Asking Eric: Manager’s affair causes chaos in the office

Dear Eric I work at a small bank with nine coworkers including myself We have a dilemma going on in the office The president and his assistant are sleeping together They were caught on video after hours in the office They also rush a sparse of us out of the office at the end of the day and stay back to do who knows what They have been confronted by one coworker to stop doing their mess in the office and that everyone with the exception of one person who was just hired knows what they re doing They also take multi-hour lunch breaks every day The difficulty is the other coworkers are salaried with the exception of one and certain are taking advantage of work hours They re reliably leaving early by one hour or coming in late and the president doesn t say anything because he s afraid of them going to HR and letting them know what he has done This leaves chosen of the other employees who don t abuse their time reeling and wanting to go to HR but it would likely shut the whole office down because no one here is capable of taking over So are we just out of luck or do we say something Helpless Dear Helpless You have to say something to HR This is a mess and the mess not the whistleblowing is endangering your job and your customer s well-being Human Support is not going to shut down your office However it may become necessary for the president to be replaced If that s the matter there are people who are trained as interim or emergency leaders who can step in and help right the ship Being a part of a small office can sometimes make it harder to call out bad behavior because there s a fear of being labeled not a group contestant or creating huge waves in a small pond But the waves are already there The workplace is toxic The president of your bank is clearly not exercising good judgment What you need is someone or something that will calm the seas That s where HR can step in Dear Eric I am of late widowed and have been living in our home in our quiet neighborhood for more than years My husband and I had a friendship with a female neighbor for five years or so When Jack became ill and close to death Mary became very helpful to me We used to email each other every day I narrated her I had traded my car for a small luxury SUV What I got was well I hope you feel good about yourself The daily emails fell off and I solicited why She disclosed we are from two different worlds and are very different people and then proceeded to evaluate my character She declared she couldn t understand why I complained about the workers I had called to the house to do things for me I didn t complain about them I was just surprised by the cost The man who came and removed furniture for Jack s hospice had an obnoxious smelling cologne that I mentioned to her and she reacted by asking how I could think ill of someone who had done something so kind for me I narrated her I was done with this assessment of my character I feel bad about all this but I didn t start it Mary is in poor financial condition and I m not so maybe this is envy of chosen sort Though I feel badly I m not inclined to fix what I thought was a friendship Am I wrong Related Articles Asking Eric Friend wants to end friendship without conflict Asking Eric Family pressures sister to ignore siblings crimes Asking Eric Condo board bullying gets out of control Asking Eric Friend reliably demands rides with no repayment Asking Eric Nice neighbors dog barks all day and night Lost Friend Dear Friend An unsolicited character critique is not good friend behavior Now those who are close to us can sometimes see things about us that we can improve And with permission they can share them But that s not what Mary is doing It sounds like she s working through particular resentments perhaps about money perhaps about class perhaps about something else entirely But it s up to her to be upfront with that rather than resorting to passive-aggression If you want to see if there s something to resurrect in this friendship you tell her something changed in our relationship and I d like to talk about why Are you open to having a conversation about it You ll both want to use I statements she should focus on how she felt rather than what you did wrong in her eyes And you should do the same Sometimes the things that we say can take on different meanings to others because of who they are where they re from and what they re going through That doesn t make one person more right or more wrong But with conversation and openness these conflicts can be doorways to empathy and understanding Send questions to R Eric Thomas at eric askingeric com or P O Box Philadelphia PA Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas com