Dear Harriette: I clearly care more about my workplace than they care about mw

[lemonsharks]

DEAR HARRIETTE: I made a mistake that cost my boss thousands of dollars.

I found a way to pass it off as someone else’s problem, but the guilt is eating me alive.

I am afraid that coming forward about the details of the mistake will cost me my job.

Should I be honest about something that’s so detrimental? Everyone else has seemed to move on from it. The only thing I could stand to gain is peace of mind.

Guilty Conscience

DEAR GUILTY CONSCIENCE: I am a firm believer in telling the truth. As you see, not doing so is costing you peace.

Could you lose your job if you tell your boss what actually happened? Yes. But that shouldn’t prevent you from telling the truth.

Take a moment first to think about what happened and why. How did you cost your boss so much money? What went wrong? Do you know how to prevent it in the future? The facts coupled with recommendations for a better future outcome can be helpful during your conversation.

Finally, think about your future. Where can you go from here? If you lose your job, where can you apply? Know that if you are fired, you can collect unemployment for a short period so you will have a tiny cushion.

Think about your next steps in case you need to pivot. Then go in and talk to your boss. With humility and confidence in your integrity, tell what happened

Comments

[zana16]

No, no, no! You cannot collect unemployment if you’ve been fired! That is not how UI works.

[zana16]

It depends on your state, but this is bad advice. Employers can and will challenge unemployment claims from fired workers.

[conuly]

What integrity? OP made a mistake, and then pawned the blame off on a coworker. They have no integrity. Sure, now they feel guilty, but....

[viggorlijah]

That is awful advice. There could be so many reasons the mistake was made and borne by the company. As long as she didn’t get her coworker fired or lie, keep her mouth shut. Unless she is absolutely sure she has a workplace that rewards this - which are great learning places - and her reaction suggests she knows this is not that place.

[lemonsharks]

Everything about this advice screams "prepare to jeopardize your ability to eat food and love indoors in the name of ~honesty~

[ermingarden]

"I found a way to pass it off as someone else’s problem" – it sounds like LW did lie about it, though?

[melannen]

That's really ambiguous. It could be they blamed a coworker. But could be that, for example, it got cast as a nobody's-fault glitch in the computer system and became IT's problem; or something must have got lost in the mail rather than on LW's desk, so it became their boss's problem to fix without being their fault.

(If LW deliberately blamed someone else, that's horrid. If they just didn't volunteer the true story when it was revealed and made it somebody's else problem but nobody's fault, well, this sounds like the kind of workplace where that's a basic survival skill.)

[ermingarden]

Fair!

[ermingarden]

I think the biggest factor, not mentioned in the response, is that LW put the blame on someone else. It's not really about the lie "costing [LW] peace" – it's about the lie possibly costing someone else a job. Even if LW does lose their job, I think LW is obligated to come clean to avoid unfairly getting a coworker fired (or at least seriously damaging that person's career).

[ermingarden]

Coming back to this to clarify: I know LW says "Everyone else has seemed to move on from it," which suggests the person LW blamed for the error wasn't fired – but that's still a mark on that person's record that could make them more likely to be fired if they make a mistake later (since they've supposedly already done something) or reduce the chance they'll be promoted.

[viggorlijah]

There's just not enough information in the question letter. Did she blame it on an external to the company person who's safe from blowback or did she knife someone in the back? That distinction matters, because if she hurt someone else's career, definitely she needs to figure out a way to make that right. If she didn't hurt anyone else, she'd be hurting her own future.

[ermingarden]

That's fair! I figured if LW could be sure she hadn't harmed anyone by passing the blame off on them, then she would have said so explicitly – but that's a big assumption. So I guess I'll qualify my response by saying that if LW did cause blame to be put on someone whose career could be negatively affected, then coming clean is absolutely essential, but if LW can really be entirely sure that the scapegoat wasn't harmed, a lot of the urgency goes away.

[lemonsharks]

if LW did cause blame to be put on someone whose career could be negatively affected, then coming clean is absolutely essential

Honorable, absolutely, but my own history makes me balk a little at the essentiality of coming clean. I've worked with some people who were absolutely awful to work with or be around. Some were bullies, some had anger problems, some were less competent than a sack of potatoes but nepotism made them unreliable. Others were incompetent but somehow charmed, or allergic to realistic timelines. One was my personal work nemesis, who never once responded to a greeting or anything other than direct question from me prefaced with her name from me, but greeted everyone else cheerfully.

(One particular Nepotism Man was also nicknamed Captain Scope Creep.)

I would not have a problem throwing most of these people under the bus to save my own skin. That is not honorable or even behaving like a good person. But ultimately I don't have a problem with people valuing their own ability to continue eating food and living indoors over their coworkers career trajectory. (Or even their coworkers generally.)

[heavenscalyx]

We also don't know if the LW has some kind of licensing that could be impacted by coming clean. Someone in my family made a single fuckup after >30 years of clean record and fantastic work; she self-reported and found herself not only fired but also without a license to do the work that she'd been doing for so many years because the company had suddenly changed to a zero tolerance policy. Trying to find a job without that license in her late 50s was crippling.

[lemonsharks]

Yep. Without more information I've gotta land on the side of "LW, go join r/antiwork and find a different job as soon as you can, and never let this happen again. Self-preservation is more important than integrity."

[minoanmiss]

I don't know what LW should do but HArriette helpfully provided a list of things not to do!

[lemonsharks]

I would say she ghostwriters thatbadadvice but that would require Harriette have all three: a sense of irony/self-awareness, a Tumblr, and the good sense Zeus gave a peanut.

(Remember that time Zeus rendered his first wife Metis, goddess of actual wisdom, into Athena, goddess of more-like-too-smart-for-your-own-gooddom? Because I sure do.)

[minoanmiss]

I love how you put this. ahahahaah BWEE.