Bosses With Borders

Posted by fxckfeelings on September 13, 2010

Whenever you’ve got a potential conflict between friendship and business, you have to draw a line in the sand (maybe literally if you and your pal work in beach rentals). There is always a “boundary” that represents the best possible compromise between your emotional needs and values, and the necessities of your life. Ignoring boundaries is fun at first, but in the thunderdome of the personal and professional, two sides enter and only one leaves. So, instead of mixing the sides of your life until one falls falls apart, keep your boundaries intact with your friends on one side, your work on the other, and life will remain a (boring) beach.
–Dr. Lastname

My old college roommate is one of my closest friends, and he’s always been one of the most generous people I’ve known. When I got laid off and totally broke, he got me a job at his company, and when I first started working there, everything was great. Now he’s my boss and things are very weird. Outside of work, he’s the same old guy—we carpool to work and crack jokes like always. Once we get into the office though, he’s a different guy, not just serious, because that would make sense (he’s my boss, after all), but really nasty with me. He snaps whenever I ask him questions about work stuff, like I’m an idiot who didn’t follow directions and is wasting his time. I really don’t think I’m asking him to do anything above and beyond, just regular employee/boss stuff, but he’s a total jerk about it. I want to stay here because I need the money and like the company as a whole, but I’m afraid that if I do stay, our friendship will fall apart. Then again, if I leave, he might also take that personally. My goal is to keep my job and my friendship intact.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about your friend firing you anytime soon. Instead, you have an opportunity to choose whether to lose your friendship or your job.

As Jack Benny once famously said, when a robber barked “Your money or your life,” “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” And, of course, you could wind up losing both.

There’s no way you could avoid being your boss’s close friend, nor could you predict that working for him would become an exercise in torture, but now the question remains, how to set up boundaries to protect you from this mess.

Before making your choice, remember that there’s always a good way and a bad way to communicate with someone about personal conflict (and thus avoid the choice, if possible).

The bad way, of course, is to rely on the ease and intimacy of your friendship to share your feelings about what a dickhead he’s been. It’s hard to imagine a response that won’t include the word “ingrate” and leave you with a shitload of blame with sugar on top, along with the steaming remains of your relationship.

The good way is to be professional and business-like as you tell him that you want to improve your work relationship so it can be as positive as your friendship, and that you’re wondering about how to do your job better and/or report to him differently. Put aside your hurt and anger to consider the possibility that your learning style may rub him the wrong way (although it may delight him when you’re not on the clock) and that having you report to someone else may ease some of the tension.

However personal his criticism feels, or however personally it’s meant, it’s not really personal as long as you’re doing your best. He’s being mean either because he’s always a bear at work (with other people as well as you) or he has a rage allergy to your work-style. That knowledge won’t ease your pain, but it will help you respond as if you’re trying to work things out with an important client, instead of slamming a raging asshole.

If, in the end there’s no way to ease the personal sting of your work-place humiliation, decide whether it’s more important to avoid hunger and homelessness. In other words, work often requires people to eat shit for a living when times are tough, even if that shit is served up by one of your oldest friends.

If your bank account tells you it’s necessary, remember to smile, take pride in your survival skills, and remember that your friend is still being generous…just with abuse.

STATEMENT:
“I may not be able to avoid the pain of personal humiliation at work, but I’m proud of the way I try to manage it while doing my best to look for my next job. It also hurts to lose my trust and respect for a friend, but there’s nothing I can do about that except not make it worse, which requires a heroic effort, and that’s my challenge.”

I work for a small business run by a husband and wife out of their house. I’m one of a handful of employees, and we’re all pretty close (we have to be, the offices are tiny). I like the wife—we’ve gone shopping together once or twice, and she gives me dating advice—but, weirdly, I’m actually closer to the husband since we’re both from the same town, like the same music and movies, etc. I’m not attracted to him, I swear, but I do like talking to him about our shared interests, and I can tell it’s pissing the wife off. I love this job, and I really like my bosses and co-workers—we’re like a family—but I’m not sure how to keep my job and keep my friendships while keeping the wife happy.

Comparing record collections is fun, but getting calls from collections isn’t. Which will happen when you have no way to pay your bills.

In other words, work is work, and it’s more important than the friendships you’ve described, so stop relying on work for your friendships or you’ll wind up with neither. That’s what happens when you ignore boundaries and follow your feelings.

In the beginning, being friends with the bosses seems like a compound win. You don’t have to worry about losing your job, or being criticized, or not knowing where you stand. They like you, they really like you, and they like your work. No reason to be anxious, and it’s a promotion for the self-esteem.

Nothing that feels so good is good for you, however. Your all-day intimacy can pull the husband away from his wife; after all, they’ve been married awhile and share management responsibilities and a bank account, so there’s got to be some bickering and bruising that will make your sweet, respectful relationship with him seem preferable to his marriage.

His wife should worry, and so should you, because trouble in the home-office is not good for business or your job security, just an increase in production of drama.

So chill and be friendly in a professional way. Stop sharing personal information, keep the chatting short and superficial, and if you need distraction in the workplace, listen to music on your computer via headphones.

STATEMENT:
“It feels nice to be closely involved with a happy, friendly ‘work family,’ and particularly with its leaders, but my overall priority is to hold my job and not interfere with the power structure, even if it requires me to stifle a natural, heart-felt need to be close and valued. I will put my own sense of doing a good job, and my belief in the value of minding my own business while doing business, ahead of my need to be valued by those I respect.”