Workplace Affair: Navigating a Stolen Husband & Coworkers

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,

Two of my co-workers, “Selena” and “Penelope,” have been at war with each other for years, but now things have reached a boiling point after Selena had an affair with Penelope’s now-ex-husband.

Penelope’s ex and Selena are now married (he left Penelope for her). It’s gotten to the point where they cannot be in the same room with one another, let alone work on projects together. I always end up having to take the place of one of them, and I’m starting to burn out. Our manager is an out-to-lunch loser, and our human resources department is a joke. I know Selena wronged Penelope in the worst possible way, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up! Any suggestions?

—Caught in the Middle

Dear Caught in the Middle,

What a miserable workplace! I’m sorry Selena and Penelope’s drama is interfering with your own work. Your boss, with human resources’ support, should have shut down the hostilities years ago. Obviously, managers can’t make S & P play nice, but they could have enforced minimum expectations for professional behavior. After the divorce and remarriage, they could have transferred one or both of them or rearranged job responsibilities so they wouldn’t need to collaborate. This is a manageable problem when you have proper management. In the absence of that, you’re separating S & P yourself and doing their joint-project work for them. That’s not fair or sustainable.

If you just stop, Caught in the Middle, how would the consequences play out? I assume S & P would blow up at each other, fail to complete their projects, harm your team’s performance, and/or embarrass your team in front of clients or other divisions. These are lousy outcomes, of course, but how bad would they be in the long run, and how bad would they be for you, personally? In a properly accountable workplace, the blame for any disasters would fall on your boss. If Selena, Penelope, or your boss loses their jobs, that sounds like a reasonable consequence. I realize it would feel unfair if Penelope took the fall, since she is the one who lost her husband to her arch-nemesis. But Penelope might have grounds for a generous severance, especially with the help of a lawyer who recognizes the value of a sympathetic client, and surely, her next job wouldn’t be as miserable for her as this one.

But let’s say you would be blamed somehow for S & P’s failures, or the disruption would harm you directly, for example, by a decrease in your team’s raises or bonuses. You’ve been managing sideways so far (by rearranging your peers’ project assignments). So your other option, as I see it, is to manage up.

Your boss obviously enjoys being an out-to-lunch loser. Make it clear that he has to solve this problem if he wants to keep goofing off. Start documenting all the times Selena or Penelope’s animosity harms your team’s performance. If their fights interrupt meetings, slow productivity, block communications, impair your ability to recruit new team members, delay project launch or completion—you get the idea—make a detailed note of it. Start retroactively with the projects that have already been disrupted, and include all the times you or other teammates have had to drop other work to cover for Selena or Penelope. Ask for a meeting with your boss and present him with this documentation, and tell him it’s unsustainable for you and the other teammates. Thank him for managing this problem, offer to help, and then leave it with him. He’ll ignore you at first, probably, so keep coming back, via email or short meetings, with additional examples of problems that are disrupting your team’s performance. The point isn’t to be a tattle-tale but to inform him of problems that are his responsibility. You want to make it harder for him to ignore the problem than to solve it. If he continues to ignore it, go to human resources and/or his boss, depending on which one you trust or respect more. When your boss loses his job, do please apply for it.

Dear Good Job,

My job is incredibly cushy, although we’re paid under market. It’s billable hours, so the emphasis is on getting things done, and I’m never trapped trying to look busy. It’s a flexible hybrid remote position, so I can come in part of the day and work from home part of the day. I have a lot of independence. As long as I’m reachable and they see me in person a few times a week, people don’t care where I am.

My team is smart, competent, and they trust each other, and the projects are usually interesting. I’m insulated from the worst of client behavior. I have training opportunities, a good boss, and an above industry-average vacation and sick policy. I’ve worked a lot of worse jobs, ones that required me to be in person on my feet all day, ones that got me threatened with guns, and ones that had unpredictable, stressful bosses and colleagues. Yet, at this one, I still get the Sunday scaries, get sleeplessly stressed out when I have deadlines, and have nearly monthly work-related panic attacks that require two days of recovery. I think this is the best it gets, and yet I can barely handle it. How do people spend 45-plus years of their lives doing this and not melt down? I have it so good, and I still can’t handle it. I think about the jobs I did in my 20s—if I could do those, why can’t I do this?

—Is This as Good as It Gets?

Dear Is This as Good as It Gets?

Oh, honey. You’ve been dealing with a lot of trauma, and it’s time to get help. Let’s start with the panic attacks. For anyone who isn’t familiar with them, a panic attack can feel like a heart attack; it’s a sudden, intense bout of pain, breathlessness, pounding heart, and intense feelings of dread. You mention that your job has a reasonable sick-leave policy. It must also have decent insurance that could cover therapy and medication. A good therapist can help you identify triggers and develop strategies to avoid or shorten panic attacks. This work, possibly with medications, can help you manage your job-related anxiety as part of a treatable medical condition.

A lot of people avoid therapy because they think they don’t need it (I’m fine!); think they don’t deserve it (Other people have it worse!); or think it can’t help, it’s embarrassing, or some other objection. If a friend or co-worker wrote a letter like the one you wrote, I bet you would encourage them to seek help. Your current job seems humane, and that’s wonderful. But it doesn’t erase the accumulated trauma of previous jobs that were physically overwhelming, erratic, and violent. (For anyone who thinks being threatened with guns is not violent: Yes, it is.) Use all the health insurance, employee assistance resources, and sick leave your workplace provides, and more if you need them. You can handle this, but you don’t have to handle it alone.

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Dear Good Job,

I’m the executive director of a small nonprofit, and my board is a drag on the organization. Each member is well-meaning, knowledgeable, and passionate, but about 80 percent aren’t meeting the fundraising targets to which they agreed when they joined the board.

I’ve followed every piece of advice out there about how to support a board (providing pre-written fundraising templates, meeting with members individually to help them plan, securing trainings and speakers on how to be strong board members, even lowering the fundraising target), but they either won’t or can’t follow through despite their many promises. My board chair is one of the offenders and, while he regularly encourages the full group to donate/fundraise, he isn’t stepping up to work with members one-on-one, despite my practically begging him to. I spend a huge amount of time (not to mention organizational budget) on supporting, celebrating, and publicly honoring the board. Now that the year has come to a close, I’ve had to accept that all of these resources have gone almost completely to waste.

At this point, I don’t think there’s any magical tactic that will get them to meet their goals. I’ve decided to give up on this group of board members and just quietly nudge each one off as their terms end. Until then, how can I mitigate my frustration and meet them where they are to help them be as successful as reasonably possible? In the last few board meetings, I’ve wanted to stand up and scream, “EVERYTHING WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED IS NO THANKS TO YOU,” rather than say, “Look at what you’ve made possible” (which, of course, is what I’ve done). I really like the board members as individuals, but have come to resent them deeply as colleagues, and don’t want to feel this way. Where do I go from here?

—Seething

Dear Seething,

For people unfamiliar with the organizational structure of nonprofits, let me explain why Seething is in such a pickle. Members of nonprofit boards are typically volunteers who oversee the organization’s finances, strategic plan, charter, and legal obligations, and they hire, fire, and review the performance of the executive director. The ED, who is a full-time, paid staffer, works with the board on its responsibilities and oversees the rest of the staff, the budget, operations, and activities. The ED reports to the board, but also has to make sure each member of it performs their responsibilities. As tempting as it is to ALL-CAPS SCREAM at inept board members, Seething can’t do that because they determine Seething’s raises each year. Seething can’t fire them, but they can fire Seething.

Confusingly, many corporations also have a board of directors, but their relationship is different in many ways. The biggest difference is financial: Corporate board members are typically paid, while nonprofit board members typically pay (through donations to the organization) for the privilege of serving.

Anyway, fundamentally, this is a question about managing up. I suggest calling an emergency meeting with the executive committee (the president and other officers). Lay out the fundraising shortfall for them, againbecause sometimes you have to tell people something 12 times before they hear it on the 13th. Then, if you haven’t yet, ask them how they plan to solve this problem. Flipping a conversation from presenting your solutions to prompting folks to share their own can bump people out of complacency. Asking questions also makes you sound respectful to your managers, even if the underlying message is critical. If the officers don’t come up with much, try prompting them with pointed questions. What do they need, in terms of resources or training, to hit their fundraising goals? Should they recruit other people, possibly future board members, to help with fundraising? Would it help to have a fundraising committee within the board that focuses on this problem? Should the treasurer lead this effort? Could the 20 percent of board members who do hit their targets share tips with the 80 percent who don’t?

You should have some flexibility to spend your organization’s budget on things with a better return on investment than celebrating this board. Perhaps you could cut back on board dinners to hire a fundraising consultant who could lead them in a skills-building workshop. If you don’t already have a development officer on staff (that is, someone whose job is fundraising), could you fund a full-time or contract role?

While you’re figuring out the fundraising mess, are there other assignments you can suggest to the board members that let them exercise their passion and knowledge in fruitful ways? A board member who feels awkward asking for money might be willing to host an event where you or other board members do the asking. They might be able to make connections to foundations, corporate giving directors, or other money trees that you could shake. Ask them what they can do to support the organization. Board members are volunteers, not professionals, and they might be getting tangled up in the spreadsheets and quarterly reports. Keep reminding them of your organization’s mission and why you need their help to fulfill it.

—Laura

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