My Sister Asked Me for a Huge Favor. I Never Did It, But Uh, Now I’m Getting All the Credit.

Good Job This isn’t going to end well. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by AaronAmat /iStock/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, My sister asked me to recommend her boyfriend for a role at my company. Saying “no” wasn’t really an option without causing drama, but I also did not think he was a good fit (he’s lazy, chaotic, and not very bright), so I took the coward’s road and said I would but didn’t. Despite that, he somehow got called for an interview and, against the odds, got the job. They’re now both gushingly grateful, and he bought me a very expensive gift to thank me for “all my support.” I am feeling guilty, as you may imagine, particularly as I am convinced that he will not survive in our working environment. Should I come clean and return the gift? Or should I leave well enough alone and remain a coward? —Mr. Custard Dear Mr. Custard, There’s the right thing to do, and then there’s the practical thing to do. You mention drama and chaos in your question, and so far the drama and chaos are restricted to your family life, not your workplace. If you admit everything to your sister and her boyfriend, there’s a chance he’ll be furious and try to undermine you at work. Of course, if you don’t confess and he stays gushingly grateful, he might unintentionally undermine you by telling everyone he works with that you helped him get the job (as you said, he’s not bright), and then they’ll question your judgment once they get to know the guy. Try to find a middle path. Tell your sister’s boyfriend that your company doesn’t pay much attention to internal referrals (if that’s true or true enough), or that the whole thing happened so quickly that nobody followed up with you (which is slightly less dishonest than the current situation), or that you weren’t part of the hiring process (which is true even though it omits that you never tried to be). Present this information as a congratulations: “Buddy, you did it all yourself! I can’t take any credit.” If it’s too late to return the gift, keep it to keep the peace. If it could still be returned and save the guy some money, say: “This gift is so generous, but I can’t accept it. Really, you’re the one who landed the job.” By focusing on his own accomplishments, you might (just might) encourage him to stop being lazy and try to do a good job. 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 work in an office that serves as a practice for multiple therapists and have been increasingly disturbed by the things I’ve been hearing from them. I work in reception, but can easily overhear them. They regularly disparage their patients among themselves and will even imitate people breaking down in tears. I am appalled by the lack of empathy of these supposed professionals. Do I have any recourse? —You’re All in the Wrong Profession Dear You’re All in the Wrong Profession, Dark humor is a common coping mechanism in stressful professions, like emergency room medicine or family law practice. But if anybody should have better coping mechanisms, it’s therapists! Maybe they think their contempt for their clients won’t affect their treatment, but it seems like it must, especially when a client breaks down in tears, and they’re distracted by thinking about what a great story this will make for their colleagues. They’re also violating their profession’s ethical and possibly legal obligations and putting the practice at risk for lawsuits. As employees of the therapy practice, you and the therapists involved in the conversation are bound by patient confidentiality protections. Therapists are allowed to share only limited patient information with one another, and only in certain situations. Mocking clients for entertainment is not one of those situations. Even if they had a client’s consent to discuss their case with a colleague, presumably anyone in the waiting room or just passing by could also hear them. You’re right that they’re all in the wrong profession. One approach is to focus on confidentiality: Tell some of the worst offenders that their conversations are louder than they think, and people can overhear them discussing confidential patient information. That might not stop them from having such conversations, but at least they’ll be more cautious or quiet about them. If you want to sound less confrontational, you could act like you’re just clarifying the confidentiality requirements of the job: “I thought we weren’t supposed to discuss clients’ therapy sessions?” If you notice that any of the other therapists in the practice object to these conversations, tell them about your concerns. As peers, rather than an employee of the practice, they have more power to tell their colleagues to cut it out or risk professional censure. Sign up now for Slate Plus to read all of our Good Job columns for the week. Dear Good Job, When the workload of colleagues is passed on to you/your co-workers due to said colleagues leaving, how do you actually push back on the workload? Especially when higher powers are discouraging promotions, raises, and new hirings? So far I haven’t had to take on work, but my supervisor has, and she isn’t being compensated fairly; she’s just taken on the extra work for no extra pay but complains a lot. I’m worried that soon I will also have extra work pushed onto me. In my job description, there’s also that pesky “other duties as assigned” line, which makes it difficult to push back… —I’ll Do the Work But I Want to Be Paid for It Dear I’ll Do the Work But I Want to Be Paid for It, Employers could avoid this common problem with a simple solution: Hire sufficient staff to do the work. Instead, they try to economize and end up burning out employees or losing them to competitors. It sounds like your employer is determined to not hire up, so the other option is to collectively do less. When your supervisor unloads someone else’s work on you, practice saying some version of: “Thanks for trusting me with these new responsibilities. I’m looking forward to taking them on. What work would you like me to deprioritize to focus on these new tasks?” Or assess the new work, decide for yourself which parts are most urgent, and ask your supervisor to approve your prioritized list that integrates the new stuff with what you were doing before, and defers less-urgent work. It’s your manager’s responsibility to distribute work efficiently, and a big part of that responsibility is identifying things you and your colleagues—and she—should stop doing. —Laura More Advice From Slate My spouse and I are once again taking our adult child (plus their spouse and child) on a week’s summer vacation. They both work now with decent incomes, as do we, although we are retiring soon. We have always paid for the rental and at least half of the other expenses. They have never offered to contribute to the rental, just paid for a couple of meals… Advice Workplace Jobs