Dear Immediate Supervisor: Stop Being a Whore

There's some hilariously bad advice in today's Annie's Mailbox, the newspaper advice column published by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, the longtime editors of Ann Landers.

A woman's female boss appears to be having an affair with an unmarried male boss in another department. She's seen them together at a restaurant, art gallery and grocery store, and they're the subject of snide workplace gossip. She asks the Annies whether to say anything.

Their advice:

Your supervisor and her friend may run the risk of being fired if their relationship goes further. You have no evidence of misbehavior, but she should be made aware of the rumors. Tell her you value the friendship and thought she should know what's being said, and that the relationship is creating a difficult work environment. Beyond that, please stay out of it.

Hey, boss. Got a second? Everybody in the office thinks you and Stan from accounting are making the beast with two backs. I, myself, have spotted you two outside of work several times. You're the subject of considerable ridicule and the situation makes the rest of us uncomfortable. Please stop being a whore.

And about that raise?

· 2008/08/14 · 8 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

I wonder if you would attempt to say this to the author's face? Isn't this a bit of the negative attention you are seemingly displeased in receiving?

How could you even begin to argue with them that their "friend/supervisor" was the "boss"? The "boss" could fire the "friend and supervisor" if the appearances became bad for business, and the "boss" could very well do so if a warning to a friend was not received.

However, I understand that some friends are no longer any such thing when they become supervisors, is that what you are talking about? Indeed, why get involved, personally, since any loyalty is obviated by those who become supervisors; surrogate bosses?

Perhaps the advice should have been: Do not have friends at work, and, or friends that won't warn you of approaching danger are no friends, at all.

#1 · tadowe · 2008/08/15

If the letter writer and her boss are friends, as she says in the letter, why doesn't she know whether the boss is really having interdepartmental intercourse?

#2 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2008/08/15

"... why doesn't she know whether the boss is really having interdepartmental intercourse?"

The article indicates that the advice seeker doesn't know, and just as you might not know whether one of your married friends was being adulterous in any similar situation, and are too polite to ask directly. As I tried to indicate, I'm sure that wouldn't stop you from warning such a 'casual' friend that rumors are circulating, and especially if it might mean their livelyhood.

That you insist on redefining "supervisor" into "boss", seems a bit inane, and since you have made no effort to discount the explanation I've already presented in describing the misuse you've made of the term. If her supervisor is the boss, then no warning is necessary, and since the "boss" would not fire herself, or her intimate partner, and the seeker-of-advice would not even exist ... unless you insist on turning everyone into the dolt you make them into in order to convince this audience that your denigration of another internet site/personage(s) is justified?

#3 · tadowe · 2008/08/15

Your fucking the boss, aren't you Tad? Or worse, vice-versa....

#4 · Rex · 2008/08/15

Rex imperatively insists, "Your fucking the boss, aren't you Tad? Or worse, vice-versa...."

I suspect that I must fall into the "Or worse" category, Rex. Of course, you know that, and that I admire being made the subject of any discussion (as you all intellectually run as fast as you can from the point(s) of the thread), and although as any such subject evolves, it will become my fault for making me into the subject, in the first place. I particularly like that part of the crab-like effort to scurry around the real subject.

Run along, Rex ...

#5 · visitor · 2008/08/15

Huh? I didn't even read the thread.

#6 · Rex · 2008/08/16

"Huh? I didn't even read the thread."

Exactly, and there you have it! That's why Rogers is so superior to your ilk, his "supervisor" to "boss" propaganda is so much more subtle than your outright lie ...

#7 · tadowe · 2008/08/17

Hahahahahha, you crack me up Tad. You have no idea how much like Horace you are.....

Keep up the good werk!

P.S. Rogers, why did you change Zyklon_C to visitor, damn dude, what do you have against creativity? Or are you pissed, that once again, I've invented a great thread idea? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

#8 · Rex · 2008/08/17