THE QUESTION
I supported a friend and colleague during a very difficult period where she lost her job and the circumstances of her firing really undermined her confidence in her own professional abilities. She was offered part-time work, but the job was put on hold. By coincidence, I was offered a contract for part-time work by the same company on a different project. After seeing how emotionally difficult her job loss has been, I have been reluctant to tell her about the offer that was made to me for fear of undermining her feelings of self-worth. But because we move in the same professional circles, I am worried she will find out and then be upset because I never told her. What would you advise?
THE ANSWER
I know how difficult it can be to lose your job.
It's happened to me plenty. For example, I thought I was ticking along there just tickety-boo as one of the producers of a TV book-chat show, when one day, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from my boss:
Subject line: "Dave, could you come see me … "
Body of e-mail: " … in my office please?"
Like he was too busy to craft a separate subject line and body of an e-mail to summon me into his office to give me the chop. (Meanwhile, his office was 10 feet from my desk.)
Him: "Blah blah blah nothing personal blah blah budget cuts blah blah." Which turned out not to be true, because he hired someone else for the position.
It hurt, sure. But I didn't take it too personally. Partly because he was what I call a King Lear-type boss, that is, he had a tendency to fire his Cordelias and promote his Regans and Gonerils. (In case your Shakespeare's a little rusty, Cordelia was King Lear's most loyal daughter, but refused to deliver a sugary speech about it; Regan and Goneril were the treacherous daughters, but full of flowery flattery.) But also because it wasn't my main dream in life to be a producer on a TV book-chat show. I wanted to be one of the hotshots we interviewed, dammit. (Chat-show host: "So, Dave, now you're a famous writer, is it pretty much all a barrel of laughs, signing autographs, champagne, caviar and bubble baths?" Me: "I don't like to go into my private life.")
But if I'd been fired from a writing job for turgid prose, then I'd have to ask the man in the mirror: "Dave, are you really giving it your all? Are you in the right profession?"
You have to be good at what you do, now more than ever, as you surely know. As I'm always telling my (three teenage) boys: "If there's even such a thing as jobs when you graduate, they'll only go to the best of the best, so you have to excel. It's a freakin' knife fight out there."
But it did hurt and after that I had to scramble. When you fire someone, you're cutting off their air supply, pulling the hose out of their spacesuit along with shivving their self-esteem. It can be scary, as well as saddening.
I think you should take all this into consideration when it comes to dealing with your friend.
First of all, yes, come clean about your job – right away. It might hurt to find out you were hired by the company that's dragging its feet with her – but it'll hurt even more to find out you've been coyly covering up about it.
That's not what she needs. What she needs – well, if your friend is good at what she does, I'd start with a straight-up pep talk: "You're great, into every life a little rain must fall, get back out there and duke it out with the rest of us, kid."
I've had times where I've wanted to curl up like a shrimp and give up – and have always appreciated it when my friends (and wife) have come through with pep talks. "Get back out there, Dave."
If your friend is indeed not so good at what she does – well, then it's a bit more ticklish. It's hard to tell someone "Maybe you should consider a different line of work," and also hard to hear.
You have to use your judgment on that one. You could be doing her a favour, in the long run, but also risk causing a permanent rift in your friendship.
My guess is what she needs right now – along with sympathy, honesty, support, and an encouraging ear, is some positivity, and rah-rah-type cheerleading: someone (you) to tell her they believe in her, that things will work out and whatever happens, you'll always be her friend.
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