My Friend Helped Me Land a Job. Now I’m Seeing Their Work “Personality,” And Uh, I Have Questions.

Good Job Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Jacob Wackerhausen /Getty Images Plus and Deagreez /Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Good Job, After years of searching for a job post-layoffs, a friend helped me get a part-time contract. It’s not ideal financially, but it’s better than nothing, and it could be great if not for one thing. At work, my friend is an emotional vampire. Every time we’ve been on a project together, they flake because of some esoteric “emergency” that they describe in great detail before leaving me holding the work bag. Some of them are really serious (plumbing horror), and some are less so (“My dog looked sad, so I have to bail” 10 minutes before a meeting we’re supposed to lead together). They always bail at the last minute, leaving me looking like the jerk who cares too much when they guilt me into covering for them. Our bosses seem to love them, and I don’t know if anyone else notices they’re like this, but it’s really bothering me. I tried broaching it outside of work (“I’m really sorry you’re having such a hard time. Is there anything I can do?”). And the kicker? They said it was just “oversharing” and “how they connect to people.” They told our client about their irritable bowel syndrome! I also have problems, but they’re not the kind I can safely talk about at work. I’ll admit I’m a little jealous of anyone whose problems get headpats and awwws from bosses, instead of being told, “If you have a problem, you are a problem.” This is going to make me really hate my friend, though. What can I do to stay sane? My gig is precarious enough as it is without all of this! —Not Gonna Be Emotionally Vamped (she/her) Dear Not Gonna Be Emotionally Vamped, It sounds like your friend got you a job to do their job for them. They know you can handle the work on your own and are happy to let you do it. I’m sorry. A real friend (or even just a decent person) wouldn’t take advantage of your dependability or the power imbalance between themselves, as an established full-time employee, and you, a contract part-timer. You can’t change much about the situation, but you can change how you think about it. It’s fine to lose respect and affection for your friend. You have learned that you can’t trust them. Thinking of them as a flaky co-worker rather than a friend might make the situation seem less annoying or vampiric. And try to reevaluate those headpats and awwws. You’re in a new workplace and still learning the cast of characters. The bosses’ expressions of sympathy may be genuine, which means they’re humane and would also be sympathetic if you needed to disclose a problem. Or they might be quite aware of your friend’s co-worker’s flakiness and planning to discuss it during this year’s performance evaluation. In either case, please spare yourself the jealousy. You’re not entirely powerless. As a part-timer, you presumably have a limited number of hours. If you schedule them out or use them early in the pay period, you can turn down some of your friend’s appeals to cover for them because you don’t have the hours. Keep track of all the times you cover for your friend and include descriptions of how you saved the day, along with your other achievements, in your check-ins with your supervisor. If you can make your always-an-emergency co-worker’s projects succeed despite their flakiness, you might have a chance of getting a permanent job … possibly theirs. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Good Job, I am a nurse in a hospital. We get earned time off, but it’s not separated into vacation and sick leave; it’s just one pool. If your vacation is approved in advance, but then a few weeks before your vacation, you get sick and take a few days off work, they cancel your vacation. All this actually does is encourage employees to come to work (in a hospital! With vulnerable people!) when we are sick so we don’t lose the vacations we planned, got approved, bought plane tickets for, etc. This is the first job I’ve ever had with actual benefits (before becoming a nurse, I mostly worked under the table), so I don’t know if this is the standard. Do most employees get separate sick and vacation time to avoid this exact thing? It feels very unfair to expect employees to cancel vacations they got approved months in advance due to an unforeseen illness that “uses up” our earned time off. We are actually currently in union negotiations, but management is not budging on this point. Is there anything I can do on my end? —I’ve Gone to Work With a Fever Dear I’ve Gone to Work With a Fever, Too many workplaces do have a policy of lumping sick days and vacation days, and it’s awful. It’s ableist (in that it discriminates against people who have to use more days for health care), dangerous for public health (as you have experienced!), and bad for the bottom line (infectious employees infect other employees). Do encourage your union representatives to fight for dedicated sick and vacation days. (Management doesn’t budge on most points, until it does.) If they get nowhere during negotiations, ask your human resources department to advocate for it. You could also ask the union or human resources to push for a policy that allows employees to borrow against future time-off accruals in an emergency (including an illness before a planned vacation). If you’d like to escalate, submit a confidential complaint to your hospital’s whistleblower system or accreditation board, specifying that employees have felt forced to come to work while sick. Your local newspaper or TV news station might want to investigate, too. Look for a reporter who covers health care in your region and send them a confidential tip. Sign up now for Slate Plus to read all of our Good Job columns for the week. Dear Good Job, There’s this guy at work who has absolutely no concept of personal space. Whenever he talks to someone, he stands less than a foot away. Moving back when he gets too close fails to register with him—co-workers (and I) doing a one-step dance where they/I take one step back and he moves one step in is a common sight at our office. If that wasn’t bad enough, he has a body odor problem! What would be the best course of action: A) sending him an anonymous letter; B) confronting him as a group; C) going to human resources? —Boundaries Please (she/her) Dear Boundaries Please, Try D) making a clear and simple request. Say explicitly: “Sorry, Sam, I need a little more space.” Hold up a hand in a “stop” gesture to get his attention and emphasize that you would like him to stop stepping toward you. Keep your tone polite and breezy, as if you’re just sharing any other information about the workplace. Encourage other co-workers to do the same if they feel crowded. Repeat as necessary, and be more specific if he doesn’t stop: “Sam, I prefer to keep two to three feet of distance when I’m speaking with someone. Thanks!” Then continue your conversation. It doesn’t sound like Sam is trying to intimidate you, and he might respond well to specific guidance about how to be less socially awkward. —Laura More Advice From Slate I went from the overachiever of my friend group to the “slacker” when I graduated from college. I knew what I wanted and how I wanted to live, which wasn’t to climb the corporate ladder like most of my friends. I was fine doing things like living with old ladies to help out around the house and get free rent if that meant I only had to work part-time so I could follow my passion, writing. I never really went full-time with my passion because I got health insurance from my other job, but now, because I have so much content out there, I am making a lot of money… Advice Workplace Jobs