Ask A Manager: Can we ask our roommate not to take a job right now?

[minoanmiss]

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.”

Comments

My issue with this

[minoanmiss]

If I were the friend I wouldn't want to have to ask another adult for bubblegum money. It's one thing to have one's expenses covered and another to have discretionary income.

On the much larger and also gloved hand, though, these are not ordinary times. I just hope that when the pandemic ends that they do support her getting a job and not being their dependent.

[ambyr]

On a legal note, they may have that right or they may not, depending on tenancy laws in their municipality. If she's been paying rent prior to this point she may be protected from arbitrary eviction regardless of whether or not she has a formal lease. Even if she hasn't been paying rent, she would be protected in some places. (Alison's expertise is employment law, not tenancy law, and I think she should maybe stick to her strengths.)

On a moral note, she is not talking about going out to parties; she is talking about engaging in essential work. (My eyebrows went to my hairline at the dismissive way working a healthcare job was described as "a gig to pass the time.") We need people to do this work. Those people need housing. In an ideal world maybe the government would pay for them to live in isolated hotel rooms and have all their food delivered, but we do not live in that world. I am reminded of this news story about a co-op board who told a doctor to get lost, because they didn't feel safe with him living in the building.

Everyone has a right to make their own risk calculations, but before they tell their housemate that they can't support her in doing socially essential work, it seems reasonable for them to consider things like whether there ways for her to quarantine within their home. That is, is it a house with multiple bathrooms, or a one-bedroom apartment where she's crashing on the living room couch and contact is inevitable?

[cynthia1960]

Yes, it sounds like the LW fell into old patterns and is dismissing the job options doing essential work as something to pass the time. Also, +1000 on wanting to know if there are better quarantine options within the household.

Re: My issue with this

[ashbet]

“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.”

The lack of income is temporary, and the housemate has the option of taking a remote-work job in the near future, and is guaranteed to receive her unemployment back payment.

I think it is EXTREMELY reasonable for the couple to say that they are happy to cover her expenses while she is without income, but that they are not okay with being put at risk by their housemate coming into contact with the public.

These are not normal times, and the homeowners’ desire not to be exposed to a deadly disease is reasonable.

Re: My issue with this

[minoanmiss]

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Right now the housemate has birds in the bush but none in hand.

I'm not saying the LW isn't reasonable to not want increased exposure in a pandemic -- that was why I said, "on the much larger and gloved hand..." If I had to adjudicate I'd side with Alison. But I also know that being one adult living off another's generosity is an uncomfortable place to be, even if just emotionally. I can sympathize with the housemate's desire to do SOMETHING.

Re: My issue with this

[ashbet]

I guess it's fair to say that I'm putting my money where my mouth is, at the moment -- my daughter's father (we're amicably divorced) stays with us about one month a year, or if his job (which normally has him driving all over the US, testing cell phone tower signal) sends him to our area for a week or so.

Right now, he's semi-furloughed (his employer sent all the drivers to their "home market" and expect them to stay at their residence), but they still have him driving and testing equipment, which means coming into contact with others and leaving the house daily.

I'm immunocompromised and have about 70% lung function on a good day, my daughter is on blood thinners and has a history of cardiomyopathy (we both have a genetic disorder), we are HIGHLY vulnerable to COVID, and we told him that he cannot stay here if he's going to leave the house and work.

(Thankfully, he has a billion hotel points, but he's annoyed about it . . . OTOH, we tried "quarantine measures" within the household when he first got to town, and he could not manage to stay even 6 feet away from us after being repeatedly reminded, and it wasn't for lack of space.)

Trying to "self-isolate" from a member of your own household is difficult and has a high potential for failure, and I sympathize with the OP's desire not to raise their exposure risk, when they are willing to cover their friend's expenses until her UI money comes in or she gets a remote job.

Re: My issue with this

[minoanmiss]

that makes sense.

[naath]

In the UK a lodger (living with the landlord) is legally in a much weaker position than a tenant (the landlord lives elsewhere); but at the moment it is almost illegal to move - so I don't know what one is meant to do.

Me, I'd offer to pay her pin money for doing household chores (as well as covering board & lodging); find a house project if necessary; I'm sure they have a lawn in need of a mow or a shed in need of clearing out.

[ambyr]

I think a lot of it comes down to whether she feels "guilty" that she's not paying her bills or "guilty" that she's not doing more to support society. I know a number of people in the latter category who have lately been picking up shifts preparing and delivering meals to the needy, stocking shelves, and bagging groceries, not because they need the money but because they believe strongly that the work needs to be done. Offering to pay someone pin money to mow the lawn or whitewash the fence is not likely to relieve that sort of guilt.

[shirou]

I agree with the above comments that Alison too easily dismisses the importance of financial autonomy and essential work. But she's right that LW+husband get to set the terms for living in their home, and on this point I sympathize with them. My family is minimizing social exposure to reduce the risk of infection, and we would not welcome into our house anyone not taking the same precautions.

[lilysea]

Given that

a) the couple are covering her rent/bills
b) she has unemployment benefits and job interviews lined up
c) COVID can kill

I think it would be perfectly ethical to say "If you take this job with face to face contact, you will have to move out"

[seperis]

I'm with the couple on this one, as I'm in the position of only being able to semi-isolate.

I'm considered essential but I can work from home and so can my mom; my middle sister and her husband don't have that privilege and they have three kids under thirteen, two under seven (the oldest is full time at her dad's until this is over since it's safer). My other sister was up until recently still working full time at two jobs (she's at one now) and has a twelve year old. As there's no daycare and my mom needs her worktime and can't watch four kids, my son goes to her house every day and babysits/homeschools all four. (He is officially never having kids now, btw.)

Yes, we're all being very careful, especially my sisters and BIL, and I suggested Child do it in the first place so the kids wouldn't have to risk exposure at daycare (when it was still open; we got ahead there), but it's a risk. It's just less risky than pretty much any other option available, and we're maintaining it, but it's not easy with this many moving parts. If any of us could work out a better way, hell yes.

If it were possible--not just practical but possible--to reduce, we would have. This is our prime number for now. I feel for the house guest, I know how it feels, but this is people's lives, not just convenience.

[jadelennox]

On a gut level I side with the couple, but on an ethical level, not so much -- and in Massachusetts, which even under normal circumstances makes it exceptionally hard to evict people and just passed a very strong anti eviction & anti foreclosure bill for the duration of the crisis, I suspect what the LW is doing would be illegal. It might be a violation of the US fair housing act as well. Even with a casual sofa-surfing arrangement, depending on how casual it is! And I morally strongly support the laws protecting the tenant in this situation, and in fact lobbied by state rep and state senator to pass the anti-eviction bill.

I agree that, ethics aside, Alison should have referred this question to a housing lawyer. Tenancy law is complicated; even municipalities can have their own tenancy laws. Plenty of places are passing anti-eviction measures in the crisis. And the remaining question, aside from the legal, is a social question: can we ask this of our friend without ruining the friendship? -- and that's a question for Prudie or the good Captain A, not for Ask A Manager.


(also ditto everything you said about "essential work.:)