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What Should I Do After My Manager Told Me Everyone’s Required To Contribute $60 Toward A Gift For Our Boss, And Other Advice Column Questions
There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.
What Should I Do After My Manager Told Me Everyone's Required To Contribute $60 Toward A Gift For Our Boss?
The company I work for has 12 employees. Every year, the owner asks our manager to go around and collect $60 from each person to then get a present for her. Around this time, she always makes comments about the type of jewelry she likes or a new watch she's seen.
I have kindly let them know that it is not in my budget this year as my spouse changed jobs a month ago and times are tight. When I told them that, they said that participation is mandatory and no one is allowed to opt out. I simply don't have the $60. My spouse and I aren't even exchanging gifts this year. Am I causing drama for no reason, or is $60 a lot to ask of an employee?
[The Cut]
Alison Green urges the letter writer to talk to their coworkers and push back as a group. "Frankly, even insisting on $5 donations for a gift for the boss would be out of line — but demanding $60 from someone who says it's out of their budget is a whole new level of awful." she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
What Should I Do After My Mom Told Me She Expects Me To Take Care Of My Much Younger Developmentally Disabled Half-Brother?
I am 25-years-old and my parents divorced when I was 7. When I was in middle school, my mom started dating again and met "Chris." It was nice seeing her so happy but very quickly things took a turn. Chris became her top priority and nothing else seemed to matter to her. She backed off on all the things she and I used to do together and even stopped attending my volleyball games because she was always busy with Chris. Then he moved in with us and I began to feel like an outsider in my own home since they acted as if I was intruding. I began to suspect they wished it was just the two of them. I moved out during the summer after I graduated from high school.
When my mom announced that she was pregnant, I did my best to seem happy and excited for her. But I felt resentful. (I did recognize that I was being petty and I made sure to hide my feelings.) Their child, who will turn 4 in January, has significant development issues. I'm not sure of his exact diagnosis, but he has minimal speech ability, does not walk, and is not toilet-trained. All of my mom and Chris's resources go toward the care of my half-brother.
Over Thanksgiving, my mom said I should start coming to their doctors' appointments so that I could understand my half-brotherss needs better and be "prepared." I asked what she meant and she said, "Well, someday Chris and I aren't going to be able to care for him on our own, so you will have to step up.” It turned into a big blow-up when I told her that I had no intention of being my half-brother's caregiver. My mom accused me of being jealous and cold-hearted, and of "punishing" her for getting married and having a new baby. I have my own chronic health issues, which my mom knows vaguely about. I have also chosen to be child-free because I don't want the responsibility of caring for a child. Apparently, this makes me "self-centered." My mom strongly implied that any support, financial or otherwise, that she and Chris would offer me in the future would be contingent upon me agreeing to help with my half-brother. I half want to just cut them all off but that feels drastic. I feel for my half-brother because none of this is his fault, but the thought of signing up to be his caregiver fills me with dread.
[Slate]
Michelle Herman rules that the letter writer's mother's demands are unreasonable. "If your mom's emotional support is contingent on your promise to be your brother's caregiver, then you never had it in the first place," she writes. "If you don't want to cut ties, don't. But don't allow your mother to continue to browbeat or manipulate you." Read the rest of her answer.
Do I Have Any Moral Obligation To People Who Live In Red States?
What moral obligation do we owe to help the residents of Kentucky who experienced that horrendous flooding in February 2023, given that the representatives they elect to the Senate and the House of Representatives have consistently denied that climate change is occurring and have done whatever is in their power to block climate-change legislation? This issue is not comparable to the moral obligation that we owe to provide health care to smokers or the obese, for instance, who suffer the ill effects of their chosen lifestyle. None of us are perfect, and we all, in some manner, contribute to our own ill health. But more important, your smoking does not adversely affect my health. On the other hand, the votes of Kentucky's elected representatives directly injure me by preventing the passage of effective climate legislation.
Kwame Anthony Appiah points out that most of the people who live in Kentucky did not vote for climate-denying members of Congress. "When an injured motorist arrives at the emergency room, doctors don't withhold care on the ground that he was drunk and therefore a menace to others," he writes. "In fact, what you have in mind looks like collective punishment." Read the rest of his answer.
Can I Give A Personalized Bible To Each Of My Employees For Christmas?
I have a question about Christmas gifts from the boss to employees. It is inappropriate to gift a bible to each person in my office? I also wanted to engrave their names on it.
Alison Green strongly encourages the letter writer to give non-religious gifts to their employees. "Especially because you're the boss, this is likely to be incredibly uncomfortable for some people because there's a power dynamic involved, and you risk making people feel uneasy at best and downright alienated at worst," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
Would It Be Petty If I Publicly Shamed My Neighbors For Spending Money On Food Delivery After They Started A GoFundMe?
One of my neighbors just posted on one of those neighborhood apps with GoFundMe asking for money for a car repair. They say the car repair will eat up all of the money they put aside for their children's Christmas presents. In general, I don't have a problem with people making these kinds of requests, but I do with these particular neighbors.
They live in an in-law suite at their mother's house and don't pay rent or childcare costs. Both the parents make good money. They constantly order food delivery. I know it's them and not the mother because the mother constantly complains about them spending money on food delivery. The mother hates it because the kids moved in under the premise of saving up to buy a house but they are nowhere near their goals and the mother thinks they should have hit that goal several years ago. Normally, this would be something that needs to be taken care of in private, but they made their money issues public by posting on the app.
I am debating saying something like, "In the future, you should speak to a financial advisor who can help you save for emergencies like this by learning how to cut out luxuries like eating out and food delivery." A friend of mine thinks this is judgmental and petty. I think people deserve to know who they are sending their money to. At this time of year, some people are truly in need of even the most basic things and I know a lot of people in the community who think those people deserve help first. The neighbors are making it seem like they are actually that needy. Do you think it is petty for me to do this?
[Slate]
Athena Valentine discourages the letter writer from posting their planned message. "Posting that could not only cause issues for your friend/neighbor but will also make you come across as passive-aggressive, and that's not a good look on an app you're supposed to be neighborly in," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
Can I Disinvite A Friend From Christmas Dinner Because Her Partner Can't Come, And It's A Couples Party?
I am in a pickle. Every year, my family hosts a formal, multiple-course Christmas dinner for our closest friends. We are limited to nine couples at the table.
We usually have more friends than we have seats. We request RSVPs early so we can invite other couples in case somebody cannot make it.
This year, we invited two new couples to the party (having to remove two couples who attended prior), and one of them replied that just one person is attending because her significant other won't be around.
What do I do now? Go on with the party even though she will be the only "solo" person, or explain that it is a couples party and move to the next couple in line?
[UExpress]
"What you can do is to rid yourself of the concept of a 'couples party,'" reply Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin, the writers behind the Miss Manners persona. "Miss Manners doubts that you are playing bridge on Christmas, and can think of no other decent activity that requires guests to attend in pairs." That's the entirety of their answer, but read the rest of their column.
