minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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agonyaunt2020-04-16 12:57 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2020-04-16 12:57 pm
Entry tags:
Ask A Manager: Can we ask our roommate not to take a job right now?
Dear Ask a Manager,
My husband and I moved about five hours from our hometown just over a year ago, and while we’re loving it, we’re really missing our friends and family. About nine weeks ago, a very close friend was laid off from her job, but then found a job in our city and asked if she could live with us for a bit while she got settled. We happily agreed she could stay with us for a couple months while she started the new gig and get back on her feet. She accepted the job, moved in with us, and things have been going great.
Then this crappy virus happened, and her company furloughed everyone the second week in to her new job. Because she found the job so fast, she never filed for unemployment initially. Now she has applied for unemployment, but our state’s backlog is taking a while to process claims and she’s understandably getting worried.
My husband and I have already told her that we’re not worried, and we’ve got her expenses covered until this is over. However, she’s “feeling a bit bored and guilty” and wants to get a job. She’s recently started talking about trying to get a temporary gig at a grocery store or healthcare facility to make some money and pass the time. We are concerned about her bringing the virus in to our house, and told her we weren’t comfortable with this. However, she keeps bringing it up.
She already has a few interviews starting to line up with her specialty, and those jobs would be remote. Her unemployment will start coming soon once the backlog is cleared as well. We both already worked from home, have only gone out a few times for necessities, are taking this quarantine seriously, and do not want someone living here who’s going out and interacting with people daily. Do we have a right to ask her not to work in such a publicly exposed job right now? I promise we’re not monsters, but if she insists on this, it’d be a deal-breaker for her living with us.
You 100% have the right to say it’s a deal-breaker! Without question. It’s your home. The terms of your offer to her are very generous — she’s living with you and you’re covering her expenses. She is not in a desperate situation; she’s “a bit bored and guilty.” You have complete moral standing to say, “We’re happy to have you live with us, but to make it work we need you to follow the same distancing rules we’re following.”
Since you’ve already told her you’re not comfortable with her plan and she keeps bringing it up anyway, it sounds like you need to address it more directly — as in, “We’re so happy to have you here, and we’ll gladly continue to cover your expenses until this is over. But we need you to follow the same precautions we’re taking, which means that if you decide to take one of the temporary jobs you’ve been talking about, you’d need to stay somewhere else. We don’t want that to happen — we love having you here — but we’re not comfortable with that risk, so we want to make sure you’re clear that it means we couldn’t keep living together.”
My husband and I moved about five hours from our hometown just over a year ago, and while we’re loving it, we’re really missing our friends and family. About nine weeks ago, a very close friend was laid off from her job, but then found a job in our city and asked if she could live with us for a bit while she got settled. We happily agreed she could stay with us for a couple months while she started the new gig and get back on her feet. She accepted the job, moved in with us, and things have been going great.
Then this crappy virus happened, and her company furloughed everyone the second week in to her new job. Because she found the job so fast, she never filed for unemployment initially. Now she has applied for unemployment, but our state’s backlog is taking a while to process claims and she’s understandably getting worried.
My husband and I have already told her that we’re not worried, and we’ve got her expenses covered until this is over. However, she’s “feeling a bit bored and guilty” and wants to get a job. She’s recently started talking about trying to get a temporary gig at a grocery store or healthcare facility to make some money and pass the time. We are concerned about her bringing the virus in to our house, and told her we weren’t comfortable with this. However, she keeps bringing it up.
She already has a few interviews starting to line up with her specialty, and those jobs would be remote. Her unemployment will start coming soon once the backlog is cleared as well. We both already worked from home, have only gone out a few times for necessities, are taking this quarantine seriously, and do not want someone living here who’s going out and interacting with people daily. Do we have a right to ask her not to work in such a publicly exposed job right now? I promise we’re not monsters, but if she insists on this, it’d be a deal-breaker for her living with us.
You 100% have the right to say it’s a deal-breaker! Without question. It’s your home. The terms of your offer to her are very generous — she’s living with you and you’re covering her expenses. She is not in a desperate situation; she’s “a bit bored and guilty.” You have complete moral standing to say, “We’re happy to have you live with us, but to make it work we need you to follow the same distancing rules we’re following.”
Since you’ve already told her you’re not comfortable with her plan and she keeps bringing it up anyway, it sounds like you need to address it more directly — as in, “We’re so happy to have you here, and we’ll gladly continue to cover your expenses until this is over. But we need you to follow the same precautions we’re taking, which means that if you decide to take one of the temporary jobs you’ve been talking about, you’d need to stay somewhere else. We don’t want that to happen — we love having you here — but we’re not comfortable with that risk, so we want to make sure you’re clear that it means we couldn’t keep living together.”