs to know that. When you talk to her, you can also mention that you’re worried you’ll face repercussions among your coworkers for speaking with her because (a) it’s important for her to know that you (and probably others) feel like that and (b) she needs to know about it in order to ensure it doesn’t actually happen. Now, if she’s a weak manager, she may not be too skillful at (b) — but this is still a reasonable conversation for you to have, and if your coworkers hear about it and don’t like it, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You’re already miserable there. It makes sense to do the thing that might make things a bit better.

Third, give this a month to play out. A month from now, this may have reached some kind of resolution and things may feel quite different in your office. Of course, it’s also possible that that won’t happen, but right now you’re smack in the middle of it, and it doesn’t make sense to draw any conclusions until you’ve given it some time to play out.

there’s a civil war in my office and I don’t want to take sides was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Liberals are rubes too. There’s a certain kind of grift they will fall for. It’s the kind that claims to help them understand part of the world they don’t understand, even if the material being pushed is hooey. And right now, there’s no shortage of desire from white liberal NPR listeners to know something about the white working class. And J.D. Vance is there, ready to profit off their curiosity, with his garbage book that does a good combination of providing justification for conservatives doing nothing for the poor with satisfying that liberal curiosity. Whatever Vance is doing here, it’s not for the people he writes about. But he’s certainly making himself seem as a Reasonable Knowledgeable Voice of Those People to liberals who don’t understand how poor white people could vote for Donald Trump even though they would benefit from the social programs of Democratic presidents. Personally, I would recommend listening to 40-year old Merle Haggard songs as a more insightful view into the white working class than Vance provides. Or, you know, spend time around white working class people. Or not. But don’t fall for the bullshit that Vance is peddling. From The New Republic take down of his book a few months ago.

Elegy is little more than a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class. Vance’s central argument is that hillbillies themselves are to blame for their troubles. “Our religion has changed,” he laments, to a version “heavy on emotional rhetoric” and “light on the kind of social support” that he needed as a child. He also faults “a peculiar crisis of masculinity.” This brave new world, in sore need of that old time religion and manly men, is apparently to blame for everything from his mother’s drug addiction to the region’s economic crisis.

“We spend our way to the poorhouse,” he writes. “We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don’t need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy, often leaving them full of garbage in our wake. Thrift is inimical to our being.”

And he isn’t interested in government solutions. All hillbillies need to do is work hard, maybe do a stint in the military, and they can end up at Yale Law School like he did. “Public policy can help,” he writes, “but there is no government that can fix these problems for us … it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.”

Set aside the anti-government bromides that could have been ripped from a random page of National Review, where Vance is a regular contributor. There is a more sinister thesis at work here, one that dovetails with many liberal views of Appalachia and its problems. Vance assures readers that an emphasis on Appalachia’s economic insecurity is “incomplete” without a critical examination of its culture. His great takeaway from life in America’s underclass is: Pull up those bootstraps. Don’t question elites. Don’t ask if they erred by granting people mortgages and lines of credit they couldn’t afford to repay. Don’t call it what it is—corporate deception—or admit that it plunged this country into one of the worst economic crises it’s ever experienced.

No wonder Peter Thiel, the almost comically evil Silicon Valley libertarian, endorsed the book. (Vance also works for Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management.) The question is why so many liberals are doing the same.

An acolyte of Peter Thiel. Well, I guess the true route to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is selling the blood of your children to the living Nosferatu!

But yes, the key issue is why white liberals want to buy this garbage. You know, it’s not hard to go find white working class people to talk to if you want to know about them. They are all around you. Certainly, you don’t need a National Review contributor who serves Peter Thiel the blood of the young to do so for you.

And if you need more evidence that Vance is full of it, see the following:

This is excellent. As I often say: American Dream wasn't about money when I was a kid, it was about stability and family. https://t.co/0oLZg9n9OS

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) April 8, 2017

J.D. Vance is 32 years old. And I have to say, if there’s one thing we know about the 90s, it’s that no one cared about making money!

This is pure 100% bullshit, just like his whole schtick.

How could this get any hackier? How about a Ron Howard movie adaptation! My own projection is that, assuming anyone actually watches this thing (and really, why would you watch a Ron Howard film), the audience will skew about 90% Democrats.

Or maybe the real lesson is the missed opportunity. I should have written a book about growing up in a dying Oregon logging town with no economic opportunities, talked about all the bootstraps I pulled, and use it as a way to get liberals to buy my book so I can explain all the whites. I just never think of the good scams before someone else gets to them first.

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Dear Captain,

I am a (female) musician just starting out on a new duo project with a fellow (male) musician, and we’re just about heading for our first gigs and things. We’re both really excited — we get on well musically and personally, and we’re enjoying what we do and looking forward to sharing it with people. However, he has a girlfriend, who is (perhaps inevitably) insecure in one way or another about him playing music with “pretty young women” (she’s a fair bit older than us two, hence the inclusion of “young”). They have their own conversations to have about all sorts of things (not my business, of course), but the nub of it is that it makes him uncomfortable having to tell her about this new duo with me. He and I are both on the autistic spectrum, and established in a beautifully blunt moment that neither of us was interested in the other for the sake of getting the conversation out of the way, and he’s since referred to me as a “top bloke”, which to me makes the distinction perfectly clear. While it’s that simple for us, it’s not that simple for her, and I totally see where she’s coming from having been in her position previously.

My question is what can I do to help the situation? He said he will talk to her about the duo at some point soon when he can find a good moment (they live quite far away from each other so it’s not 100% simple), but in the mean time, it means that I can’t get excited in public too much about it because he thinks she shouldn’t find out from me or by seeing a random Facebook post (far from unreasonable). He’s already asked me not to tag him in posts about being excited about making music together for her sake, and while I can see that it’s a small gesture towards keeping things OK from his side (he’s my friend, why the hell shouldn’t I?), I worry that I’m going to do or say something stupid that’s going to cause problems for them or for us. He says it’s not going to get in the way of the duo working and being successful, but I can’t help feeling there’s an inevitable sticking point if his girlfriend is uncomfortable with him hanging around with me at the close quarters necessary to work in such a small ensemble. I haven’t met her yet, though our paths are due to cross in the coming months, but I’m nervous of making some mistake that means that her insecurities come out and cause problems.

In short, I play music with a guy in whom I’m not remotely romantically interested, but I think my being female and apparently not bad looking (who am I to judge?) might cause a problem, and I want to know what I can do to avoid sticking my boot in it. She sounds nice, and they are basically happy, and he and I are very happy with the music we make, and I don’t want it to get any more complex than that.

Yours,
Over-Optimistic Aspie Musician

Dear Over-Optimistic,

Here’s what you can do to help the situation:

“Duo Partner, please tell your girlfriend about our plans today. I want to start promoting our gigs. Please rip the bandaid off so we can focus on our music. Thanks.”

Something hinky is going on here. Either his girlfriend is manipulative/emotionally abusive, and he is afraid of her in some way (very possible), or he is way overthinking it and overcomplicating it (very possible), or he is using the issue to control & manipulate you and the situation in some way (I hope not, but also very possible). None of these possibilities are your fault or within your control.

Some red flags pointing to him being the problem:

1) You are getting to the point of scheduling gigs but he has not told her. This means he has been lying to her about questions like “how was your day?” and “what’s new?” the whole time you’ve been working together. What. Like, what is his plan? “Surprise, I’ve been in a secret band all this time and our first gig is (date)!” Don’t get mad that it’s with (dramatic pause) a GIRL.” That approach is guaranteed to make the girlfriend feel insecure and jealous.

2) I have side-eye for people who constantly complain about their romantic partners, especially to someone who hasn’t even met that person, especially when it’s a man complaining about a woman and her scary feelings. It sets you up in advance to have a weird competitive relationship when honestly the least awkward thing he could do is to say “I’m starting a band with LW, we’re really excited about it” rather than all this cloak and dagger stuff. He’s set you up to be a threat to his relationship and he’s set his girlfriend up to be totally insecure and horrible, which sounds to me like he’s grooming one or both of you for the possibility of him cheating or his girlfriend breaking up your band.

3) The result has been that YOU are worried about YOUR behavior and how YOU can smooth things over to avoid a reaction from his girlfriend when you are the one person in the scenario who literally has nothing to do with their relationship. Gross. The sooner everything is out in the open, the better for everyone.

The specter of his girlfriend’s possible jealousy is not your problem, and I think the way forward is to make it clear that is not your problem. So more scripts for you are:

• “Huh. So, about the chorus, do you want to come in right on the beat?”
• “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about your girlfriend when she’s not here, especially since I haven’t met her. Let’s try the bridge again.”
• “I’m sorry you’re dealing with that, but I don’t think it’s good for me to be your sounding board about it. I hope y’all work it out. Let’s make music.”
• “I don’t feel comfortable doing anything that you need to keep a secret from your girlfriend, and I’d encourage you to think about why you think it needs to be a secret and work that out with yourself and her. Why don’t we put this on hold for now, and you let me know when you can proceed in the open.”
• “Your strange behavior around this is really stressing me out and making me wonder if you really want to do this. I’m so excited to work with you, but I am reluctant to invest significant time or money into a venture that could fall apart at any moment because: Your Girlfriend. Let me know when you’ve worked all that out, and then we can get to work.”

Your planned duo sounds like it could be so great and I’m so sorry this is ruining your excitement. You are literally doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing you can do besides holding strong to your creative vision and the fact that you deserve to talk about your creative projects with your networks without drama. Strongly consider getting together with whatever your local version of Lawyers for the Creative Arts might be and putting something in writing about how you’ll handle songwriting credit, ownership of songs, division of labor, and money. It’s better to get it all in writing when everyone is excited and happy so that everyone is protected if things go downhill.