I’m biased toward midwesterners, cleaning up after a reply-all email storm, and more

by Alison Green on July 25, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. I’m biased toward midwestern candidates

At the east coast company I work at, I’m frequently on hiring committees for competitive positions that typically include a wide range of candidates from all over the U.S. I recently noticed a concerning pattern in the candidates that I have advocated for hire. Essentially, when other qualifications are relatively equal, I nearly always prefer the midwestern candidate. (I am from the midwest and work remotely from the midwest) for their personability and communication style. And generally, my opinion holds a strong sway for who ends up being hired. While I’ve never advocated for a midwest hire who isn’t one of top candidates in terms of objective qualifications and interview responses, I still don’t think this is a great look.

What can I (and the company in general) do to reduce this type of bias during hiring? Should I just hold my opinion if we are between a handful of candidates and I prefer the midwestern one?

A quick caveat: I am, unfortunately, amazing at recognizing midwestern accents, especially in people from the Great Lakes regions (or from the city of Chicago).

Yeah, “like me” bias is really common in hiring, and it’s good that you’re recognizing it! We (often) naturally prefer people who remind us of ourselves and feel comfortable/familiar to us. It’s especially telling that you noted your preference is based on their “personability” and communication style, because those are two things that are really subjective and can be big sources of bias.

So how do you mitigate it? First and foremost, make sure that you’re assessing all candidates on the same list of must-have and nice-to-have traits, and that you’re clearly defining what each of those looks like and not just “I know it when I see it.” For example, you might assess communication style and personability through metrics like: enthusiasm for engaging with people; conveying points clearly; listening carefully and asking questions to understand others’ perspectives; and being able to put people at ease, especially people different from themselves (that last part is key). Also, involve diverse voices in your hiring process (and make sure you get aligned with them about the must-have’s and how to assess those so that everyone is measuring against the same bar; otherwise people will default to their own criteria). Ask people to fill out written assessments independently, so they’re not overly influenced by what you or others think, and ask them to peg their ratings to observable behaviors, not gut feelings.

Those two things won’t solve it entirely — bias is a huge and complicated thing that takes significant work to mitigate — but they should help significantly, and should also surface places where earlier you might have been influenced by bias without even realizing it.

2. The right way to clean up after a reply-all email storm

My inbox was victimized by an external email storm yesterday, and it made me curious about how you’d advise the organization at the center to proceed in the aftermath. A university career center recently launched a new hiring platform to connect students and employers, and they sent a webinar invitation to recruiters across the region — corporate, public sector, school districts, etc. Something went wrong in the system and an automatically generated reply went to everyone, which then generated a service ticket email that also went to everyone. Enter Corporate Recruiter A, who responded, “I’m not sure why I’m on this service ticket.” For some reason this email also generated a subsequent service ticket email. Enter Corporate Recruiter B, who responded, “Same here.” (HELPFUL. Are both of you new to email? And technological systems in general?) City Employee chimed in, “I am getting multiple emails from this. Is there something you need from me?” And then Corporate Recruiter C opened the floodgates with, “Please remove me from your mailing list.” Cue hundreds of recruiters from the region asking to be removed from the list, followed by a handful of well-intentioned folks with the “STOP REPLYING” directives. Every one of these emails generated a separate service ticket email, so it was like the BOGO of email storms.

800 emails later, it has finally stopped. If you were the university, would you ignore all those requests from recruiters to be removed, since you need them to be recruiting your students and they were most unwittingly responding to one specific event? Or are you obligated to honor their request? Do you dare send a follow-up email to explain and apologize? Do you do personal outreach to the recruiters who participated in the melee to mend relations? Just to recruiters from high-value contacts, e.g. Fortune 500 companies and major local employers? Cut the registration fee for your next career fair as a mea culpa?

The emails were annoying, of course, but I mainly felt sorry and frustrated for the university employees. If I were them and I were instructed to send an apology email, I’m not sure I could stop myself from including some “electronic mail guidance for noobs” on how to disengage from an email storm…

Eh, people asking to be removed in that context usually mean “remove me from this shitstorm,” not necessarily “never contact me again.” I don’t think you’d need to unsubscribe all of them, as long as you’re very, very sure that the problem has been solved. You could send an email a day or so later apologizing and assuring people the problem has been fixed and won’t recur (make sure that’s true! the last thing you need is for that email to set up a whole new flood) and offering an unsubscribe link for people who want it. (That said, you’d want to look at CAN-SPAM and any other applicable laws to make sure you’re in compliance.)

I don’t think anyone would expect you to cut the registration fee or call people personally to apologize. (I’d actually be more annoyed by a phone call about it, in an “I still can’t get away from this?” kind of way.)

Related:
the burnt bagel, the excessive candor, and other reply-all email catastrophes

3. How open should I be about family stress that may affect me at work?

I’m tangentially connected to an ongoing family issue which is apparently on the verge of boiling over and causing some irrevocable damage to the extended family. There’s a high likelihood of my brother and his wife divorcing, and they have two kids under 10. There was a deliberate attempt to conceal the issues from me, up to and including lying to my face about how things are with them.

This affects my work only slightly: My work is pure physical labor. I deliberately made more work for myself when counting new stock as a healthy way to vent my frustrations and distract myself, and I explained my reasoning for doing that. At what point am I giving too much information, or at what point is giving specific details that there is an issue ongoing necessary?

Hmmm, it really depends on the details. If no one will even notice that you’re doing something differently to get more of a physical outlet, you don’t need to say anything at all. If it’s going to be noticeable, sure, say, “I”m working out some family stress on these boxes right now!” But there’s a fairly narrow window for how much of that is okay at work — tackling boxes extra vigorously is fine, but if it comes close to looking like hostile aggression (even though it’s directed toward inanimate objects, not another person), it’s inappropriate for work. If someone would be nervous about coming near you, you’ve crossed a line. Regardless, though, people don’t really need to know the details of what’s going on with your family.

(For what it’s worth, and I realize I’m saying this knowing almost nothing about the situation: avoid judging other people’s marriages and divorces as much as you can. Divorce is sad, especially when kids are involved — but lots of grown children, including me, will tell you firsthand that the damage to kids when their parents don’t divorce but should can be harder on them than a split would have been. Your brother also didn’t owe you a full account of what was happening within his marriage before he was ready to share. Again, I don’t know the details and certainly there are situations that would enrage any reasonable bystander — but when your feelings about someone else’s marriage are looming this large, it’s worth questioning.)

4. Do I owe a previous employer help with their questions now?

I gave two weeks notice at my job. My manager, the owner of the company, sent a message to all the team leads that I would be leaving and I sent the team leads and the other person on my team a message that I had cleared my calendar and would be happy to meet with them to facilitate my departure. I also created a document outlining several tasks that remained and where I was with each of them.

The other person on my team, Sara, set up a meeting with our accounting firm and participated in several meetings in which the managing owner and she were present but I was excluded. Which is fine, but I did not have any insight into what decisions were reached, so I assumed they had everything in hand. I had one meeting with the two owners and Sara, where they said they felt my procedures were excessive and overdone and instead of learning them, they said there was a better way to do my job. (That was fine with me — I was leaving anyway.) I also asked Sara if she wanted to set a time to go over procedures and how to do tasks, as most would fall on her plate, but she insisted she already knew. No one got in touch, no one asked questions, no one showed any interest in anything I had to share. I completed the document, wished everyone the best, and went on my way. No hard feelings, just excitement for my new role.

A couple weeks after I left, I received a message from Sara with questions — where things were, if I had finished a report, etc. etc. I did not feel like I had any responsibility to answer. I don’t have hard feelings, but I feel like no one wanted my help while I was leaving and now I don’t owe them anything further. I don’t think of myself as bitter or angry, just happy to move on. Am I wrong? Should I have answered all the questions?

You’re right on the principle of it: you tried repeatedly to help with the transition while you were still there and they made it clear that they didn’t want your help and felt they knew better. So it’s particularly irritating that they’re coming back to you now.

That said, it generally makes sense to be willing to answer one or two simple questions after you’re gone if you can do so very quickly, simply for the purpose of maintaining good will. But I’m talking about things like “do you remember where the X report is?” not “can you walk me through the history of this client and all the strategies we’ve tried with them in the past” — and also only one or two, not endless or ongoing contact. So if it would have taken only a minute or two to respond to Sara, I’d advise just doing it. You don’t have to, though; it also would have been fine to let the message sit for a week and then reply with, “Hmmm, I don’t know off the top of my head, but check the documentation I left.” (Or even not reply at all.)

5. I have no idea who to give my resignation to

I’ve decided to quit my job! However, I’m not sure who to give my notice to. My boss has left, and her boss is a C-suite executive I’ve never met. I’m sure I’m overthinking this, but I’m in a very senior role with no clear redundancy / transition plan for my responsibilities, and want to make sure I’m setting my team up for continued success after I’m gone. So who do I talk to about all of this? What are the appropriate protocols here?

Who are you going to for other management things right now? If there were a crisis in your department, who would you talk to? That’s probably the right person to resign to. If there’s no clear answer to that, then default to your ex-boss’s boss. If that’s impractical, head to HR, explain the situation, and let them straighten it out.

Read an update to this letter. 

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{ 512 comments }

{ 512 comments… read them below }

  1. Nodramalama*

    For lw2 yep, send a short email later to everyone explaining what happened and offer them some way to unsubscribe if they want to. Make sure to bcc all the recipients so you don’t inadvertently create the same issue again.

    1. Kuddel Daddeldu*

      Yes to BCC!
      And invest in software that can send anyone on a list an individual mail; this is will nip problems like this in the bud. Any decent email list software (many are free) does this, and they allow you to restrict who may post to the list so a reply to the list will automatically go to a moderator.

    2. Peoplearefunny*

      LW2: I was on that exact thread yesterday! One reply made me laugh so hard. It said, “So how’s everyone doing right now? Is your eye twitching?”
      I was deleting so fast I almost missed it.
      This morning the university sent one email apologizing and saying they fixed it.
      It was annoying, but no actual harm done.

      1. bamcheeks*

        Was it Handshake? (There are probably other American college centre systems but Handshake is big in the UK too so it’s the one I know about!

      2. ccnumber4*

        Yep, I was on it, too. At first it was funny, but we were up to almost 2000 emails in 18 hours and it was less funny waking up to it a second day. The fact that there was no unsubscribe link is insane to me.

    3. Agent Diane*

      This!

      A whole heap of people have had their day messed up. An apology along the lines below is good but must be bcc. And do not do it as a reply all – some people will have set up a rule to send all emails with that subject line straight in the bin.

      “We want to say sorry about the email storm yesterday, and the impact it will have had on your inbox and your day. We have traced the problem to [cause]. We have taken the following steps to prevent it happening again: [list steps].”

      (Yes, yes, I have had to send a message like this after a software glitch.)

    4. Observer*

      Make sure to bcc all the recipients so you don’t inadvertently create the same issue again.

      Yes. BCC. That’s been available in email since forever.

  2. Dido*

    I don’t understand what LW3’s problem is or why they need to “vent their frustrations and distract themself” from their brother’s marital problems at work

    1. New Jack Karyn*

      Same. When my marriage was in trouble, I didn’t talk with anybody about it; not my brother, not my best friend, no one. So it was a surprise to almost everyone when we announced our split. My brother took me out to lunch and asked me about it, out of concern for me (and for my ex, who is a lovely person). But I doubt he had agita about it that bled into his work.

      1. SheLooksFamiliar*

        I get the OP’s perspective. When I was splitting up with my ex I was a mess. But I was also dealing with some issues affecting my brother (PTSD and related issues) and sister (long-buried issues she had with our family, but not with me). The last two hit me harder in some ways than splitting with my ex. See, I was the one who said, ‘We’re done,’ and felt a level of control that made it easier for me. Not easy, just easier.

        My brother and sister, though…their pain and anger was MY pain and anger. One marriage was at risk, their families were in turmoil, and I could do very little to help them except be present when they needed me. I felt powerless and heart broken. I did have to distance myself at times to deal with my own issues, and felt guilty when I did.

        However. None of that spilled into my work in an obvious way. I had some bad moments but excused or distracted myself before I lost my cool. Only my boss and a few people knew details about my personal life; after all was said and done, I heard most of my colleagues had no idea I dealing with stuff because I was my usual self albeit a bit quiet.

        So while I understand OP’s feelings, I hope they find a way to manage those feelings at work. It’s not okay to show aggression – even at cardboard boxes – and stress out your co-workers.

    2. Nodramalama*

      Yeah I thought the question was going to be about taking stress leave because family drama is affecting their mental health. Not… Venting their frustrations on work

    3. Temporarily anon*

      There may well be more than was disclosed here. I have been in a situation where I was very upset about a big family drama that *included but was not limited to* a sibling’s divorce. And the divorce was because my sibling and very, very much wronged their spouse, to the point that the spouse was left hanging, lost every penny financially, and there was the possibility she would get charged with some of HIS criminal activity. Which was perpetrated on other family members, among other things. It was pretty awful. If it hadn’t happened over 10 years ago, I’d wonder if this was written by another of my siblings.

      1. Two cents*

        I agree. This counts DOUBLE when there are kids involved who are getting royally screwed over through no fault of their own–that stuff is heartbreaking and so so so so so hard to watch from the sidelines without having serious emotions about it. I had enough emotions about that when it was my neighbors, I’d probably have lots more if it was my sibling. In both cases: yes, in a perfect world of impeccable emotional capabilities, I should have better boundaries and be able to achieve emotional distance always, but I’m human and it is hard. I think it is ok to be human and find such a thing hard. The question is how does the person deal with those emotions in a good way–while taking it out at work might be questionable depending on the exact behavior, I at least like the sentiment of using the negative feelings as fuel for something constructive.

        We just don’t know enough about the family situation to judge and I’m inclined to try to give the letter writer the benefit of the doubt.

        1. bamcheeks*

          yes, in a perfect world of impeccable emotional capabilities, I should have better boundaries and be able to achieve emotional distance always

          Honestly, the way you GET emotional distance is by processing and accepting those feelings, not pretending they don’t exist! Being perfectly emotionally distanced from my brother’s divorce would look like: not loving or missing my sister-in-law, not caring about my nephew, not being infuriated with and heartbroken for and worried about my brother; not desperately missing my mum who might have been the only person who could talk some sense into my brother. “A perfect world” is one where I managed not to say all of that to my brother (which I ~mostly~ achieved), but not one where I didn’t feel all those things.

        2. jasmine*

          +1 We don’t have enough details to judge OP. There’s so much context missing here, and it’s normal for divorce to be a painful thing that has ripple effects across the family

      2. anonforthis*

        Similar, but spouse very very much wronged sibling, coached kids to lie about the situation, got the divorce, got solo custody, took the kids and fled. Sibling never saw kids again. The end of the story is so horrible I can’t even write about it.

        1. Similar situation*

          Sending sympathy and internet hugs if you want them. Our family’s story doesn’t have an “end” yet, but it’s been almost a decade since my spouse’s sibling abducted their kid as a newborn and took off to a non-extradition country. The pain (mostly for my sibling, but for my parents and the rest of us, too) is not something other people can really wrap their heads around, and for good reason. I am not typically an angry person, but the feelings of helplessness really compound that.

          That said, to take it back to OP’s question, therapy is really what all of us have done to process. We don’t talk about it much among the family because everyone is dealing with it in their own way and it’s not typically productive to discuss it in depth – again, that helplessness. OP should really be looking for outlets outside of work. I think it’s fine if she’s feeling particularly stressed to let her work know, but without details. And really, really watch how it manifests.

      3. Ellis Bell*

        Yeah, some divorces are just divorce (and no doubt everyone is going to reply to the OP with only their own experience of divorce) but others are pretty nasty. Divorces can take in the gamut of everything from physical and financial abuse, to controlling behaviours, to infidelity, to screaming matches in front of the kids, to just not getting along any more but being fairly civil to each other. Divorce is also not cheap, and unless everyone is pretty well off there’s a period of uncertainty about how two people who were struggling to pay for one roof are now going to paying for two. Yes, it’s worth reminding OP that divorce itself isn’t the end of the world, but it might not be hyperbole that this is affecting the extended family. At least we should allow enough benefit of the doubt for OP to be temporarily upset and concerned enough to work out an issue on some boxes! They’re not talking about doing anything about the divorce, or making this their sibling’s problem, after all.

      4. I'm A Little Teapot*

        When you’re so heavily impacted by something that on the surface has nothing to do with you, one of two things must be true: 1. there’s a LOT more going on and it’s not just the surface thing; or 2. it really is just the surface thing but you have a problem of some sort and the surface this is serving to highlight that problem.

        Either way, there is a problem. It’s just what the problem is.

      5. Humble Schoolmarm*

        I was also hit hard by a cousin’s divorce because my cousin had done something quite awful and his partner was protecting themselves and the kids. I was close to my cousin and his partner, so it wasn’t just about the divorce (which is, I agree, often better than the alternative) it was losing connection with people I cared about (spouse and kids, yes, we’re still in touch, but partner was my family gathering buddy and I miss that), having to reevaluate someone I thought I knew (cousin) and manoeuvre around all my boomer relatives who thought partner was doing a terrible thing by leaving.

      6. fhqwhgads*

        There may well be more than what was disclosed here, but as I was reading the letter, I kind of already felt like what was disclosed here was more than anyone should disclose at work? So it’s sort of tricky to react, because if the question is “how much to share?” it’s “way less than you just said”. But if they shared a lot more here so we’d have context for just their general state of mind, well, it’s not really enough context for their state of mind to make sense to me.
        Then again, I guess, LW if you’re reading, maybe both of those facts are useful for you to know?

        1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

          It’s a fluid and dynamic ongoing situation, and some of the concerns I’ve mentioned do not exactly apply anymore. The conclusion I’ve reached is that the only details worth sharing are those which will directly affect my work availability – which should be a very unlikely occurrence!

          Though, if I am to be fair to my brother and his wife, I partially regret even asking the question in the first place – although there has been some helpful advice to navigating the mess on my part.

          Overall, their lives are their own – but that doesn’t mean I won’t call them idiots when they’re being such – I’d be much more annoyed if my siblings DIDN’T call out my own stupidity when necessary. (Obviously, there’s a limit to this!)

    4. ThatOtherClare*

      Leaving their motivations aside “made more work for myself” could have been something as benign as counting stock before it’s been moved to the packing area, necessitating extra walking time. A colleague might have made a casual comment along the lines of “Why did you do it the long way?” and the letter writer might have burst out “Because my brother is divorcing and I need a walk, OK!?!” and now they’re wondering if they went too far.

      Or, they might be punching boxes to open them instead of using the box cutter, who knows? But there’s no need to assume violence if we don’t have to.

      1. Myrin*

        Your first paragraph is literally exactly what I imagined.
        Also, as someone who worked for years as a shelf stocker and whose sister is a retail professional, “making more work for myself when counting new stock” sounds like something like “okay, these usually come in packs of ten and I’ve got eight packs so I could just enter ’80 pieces’ but why don’t I count every individual piece and make sure there are really ten in each pack?” or similar.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, when I worked retail, I had a manager who, whenever she was upset (not very often), used to go and tidy up the wine area, presumably because it was furthest from the check-outs and staff area so she was least likely to be bothered by anybody. It was usually work that needed to be done, but I could imagine her dragging it out a bit if she wanted to avoid us for a while

          1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

            When I was in retail and in a bad mood, everything got suspiciously clean really quickly. If my coworkers had cared, they would have realized me scrubbing black mold off of drains wasn’t because I wanted the area clean- it was because I was mad and when I’m mad, I try to make at least one thing in my life make sense.

            1. AvonLady Barksdale*

              The first time I worked retail it was in a very busy store in Disney World. There was a giant tower of stuffed animals in the middle of the store. When I was stressed or anxious or emotional (often– I was 20 years old), I organized the plushies. To this day, when things get overwhelming I reach for tasks that have very clearly measurable goals, like doing a load of laundry, organizing my drawers, or cleaning the bathroom. I’m still proud of how great Plush Mountain looked every time I was finished with it.

              1. Genevieve*

                Hahaha as a thirty-something woman and SAHM, when my kids get overwhelming I put them in front of the TV and go outside to weed the garden for ten minutes. It really helps!

                1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

                  I weed the garden when I get stuck on my translation (as a freelancer, this is perfectly possible).

                2. Doc in a Box*

                  My grandpa used to sweep the driveway when my brother and I were running amok while he was watching us. We had a VERY long, and VERY clean driveway.

            2. Chirpy*

              Yeah, if I’m suddenly reorganizing the warehouse, it’s likely because I’ve hit my limit and I cannot deal with people – customers or coworkers – anymore.

          2. Love me, love my cat*

            If my last job would have had a wine area away from the registers, it would have been a very tidy area indeed. And after I left, former coworkers would have found an empty bottle or two:)

    5. ANON FOR A WHILE*

      Lw3 here

      It’s mainly because I was led to believe things were going well between them, but that was actually a concerted lie to make the whole extended family not pry to deep. I wrote on the same day the news broke to me, so was not exactly acting rationally.

      The need to distract myself was to prevent myself from doing anything that could be seen as meddling. I’d rather focus my anger and frustration at being misled towards a productive use, rather than let it affect my relationship with either of them.

      1. Knope Knope Knope*

        Well I commend you on not meddling. I’m not sure if you’re married, but marriage is complicated. And getting people outside the marriage involved can complicate things infinitely more.

        I think if you look at any marriage from the outside, it’s impossible to know if things are going well, because no marriage is going well 100% of the time. The question of when the bad outweighs the good or when one or both sides can’t move on is deeply personal and not a straightforward answer. Sometimes the couple doesn’t even know. There have been times when I’ve truly doubted my ability to make marriage work with my partner and they were not aware at all how deeply their words and actions affected me. If you asked us both how things were going, they would say well because they believed it. I would say well because that conversation needed to happen with my partner before an outside party.

        Also, when we had our first child, my mother was deeply involved. I cherished her insight. I was completely unaware how much my partner felt replaced and sidelined to the point it also threatened our marriage. It was a lesson to me that though I loved my extended family as much as ever, my partner and I had to put up boundaries around ourself and our relationship. We still have them, and that’s exactly why we are still married.

        Explaining the state of a marriage or a split is complicated and no one owes it to anyone to discuss any part of it before they are ready. If a couple goes through a hard time and reconciles, it is often in their best interest not to have shared too much with family and friends. I will forgive my partner for things because I love them, but my family would not. It has a lasting impact on your entire life.

        1. Antilles*

          All of this. Other people don’t owe you an in-depth discussion of their personal marital problems. Especially if they’re still hoping to work through them, because airing that dirty laundry among the family can actually make it HARDER to work past issues as you get all sorts of unsolicited advice, judgment, awkwardness, etc.
          The person who gives uncompromising advice like “you’re right and you should hold your ground” or “I’d just dump that cheater, no hesitation”. The parent who’ll automatically take their kid’s side and become super judgy towards the spouse. The family members who don’t know how to handle the situation and avoid the topic so blatantly that every family gathering becomes super awkward.
          And then in the event that they successfully got through it as a couple, would they want everybody in your family to forever know about their former problems?

        2. Turquoisecow*

          Yeah there have been times where I’ve vented to friends about something my husband did and I got a reaction indicating they thought he was being horrible or abusive or whatever and might very well have advised me to think about divorce, but they didn’t know the whole truth. Any individual argument, seen from outside, could potentially be marriage-ending, or nothing important, and it’s impossible for people to know, plus they often will take the side of the person they know better, or are related to, so they’re not seeing it level headed either (which is why an outside counselor can help!). I definitely don’t talk about my marriage with my siblings or my parents.

          1. Meep*

            Been there. I jokingly said my husband was suffocating me one time. (He is WFH so I am sometimes his only human interaction and he was annoyed with his brother at the time so I was fully his only human interaction) A friend of mine thought we were on the cusp of breaking up, because I wanted some ME time.

      2. Mockingjay*

        Immersing yourself in work as a distraction from personal and family problems and emotions is fine. It’s that most of the time you don’t need to explain your rationale. Use an innocuous work-related reason instead. “Eh, the stock inventory was out of date so I tackled it.”

        We all have personal lives with complicated relationships and problems, but most of that info doesn’t belong in the workplace. Your coworkers and managers really don’t want to know everything about you, nor do they need to. Imagine: If there’s 10 people on your shift or team and all 10 of you decide to vent your issues to each other, that’s a lot of emotion in a business that is not equipped to deal with it.

        Of course, if you have a personal issue that directly affects your performance, you can talk to your supervisor about that, but I recommend keeping that kind of conversation solution-oriented: “Boss, going through a divorce. It’s been rough and I’m not focusing my best. Is it okay if I work a more flexible schedule around lawyer and court appointments, and work an occasional evening here and there, as long as I get my hours in?”

        1. ferrina*

          Agree- you don’t usually need to explain why you are suddenly extra-conscientious and taking on a lot more little responsibilities. Many people won’t really notice or think about it, and those that do will think that you just have extra time. You don’t need an excuse to be productive.

          As for feeling “misled”- I’m going to echo a lot of other commentors that it likely wasn’t a personal attack. Before my spouse and I got divorced, my family knew very little. They knew we were under a lot of stress, but that was normal for our life circumstances (kids and jobs and such). I didn’t tell them how bad it was because 1) I didn’t know how bad it was- there wasn’t a countdown to the end, and I didn’t know if the marriage would weather the storm or not and 2) I didn’t want to malign my spouse if he continued to have a relationship with my family. I wanted so badly to vent, but I also didn’t want to undermine my spouse (he did no such courtesy with his family- he talked all the crap about me). and 3) I wasn’t ready to hear my family’s opinion. Some members of my family had genuinely bad takes, but some people were just going to say things I wasn’t ready for. Like why did I keep trying with someone who wasn’t trying? I was scared of what came next, and I wasn’t ready to invite that fear until I absolutely had to. I also didn’t want to put my marriage to a vote- my family had no say on my marriage, and I didn’t want them thinking that they did or hearing “I told you to divorce sooner” or “I told you not to divorce” later.
          And yes, that meant that sometimes I needed to lie to my family’s face. And it meant that I missed out on some support (but it also meant that I missed out on a lot of criticism). In the best case scenario, your brother is balancing a lot of emotions and logistics right now. Worst case….well, worst case is really bad.

          I guess all I’m trying to say is that I understand that you feel blindsided by the divorce, but it’s not that uncommon. If your brother and his STBX are generally good people, then it was likely a case of them trying to make the best of a bad situation and guessing at what the least bad thing would be. (If they aren’t generally good people, all bets are off and you have a pile of different issues).
          Good luck to everyone.

      3. Nancy*

        Their marriage isn’t the extended family’s business, and they do not need to involve family members in discussions about it.

        I would not give details at work other than “family issue” at most.

        1. Baunilha*

          Agreed. OP, I mean this very gently: the couple doesn’t owe you (or anyone else, not even their children) any information about their life. I understand that sometimes a divorce can affect the extended family and so it’s okay to feel frustrated and focus on your work. In fact, it’s great that you are choosing to channel your energy into work rather than meddling! But your brother and his wife have every right to conceal their private lives and even lie about it if they see fit. (I come from a long line of meddlers on my mom’s side, I’ve learned to keep EVERYTHING from them)

      4. JTP*

        I think you need to take 5 giant steps backward. As Alison pointed out, your brother didn’t owe you or the rest of the family information about his marriage.

        If they had ended up working out their issues and NOT divorcing, and you had all that information from their issues, how would your brother’s spouse be viewed by the family afterward? Would you ever treat them the same again?

      5. I've Escaped Cubicle Land*

        My parents didn’t divorce until I was in my thirties but I was basically turned into my mom’s emotional support pet during it. I signed up for a Tai Chi class twice a week and it was what kept me sane during that time. I remember the instructor saying “When you come in, leave your stress at the door. Its ok to not pick it up again when you leave”

      6. I've Escaped Cubicle Land*

        It is hard to learn the fine line between being there if someone needs support and meddling. Especially if you grow up in a boundary crossing family. Distracting your self with tasks is a good way to channel that energy. As long as you are just busy rearranging boxes and not like, slamming them around, I think its fine. I had a retail job where I always volunteered to unload and stock the big bags of dog food. It was a great work out. The boys who worked there loved that I did most of the work they would usually get stuck with. I was pregnant at the time and the poor boss about had a heart attack when he saw me lifting the bigger bags. He finally banned me from the 50 lb bags. this was way back in the 90’s. I had a pretty short and fairly easy delivery because I was so physically active at work.

      7. We’re Six*

        I mean, the only people who actually know what’s really going on in a marriage are the people in the marriage. And they do have the right to put on a brave face to everyone else for as long as they want, for whatever reason, until they decide to stop. And “everyone else” includes other family members. Yes even if they got advice from you 10 years ago. It’s not like those 10 years were a waste???? That’s a whole damn decade. We’ve had 3 presidents since then plus a pandemic. So I kind of don’t know why you’re hung up on “why did they even ask for my advice back in 2014 if they were just going to call it quits all the way here in 2024 anyway?!”

        Our feelings happen and we can’t always help feeling them. But we can help how we deal with them and how we let them affect other areas of our life. So that is something you can do—not letting something which is very much not your actual business (the ins and outs of your brother’s marriage) affect YOUR work.

      8. Ellis Bell*

        I think you’re on the exact right path by concentrating on distractions and on things you can control. As far as the work advice goes, try to extend that and to make yourself more efficient and more dynamic at work if possible, but if you need to be inefficient and do things the long way round, just make sure you’re the only one impacted by the extra time and that nothing else is being held up by it. I sometimes do more walking the floor at the work than is strictly necessary, and it’s mainly for my own reasons, but I combine it with keeping an eye on the things people who stay stationary can’t, and being somewhat useful. As for the outside of work stuff, what may or not be applicable going forward is: 1) Don’t give advice if you’re too invested in the outcome/it being used, 2) People in our lives usually appreciate a willingness to have their backs following mistakes or misfortune more than they appreciate our life changing wisdom, even if we genuinely have it, 3) If people are being outrageous jerks to the point of harm, you can say as much, but you still can’t expect their choices to mirror what yours would be, 4) Whenever I’m really invested in what other people’s choices are, I do an audit on my own life choices and how happy I am, just to make extra sure I’m not trying to make my values and goals happen through other people. 5) Sometimes we just worry about other people and that’s okay. (apologies if none of this is relevant; as an eldest sibling who gets hit up for advice way too much, it’s just an in case of emergency kit on my part).

      9. Maggie*

        The family has no right to pry whatsoever, or know anything about their marriage, so it sounds like they lied to get meddling family from harassing them. Please look up the term family enmeshment, this sounds incredibly unhealthy.

        1. We’re Six*

          “Please look up the term family enmeshment, this sounds incredibly unhealthy.”

          Yes I was trying to remember that term but couldn’t! Thank you!
          And I get it—when our family members are struggling, we want to help them. That’s totally normal. But the best way to help your brother, sister-in-law, their kids, etc is just to sort of be there for them? In a “I’m here, no pressure” kind of way?

      10. Observer*

        It’s mainly because I was led to believe things were going well between them, but that was actually a concerted lie to make the whole extended family not pry to deep.

        I get why you were angry and hurt. But now that you have had a chance to take a breath, I think it’s worth thinking about why they did this. If they had reason to fear that the truth would lead the extended family to meddle, I really cannot blame them for trying to protect themselves.

        The need to distract myself was to prevent myself from doing anything that could be seen as meddling.

        That was a wise move. I saw your other comment about the extra work you made for yourself, so yeah, I don’t think it was a big deal.

      11. jasmine*

        > a concerted lie to make the whole extended family not pry to deep

        The fact that this is something they had to worry about makes me think the family is the problem, not them for shielding themselves instead of letting it happen and not complaining. No one should insert themselves into in a marriage that isn’t their own.

      12. Meep*

        I get that it is a shock, but politely, even if they are family, their martial woes shouldn’t be laid out for everyone to see. Especially when they are still figuring out themselves.

        One of the real fights my husband and I got into while dating is he would tell his family any time we got into a minor argument. It was almost a deal breaker for me. Not because of shame, but because you automatically take your family’s side while the two people it actually involves often forgive and forget shortly after. I didn’t want them keeping score for something WE had long gotten over.

        I think you need to re-evaluate why this feels like a betrayal when it is frankly NOT your relationship in the first place.

      13. Chirpy*

        My uncle not immediaty telling my grandparents that he was getting divorced wasn’t him trying to hurt them by not admitting his marriage was in trouble, it was likely him trying to come to terms with it himself and being afraid to disappoint them. And my aunt refusing to tell his parents for him was self-preservation on her part, because that *shouldn’t* be her job to tell them. Neither did it to hurt or deliberately mislead the family, they were just hurting and in the middle of a mess and probably worried about their kid and trying to navigate a whole divorce.

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      For the family side, I don’t think the brother needed to honestly confide in people before he was ready.

      But as a generic work question, I think it’s fine.
      • I am stressed about something outside work.
      • I have enough flexibility to move a physically intensive thing in and do that right now, muttering silently to the boxes I am moving or holes I am digging. (Do make sure this is silent, as ranting at the holes will alarm those around you.)
      • I am going to do this in a somewhat less efficient manner so it lasts long enough to wear out the hamsters in my mind.

      I think the second one is fine to briefly explain in a lot of work contexts, and the third should be shared much less freely. There are places it would generate the response “Yup, I’ve been there” and others “Sooooo…. you are moving things pointlessly around and leaving me to file your TPS reports?”

      1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

        I laughed at your second point. Most of the time, I am utterly alone in the warehouse, and I’ve often thought out loud – only to get a response from someone who’s just come to the back and I didn’t notice. I probably jump three feet out of my skin when that happens.

      2. Festively Dressed Earl*

        I think I’ll start a band called Brain Hamsters. Our first album will be Ranting At Holes.

    7. Generic Name*

      If a colleague told me they were working their anger out because their brother was getting divorced, at best I’d give them some serious side eye. It might also make me avoid them, because what other things that barely affect them will get them angered.

      Also OP, you and the rest of your family are not entitled to private information about other people’s relationships. I suggest you do some serious reflection as to why your brother’s divorce is affecting you this much. I assume the divorce has nothing to do with you (as in you weren’t sleeping with his wife?), so at best your role is to be a supportive family member.

      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        Hey. While LW isn’t entitled to information, it’s not unreasonable for them to be upset. They presumably like and care about both Brother and SIL, and presumably love their niblings, and this is a big and upsetting change to their family, that distresses people they care about. I’ve been upset when friends I’ve barely seen in five years got divorced. I didn’t put all my “I really like you both as people and want you to be happy and also looked up to and admired you as semi-peer queer folks with a long-term stable relationship and I feel like I’m losing something beyond the ability to see you both at the same time” feelings on them, but it wasn’t unreasonable to have them. LW is probably WAY closer to their family than that, and this will affect family dynamics, and who comes to family gatherings, and will be a big disruptive change for their niblings.

        And while it makes sense that the brother didn’t tell LW, it’s reasonable to have feelings that this came out of nowhere, even if “apparently came out of nowhere” is a common way to get news like this.

        1. Jackalope*

          Thank you for saying this. Public discussion about divorce tends to focus mostly on the divorcing couple and their kids, and understandably so. But a divorce has ripple effects on the whole family and friend group, and it’s 100% understandable that the people who are close to them will also have grief issues. I know when my sibling got divorced, it changed the whole family dynamic for awhile, and since said sibling didn’t get primary custody it meant that I see my niblings – whom I was fairly close to – nearly as much, which was really hard. It also meant a lot of changes to my sibling’s life in so many ways that have affected the rest of us as well. So please don’t pretend that it’s something that only affects the couple and their kids.

          For the LW: if you’re still having a lot of big feelings, I would also recommend doing something outside of work to cope so you have less intensity with the work coping strategies. Maybe take some long walks, go to the gym, write in a journal, etc. That way if you are blowing off steam at work it will help make it less frantic (since it sounds like that might be an issue).

          2. Meep*

            On the flipside, when my aunt decided to up and leave my uncle after 27 years of marriage out of the blue (bless her, but she had a history of randomly going no-contact with her parents and brother over the decades, so I guess it was his turn), I’ve actually seen my uncle and cousins a whole lot more in the proceeding 3 years since?

            Divorce is not always a bad thing.

    8. learnedthehardway*

      Seriously – the level of involvement this person has, and their expectation that the brother / his wife owe another person information about the state of their marriage is BEYOND strange.

      If the OP feels they need to work off their emotional reaction to the situation, then perhaps hitting the gym or running some laps would be a good physical outlet.

    9. PhyllisB*

      I think it was the deliberate lies that upset them. If I found out someone in my family deliberately lied to me about something, I would feel hurt and betrayed. And I would definitely look for a safe physical outlet to work out my hurt and worry. My house is never so clean as when I’m upset about something. (My husband jokes about how he needs to find a way to upset me more often.)

      1. Rex Libris*

        Given the LW’s fairly intense emotional reaction, it’s plausible that the brother withheld information from the family precisely to avoid overly emotional family members inserting themselves into the situation.

        I have to say I’d do the same thing, assuming a family dynamic where drama or meddling seemed the likely outcome of sharing.

      2. I've Escaped Cubicle Land*

        This!! I can understand the why if OP or other family members tend to meddle in the past, but as someone who grew up in a pretty dysfunctional boundary crossing family with at least 1 very manipulative person pulling on puppet strings, having stuff deliberately hid from me or flat out lied to about was things I was just unable to forgive when I finally did find out. It’s why I went no or low contact with several immediate family members. Especially when my minor child was instructed by them to lie or hide things. that was the last straw.

        1. Laura LL*

          That’s understandable in your situation, but this doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here and I do think LW’s response seems out of proportion to what happened.

        2. Observer*

          Especially when my minor child was instructed by them to lie or hide things.

          That’s a very different thing that what the LW is describing though. Dealing with your child’s situation is not meddling by any stretch of the imagination. And no one has any business telling a child to keep secrets from their parent. (Side note, this is a *classic* move by abusers- so much that one thing that child advocates try to teach kids is to report any such instruction because it’s such a deep red flag.)

          But none of that is relevant here. Protecting yourself from the whole extended family’s meddling is very legitimate.

      3. Observer*

        I think it was the deliberate lies that upset them.

        yes. That’s what the LW says in a comment.

        The problem is that that same comment makes it clear WHY the sibling did that. And the sibling was probably right – they were trying to keep the “whole extended family from meddling.” I think that that’s a very good reason for an information black out. And I can’t really blame the sibling for lying to maintain the black out.

        Especially since the LW also doesn’t seem to see that there was actual meddling. Although to their credit they *are* trying to keep their reactions to themselves rather than meddle or “do things that are perceived as meddling.”

        1. Le Sigh*

          I agree, but will also note that even if family doesn’t have a history of meddling, it’s still fine for the sibling to pretend things were fine. The state of another person’s marriage isn’t something about which I’m owed a fully honest accounting. Yes, I’ve had people close to me announce a divorce, even though they acted like things were fine — but it wasn’t my marriage and sometimes people need to work things out for themselves. I was sad or upset, and in a few cases angry at a spouse who acted badly toward the other, but no one betrayed me.

          I agree though, LW is trying to channel this elsewhere, and that’s the good and right move.

    11. Ally McBeal*

      My guess is that LW’s brother cheated on and/or abused his wife. That would explain LW’s anger, the brother’s secrecy, the idea that the whole family needs to be involved in the drama, etc.

      1. Roseberriesmaybe*

        This sounds like a well intentioned comment, but it is not for the commenters to speculate on this as we will never know the answer nor is it our concern

      2. ferrina*

        No evidence of this, and no need to speculate.

        Divorce and weddings bring out a weird set of emotions in families. Different families/family members have different levels of involvement. The secrecy isn’t abnormal either- some couples really, really don’t like sharing marital struggles outside the marriage and are good at keeping it hidden, so you only really know it’s ending once it has already ended. No need to speculate the cheating/abuse- a normal low-drama marriage that is ending is emotional enough to bring out these feelings.

      3. Rex Libris*

        There is nothing in the letter to suggest that. It’s just as likely that the family has a history of emotional drama and overstepping boundaries, and the brother wanted to avoid that.

    12. Margaret Cavendish*

      But…do you need to understand that? Lw3 has said they’re having family problems that are impacting their work, and is wondering how much to disclose to their colleagues.

      How much more do you need to understand, in order to give advice? If you knew more about the specifics of LW3’s brother’s marriage, how would that change what you say to LW3 here?

    13. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

      I’ve seen a couple of people get really invested in the end of other people’s relationships, so although I agree it seems like something that “shouldn’t” upset the OP, it’s not something that could never happen.
      I feel like this is one of those times when you can choose to read the situation in kind light, you know what I mean? Like, you’re absent of context, so you can choose to apply a context that makes it reasonable.

    14. Laura LL*

      I think they’re mad about being lied to even though the issues in their brother’s marriage are mostly likely none of their business. (It’s possible there’s some reason they shouldn’t have been lied to, but I think it’s unlikely).

  3. Prefer pets*

    I really wish part of our on-boarding required trainings (which all have quizzes you must pass) was one about when to use “reply” “reply all” “cc” and “bcc”

    Also that IT would add a feature into our email system that would give a pop-up asking if you really mean to use the “to” or “reply all” line instead of the “bcc” or “reply” when there are over X number of recipients.

    (of course, I do enjoy a good reply-all storm now & again. I particularly enjoyed our recent one where people started replying with their local weather reports from all over the US, some other people gave helpful advice including screenshots on how to hide an entire message chain as new messages come in, obligatory popcorn gifs…)

    1. coffee*

      Oh I love that people replied with their weather reports! A good email storm is so entertaining. (Disruptive, yes. But entertaining.)

    2. High Score!*

      It amazes me that emails with over a certain number of recipients are not automatically BCC.

      1. Ann on a Moose*

        There are times where mail threads will need to be sent between multiple whole teams, whether for visibility or for some other reason. I rarely send an email in my day to day work with fewer than 4 recipients, and getting recipient numbers into the 30s isn’t uncommon. And yes, in most cases I’d expect a reply all so that everyone knows it’s been taken care of.

  4. Indolent Libertine*

    FWIW, LW3, based on how extremely personally you’re taking the news and how angry you seem about something that really doesn’t directly involve you, I wouldn’t have been eager to share personal struggles with you either. Many couples keep problems close to the vest as long as they hold out hope that things can still work out, because it’s much more difficult for a reconciliation to work if everyone else knows what’s been happening and has taken sides. It was their absolute right not to tell you, this is not something they’re doing AT you, please take a few steps back and don’t make this painful part of their lives about you.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I mean I don’t know, we really don’t know anything about the situation. Maybe LWs brother was serialling cheating on his wife and using OP as cover and now the brother is having a baby with their affair partner.

      1. Aardvark*

        Even if it was these things, it is perfectly okay for the couple to be trying to work things out themselves before involving extended family. LW seems to think they are entitled to know everything straight away, rather than just acknowledging some things are kept private until making them public is necessary.

        1. Nodramalama*

          Ok well then you have different families but if my brother was making me complicit in a lie and betrayal I would expect to be informed.

          1. Al*

            you just made up an entire fake situation and got defensive about it lmao what on earth????

            1. Nodramalama*

              Lol what? Any situation anyone says is made up because we know literally nothing about what the scenario is. It’s not defensive to point out that there are times where this hard stance of “there is no possible scenario where LW should expect to be involved” isn’t realistic.

              1. sparkle emoji*

                Your imagined situation is still a lot of speculation based on very little. Maybe that soap opera storyline really is what’s happening. However, it’s reasonable for others to point out that outside that specific far flung option, there’s plenty of other relationship issues that a couple is entitled to keep private until they decide they want to end things. If the divorce is of the more pedestrian variety, it’s useful for the LW to know how people on the couple side of similar situations chose to handle things and why.

        2. Ellis Bell*

          The assumption that divorcing couples “work things out between themselves” always amuses me. I remember a friend being told to do that when she called the cops on her abusive partner.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I don’t think Aardvark was saying divorcing couples should always keep things between themselves, just that it is fine for them to do so if they both wish to.

        3. ANON FOR A WHILE*

          LW3 here – I not only Do Not Want all the details, I rather wish I didn’t know what I already know. My anger and frustration are more directed towards the general deception that led the rest of us to believe that things have been going well between them for an extemded time, when that’s nothing more than a facade.

          1. Baela Targaryen*

            You were never entitled to that information in the first place, and your expectations are completely unreasonable.

            1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

              My expectations are nothing more and nothing less than: “How do I be a good brother in this situation?” I care about them and their kids very much, and I’d rather see the fallout mitigated as much as possible.

              I shared nothing of my own struggles with them and I’m not surprised they’re keeping things to themselves.

              When it comes to the raw emotional reaction, what even is reasonable?

              Sure, I could work on an attitude of “This is not my problem” because it really isn’t my direct problem – but if someone’s drowning and I feign ignorance, that’s on me.

              Wanting to help however I can is entirely reasonable, just as not being permitted the access needed to do so is reasonable from their end.

              1. Knope Knope Knope*

                You be a good brother by respecting your sibling’s privacy, autonomy and, if you want to take it a step further, say “how can I help?” then help in the ways they say they need.

          2. Margaret Cavendish*

            Your anger and frustration are totally legit! It can be hard to find out that things aren’t necessarily what they seem in your family, and no doubt you’re feeling some empathy for your brother and/or his wife as well. Divorce is hard, not just on the couple who are divorcing and their kids – it can have an impact on lots of people outside that immediate family.

            I like Alison’s advice – do what you need to do, and don’t worry about disclosing anything unless it starts to get noticeable to other people. Hopefully the big feelings will pass soon, and you can re-settle into your normal routines again.

          3. sparkle emoji*

            LW, this sounds really frustrating, but keeping issues private until they come to a decision seems typical and probably smart. I’ve never been married but I’m going through a breakup currently and kept some serious issues from family until I had a decision because I knew telling them would color their perception of my partner in ways that would make moving forward with him near-impossible. I don’t know the details but I’d hope your brother and his wife weren’t trying to deceive you for deception’s sake, but rather trying to make a difficult decision without worrying or upsetting anyone before there was a reason to do so.
            If you have people outside work you can discuss this with, please do. I think the extra work you’ve described in the comments sounds fine if it helps. Your emotions are understandable.

          4. Immaterial*

            I get feeling shocked at the sudden news and maybe all the backlog of info you’ve just found out. Maybe it feels like you and your brother aren’t as close as you thought, if they didn’t tell you about this.
            I think your instinct to distract yourself and avoid meddling is a good one, as is the advice to try and reframe it as so.ething less personal to you.

            1. Immaterial*

              anyway, I think that just as you don’t want details your coworker also don’t want details. If anyone notices I think you should keep it to something like “trying to keep busy to deal with some family stress”.

          5. I've Escaped Cubicle Land*

            When I have a friend or family member struggling I like to approach it as “I don’t know, nor do I need to know the details, but is something is wrong I am a safe place to either vent or get advice” and if they choose to talk I ask “do you just need to vent or are you wanting advice?” I also promise them that anything they say I will absolutely pretend like I know nothing if anyone else tries to ask about it.

          6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            Having been divorced a couple of times now – the issues in someone else’s marriage are 100% not your business, and if they don’t want to tell you about their marital difficulties, that is absolutely reasonable and appropriate for them not to do so.

            Personally speaking, if my spouse and I are having difficulties and I find out that they’re telling their family members about all our difficulties behind my back and without my knowledge, then we will be having even MORE difficulties. Our relationship agreements allow for a certain level of venting to people that either -a- we both know and trust, or -b- doesn’t know the other one at all, but if he starts dishing dirt about what (he thinks) I’m doing wrong to his family, then the (already dicey) relationships between me and his family will potentially worsen from their side, and that is not fair to me. So yes, if my husband’s brother asks how our relationship is doing, I absolutely expect his answer to be “status quo!” or similar.

          7. renard*

            Hey Anon, it seems like you are framing “keeping things private and keeping up appearances” as lying and deceit. This is a type of black-and-white thinking that won’t serve you well. People aren’t always 100% open, honest, or authentic–even with themselves. People aren’t always ready or able to confront & disclose painful, complicated truths about themselves and their lives. That doesn’t make them liars; it makes them human. You’ll make the situation harder on yourself by insisting that you were lied to/deceived when in reality, you were probably just left in the dark as they were stumbling through their own shadowy landscape. You’re allowed to feel hurt by this, but don’t turn the hurt into anger; that won’t help you or your sibling. Let the hurt you feel make you more compassionate toward others who are in pain, not less.

            1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

              My understanding is that there has been a significant amount of ‘poisoning the well’, to the point that my brother was essentially ‘disinvited’ from a planned major family trip.

              ((by family trip I mean, all of us, our parents, all siblings and kids….)

              1. MigraineMonth*

                Are you saying he was disinvited from a family trip just because he didn’t announce to the entire extended family that he was having trouble in his marriage until he and his spouse decided to split?

                That’s really not good. If I were you, I’d push back on that as hard as possible. Your brother (and niblings) need support and family, not a cold shoulder because he wasn’t ready to air all his dirty laundry.

          8. Laura LL*

            But that’s the thing. They don’t owe you that information. And while I understand being upset at being directly lied to, I think your reaction to that needs to be tempered by the knowledge that you aren’t entitled to know how their (or anyone else’s) marriage is going.

      2. Dido*

        I don’t know why that scenario would change anything about the couple having a right to keep their personal problems to themselves and not have to confess their sins to their entire family

        1. Nodramalama*

          Because I personally would be extremely mad if my brother made me complicit in a betrayal of someone without my knowledge.

          1. Doreen*

            That’s understandable – but that would be an issue between you and your brother that’s totally separate from his relationship with his wife. I mean let’s just say
            my brother was using me as cover for his affair and his wife found out. I am absolutely entitled to be mad at him for involving me in that situation – but why does that entitle me to know the details of what is going on between him and his wife? Is she leaving him , are they in therapy, how is the therapy going – how is any of that my business ? It just isn’t my business , I have no right to be upset if they don’t tell me and if they lie to my face, it’s probably because I won’t accept “ I don’t want to discuss it”

            1. Nodramalama*

              I mean there are just so many assumptions and interpretations in your response that we have literally no information about. We don’t know why this is particuarly contentious, we don’t know why LW feels involved, we don’t know what information LW wanted, we don’t know what lies were told and we don’t know the motives of any of the people involved.

              But I certainly don’t think we can just blanket say “its none of your business the end.” families are complicated. Relationships are complicated.

              1. Doreen*

                The letter says “ There was a deliberate attempt to conceal the issues from me, up to and including lying to my face about how things are with them.” I don’t know what issues were concealed but “ how things are with them “ obviously refers to the married couple’s relationship. Relationships are complicated – but that doesn’t mean my sibling is entitled to know “how it is” between me and my spouse if I don’t want to share.

                1. Nodramalama*

                  Seriously, we just so not know. There are a thousand scenarios where LW is unreasonable and a thousand where they might not be. Maybe concealing things is an unreasonably emotional interpretation that LWs brother wasn’t upfront. Or maybe it means that LWs brother spent years lying about his wife to LW which turned the family against her. We have absolutely no clue.

                2. KateM*

                  That’s basically the family equivalent of your coworker asking “are you planning to quit this job” and you denying it, IMO. None of their business as long as you don’t know for sure yourself.

              2. Snoozing not schmoozing*

                Wait what? You made up a scenario that was not in the letter, and now you’re upset with other people for not treating it as the true story? It’s enough weird to almost distract me from the lethal fart my dog just aimed at me.

                1. Nodramalama*

                  Lol no. I know it’s made up. That was the whole point. That we basically have no clue what has happened in this persons life, so for commenters to just blanket assume that there is no scenario in which LW feels rightfully butthurt they were lied to seems a bit unfair. Literally anything could have happened. Maybe LW is just wildly unreasonable. No clue. For all I know the wife is a cat burglar and burgled LWs house

              3. Baela Targaryen*

                I mean there are just so many assumptions and interpretations in your response that we have literally no information about.

                Have you…. read your own comments on this post????

      3. Jellybeans*

        A lot of comments writing increasingly elaborate hypotheticals in the comments. Isn’t that against the rules?

        1. Knope Knope Knope*

          Yeah aren’t we supposed to take LWs at their word? Their word is they are upset about the potential divorce, and that they have been lied to about it. FWIW I think the main acceptable emotional response at work is to take some time off if it starts to impact your productivity or attitude

        2. Nodramalama*

          Well my point was to pick a particuarly elaborate hypothetical, not because I think thats what’s happened, but to make the point that I think basically assuming without having any details that LW is fundamentally unreasonable at being left in the dark is unfair to them, because we really have zero details about what has happened.

          1. Margaret Cavendish*

            I agree with you. LW3’s basic question is “I’m under a lot of stress and it’s impacting my work – how much of this do I disclose to my colleagues?” The cause of the stress doesn’t matter.

            And honestly none of us gets to have an opinion on whether or not Lw3’s feelings are “reasonable,” according to our own personal criteria of how to judge strangers on the internet.

            1. sparkle emoji*

              Sure, but I think a lot of the advice has been that this isn’t really something that makes sense for them to disclose, at least in the detail they’ve given here. If they want to do extra work to de-stress, they need a more blah innocuous excuse if someone asks. Telling coworkers that they’re upset about a divorce for a couple they’re not a member of could draw reactions like we’re seeing in the comments and make coworkers who’ve gone through divorce feel like LW might judge them.

        3. I should really pick a name*

          If you come across something you think is breaking the rules, flag it by responding to the post and including a link in your response.

      4. KateM*

        And OP would be mad only now? They were quite OK with helping their brother to cheat before? Doesn’t compute for me.

        1. Nodramalama*

          Lol ok well this isn’t a real example but the hypothetical is that LW didn’t know their brother was cheating and brother was using them as an excuse

      5. Rex Libris*

        Maybe LWs brother is secretly working undercover for the CIA and the OP is upset because he knows the wife is being threatened by foreign assassins. There is exactly the same evidence for either scenario based on the letter.

      6. GreenGirl*

        In which case he could be angry that they dragged him into their issues, but he still needs to not take it out at work. While it’s true that we are not machines that are unaffected by emotions, we do need to be able to preform our jobs even when emotions are high. If he can’t he should see if he can use some sick days and get his head on straight. Maybe he can’t because he’s already struggling to make ends meet in which case he’ll need to compartmentalize. Easier said than done, but sometimes necessary.

    2. Two cents*

      While I agree that it is none of his business in theory, and that the couple has a right to keep information about their relationship to themselves, in practice life is a lot messier than that. Sometimes it is because other people overstep their bounds and make it about them (I’m looking at YOU specific family member!). But sometimes it is because the situation is really awful, which counts double when children are involved. If someone I care about is lying to me, is getting screwed over, is acting truly horrifically to someone else I care about, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN, I think it is only human to have emotions about it. And having emotions about it doesn’t mean I’m trying to center the discussion on me, only that I am having emotions about it. The question is how to deal with those emotions.

      We can knit together all sorts of made up narratives that make the letter writer out to be an awful, boundary stomping, pot-stirring, self-centered glassbowl or exactly the opposite, a wonderful, caring, hurting, empathetic human who is seeing something horrific unfold for people he cares about (possibly innocent children caught in the collateral) and isn’t achieving impeccable emotional distance from it like most of us humans wouldn’t: the reality is that we don’t know and we won’t know. What I think would be maximally nice is if we can cut the letter writer some slack in what sounds like a really hard situation.

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Nothing in the letter says anyone is acting truly horrifically and especially not towards children. The parents are considering divorce. That isn’t horrific, and the reasons for it don’t have to be horrific either. Divorce is hard on kids, but if both parents focus on the kid’s welfare it’s often better than parents remaining in a marriage they don’t want to be in.

        1. Two cents*

          Absolutely! But we also don’t have enough information to say that he’s acting like a self centered glassbowl. That’s exactly my point. We don’t know. We have very little information to go because that’s not really what the letter was about.

      2. sparkle emoji*

        I think this is fair, but my main advice to the LW would be they need to deal with their emotions here away from the divorcing family and preferably outside of work. Doing the “extra work” they’ve described in the comments is ok, but I don’t think they should tell anyone why they’re doing it. Give a different excuse like “the mess has been bothering me” or “I had time today, and I’ve been wanting to get x done for a while” or “I wanted the extra walk” etc. if asked.

  5. Educator*

    Love Alison’s suggestions for LW1! Challenging that bias is really important work. I grew up in a place that where the culture tends to generate a lot of warm and personable communicators and I now works in a big city on a coast. While there are times when my cultural communication style is an asset (making clients feel comfortable, giving a presentation, at a networking event, etc.), there are also times when it is a liability. I am glad I have my colleagues who were raised to communicate differently around me to offer advice when I need to be more direct or when I need to come across as more objective. Working at a place with many perspectives has really helped me grow into a more adaptable and balanced professional.

    1. Pizza Rat*

      We always say “culture add, not culture fit” to get away from the mindset that everyone should be alike, and to encourage thinking critically about who may bring a new, different, or otherwise unconventional perspective.

      Also, for what it’s worth, I’m naturally biased against those from the Midwest — I find their Os so grating. One of my colleagues has a very strong Minnesota accent and her voice takes some getting adjusted to — she’s great, but I wouldn’t have given her a chance if I had made a decision based on her demographic profile! So I just try to think about all I’ve learned from her, especially since we have to take the “bad” with the good in literally every single person.

      1. Nodramalama*

        Lol this thread makes it clear I have precious little knowledge of u.s geography because I thought minnesota was in the north

          1. Beth**

            There is a “northeast” and a “north west” but the middle northern bit is the “midwest”. The eastern and middle southern bits are “the south”. Then there is the “southwest”. Simples.

            1. Panda (she/her)*

              As a Canadian in the Great Lakes region, I find it hilarious that the LW refers to Chicago and Great Lakes as “Midwest” when it is clearly east of the centre of the US. Of course I am also a hypocrite because I consider myself an Easterner (in Canada) which I’m sure those in the Maritime provinces would disagree with).

              1. TheMonkey*

                It’s a holdover from the… 1800s(? I think). Whenever the Northwest Territories were added to the country or thereabouts. Since the US didn’t always go all the way to the Pacific, the definition of ‘west’ has been a moving target over time.

              2. Portlandia*

                It’s cultural as well as geographical and started as the country grew east to west…

                1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                  This. These terms showed up before the country reached its (currently) final borders. It’s also why “the West” has often meant “west of the Mississippi” even though the Mississippi is not really even near the middle, why Texas is often included in the West despite being more in the middle, and why St Louis is the Gateway to the West. It doesn’t hurt that in terms of population, the “west” speaking generally is quite thinly populated compared to the east coast, so there was a tendency (maybe still is?) for east coasters to consider there to be the eastern seaboard and it’s immediate neighbors, then everything else as “the west” broadly speaking. These basically are historical relics, and cultures worldwide don’t always change names like that even if they gradually become technically inaccurate.

                  I mean, the New Forest in England was named that in 1086. The English haven’t renamed that for the same reason the US hasn’t renamed the above places: nobody from the area finds it confusing, so why introduce confusion by trying to uproot a commonly-in-use, harmless name?

              3. Great Frogs of Literature*

                Yeah, everything west of Pennsylvania or Ohio starts being at least a little bit “west” because of colonization patterns, with European settlers starting on the east coast.

                1. Orv*

                  The University of Michigan fight song refers to them as “the leaders of the West.” ;)

              5. anotherfan*

                lol! I grew up on the shores of Lake Erie in northeastern Ohio and consider myself a Midwesterner!

              6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

                Yeah, it started being called the “midwest” when the country mostly ended at the Mississippi, and they never changed it from there :P

              8. Laura LL*

                It’s because that was the actual West for a long time. And then as the country started expanding west it became the middle west.

                Also, it helps to remember that while 3 different countries were trying colonize the continent (Spain, France, England (and I guess the Netherlands for a short while)), the English colonizers and their descendants won out and they colonized it from the East to the West so all this stuff is based on their perspective.

            2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

              Let’s not forget the Mid-Atlantic (waves from Maryland). And some people carve out the Great Plains between Midwest and West.

              1. Mid-Atlantic Dweller*

                Came here to say this. The Mid-Atlantic region is definitely Delaware and Maryland and depending on who you ask southeast Pennsylvania (think Philadelphia and its suburbs, south Jersey, and maybe northeast or eastern Virginia.

            3. Clisby*

              Except that some of the states considered “midwest” are clearly more eastern. I never really thought about it until I moved from SC to Ohio, but Ohio is well east of Mississippi. Why it’s considered “midwest” is beyond me.

              1. Jam on Toast*

                Ooh, ooh! I can answer that! In the 1810s and 1820s, the ‘West’ referred to states and territories immediately west of the Appalachian mountains, and not the western side of the continent. Access to the near west in the pre-railroad era was facilitated by the building of the first federally funded highway system, known as the National Road. Construction started started in the early 1810s, and it ran for about 600 miles or so.

                1. Clisby*

                  But then why are Mississippi and Louisiana not considered the midwest? Or southwest? They’re both considerably west of Ohio.

                2. Goldfeesh*

                  @Clisby Because they’re in the South/Old Confederacy. The US Civil War in the 1860s also influenced some of the area naming conventions as well.

                3. AF Vet*

                  @Clisby – They were also part of the Spanish & French empire (Huzzah Napolean family weirdness), so they aren’t part of the “west of Appalachia” region until after Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory.

          2. 2QS*

            Also not from the U.S., but I lived there for a few years and this issue really fascinated me. I think the key here is that the U.S. as an entity far predates the boundaries of the contiguous 48 states, so a lot of the names for geographic regions are a little wonky and/or detached from the current extent of the country. To the extent that there is a North, it’s sort of an abstract label and/or holdover from the Civil War (Northeast + most of the mid-Atlantic states + parts of the Midwest). It contrasts with the South, which is the southeast broadly, but the line dividing that from the North fizzles out somewhere the farther west you go. There is a Southwest (though in practice it often excludes the coastal regions or California entirely), and there is a (Pacific) Northwest (though that sometimes includes Alaska and/or the parts of Canada in between), but mostly the entire West gets lumped together and can encompass pretty much anything west of the Mississippi other than, like, Texas/Louisiana/Oklahoma, which are pretty indisputably South.

            2. Dust Bunny*

              You’ll also sometimes see “Mountain West” which is what is under the Rockies.

            3. Gretchen*

              Texas is not exactly the South and not exactly Southwest. I grew up there and then moved to the Carolinas (the true South). It became clear after a few years that my cultural context was a little bit South and a little bit Southwest, especially if you consider the Hispanic influence to be part of what makes something “Southwest”. Plus, Texas is so big that it encompasses lots of different cultures. I think Oklahoma is also somewhere between South and Midwest. Louisiana is definitely the South.

              1. Columbill*

                I’ve always considered Texas just Texas, but consider Oklahoma part of the Texas region. Not the south, not the west. I guess part of the south west of you add that designation

            4. BethDH*

              Yes, I have heard this explanation too, and part of what keeps that earlier regional division live is that the states that are more geographically north-central like the Dakotas and Nebraska are sparsely populated compared to the traditional “Midwest” states so they don’t have as strong a presence in influencing people’s mental maps.

            5. BikeWalkBarb*

              I live in the Pacific NW and find lumping together the whole West to be not very useful if you’re talking about anything cultural or political. I lived in Idaho before, Washington now, and the two states couldn’t be more different in those realms.

              Geographically, fine, it’s the western side of the continent. Where the West starts depending on what you’re reading amuses me. I’ve read Kansas and Oklahoma defined as being in the West and they’re in the middle (with Kansas in the West North Central Midwest and Oklahoma in the West South Central South if you get technical and use the US Census approach with four primary regions and nine subdivisions). I recognize the variable definitions of “West” arise from the history of white settler expansion with a moving western edge.

              Journalist Colin Woodard did a really interesting analysis of the political cultures in the US that adds nuance to the various clusters. He describes the US as being 11 nations. Under his definition I live in the Left Coast. Works for me.

              1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                In a lot of the cultural imagination, if there were cowboys there in the 1800s, it counts as the west. I think that’s part of why Oklahoma and Kansas sneak in.

              2. Rooby*

                Yeah the “west” would typically mean West Coast, so WA/OR/CA but not Idaho. But the Pacific Northwest would be WA/OR/ID, and sort of northern CA sometimes depending on context

                1. DisgruntledPelican*

                  As someone in WA, I would consider The West and The West Coast as two different things.

                2. Anja*

                  I think of the Pacific Northwest as being only from the Cascade and Coast mountains in the east over to the coast in the west. (former British Columbia resident)

              3. Columbill*

                Until relatively recently (as in early 2000s), Oregon, Washington and Idaho were the same in terms of politics and culture.

                1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                  Really? I lived in Idaho from 1992 to 2001, and still visit frequently, and that wasn’t the case at all in my experience. Idaho had way more in common with Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. My partner grew up in Washington at about the same time and the differences between the two were wild.

                  Unless you’re talking exclusively about Eastern Washington/the Inland Empire, in which case they’re still very similar. If you average out Eastern and Western Washington, though, the differences remain stark.

                2. Columbill*

                  Washington and Oregon got significantly more liberal. Oregon was a swing state during Bush/Gore, meanwhile Idaho has moved towards the right. The three were largely (geographically) made up of agriculture/timber, with one large population hub (Seattle/Portland/Boise)

                3. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                  Huh, interesting! I associated that more with the 70s and 80s. Learn something new every day!

            6. Crepe Myrtle*

              Texas and Oklahoma are definitely southwest, not south. (from someone in the south) lol

            7. sb51*

              And the Midwest can get divided into Great Plains and Rust Belt (with some leftover that isn’t really either). Rust Belt is the former industrial heart of the nation around the Great Lakes cities (including Pittsburgh, even if it’s not on the lakes); Great Plains is the very flat agricultural western half of the Midwest. The leftover includes the northern Great Lakes stuff that was never industrial enough to be Rust Belt, the bits that border Appalachia and fit more with it, etc. Sometimes the Rust Belt gets called the Great Lakes portion, or the Inland North, or a variety of other things. (I’m originally from a Rust Belt city and don’t find the name insulting; it points to our proud industrial working heritage, even if it also points out that that has had struggles in the more recent past. But some people don’t like it.)

              Note that from a geological standpoint, it’s a set of flatlands reaching from Texas up through Canada); it’s where the Dust Bowl happened, and that doesn’t completely align with the cultural use – the western half of the Great Plains gets attached to the West culturally a lot of the time, and the southern bit to either Texas (if it’s its own thing) or the South, etc; the boundaries from a cultural sense are fluid. And the more eastern agricultural bits of the Midwest that have a lot in common with the Great Plains may get lumped in too.

          3. MsSolo (UK)*

            My understanding of US regions it’s there’s North East, South East, and East, then there’s West, More West, Yet More West, How Much Further West Does This Continent Even Go, and Finally! The West Coast.

            1. bamcheeks*

              same! Also that culturally, you go further and further west for the hardcore “if I see one other person in the distance that’s encroaching on my personal space” until bam! you’re suddenly in Seattle or Portland and everyone’s a lesbian in birkenstocks sitting on each other’s knees in a coffee shop*.

              (* some details may have been changed)

              1. CV*

                For cultural regions and differences, people might be interested in the book _American Nations_ which looks at how the immigrants from different European countries which settled in particular areas, influenced the way those US regions developed.

          4. AF Vet*

            Ehhh… I just left the Dakotas, and I refer to them as the Northern Tier.

            Fun fact! Did you know that Toronto, Ontario is actually SOUTH of Rapid City, SD and basically parallel to the SD/NE border? :)

        2. Dust Bunny*

          Minnesota is Upper Midwest, so it’s both. But it’s very definitely east-west Midwestern.

          1. Constance Lloyd*

            Within the Midwest, we’re basically 3 sub-regions anyway. Minnesota and Missouri are very different, culturally. “Midwest” honestly just feels like a polite way to say flyover country.

            2. hohumdrum*

              I mean, that’s not true though, because flyover country also includes a lot of land that is markedly not the midwest.

            1. Rooby*

              That one’s good. (Lol at Florida; the cheese stands alone. It really doesn’t fit neatly into any other region though.)

            2. ACM*

              That’s a good one, but me personally I’d include the northern Gulf Coast as its own sub-regions. There’s a stretch from Destin to New Orleans (thereabouts on either end) which have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of their states. I live on the Alabama Gulf Coast and it’s more laidback than it if you went further into the state.

            3. Festively Dressed Earl*

              Actually, the South should be extended to about the middle of the word “Florida”, and the farthest southwest quadrant of Florida should be labeled “Southern Northeast.”

        4. Medium Sized Manager*

          I had a college lecture over a decade that really stuck with me, and it talked about how the regions are widely subjective and made up. The point was really driven home by a passionate 20 year old talking about how x state is ABSOLUTELY part of the midwest and the lecture materials are wrong.

          1. Rooby*

            True but that’s kind of true for everywhere. I’m sure the boundaries of like, the bourdeaux region aren’t strictly geographical (though for all I know I may have chosen an example that is! Lol); it’s not just an American phenomenon.

        5. Midwesterner*

          Minnesota is in the north. It borders Canada, so it’s in the northern part of the US; and it’s in the middle east/west wise.

          FWIW I don’t consider Ohio the midwest. I think of midwest as cultural as well as geographical. Midwest to me is: North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas (on the cusp), Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and maybe Indiana. Not sure what I think of Michigan…not really midwest to me.

          I say this as someone who grew up somewhere within 2 hours driving distance of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota.

          1. hohumdrum*

            Grew up in Michigan and I can tell you every person there considers Ohio and Michigan solidly, undebatably Midwest.

            The distinction you may be thinking of is about sub-regions, where culturally there is a different between Great Lakes region midwest and Plains region midwest. There are absolutely similar overarching cultural things between all those midwest states, but there are also cultural aspects that make Great Lakes culture different than Plains culture.

            Michigan, culturally, is very akin to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, and upper Illinois. So if you include Minnesota and Wisconsin as culturally midwest you really gotta include Michigan.

            That said, I’ve met a lot of folks from Ohio and Indiana who insist they are Southern-adjacent, which is patently false but those folks were, how shall I put this, definitely looking to justify why they had confederate flags up around their house so I suspect they were talking about a very, very specific kind of cultural definition about the South…

          2. Pescadero*

            A large part of the definition of “midwest” comes from the “Northwest Territory” – which was Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

        6. Head Sheep Counter*

          As you can tell… you aren’t alone. I’ve always lived on the the West Coast (as in the ocean is walkable from my house). I have opinions about the middle of the country. They are often though overly simplistic. It is interesting that there’s not a strong cultural North for the country as a whole. In fact, I think there’s a blindness about Canada and a blindness about how big the country really is (in terms of differences and what the impact of living on the Canadian border might be like to those of us who very much think of Canada as a long-ish flight away).

          The US is huge. For example its a 12-16 hour drive from San Francisco to Seattle. Its a 2-3 day drive from San Francisco to the Twin Cities. Its 10 hours or more from San Francisco via car to San Diego. Its a 6 hour flight from SFO to Atlanta.

        8. Laura LL*

          It’s in the north, but we north v. south isn’t a very meaningful geographic distinction here. And Minesota is definitely Midwest. I’d consider the Dakotas (which are right net to Minnesota) West or Plains or something like that.

      2. CommanderBanana*

        I love that mindset!

        I’ve gotten very leery when I hear people, especially bosses, talk about “culture fit” because 9.9 times out of 10, that seems to mean “someone just like me” to them.

        1. ferrina*

          Yes! Too often hiring managers see “just like me” as inherently good in a candidate. But what ends up happening is that you’ll get a group of people with similar approaches, strengths and weaknesses.

          Diversity is a business asset. When you have people that have a variety of approaches, experiences, strengths and weaknesses you cover more ground. The approach I use is to look at my team and think “what are we missing?” Are we all of a similar age, all from a similar region, the same race, etc.? That’s a weakness. When evaluating candidates, if I’m choosing between two equal candidates, the one that fills the gaps on my team will get preference.

          I work in consulting, where we have to communicate with a wide and varied population. Having a wide and varied range of life experiences on the team has been a huge value-add in the quality of our work.

          1. NotAnotherManager!*

            The “just like me” concept is always kind of wild to me. I have one of me, I need more of other people. We all have some commonalities that are critical to the industry, but I would not want a team made up of people just like me. I need people who will be good at things I’m not and think of things I don’t. (And, I think some days my boss would say one of me is enough.)

            1. Angstrom*

              My best work partner at Oldjob was in many ways my opposite. Our boss saw that our attributes would be complementry and together we made a great team.

        2. Madame Desmortes*

          In academe, I’ve run into “intellectual fit” as well, and it’s just as not-great. I had to remind people during our last round of hiring that we were starting two new degree programs and that absolutely meant we needed people who were different from us, people who taught and researched things we didn’t then.

          They heard me, fortunately, and we made excellent hires. One cookie-cutter candidate in particular, someone a couple of people were heart-eyes over, this argument helped us avoid hiring. (In my less-hearteyes estimation, they would have been very discombobulated and discontented with our teaching needs; we could not have accommodated the tiny highly-niche seminars they were used to.)

      3. BikeWalkBarb*

        Thank you for “culture add, not culture fit”. Taking that into my agency to share with others. We’ve worked a lot at adapting hiring practices to expand opportunities and this is an additional insight. We also have an initiative around belonging under way and this fits there as well.

  6. Chloe*

    LW1, the fact that you are aware enough to write this letter and know it could be an issue, is the largest part of the battle!

    I work in a company that is also biased towards midwesterners, specially white male midwesterners, and our managers and directors are so clearly biased.

    I don’t like where I work…

    1. Nodramalama*

      As an Australian, is there something about a mid westerner that makes people gravitate towards them? I’ve never heard of this bias before!

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        I think it’s more that people tend to like/feel comfortable with people from similar regional backgrounds, whatever that region is. (For example, there are disproportionately high chances that I will feel an immediate comfort/familiarity with a person from Massachusetts or Rhode Island, which is a sort of culturally distinct region. Both sides of my family are from Boston and there’s something that just feels super comfortable/familiar. If they’re New York or New England Jews, I will nearly always click with them on some level — even if not every level — and they’ll feel like part of my extended family. It’s weird. But of course you can’t hire that way.)

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Another thing is that the U.S. has very distinct regional communication styles. Parts of the midwest are known for being more indirect. East coasters often find midwesterners too indirect, and midwesterners often find east coasters rude. So when you match up with each other’s style, the communication of course feels “better”/more comfortable. It’s actually really fascinating.

          1. Nodramalama*

            Oh fascinating! Im kind of aware that people think new yorkers are rude, and that people in south are fake nice, but I didn’t realise it’s region specific like that.

            1. FG*

              “Fake nice” is a negative slant on what is simply a tendency to be polite when you might feel otherwise. Of course that can be taken to extreme to the point of insincerity when candor might be the better course of action, But the idea that Southerners are all backstabbing hypocrites is a trope that does a deserves to die.

              2. Barm Brack*

                I’m from the south, lived in three southern states, and also lived in NY. I’ve found NYCers to be direct but also very helpful, talkative, and honest—not much small talk, but I’d have amazing in-depth conversations with strangers. Whereas I’ve always found the general southern personality to be much more outwardly friendly, but less direct and helpful. More passive agressive, maybe. It’s an odd thing about traveling—I felt so much more “with my people” up north, maybe because my family were northern Jews, even though I was born and lived in the south for 25 years.

                1. Lady Lessa*

                  Being a US Southerner, I agree with your observations about friendliness down there. Because I’m from Louisville, KY, I’m not from the Deep South, so I can see some of the same things that folks from other regions do.

                  GRIN, I wonder what the LW would make of my accent, I’m told that I still have some southern in it, but have lived all over the country. (and frankly prefer the Midwest.)

                2. MsM*

                  The phrase I’ve heard is that East Coasters are more likely to be “kind but not always nice,” while Midwesterners are “nice but not always kind.” (I’ve always lived on the East Coast, so take that for what it’s worth.)

              3. Portlandia*

                Well that’s what we are talking about with bias. Someone from a more direct region feels that people are “fake” nice when someone from the south may feel that other person is rude. You explained the bias perfectly.

                2. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                  Yeah, amusingly, in explaining these things like this, “southerners are superficial and deceptive” and “midwesterners are fake and not nice” are exactly the kind of bias the LW is asking about, but reversed. Goes to show we all have those biases, and we all tend to justify it with “but when I visited it was totally true!”

                  I have lived all over around people of all US regions (army brat) and I can tell you that, in my experience, kindness is pretty evenly distributed. I have known extremely kind people from New York, Maryland, Georgia, Minnesota, Oklahoma Texas, Idaho, Colorado, California, and Washington. It looks different in different places, but if your gut feeling is “but people from X really are [insert non-objective negative things here]!” you are bought into these biases and might want to look at that.

                  Signed,
                  A currently PNW person, and therefore passive aggressive and polite but not friendly, according to many

                3. Rooby*

                  True but I think the stereotype goes beyond forms of politeness; the stereotype is more that the south tends towards cattiness or passive agression or hiding judgmental mindsets behind more specific and culturally loaded politeness.

                  Again, not saying there’s any merit to that, but when people say “fake nice” they aren’t talking about hiding irritation graciously instead of complaining. They’re talking about a kind of sorority-girl condescension and backbiting hidden behind the niceties.

                4. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                  But it’s still a generalization. Everyone with a bias has a justification for it, and it usually boils down to “it’s okay to apply negative stereotypes based on X, because in *this* case people from X really *are* bad.” I think that’s actually worse than “I hate their communication style,” because you’re saying “People from X are more morally bankrupt, duplicitous, and mean, like catty schoolgirls, and it’s not just a communication mismatch.” (Also, weirdly gendered?)

              5. NotAnotherManager!*

                I mean, there’s a reason the trope exists. I think that classifying every single person from any region in one particular way is generally a terrible idea, but one of the reasons I no longer live in the South is that I don’t need people all up in my business and being nice to my face while blessing my heart behind my back. I wouldn’t call it backstabbing, but I understand why those not immersed in the culture would feel that way. To me, it was more a combination of smaller communities that are less welcoming to “outsiders”, a more homogonous culture that values conformity to their specific norms, and a real penchant for discussing both of those things in a less than positive manner in what is perceived to be people that are like-minded.

                I’m too Southern for the Northerners to accept me, but I’ve gotten too Northern for the Southerners to want to claim me. It actually ends up being a nice balance.

            2. Knope Knope Knope*

              Yup! It can be gendered too. I’m a woman from New York and when I worked in London I was told I was “too direct.” I was like wait, I worked so hard to develop a direct communication style. But I was told it was off putting in the UK. Shrug.

              1. Ellis Bell*

                Hah, if you’d just gone a few hundred miles north you probably would have found your sweet spot. Southerners can be a little alarmed when you tell it like it is without wrappings of tissue paper.

                2. Knope Knope Knope*

                  haha I have also lived and worked in the south. IMO, if you treat people well and fairly, direct ends up being best in work situations. But soft skills are certainly needed.

                3. OaDC*

                  “Good manners cost nothing dear…just two little words that bring a little happiness into the world” – Basil Fawlty

              3. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

                Meanwhile when I worked in London one of my colleagues straight-up told our director he was “being a bit of a twat” and he just took it on the chin. I always felt like I could be MORE direct anywhere in Europe than I would be in the US (and certainly more than in China).

            3. sparkle emoji*

              I’ve often heard from non USians that Americans are frequently stereotyped at over smiling, but within the US that’s often a regional divide. People from the Midwest (esp rural areas) are often assumed to be more smile-y, while east coast/cities less so. My midwestern grandparents always felt like the service at restaurants was bad when they visited me on the east coast because it was less smiley and familiar than they were used too.

              1. 2 Cents*

                I’ve lived in the NE for decades, but also the South and Midwest. I smile by default, but definitely have a “city face” that I put on when I’m in NYC or Boston — one that conveys “don’t bother me.” Yet, I still get stopped by tourists all the time for directions, despite what I consider an off-putting expression (I don’t mind! I love sharing how to get around town!)

              2. anywhere but here*

                It’s not just a “smiley & familiar” thing. Service in the East Coast is often worse (why have I been sitting with my water glass empty for 20+ minutes) and less friendly (why are you giving me the impression that asking for more water is offensive to you). I could give a crap if a server smiles, but at least *pretending* that you don’t think a customer is a giant PITA for asking you to do your job is and should be a normal part of customer service.

            4. Ole Pammy's Getting What She Wants*

              uhhhhh “fake nice” is midwest, not southern. Southerners will tell you to you face with prefaced with a “bless your heart”. There’s a saying that East Coasters are kind but not nice, West Coasters are nice but not kind, and Midwesterners are neither because they dont say what they mean (ope!)

              -sincerely, direct east coaster chained to the midwest for work and learning a new language constantlyyyy :)

              1. Rooby*

                It’s LA that’s supposed to be “nice but not kind”; that’s not really a stereotype that extends to the PNW. Seattle e.g. is just supposed to be excessively introverted and reluctant to make new friends/talk to strangers. Not actually unkind, just more “oh thank goodness, cancelled plans” stereotype.

                1. Rooby*

                  (Whereas LA is supposed to be “nice but not kind” because it’s supposedly full of superficial strivers, who want to make connections but not real friendships. This is [in the saying] contrasted with New York being “kind but not nice” in that they will supposedly show up for you when the chips are down, but will also tell you to your face if you’re being stupid.)

                2. Rooby*

                  (If you’ve ever seen the “No Take! Only Throw!” dog comic, Seattle is that but “No New Friends! Only Longtime Friends!” Self-defeating but it’s still a thing.)

              2. Laura LL*

                This is not a stereotype of Midwesterners I’ve ever heard. And also where are you? Not everywhere in the Midwest is the same.

              3. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

                I was welcomed and treated with considerable kindness in both Los Angeles and Seattle when I moved to them as an outsider.

                I have spoken up many times about the kindness of the New Yorkers I met while I was there, but now I’m wondering if I’m just being naive, given what I’m hearing here, and they were secretly judging me as unkind based on the coast I came from.

              4. judyjudyjudy*

                I grew up on the west coast in the LA area and have lived in the Midwest (midsized college towns) since 2009. I think people are kind in both places, and haven’t really experienced the unkindness you speak of, although there’s a certain reservedness in Midwesterners that confuses some people because it isn’t overtly hostile. I do think that coasties look down their noses on people from the Midwest, and ask them silly questions like, “so it’s all just corn fields, right?”. Hope that was direct enough for you.

            5. Nightengale*

              I’m a generic New Yorker (parents from NYC, spent my own formative years in northern NJ) . I worked in the south for 3 years and had a co-worker from New Jersey. Her job involved a lot of phone calls and I joked that when I felt homesick I would just stand outside her doorway and listen to her talk – that is “tawk” as she and I would say it – on the phone for 10 minutes.

              But also the “rude” of the northeast feels much more homey to me than the supposed “nice” of the mid-west and south.

          2. Panda (she/her)*

            This is really neat! I’m Canadian, sooo I guess more on the “polite” side, but I am also neurodivergent and tend to gravitate towards people with more direct communication styles because trying to read between the lines of indirect communication styles stresses me out (and one parents’ side of the family is very culturally British and overly indirect to the point that I struggle to interact with them because I can never tell when I’ve upset them).

          4. Orv*

            Yeah, as a Midwesterner I struggle with this. My brother-in-law is from New Jersey and every conversation feels like he’s trying to pick a fight with me. I visited Boston and couldn’t escape the feeling that all the locals resented me being there, just from how they talked to me.

          5. Ghee Buttersnaps*

            I was raised by an east coast mom, but I live in the midwest. I find I have to dial it back sometimes because I’m too blunt sometimes.

        2. Well, Well, Well*

          “If they’re New York or New England Jews, I will nearly always click with them on some level — even if not on every level — and they’ll feel like part of my extended family. It’s weird.”

          Weird is certainly one word for it…

          1. Knope Knope Knope*

            I think Alison’s point is that people from similar cultural backgrounds feel familiar. Hence the existence of bias. She is obviously well versed in recognizing and mitigating bias. No need to throw shade just because the background in question is Jewish.

            1. gandalf the nude*

              I think you identified the reason why Well, Well, Well has their hackles up. No one gets upset when white Protestants feel an affinity for each other.

              1. Crencestre*

                Most people don’t even notice when WASPs feel an affinity for other WASPs because it’s so common!

          4. Portlandia*

            What is this comment? Growing up with similar cultural backgrounds generally makes people more comfortably with each other. This is literally a thing and millions of people experience it.

            1. Well, Well, Well*

              “If they’re White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, I will nearly always click with them on some level — even if not on every level — and they’ll feel like part of my extended family. It’s weird.”

              If this statement makes you feel uncomfortable, it should. If Alison’s original comment didn’t make you feel uncomfortable then I think it’s worth examining why and asking yourself some difficult questions.

              1. Ask a Manager* Post author

                White Anglo-Saxon Protestants feeling comfortable with other White Anglo-Saxon Protestants is a widespread thing, not a shocking concept. It’s built into the culture in many ways. It’s certainly been built into hiring — and governance — for generations.

                No one who studies bias suggests pretending we don’t have them. It’s exactly the opposite: acknowledging your own biases is a prerequisite to being able to combat them.

              2. well?*

                Isn’t the initial question more or less “I think I’m biased towards midwesterners, and this is a problem?”

                I think the conversation here, and the original letter, are about exactly that – identifying our biases. That’s pretty much what people are doing. So why is it the one comment about Jewish connections that you’re calling attention to amid all the other generalizations and discussion here?

                1. Well, Well, Well*

                  What other generalizations and biases are you referring to? If I saw a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant commenter say that she “clicked” with other White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and saw them as part of her extended family, I would regard that as an admission of racism—or at least of a particularly strong in-group bias. Similarly, if I saw a Black commenter say that she clicked with other Blacks and regarded them as part of her extended family then I would regard that as a similarly problematic admission. That’s really all there is to it. The group to which Alison belongs is incidental; hers was simply the most blatant admission of bias, so it is her comment to which I responded.

                2. nnn*

                  @Well Well:

                  Are you just now learning that people from marginalized groups tend to feel an instinctive kinship with others from that group? This is not the gotcha you think it is. The more you post, the more ignorant you sound.

                3. Well, Well, Well*

                  Removed because this is false, and more than a little antisemitic. Move on, please. – Alison

                4. I should really pick a name*

                  If I saw someone claim they didn’t have biases, I’d think they’re either a liar, or not very introspective.

                  Recognizing your own biases is part of lessening their impact.

              3. NotAnotherManager!*

                This comment feels really #AllLivesMatter. It entirely ignores existing societal norms and power structures that would provide the necessary context and is tinged with persecuted majority complex.

                It makes me uncomfortable when the majority group who is the default norm says this because it perpetuates the exclusionary status quo. These tend to be the people with the most power and the least daily work to get through society and be accepted.

                I feel much less uncomfortable when people who are part of minority groups say it because I can only imagine how much of a relief it must be, when you spend so much of your time trying to not be different from the normative group, to find people with whom you can let your guard down, be yourself, and not have to worry about the power structure limiting you because of those differences. Even with the sexist bullshit I have to put up with on the regular, there are definitely folks whose path is far more challenging.

          5. nnn*

            What? Every cultural group experiences this to one extent or another. You just don’t notice if it you’re a WASP and everyone you feel comfortable with is a WASP because our culture lets you think that’s the default.

        3. Annony*

          This is a broad generalization, but people from the midwest tend to be friendly and polite to strangers while some other areas like Philadelphia and New York are known for being more aggressive or even rude. I recently moved from Philadelphia to the midwest and there is a stark difference in how strangers interact.

          3. Le Sigh*

            I have lived in several parts of the US but broadly speaking, I have a pretty east coast personality. I feel SO LOUD and SO AGGRESSIVE when I’m in the midwest, even when I’m not trying to be.

        4. Anon in Canada*

          “You can’t hire that way” from a legal standpoint, but let’s be real about it, almost all hirers allows their biases to impact their hiring decisions, usually completely unchecked. And since no one tells you the reason why you were rejected, the odds of any hirer being sued for illegal discrimination are almost zero.

          1. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

            It’s not just whether you can get away with hiring like that–it’s that you’ll get better teams if you don’t hire that way. Minor example: some years ago, a convention described itself as “not your father’s $convention,” referencing an old ad campaign. Instead, it came across as a middle-aged person saying “hello, fellow young people!”

      2. Rebecca*

        I’m from Chicago. We’re friendly, but we also aggressively mind our own business.

        People on the coasts don’t tend to be friendly. And people in the south cannot mind their own business if their life depends on it; bless their hearts. (I’ve lived in a lot of places. I’m obviously generalizing, and there’s good people everywbere.)

        1. Knope Knope Knope*

          Total generalization! I’ve lived in the south and born and raised East coast and lived/worked in Europe. I agree these are generalizations but find them all completely false.

        2. Tradd*

          I live and work in the US nowhere near a coast. In the middle. We’ve had a woman originally from NY/NJ with the company for the last year. She just quit. I was so relieved. She was difficult to deal with. Stereotypical NY/NJ attitude, tough type stuff that was just tiring to deal with. I silently cheered when I hear of her resignation.

          1. Seashell*

            Her take on it may have been “these Midwesterners were all fake nice and couldn’t tell me what the problem was with anything.”

        3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          Total generalization! I’m in a close-in DC suburb and people who are here long term (DC itself has a large transient population that is here in two- or four- week chunks it’s tend to be very friendly. Or maybe “neighborly” which is a word that doesn’t get a lot of use anymore.

          1. NotAnotherManager!*

            I think the transient population has a lot to do with it. I grew up in a place that had a lot of movement in and out, which meant that it was totally normal to have people leave and new people arrive – none of that same-friend-group-from-K-12 that can sometimes lead to homogeny and being less open to the random people that do show up in 5th grade. A lot were also military, and, generally, military kids knew how to integrate themselves into a new place from experience. In DC, it’s noteworthy when you run into the people who are actually from DC.

            Same with diversity. Where I grew up and in DC, having people who are different than you is entirely normal whereas having a classmate who was not white or not American was a very rare experience where my spouse is from.

      3. Mouse named Anon*

        Midwest girlie here. Midwesterners tend to have a very nice, friendly and warm personality. They like small talk and will ask you how you are every day. Google “Midwest Nice”. People from the Northeast (NYC, Boston, Philly) tend to be more direct and forward, and maybe may not make as much small talk. These are of course both generalizations and don’t make up every person in either area.

        2. Columbill*

          I’ve noticed that Midwest people tend to view Midwest nice differently than the rest of us. I experienced it as fake nice.

          1. Orv*

            It can easily tilt into passive-aggressiveness.

            Having experienced Midwest Nice, East Coast F— You, and West Coast Mind My Own Business, I much prefer the last one.

            1. Columbill*

              That’s funny. I’ve lived most of my life on the west coast, and favor east coast direct, especially for work

              1. Orv*

                I’ve never worked on the East Coast, only visited, so that might make a difference. Every conversation felt like an interrogation where my responses were being harshly judged. It really activated all my old feelings about being bullied in school. My NJ brother-in-law, in particular, makes every conversation feel like a macho struggle for dominance in which he’s trying to prove his superiority.

                1. Columbia*

                  I spent a lot of my working life working in technology, which is also very direct. I remember being in a sales meeting and everybody thinking we didn’t get the deal because of the questions the CTO was asking, but I could tell it meant we had. He wasn’t criticizing. He had mentally already bought out product and was now asking implementation questions. On a personal level, even though I have an almost vendetta level hatred of Midwest nice, I love the Chicago way of communicating. It’s fully Midwest, but because of the city itself being international, it’s still direct and welcoming of strangers

                2. Sillysaurus*

                  Maybe your BIL is just not a nice guy? Also the East Coast is huge, so if you’ve only been to a couple of tourist destinations or visited family there, you may not have a very representative sample.

                3. Orv*

                  @Sillysaurus – That’s the whole problem, I don’t know how to distinguish between “normal New Jersey Man bravado” and “asshole.”

      4. Betty*

        There’s also a tendency for the midwest accent to be seen as “neutral American” compared to “regional” accents (e.g. Southern, Boston); a lot of American TV news anchors grew up in the Midwest or Plains.

        1. Madame Desmortes*

          Yes, I agree that this is part of it as well, even for non-Midwesterners sometimes.

          In the US, this can even rise to bias against other accents. I shed my North Carolina Southern way of speaking quite quickly when I went to college elsewhere in the country; it received open disrespect from some people. I’ve lived mostly in the Upper Midwest since, and stick with that accent except on the rare occasion I am surrounded by Southerners, at which point I can call back some of my childhood Southern.

          1. Ole Pammy's Getting What She Wants*

            it’s fascinating to me (fellow east coaster) how much Midwesterners tend to look down on southern accents. I travel all over the country for work and my colleagues LOVE to imitate other accents and talk down on southern areas, esp rural ones….like the suburbs of Milwaukee are so much more cosmopolitan ::eyeroll::

            1. Orv*

              I think it’s a mix of two cultural things, one old, one new. The old one is that a lot of poor Southerners came up to the upper Midwest to work in factories there, which resulted in Southern = Poor being ingrained. (Older locals in southeast Michigan still sometimes derisively call Ypsilanti “Ypsituckey,” because so many Southerners came up to work in the Ford plant there, for example.)

              The newer one is that Southerners have become associated with conservative politics. LGBTQ people, in particular, often reflexively shy away from Southern accents because they’re afraid they’re about to get bashed.

        2. Head Sheep Counter*

          Being in California… regional accents really catch my ear. And the midwest definitely has an accent.

        3. judyjudyjudy*

          You’ve never heard an “up north” accent then. Also, the Midwest doesn’t have one accent.

      5. Pescadero*

        A few things –

        1) Mostly it’s just “like me” bias

        2) Midwesterners largely have an accent that is close to “General American English” as spoken by newscasters and is more intelligible to a wide swath of Americans than some other accents.

        3) Midwest Nice – polite, nonconfrontational and guarded ( avoiding challenging topics or giving strong opinions) is a tenet of the culture

      6. Laura LL*

        No, I’m from the Midwest and imo there’s more bias against the Midwest/Midwesterners (from people on the coasts, esp. East Coast) than there is bias towards. And the bias is based on some misconceptions (the Midwest is large area and it’s not just small towns with two-stoplights)

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      I assume it’s less about gravitating towards a mid-westerner and more about understanding your own culture and judging everybody by that. Like I have a facebook friend somewhere in the US who said she has been criticised for putting herself down in response to compliments – “you look great today,” “ah, no, I don’t, really” sort of thing – whereas as a teen, I think some of my classmates thought me kind of arrogant, because I didn’t always reply like that.

      So I could definitely see an Irish person coming across as lacking in confidence during an interview with an American company (or at least a company from some areas in America – I don’t really know enough about America to say how things would be judged where) or somebody from a culture where confidence is more valued coming across as pushy and over-confident in an interview in Ireland.

      And there was an Englishman involved in the Irish War of Independence (Erskine Childers, author of Riddle of the Sands) who was disliked by a lot of the other leaders and my impression is that it was mainly because he was very sort of formal and I think some of his comrades felt he was looking down on them or being sly or something. I don’t think he was; I think it was just a difference in culture and he was being judged by the standards of a different culture to his own.

      1. Jay (no, the other one)*

        I have a friend who moved from New Hampshire to Alabama in sixth grade. First day of school in Alabama and the teacher lambasted her in front of the class for being rude because she didn’t say “yes, ma’am.” Moved back to New Hampshire for 8th grade and a teacher said “yes, ma’am” was rude (I presume because she thought it was snippy in a malicious compliance sort of way).

        I’m Jewish from the NYC area and like Alison feel immediately at home with others of that background. When I moved to CA I suddenly started getting feedback about being “aggressive” (yup, I’m a cis woman) that I had never heard before. I’ve lived in eastern PA for 30 years and I do fine here – but last week I attended a workshop in NYC with a lot of New Yorkers and realized how much I unconsciously code-switch.

        1. bamcheeks*

          I had a Midwestern ex who called my dad “sir” and he 1000% thought she was taking the piss.

          1. Pescadero*

            …and I – a midwesterner – use sir and ma’am when talking to college students who are 30 years younger than me when they come to my office for assistance.

            I also use it with my kids, co-workers, and bosses.

            1. OaDC*

              Really, much of the time (among adults) it is just a filler word and does not mean one is bowing and scraping to a superior. Sometimes mate can be substituted (eg, a guy hands something to another guy, “Thank you sir”, “Thanks mate”, same, same.)

      2. Angstrom*

        Yup. It’s the conversational equivalent of wearing a suit to a cookout, or workout clothes to a funeral. It doesn’t match the expectations of the audience.

        If you’re from a culture that values small talk, a just-the-facts style will come across as unfriendly and possibly rude. If your culture values direct communication, small talk will seem like a waste of time and possibly intrusive.

        It is not easy to separate “Not what I’m used to” or “Not what I expected” from “Not good.”

        1. Shakti*

          Exactly this!! It’s not good or bad just different ways of communicating! I grew up in Massachusetts and moved to the southern part of the states and culturally it’s like living in a different country! I honestly think each has helpful and unhelpful ways of communicating culturally and it’s fascinating!! I will say I don’t understand the narrative of people from New England being less passive aggressive than people in the south as it’s extremely passive aggressive culturally there imho I think the difference is possibly simply the amount of smiling involved in the south vs New England

          1. Angstrom*

            Generalizing, but in the South you might get on a bus and in five minutes hear about your seatmate’s nephew’s football team and their grandmother’s knee operation, and be asked about your family. In the North you might get a monosyllabic response. Both might be normal for their region.
            A Northerner might think the Southerner was nosy and rude. A Southerner might think the Northerner was unfriendly and rude.
            It’s similar to the discussions here about task-oriented vs. relationship-oriented communication styles at work. Neither is wrong but conflicts can be frustrating.

            2. Turquoisecow*

              I’m from New Jersey and maybe it’s just me but if a stranger talks to me on public transit I don’t think it’s rude so much as just weird and extremely forward. But I’m more introverted.

              My spouse and I had lived in our old house for like 2 or 3 years and while we said hi to our neighbors, we didn’t really know much about them, but my father-in-law – also a native New Jerseyan, but MUCH more outgoing than either of us – came to visit, spoke to the neighbor for five minutes, and immediately discovered a whole bunch of details that we had no idea, like that he owned a diner nearby. I don’t think strangers find him rude but the overt friendliness can sometimes be surprising.

          2. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Lol. I’ve been in eastern MA almost my whole life (left for 6 yrs for college and grad school but was still in New England). I was raised to be passive aggressive, but I’m not sure if that’s a geographic thing or because I was raised in the 80s when kids were taught not to make a fuss and when some jerk was teasing me or distracting me from schoolwork I was supposed to just ignore them so they’d stop. “Use your words” was not a thing when I was growing up. It’s taken me a couple of decades of adulthood to reach the point where I can advocate for myself in a positive way. And it’s still hard to advocate for myself with my parents, who still seem to think that grinning and bearing it is the correct thing to do even when you’re being picked on and therefore just tell me to be quiet when my dad is being a jerk to me. Sigh. (And yes, I’m in therapy for it.)

            But I love that Alison gravitates toward Boston and NY accented people, because I do too. And I don’t even have a Boston accent myself (except when I want to), but my aunt and uncles do, as did my grandparents (my mom lost hers years ago). When I travel and encounter the accent elsewhere it always throws me for a minute and then I’m like, Hey, Bostonian, what are you doing here? Let’s bond over our Bostonianness!

        2. Aerin*

          I do training for our tech support team that’s based on the Midwest, but supports people all over the country, with a major chunk in the Northeast. I have a whole module on relationship-oriented vs. task-oriented (which I learned here, thanks Alison!) and how when you are dealing with someone whose orientation is different to yours, it can feel like they’re rude or annoying *but they are not*. It’s about having different needs and valuing things differently.

          What Midwesterners don’t seem to realize is that in a large urban environment, the highest good for interacting with others is to *keep things moving*. One person stopping for a second on a busy sidewalk has an immediate cascade effect that takes exponentially longer to clear up than it lasted. Taking some time to chit-chat with your cashier means that people behind you might miss trains or be significantly delayed getting somewhere else. And the chances that you’re going to see a given random person ever again are very small, so “building a rapport” is not a thing that applies.

          But at the same time, urban dwellers are quite comfortable with striking up brief conversations in situations where no one is going anywhere, like on the train or while waiting in a line. Because these conversations are inherently very short, skipping the pleasantries means you can get through the important/interesting bits before one party has to go. (When I try to strike up line conversations in my Midwest suburb, I usually get a reaction like “Uh, do I know you?”)

          So I emphasize to my agents that when someone is giving indications that they’re in a hurry, it is *impolite* to extend the interaction by longer than is strictly necessary. You respect them by respecting their time.

          1. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

            NYCer here and I want to make heart-eyes at this: “What Midwesterners don’t seem to realize is that in a large urban environment, the highest good for interacting with others is to *keep things moving*.” Waste not my time and I will go the extra mile for you. Insist on pleasantries and I will not.

            1. New Yorker (who grew up in the Midwest)*

              YES!!! I always explain it as in NYC (especially) time is money. It’s also very crowded and there are certain flows/ways of doing things. If you f*ck up the flow, you’re wasting people’s time and ultimately costing people money. That’s why you stand to the right on the escalator so people can pass on the left; or don’t walk slowly three or four people across taking up the entire sidewalk! (It’s just like driving, except while walking!)

              New Yorkers may not be “nice,” but they are kind, especially if you aren’t f*cking up the flow. ;-)

          2. Laura LL*

            THERE ARE CITIES IN THE MIDWEST. I’m from the third largest city in the country. It is in the Midwest. All this talk of stereotypes about midwesterners annoys me so much because it’s based on the assumption that people in the Northeast (incl NYC and PA) all live in cities and that all midwesteners live in small to medium sized towns and neither is true!

            1. Aerin*

              I live in a large metro area in the Midwest. It is almost entirely suburb. There are like three blocks of the downtown core that might work in a similar manner, but the rest of it is still super car-centric and most of the people who work downtown commute in. There might be tall buildings and slightly more population density (slightly, most of those tall buildings are half empty), but it is absolutely not the same vibe.

          3. judyjudyjudy*

            You might want to make this exact point directly, if it’s not part of your training currently. Do they still not “get it” after you’ve made this point? Is your intention to make every Midwesterner sound like a hick?

  7. Glen*

    I must admit, I would be less than pleased if I wasn’t ready to share relationship drama with my broader family then, after it came out, I found out my sibling was talking about me replying “fine” to “how are you guys?” as an act of deliberate and malicious deception, so I certainly hope that’s not what LW3 is talking about. But it does sound an awful lot like it is.

    1. Zeus*

      I think that’s a little unfair – like Alison said, we don’t know the situation outside of what the LW has shared, and there could be factors that would change our opinions if we knew them. But we don’t, because it’s not our business. LW has written in to ask about how to deal with their work, and I hope there isn’t going to be another pile-on in the comments.

      1. Glen*

        there’s not really any scenario that makes it reasonable to be angry that they *as a couple* have chosen not to tell LW, though. It’s concerning enough to be worth pointing out.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          There isn’t any mention of the letter of that being the couple’s decision. We have no idea if it was just the sibling who was covering things up with OP, or just the spouse, or if they both did. We also don’t know what the issues relating to the divorce were, whether personal feelings or external actions, or if they are actually something worth getting upset about. Also, this is someone just trying to work out their own feelings while going to work. We are missing that part totally.

    2. metadata minion*

      Ideally yes, LW3 would be able to respect their brother’s privacy and take the news with grace and empathy, but it’s extremely common and human to feel betrayed when you find out that something involving a person you’re close to is different from how you thought it was. Is it a useful reaction? Not really, and I’m guessing the LW even knows that. But the comment thread is being weirdly mean today about a reaction that probably most of us have had to one degree or another. Is it just that the LW is admitting it out loud instead of kicking boxes in private?

    3. BikeWalkBarb*

      “Deliberate” and “malicious” are separate concepts that don’t automatically travel together. When I was heading for divorce I didn’t talk with my family about it. Deliberately, because they would talk about it endlessly. Not maliciously–protectively, because I didn’t know for sure we’d end up splitting and didn’t want the endless conversations to continue past the decision point, whatever it ended up being.

  8. Jason*

    LW1: Remember what the great sage Dilla teaches us: “Everything dope about America comes from Chicago” ✶✶✶✶

    LW2: I take comfort in the knowledge that if there’s a hell, there is a very special place for the people at Microsoft (and a couple of other vendors) who willfully declined to put an obstacle on the use of “Reply All”.

    Alison, as always, thank you for all the valuable insight! Your correspondents show us that we’re not alone in the madness we may endure, and you guide us to gently weather it!

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Even a pop-up saying “This message will go to X people, are you sure you want to reply all?” would be so helpful!

      1. Beany*

        Good idea, though it might not work if you’re using a listserv, which is just a single address.

        Several e-mail clients have (including MS Outlook) will automatically add senders of incoming messages to your Contacts list, which sounds like a good idea on its own.

        However, some kinds of mailing list will present outgoing listserv mails as coming from the individual who used the list — rather than the list itself — but still with the list’s address. Coupled with the first feature above, you can have your contacts list polluted with things like “Summers, Buffy” , which override the buffy.summers@sunnydalehigh.ca.us you already had in there. Next time you want to mail the Slayer, guess where the message goes?

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        and if X is larger than like, 10, a second pop-up – “Are you SURE that all of these people really need your input on this situation?” :P

    2. Broadway Duchess*

      Dilla! I just did a Bronzeville tour and he is awesome. I had to buy the “Everything Dope…” hoodie, too. ✶✶✶✶

    5. Baela Targaryen*

      The insane amount of pop culture icons that came out of New Jersey respectfully disagree.

  9. Myrin*

    I was ready to ask if there was something missing in letter #3 because I was so confused by anything after the first two sentences of the answer (which I think are perfect and really all that needs to matter), but now I’ve read the comments and feel like I mustt be missing something – where is all that talk of “taking it really personally” and “aggression” and “overly involved” coming from?

    OP says she’s only “tangentially connected” to the issue and it affects her work “slightly”. People are focusing on the “vent my frustrations” part and somehow interpreting that as, I don’t know, stabbing boxes or throwing inventory around, when there’s an equal second part talking simply about “distract[ing] [her]self”.

    Also, there’s really not much background given on the whole divorce situation at all, so there could be any number of reasons OP is affected by this (and, again, “slightly”; we’re not talking “obsessively thinking about this 24/7 and starting rage-screaming every hour” here!); maybe OP found out that her brother is telling people that his wife cheated with OP, or he claims OP has always hated his wife and has been telling him to get a divorce for years, or, or, or.

    But like I said, I think people are being really (and weirdly) uncharitable in their read of this letter. I must admit that I’m not someone who externalises agitation or stress a lot, so any talk of “I might be behaving differently because of [issue]” is something I don’t really comprehend on an innate level but the concept of people doing that is absolutely not foreign to me and in fact seems much more common to me than my own reaction. So it’s not at all strange to me that someone would be frustrated regarding a stressful situation a close relative is in, especially when it apparently risks blowing up in a way that affects a lot of other people, and would want to distract themselves.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I agree with you that people in the comments are always being way to quick to decide that LW shouldn’t be invested at all.

      But re it LW only feeling mildly affected, it’s affected enough to write in and ask for advice. I would think it was a lot more common place if the question was couched like, it’s affecting my concentration or its affecting my mental health and I need leave. But the letter is couched in, can I use my job as a frustration outlet, which is just a bit odd.

      1. Awkwardness*

        But the letter is couched in, can I use my job as a frustration outlet, which is just a bit odd.

        LW is not even asking this. LW is writing that they explained their reasoning for additional labour and if this is giving too much information.

        If LW is working in a warehouse, I guess it’s fine. In my experience the threshold for sharing personal information is a little bit different than it were in an office setting, but LW should really pay attention that they do not come off as distracted, aggressive or un-approachable.

        1. Myrin*

          Yeah, I think you’ve put the finger on why this is so confusing to me – the letter isn’t couched in “Can I use my job as a frustration outlet?” to me at all but rather in “Am I oversharing and if not, when does it become oversharing?”. (In fact, that’s the literal question OP closes with: “At what point am I giving too much information, or at what point is giving specific details that there is an issue ongoing necessary?”)

            1. ecnaseener*

              They’re asking for advice on how much it’s okay to say in a professional context if/when they need to explain why they took on extra physical work.

              i.e. on a scale of “personal stuff” to “my brother’s divorcing because XYZ happened and I’m worried about how it’ll affect their kids, especially the youngest because of ABC issues, and what really upsets me is I asked him just last week if everything was okay and he said yes and we just booked a family vacation and and and” — where on that scale do you draw the line for oversharing? It’s a perfectly valid question.

          2. bamcheeks*

            I interpreted it as basically the evergreen, “when they say bring your whole self to work, how much of my whole self do they actually mean” question. There are lots of times when the advice is that if you are Going Through It outside work, then letting colleagues and your manager know that it might affect your attitude or concentration span is helpful context, and can lead to people going a little lighter on you. The line between “useful context” and “oversharing” isn’t always an obvious one, especially when you’re in the midst of things.

          3. umami*

            Yes to this. And it seems to me that it becomes oversharing when you end up saying things that the listener will think sounds odd (i.e. like on this thread, ‘why is LW so invested in their sibling’s relationship?’). LW has their reasons for their feelings, but I would recommend saying the bare minimum because too many people will have an opinion on whether their feelings are justified.

    2. Testing*

      It’s because of the wording of the letter: irrevocable damage to the extended family sounds incredibly dramatic, which a divorce (even one involving young children) doesn’t really match. And the deliberate attempt to conceal the issues sounds like the letter writer is taking it incredibly personally, although it’s not their marriage.

      So yes, there may be a lot of details which would make the letter writer’s wording understandable and logical, but we don’t have those (and of course aren’t owed them!). With the information we have, there seems to be a disconnect between what’s happened and how the letter writer is reacting to it. If my sibling would divorce I’d be sad about it, but I can’t imagine needing physical outlets for my frustration.

      1. Nodramalama*

        To be fair, you’ve interpreted it as attempt to conceal details. But as someone who has written in before, it could just be not being sure what is relevant. I really struggled to figure out how much detail and background to give. And then I aired on less detail and had to clarify a bunch of stuff in the comments

        1. Nodramalama*

          Also they may be concerned about providing too many details that could identify them

          1. Banana Pyjamas*

            Yes, I’ve done the same in open threads, and it can lead to some very uncharitable responses.

        2. Myrin*

          I’m pretty sure Testing meant the “conceal” part as a quote from the letter, not that OP concealed something from us: “There was a deliberate attempt to conceal the issues from me” (last line in the letter’s first paragraph).

      2. Knope Knope Knope*

        This kind of answers LW’s question in that it’s not the right amount of info to give. If there’s more to the story, this amount of detail makes them seem unhinged to a lot of people. OP might want to think about whether they are noting details that make it genuinely understandable their work could be affected. If not and this is it, vaguer is better

        1. Rabbit in a hole*

          Spot on. This clearly touches a nerve for a lot of people (myself included). Almost everyone has experience with divorce, even if it’s not their own, and people tend to fill in gaps with details from their own experiences. There could be details missing that would change everything, but without those, it’s hard not to project some of your own experiences on to the situation. I did the same thing initially.

          So I agree, keep it as vague as possible. I don’t think you want to go down this rabbit hole at work. “Stress in my personal life,” is probably sufficient. I wouldn’t say the D word (divorce).

    3. bamcheeks*

      I don’t think I come from a particularly traditionalist or tight-knit extended family– standard white-person middle-class English with siblings I see twice a year and cousins I see once a decade– but, like, I am still surprised at how strong the “your brother’s divorce is his own business, you should not care this much” feeling is! I’m still gutted about losing contact with my ex-sister-in-law / nephew’s mum when my brother divorced her, and I know plenty of more closely-knit families where that kind of rupture would also have meant kids losing playmates and cousins and aunties and safe second-homes. It sounds like LW’s brother set the boundary very firmly by *not* confiding in LW that things were going south, and that should absolutely be respected, but, like, none of these feelings sound particularly disproportionate to me.

      1. londonedit*

        Totally agree. The OP is allowed to feel however they feel about the family stuff that’s going on.

        I have to say I’m not surprised that their brother didn’t confide anything until it all reached crisis point – that’s a very, very usual thing for people and couples to do. How often do we hear ‘I just didn’t see it coming! They seemed like such a great couple!’? OK, maybe you might hope for/expect more communication in the case of a sibling, but that’s the brother’s decision and it’s not surprising to me that he hasn’t communicated about it. ‘Lying to’ the OP’s face could be as simple as ‘No, everything’s fine, we’ll see you at the barbecue on Sunday’, but it’s also not surprising to me that the OP is taking that personally and is distressed by what’s happening.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Other than in extreme circumstances (like abuse where family sides with the abuser), divorce shouldn’t mean a kid loses contact with friends or cousins! I see the hypothetical in your statement, and will say that didn’t happen either to my friends or family members when I was a kid in the peak divorce era in the mid 1980s, or to my kid’s friends now.

        1. ecnaseener*

          Really? There was never a case where A and B got divorced, and their respective sides of the extended family stopped getting together, so A’s sibling’s kids and B’s sibling’s kids didn’t see each other anymore?

          1. Testing*

            Not in my circles, no. Cousins are still cousins, whether their parents are married or not.

            1. Nodramalama*

              Eh in my experience that’s the best case scenario but not necessarily the most common. Plenty of divorced couples can’t get along and distance their families from the inlaws even when there was no tragically dramatic reason for divorce.

          2. BikeWalkBarb*

            Your scenario of the respective sides of the family getting together has never been my experience. The only scenario in which my family and my ex’s family all got together was at our wedding. After that any contact with aunts, uncles, and cousins was with one family or the other.

            That’s completely sustainable post-divorce; it’s on the parents to make it happen. When we divorced my kids would still see their aunts/uncles/cousins on my side of the family–my responsibility to keep them connected. And they’d still see their aunts/uncles/cousins on his side of the family–his responsibility to keep them connected.

            I grew up in a really big family that had family reunions but it would never have been the case that everyone’s extended in-law family also attended. It was people descended from Grandpa XYZ or whatever. Since my dad was the oldest of 7 kids, had 6 kids himself, and all the other aunts/uncles had multiple children I can’t even imagine what stadium we would have had to rent to bring everyone together if we made it joint with my mom’s side–and then what about the in-laws of all those other siblings? As it was we had to hold the last one in a state park to have room for everyone.

          3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            You mean like, my cousins who are the children of my mom’s brother wouldn’t see my cousins who are the children of my dad’s sister anymore? Maybe my family is weird, but those sets of cousins never saw each other to begin with, we generally hung out with one side of the family at a time for the most part.

            1. RussianInTexas*

              Yeah, my parents are divorced, with each having more kids (I am the oldest and the only one between them).
              My half siblings on dad’s side have no relationship with my half-siblings on mom’s side, and cousins from each side I am sure don’t even know about each other.
              These sides of the family are completely separate, I am the only one who has contact with both.

        2. bamcheeks*

          Obviously that would be ideal, but families are complicated! There are lots of cases where parents splitting up means kids fully lose contact with one side of the family or simply move further away. I also know families where the kids of the split still saw their cousins on both sides but the cousins who knew each other THROUGH that family don’t see each other any more.

          My brother got 50/50 custody, so I’m thankful that there is still plenty of opportunity for my kids to see their cousins. I definitely don’t think that’s a given, though!

          1. Great Frogs of Literature*

            When my parents divorced, my cousins somewhat “lost” my dad as a relative — and he lives on the same block! It was amicable, everyone’s still friends, he’s still invited to the big once-a-year cookout, but he doesn’t come to Thanksgiving or birthdays or “hey come over for supper on Saturday,” and got demoted from Very Close Uncle to Kind of Distant Uncle, even though he’s still right there.

        3. Pescadero*

          My experience as a divorced child, with most of my friends growing up in divorced homes – maybe it shouldn’t mean that, but it does.

          It might not be a complete “lose contact”, but it’s often a “see them every week” to “see them every couple months” kind of change.

      3. Darsynia*

        Yep, with two under two it’s very likely a father wouldn’t have equal custody because of feeding circumstances, and if that means the ex moves away that could break grandparents’ hearts in particular. An esoteric ‘horrible’ isn’t necessary when simple logistics can apply, particularly with a close family.

        I feel bad for the letter writer here because the real question, is as a few others have mentioned, “how much of myself should I bring to work, when I am so consumed with personal stuff?” –but I guess this is a good microcosm of what could happen?! Heh.

      4. Seashell*

        I think “gutted” is one of those words that doesn’t really get used in American English (aside from something like “the fish was gutted before it was stuffed”) like it does among the Brits, so your comment may not translate well. To me, gutted sounds like being in deep pain, crying, and rolling around holding your gut, which I certainly hope is not the case.

        I can see being mildly upset by a sibling’s standard divorce (i.e. not something that involves abuse or excessive drama), but eventually you need to get to the point where you understand this is what’s happening and everyone has to move forward as best they can.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          You’d be gutted if you didn’t get a job you really wanted, or if a deep friendship ended. It’s not really as extreme as pain and anguish, but it’s not nothing either.

        2. SarahKay*

          Gutted gets used for different levels of upset here in the UK, which doesn’t really help matters for an international audience.
          You can have someone say “My team lost in the last minute of the match; I was absolutely gutted” which translates to deep disappointment in the outcome but we’re not talking serious emotional damage.
          But then you may also have an adult someone say “I was gutted when my parents divorced last year” and they are talking about significant emotional upset… albeit with a certain level of UK understatement because (at least in older age groups) there’s still a certain amount of truth to the expectation for the ‘stiff upper lip, old chap’ stereotype.

        3. ecnaseener*

          eventually you need to get to the point where you understand this is what’s happening and everyone has to move forward

          Yes, emphasis on eventually. LW wrote in the day they found out – surely they’re allowed to be upset for a day or two?

        4. Lizard the Second*

          I’m mildly upset if I rip a hole in my new jeans.

          I would be incredibly sad and stunned to learn of a close family’s member’s divorce, because it’s a huge life change for someone I care about, and there are a lot of impacts, even if it’s the right decision.

      5. Reba*

        I think grieving the divorce makes sense, but it’s the anger at the sibling having kept their issues private that is misplaced. Interpreting it as a malicious lie is excessive, unkind, and probably making the whole thing harder on LW.

        2. ANON FOR A WHILE*

          LW3 – there are in fact malicious lies in play, but to give further details on that part would be sufficent information to possibly identify them, so I did not include them, as none of the malicious lies were directed towards me, and again, keeping things as anonymous as I can.

    4. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah, it’s very uncharitable; we really have no idea what the issues are, and we’re punishing OP for the lack of detail in the letter. Because OP hasn’t told us the ins and outs of the divorce situation, the default is to assume it’s a Hallmark divorce were the only problem is some temporary upset. I already posted a bunch of stuff in a reply that got eaten, but lots of marriages actually end in very ugly ways ranging from control, to abuse, to infidelity and divorce is often a time of actual danger for some people. I know that it’s not necessarily easier to be related to the perpetrator, either. Even if everybody involved is a great person, divorce can be literally unaffordable without family help, or the OP could be facing losing contact with the niblings. Or, you know they could just be upset and working out their upset but throwing themselves into their work. It’s worth reminding OP that divorce itself is not necessarily the end of the world, but it’s not worth policing their right to have feelings.

  10. Aardvark*

    LW3. Does deliberately making more work for yourself mean that you are now working inefficiently? Or are you introducing more manual labour rather than assisted so you increase the risk of injury? Because then it is a problem. If you are spending hours at work ‘venting’ then it is a problem. And if it is for a problem you are only tangentially connected to, then particularly so.

    Consider seeking some sort of counselling so you can get an appropriate perspective on the problem, and manage your responses so you don’t have to risk it affecting your employment.

    1. Awkwardness*

      Or are you introducing more manual labour rather than assisted

      That’s how I read it.
      But good point about the potential for injury and wanting to avoid a look of inefficiency. I think one or two times would be accepted, but not so much if done repeatedly.

    4. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Agreed. If your work has some sort of EAP, OP, I’d suggest checking it out. I recently had some personal issues and decided it was worth talking to a professional about but was also at a loss as to how to figure out how I could find someone to talk to. For the first time, I used my EAP and had a nice talk with someone there and have scheduled a follow-up in a couple of weeks. Not only that, but since the EAP counselors are supposed to be for only a few visits, they provide referrals and recommendations for longer-term support, which is really helpful considering just finding someone was the hurdle I was having trouble getting over.

      Distracting yourself with work is fine, but only if the way you are distracting yourself isn’t actually interfering with your workflow. So, if you really are taking a lot longer to do the work than you otherwise would, that’s not great, but if it’s just that you’re being a little more thorough than usual, that’s probably fine. But I’d suggest addressing the overall issue rather than ignoring it, because that will likely be better for you in the long run.

      1. Madame Desmortes*

        Co-signing EAP if you’ve got it. In my direct experience they’re excellent for this sort of sudden discombobulating situation. You may not even need longer-term counseling, OP3, if a trained and compassionate extra perspective will even up your keel, and I think in your case it may.

  11. GreenGirl*

    “There was a deliberate attempt to conceal the issues from me, up to and including lying to my face about how things are with them.”

    This sounds like a good thing. You don’t want parents going around telling family members, “well my husband is sleeping around, my wife is terrible in bed, etc.” because that will ultimately impact the kids. Sooner or later they are going to hear those stories repeated to them. And what happens if the couple is able to reconcile? It’s going to be harder if the immediate family has been wondering if/when the break up is going to come.

    Combined with letter writer being concerned he will take it out at work I would suggest finding someone to talk to. You are taking things not about you way too personally.

    1. AngryOctopus*

      Yeah, LW3, I know it’s hard, but in complete honesty, their issues are None Of Your Business. They say “we’re getting divorced because of X and Y issues” and you didn’t know? That’s because the couple has chosen to keep it private until now, and it’s None Of Your Business. You’re allowed to feel sad and hurt that they’re splitting up. But you can’t get so involved in it that you’re inclined to take out your rage at work. Fine something at home. Clean the baseboards aggressively (This works for me. If you use a dryer sheet they stay really clean). Angrily pull out weeds. Take a kickboxing class and picture a face while you throw the punches. But remind yourself that you’re not actually part of their lives in this decision, and your coworkers don’t deserve to have you taking out your feelings at work.

    2. ferrina*

      You don’t want parents going around telling family members, “well my husband is sleeping around, my wife is terrible in bed, etc.”

      TRUTH. There are so, so many reasons you might not share your marital issues. The biggest one for me is that the family might turn against the spouse, and it’s hard to undo that damage. All your family sees is how hurt you are, and they want to protect you. So while you forgive your spouse, it can sometimes take longer for the family.
      Or a similar issue- your family will reinforce your own frustrations toward your spouse. You vent to your family, then they encourage you to think of your spouse as less than, using your venting to support why your spouse isn’t very good. My ex did this all the time with his parents- he’d vent about how I wanted him to do more housework, they told him how unfair I was being (without actually having any context as to the breakdown of housework), then he’d use that as justification to not do any housework.
      Or the issue I faced- my family was so determined not to undermine my marriage that they refused to see any wrong that my (then-)spouse did. I go to a family member for a gut-check and share an argument that we had, and they would bend over backwards to try to paint my spouse in a good light. It painted over really big issues in the marriage, and it made me not trust my own instincts.
      The kids are another issue- some families are very good at not sharing certain info with the kids, and some aren’t. It can be as simple as not realizing that the kid is in the room while you are talking about certain things (my kid is insanely good at hearing things I don’t want them to hear, so I wait until they are a mile away before I vent about things they shouldn’t hear).

      1. GreenGirl*

        “The kids are another issue- some families are very good at not sharing certain info with the kids, and some aren’t.”

        And kids won’t stay kids forever. They will become teenagers or adults that realize that something is being kept from them or people will flat out tell them thinking they are old enough. There’s plenty of stories on reddit where someone learned the whole family was keeping something about their parents a secret and it damaged their relationship with everyone.

  12. LondonLady*

    LW3 I am sorry you are going through such a stressful time. While other people’s relationships aren’t our business, it is intensely frustrating to see loved ones suffering or doing things we feel are bad or stupid, and being powerless to do anything about it. You can’t control their choices, but you can focus on addressing your frustration and stress.

    TIPP is a recognised technique for handling painful stress, and includes bursts of intense physical activity. so maybe find ways to factor those into your life outside work eg running, wood chopping, gym circuits, etc. https://iembracetherapy.com/distress-tolerance-tipp-skills/

  13. Coyote River*

    LW1, I’ve realized over the years I’m guilty of this. I exclusively hire former military to my company as an intentional policy, but I also found many years ago I was hiring based on how likeable I found the candidate rather than sticking to objective criteria. This is something I have been able to rectify, and I think the company is stronger for having some different perspectives.

  14. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, I just want to say fair play to you for recognising that this is an issue. Often people either ignore biases completely or only pay attention/try to correct those that actually risk getting them in legal trouble. It is very hard to recognise one’s own biases and the fact that you have noticed means you are more likely than most to get it right in the future.

    I think sometimes being aware of how other cultures differ can help. Like knowing “my culture values direct speaking where others value politeness (or vice versa)” or “my culture values friendliness where other cultures value boundaries and respect for hierarchies (or vice versa)” and without putting it in terms that make your culture “right.” I’ve seen this done a lot with direct speaking, a kind of “why are other cultures so dishonest/unclear/fake/untrustworthy?” and I’ve seen it a bit with politeness and respect for hierarchy here: “well, my area is very polite and respectful so we…,” when areas that value friendliness and equality see that as respectful.

    LW3, I’m sorry to hear your family is having this stress. It is clear you really care about your brother and his spouse and children and I hope things work out for you all.

    I do want to just bring up the comment about them “lying to your face.” Now, obviously, I don’t have the whole story here and there could well be situations in which this was concerning (like one of them lied that the other was in hospital to explain why they weren’t in the family home when it was really because they were living separately) but assuming it was lying that “oh no, just a small row. We’re very happy together really. We’re definitely not splitting up,” that to me would be the sort of lying that is very understandable and quite common. It may even have been the right thing to do, if for example, their children had not been told at that point.

    I can definitely see how even an understandable lie would add to your stress though, as it might make you wonder if there is more here you aren’t being told.

    It probably depends on your work culture but I think it’s fine to say something like, “sorry, I’m a little stressed at the moment. My brother is having marital problems and I’m concerned about the kids.”

    I think it becomes too much if you are venting constantly to coworkers (“and wait until you hear what my brother did now…”) or using it as an excuse for everything (you really don’t sound like you are likely to do this as the kind of person who would generally wouldn’t think to ask, but if somebody keeps making mistakes or seems in a bad mood for weeks and keeps justifying it with “well, I’m under stress,” with the implication, “so you can’t judge me for it,” that’s definitely too much) or if it is affecting your judgement of other issues, like if you were yelling at coworkers who mentioned divorce that they were upsetting their kids, because your brother’s divorce upset his (not saying it necessarily did, just giving an example) and you were judging everybody’s situation by his.

    1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

      LW3 here – That’s some sound advice – I appreciate it. I do know there are a great many things I haven’t been told, but I do not feel inclined to try to discover them, either – I have already come to understand that one of the reasons this bothers me so much is because of my own past, where I was blindsided with the end of a relationship – without any explanation as to why beyond the cursory “We’ve become different people”. I never got closure, or a chance to even try to discuss things – and I didn’t actually realize this was a factor in my reactions to what is currently going on until recently.

      In any case, I gave a brief explanation to my boss as to why I did a manual pre-count of new stock without the proper paperwork for verification as “I needed to settle my head over this ongoing issue.” and that was the end of it.

      Granted, I probably should not have asked another coworker who was divorced himself for advice on what he wished people had done for him at the time, especially when it is unclear as to how things will play out – but in that case, I’m just hoping to be prepared for the eventuality.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Ah, that’s rough, OP. Unfortunately, we don’t always get closure at the end of a relationship, as much as we might wish for it. My brother and his wife split a couple of years ago (no kids, though, so it was a lot easier) and although I know from both of them some of the reasons for the split, I’m sure there’s more to it than what they’ve told me and I’m ok with not knowing the rest of the story, same as you.

        I personally hate therapy (I hate talking about my problems to a stranger) but I have found it helpful in some instances. I also usually hesitate to recommend therapy to people, but in your case perhaps an appointment or two with someone who can help you sort out your feelings would be useful. I actually just had an appt myself after years of no therapy so that I could sort out a personal/family issue and it was really helpful. Good luck, OP!

        1. ferrina*

          Seconding the therapy suggestion! Especially since your brother’s relationship is triggering your issues- it sounds like the brain weasels are trying to insist that you/your brother are going through the same thing that you went through with your ex, and you know that that is not true. A good therapist can help you quiet the brain weasels, which can also help you better approach this situation as its own thing and be there for your brother and yourself.

          *brain weasels=unconscious maladaptive associations and thought patterns. ‘Brain weasels’ are just easier to say.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        I don’t think asking that coworker for advice as to how you should respond was really inappropriate, unless the issue was sensitive for your coworker.

      3. Observer*

        I do know there are a great many things I haven’t been told, but I do not feel inclined to try to discover them, either

        That’s really good! It’s going to make your life a lot easier. Of course if the divorce happens, it’s going to hurt, but that’s going to be the case no matter what the details are. So, for your own sake, this is a good move.

        I have already come to understand that one of the reasons this bothers me so much is because of my own past, where I was blindsided with the end of a relationship

        That’s a very different type of situation, and I’m really glad you see that. But perhaps, the suggestion of an EAP / some counseling might be a good idea. It sounds like you have some unresolved baggage, and are also dealing with a genuinely stressful situation.

        This stuff is hard. Getting some outside help can be a game changer. Not because it’s going to solve the situation, but getting some tools can be huge.

  15. T.*

    #4: “ Hi Sara. I’d love to help but that’s a very long answer and learning my job doesn’t afford me that time. The steps are excessively detailed in the instructions I left for just this reason. They can be found (detail here what cabinet or hard drive folder has the manual). I wish you the best.”
    Lmao, maybe a little snippy but drives home the point. Good luck!

      1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

        She deserves to have her “we’re all good thanks” thrown back in her face, but T.’s suggested message is the perfect message for remaining on good terms, it’s oozing with goodwill. Then the “excessively detailed” bit is the perfect little touch that will strike a sense of dread in Know-all Sara’s heart.

    2. ecnaseener*

      I honestly don’t think you need all that with the explanation of learning your new job taking up too much of your time. “I don’t remember exactly the full instructions are in the X document” is enough. Like, even if you *did* have the time to try to recreate the instructions from memory, they’d be worse quality than the ones you wrote before leaving, so time doesn’t have to factor into it.

      1. duinath*

        And that closes the convo more, especially combined with waiting a week or so before responding. Giving details can feel like an opening to some people, so not something I would recommend when you mostly just want someone to leave you be.

        I think Alison’s response here was great, basically. The wait, which signals you are no longer working for them and they are not high on your list of priorities, and the not really remembering exactly, which signals, again, that you do not work there anymore and will not be behaving as if you do, and the capper of “it should be in the documentation I left” which speaks loudly about LW doing their due diligence before leaving, essentially closing the chapter and leaving whatever happened after that *not* on LW’s doorstep.

      2. Observer*

        I agree. T=I think that response is perfect without the “excuse” to start with.

  16. Peanut Hamper*

    #4: Yep, let that email sit there for a week. This lets them know that anything they are worried about is no longer a priority for you at all. If you respond immediately, this increases the chance that they will keep emailing you and bugging you about things. This also gives them a chance to figure it out on their own.

    I don’t know why some companies handle people leaving so badly, but that’s never your concern either. You gave them a chance, they dropped it, end of problem for you.

    1. AngryOctopus*

      Let it sit, and if after a week you choose to respond (because you don’t have to), just say “you can find the answer to that in the documentation I left”. Don’t answer any follow ups. If she emails about a different issue, lather, rinse, repeat (and again, only if you wish to do so. You are perfectly allowed to let those emails languish until the heat death of the universe).

  17. Boggle*

    OP 4 – I am retiring in the next few months and have been telling my managers for *years* I need a backup for the specialized duties I perform. No one else has been asked (told) they would be my backup and so when I leave, it will leave gaps. At this point I’m done since I’ve worked very hard ensuring I have documented what I can (a lot of what I do is experience and knowledge I can’t document) and let the chips fall where they may.

    1. Spartacus Bagel's Wife*

      I’m in a similar spot. Only been doing it a couple of years, but every time I go on holiday there’s a problem with effective coverage. Going for a big one later this year so that should be fun!

      People also struggle because there’s a lot going on at any one time, and while it is all documented, I’m able to recall things very quickly and just remember everything so there’s a clear difference in work even with trained cover.

  18. Crencestre*

    OP2: Yes to sending out a brief note of apology including an assurance that steps have been taken to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

    NO to ” including some “electronic mail guidance for noobs” – aka a snarky, passive-aggressive crack blaming the recipients for YOUR university’s mistake! Few things anger people more than being blamed for someone else’s flubs and fumbles. Providing “electronic mail guidance for noobs” will only convince the already annoyed recipients that you’re not taking responsibility for the e-storm and are saucily unrepentant – a perfect way to antagonize them even more! A short, sincere note of apology is all that’s needed and all that you should send.

  19. kiki*

    For the Midwestern bias, one thing that might be worth unpacking is what traits you think all or most Midwesterners have in common that makes you gravitate towards them. Because it might be the shared geography/ cultural touchstones/ etc., but I think sometimes we like to use region as a shorthand for personality. Maybe you’re subconsciously holding thoughts like “Midwesterners are more humble than people from the east coast,” “Midwesterners are more down-to-earth than people from California,” or “Midwesterners are just always so friendly.” Once you proactively recognize those biases, it’s easier to dispel them. Because you know some egocentric Midwesterners or rude Midwesterners. You can go into a meeting and ask yourself, “Do I really think they are super nice or did they just have a Minnesotan accent?”

    1. Broadway Duchess*

      This is a really good idea. I’ve been hiring for US-nationwide positions and have asked the recruitment team to send me resumes with the states removed and to cross off state-prohibted questions (if there are any) on the pre-screen form. I know what I’m looking for in a candidate but naming those subjective things will help quantify “fit” a bit more.

    2. Genevieve*

      As a midwesterner who spent some time on the East Coast and definitely has similar biases to the OP (big props to her for naming it and asking for perspective!), this is fantastic advice that I will be using going forward. I wasn’t responsible for any hiring out there, but now that I’m safely back in my Midwest bubble, I’ll still keep this in the back of my head in general for future hiring! Because, of course, you’re absolutely right. Plenty (all?) of midwesterners (people?) have negative qualities (myself included, I’m sure)!

    3. el l*

      Well put. It’s not just familiarity – it’s that you feel you understand a person* solely based on their accent and where they’re from.

      It’s part of everyone’s natural human mistakes to confuse genre with substance.

      Side note: While intellectually I get how being midwestern might seem attractive here, as someone who’s lived most of his life either with or in the region I do find it hilarious that it’s seen as desirable. We have levels of passive aggression normally reserved for the Brits.

      *And things like their personality, trustworthiness, etc.

    4. ariel*

      Love this advice, a great way to check yourself and remind yourself what’s important – what were their skills actually, mapped to the position requirements.

    5. Dashwood*

      This is true, but it’s not just the traits. For example, I have been the proponent and recipient of what can be called “immigrant bias”. I was not born in the US and will actively give a leg up whenever I can to other immigrants from my country. I have also been the recipient of this, several times.

      Working for an international nonprofit, my colleagues from around the world recognize that this is a thing, and we’re all AOK with it!

      Bias is obviously bad, but I don’t see this kind going away anytime soon.

  20. Seashell*

    I wonder if LW#3 is on the young side. Those of us with more life experience know that stuff happens in marriages and not everything that goes on behind closed doors is information we need to know.

    It makes sense that you might be upset or surprised by this initially, but if it’s bothering you significantly for a long time, maybe it’s time to talk to a professional about it.

    1. londonedit*

      I don’t know – I think I’d be upset and disappointed if my sister and brother-in-law suddenly got divorced, and I think I’d also feel very upset if I realised they’d been keeping their problems quiet. Mainly because I’d hope my sister and I are close enough that she’d confide in me about it. If the OP’s family are all very close then I can imagine it would be upsetting, and shocking in the moment if they didn’t see it coming.

      I do agree that if they’re continuing to feel extremely distressed, to the point where they can’t do their job properly, they should definitely look into talking to someone. That’s not a healthy level of distress – yes, it’s sad and disappointing, but it shouldn’t be affecting things like your work for any long period of time.

      1. Mouse named Anon*

        Agree with Londonedit. I am pretty close with my in laws, my sister in laws and their partners. If one of them suddenly announced a divorce it would rock the family for sure. My husband would be crushed. I can’t say how it would affect his work performance though.

      2. DisgruntledPelican*

        This is a sentiment I hear a lot from straight people, the whole “my feelings are hurt you didn’t come out to me sooner” thing. It always comes across as grossly self-centered to me.

  21. TPS reporter*

    LW1 I have a bit of an opposite problem as a midwesterner living on the east coast. most of my co workers are from this area so tend to gravitate towards personalities from the area, and I have to sometimes fight to get other voices heard.

    broad generalization is that I feel a bit more quiet, slower talking, less direct than the majority of my northeast coast colleagues. when someone with my style says the same thing as a typical northeast more aggressive person I feel like the second is heard first.

    transitioning to working from home and broadening hires to anyone from most of the 50 states has helped my company be more geographically diverse and open to different types of personalities. a more reserved person can shine more in a remote space in some ways because you don’t have to speak as loudly or quickly or be as physically demonstrative for people to hear you.

    I’ve been trying to focus on behavioral interviewing techniques
    to get down to the substance of a candidates experience and not be as ultra focused on their personality/cultural sameness to my colleagues.

    1. Constance Lloyd*

      As a Minnesotan living in DC, I spend a decent part of my day consciously not smiling at everyone I make eye contact with.

  22. Hyaline*

    LW1, questioning and challenging biases is a good (if hard!) thing! One thing, though–the flip side of bias is your unique perspective on the world and how you approach problems, questions, and relationships. It may be that you’re just replicating yourself in your hiring process, which is not a good thing. But if you’re seeing gaps in your team’s rapport and skills (especially soft skills–you mention communication), and letting that influence your decisions, that’s not necessarily letting bias lead. It’s noticing, as in some ways a cultural outsider to the group, space for improvement and prioritizing candidates who can fill those gaps. You seem to lean on data from past interactions here rather than a stark realization that you were intentionally putting forward Midwesterners–that is, you selected Midwestern candidates and now are saying “Oh now, I am biased!” Maybe you are, but maybe you actually had very good reasons for suggesting those candidates based on your perspective of the team. I realize I’m leaning very far into stereotypes here, but just as an example, if you notice that your team tends toward assertive and blunt communication, but there are times when a softer communication style is needed, you might favor candidates who can do so–and if they happen to be Midwestern, well….que sera, sera. Of course, if you hear a Midwestern accent and assume they have these skills (or an East Coast accent and assume they don’t), that’s a problem! Basically, I’m saying, don’t let a quest for an eradication of bias eliminate your unique perspective on your workplace.

  23. AmuseBouchee*

    I don’t know what a midwesterner sounds like! I love accents.

    I am a NEr who grew up in the rural upper crook of the east and then went to school in Boston. I thought had no accent until I moved to Oregon, and a friend used to chuckle and ask me to pronounce different hard consonant words and phrases. OMG it was so funny. I could not hear what he was hearing, and he was so nice about it in the way NW people are.

    1. Madame Desmortes*

      If you listen to radio or TV news most places in the US, the consensus accent is upper-midwestern.

      1. Columbill*

        I think the default TV voice has moved from Midwest, to southwest, less Iowa more Arizona.

      2. judyjudyjudy*

        I don’t think that’s right. More…LA or maybe southwest. I’ve never heard a newscaster outside of local stations use a great lakes accent.

    2. sparkle emoji*

      We have pretty distinct vowels, especially in the Great Lakes region as LW mentioned. There’s actually some accent change happening there now called the Great Lakes vowel shift. The tv shoe The Bear has well done Chicago accents, and for a more exaggerated and obvious version the SNL Da Bears sketches are pretty good.

  24. HonorBox*

    OP4 – I would offer this idea. If Sara is sending you several questions at a time, or several questions over the course of a few days, let them build up and then reply all at once. You’re willing to help, but their lack of information is not your emergency. You can show that you are busy with your new role and fitting the answers in where you can (like a few minutes you have free at the end of the day Friday).

    If the questions are more in-depth, I’d suggest a nice, but direct response as part of your overall response that directs them to your transition documentation OR points out that the boss wanted to do something different, so you’d defer to them for that question.

    Truly, you owe them nothing. You weren’t taken up on your offer to provide information and support while you were there, so it isn’t your responsibility to continue to provide support.

  25. ANON FOR A WHILE*

    LW3 here – the responses I’ve seen so far are roughly in line with what I expected, and how I’m already feeling about it – it boils down to a sense of “wanting to, but not being allowed to help” – not that I even have an idea how I even could.

    Well over a decade ago, my brother came to me for advice about an issue in his marriage, and I offered as constructively critical advice as I could – for a time, it looked like the advice I offered helped a great deal – so there’a an aspect of “why’d I even help then, anyway?” to it now.

    if it reaches the point of divorce (as it has not yet), it’ll be more helping pick up the pieces for them both anyway.

    From my perspective, it is the disinvitation to family discussions meant to help them that stings most….. though the reality is, I really wouldn’t be inclined to participate, anyway.

    1. HR Friend*

      You’re way too invested in this. Giving advice over a decade ago doesn’t mean you’re entitled to hear private details about your brother’s marriage or weigh in on his decisions for all of eternity. Unless he *asks for your help*, butt out.

      Also I don’t see how this is a work issue. This is a personal issue to be discussed with a therapist. Your own private therapist, not a family therapist involving your brother or any other member of your family.

    2. JustAThought*

      It’s impossible to row a boat you don’t sit in ( : You’re not part of their created family (although you are very much part of their larger family). You may want to think a bit about why you feel “disinvited” from discussions that are about a relationship you are not in. One thing to focus on would be supporting the kids, another loving adult in a child’s life is such a wonderful thing, especially in tough times.

      1. Funny you should mention*

        This is good advice. Behavior is communication. LW3’s brother is saying everything is fine. He’s not giving details. He didn’t come to her to give her a heads-up that this was coming. He doesn’t want her involved in the family discussions.

        He has sent pretty much every signal he possibly can to let him deal with this on his own. If you want to help him, hear what he is trying to tell you.

        1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

          I’m a guy….

          The fact that multiple people have assumed me to be female is utterly hilarious, as I thought that only happened to my other brother!

          1. AngryOctopus*

            If it’s not clear in the letter, convention in the comments is to default to female for a LW.

      2. ANON FOR A WHILE*

        The only people involved in those discussions are our parents, them, and my sister-in-law’s mother. As I currently still live at home, (Thank you very much, expensive housing markets!) this can mean having my access revoked to certain areas of the home where the discussion is proceeding as much of the subject matter is not stuff they want me to know.

        Not a big deal while I am at work, but it can make one feel like an exile in their own home.

        2. Nancy*

          Annoying if you want to go in that room, sure, but people are allowed to have private conversations in their own home.

          1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

            Yes, they are – but at the same time, if you’re that set on a private conversation – maybe don’t have it on the open concept main floor? Doors are a thing, after all. It’s effectively blocking off 2/3rds of the house that way!

            1. RVA Cat*

              This right here is the problem. It’s your home, too. Are you paying your parents rent? Sometimes the strings attached to “free” are just as expensive.
              Housing costs are outrageous but it may bring you more peace to find a place with roommates you aren’t related to.

            2. I'm A Little Teapot*

              If they’re have a conversation that you are not part of and you need to pass through that space, do so. Be matter of fact and just walk through. Don’t pause, don’t send significant looks, don’t sigh, don’t invent flimsy excuses to walk through that space, etc. If that’s the only pathway to the bathroom and you need to use the bathroom, they can deal. If there’s another (reasonable) way to get from point A to point B, then take it. If you need something in that space, then go get it.

              Also don’t react strongly to their response if they have one.

              Emotions aren’t wrong, but they can be unhelpful or maladaptive. I don’t know, but I get the sense that you have a long standing history of “feeling responsible” for your brother, in one way or another. He’s an adult. You are an adult. Both of you are free to blow up your lives in whatever way you see fit, and then you can each face the consequences of your actions.

        3. Pescadero*

          This sounds like a bit of the irritation isn’t that they are keeping it secret – it’s that they’re keeping it secret FROM YOU while involving the rest of the family.

        4. Bumblebee*

          That is at least 3 more people than I would want involved in a relationship discussion.

    3. AvonLady Barksdale*

      That’s the thing with advice– just because we give it, even if it is solicited, it doesn’t mean people have to follow it.

      From a total outside perspective, it sounds like your brother and his wife want some privacy dealing with their issues. You want to help? You let him come to you and if and when he wants to. Otherwise, this is his business to deal with, his children, and all you can do is be there.

      Listen, it’s ok to be upset or sad about personal stuff while you’re at work. That happens to everyone. You can even vent to friendly co-workers if you want to, at appropriate times. But letting someone else’s marital issue consume you to the point of distraction does not sound especially healthy or productive.

      1. Jaydee*

        The other thing is that relationships change over time. Maybe the relationship advice LW gave a decade ago really did help! But then either the couple fell back into old habits/bad communication patterns or there are new issues that have come up that the previous advice isn’t relevant to.

        Ten years is a LONG TIME and loads of things can change. New jobs, moves, kids go from toddler to teenager or from teen to adult, health issues, new hobbies, new friendships, deaths and other losses, a whole-ass global pandemic….

        There could be issues in the relationship that have been simmering for years and are just now boiling over. Or things could genuinely have been fine until something that happened in the last year or two turned everything upside down.

    4. ecnaseener*

      Thank you for sharing more details. In the kindest possible way, read your second paragraph again — you’re wondering what was the point of helping if your advice didn’t permanently save their marriage? if it was only helpful for a decade? You’re not God. You did help.

    5. Genevieve*

      LW3, it’s so, so hard to feel helpless, especially when watching kids you love potentially being hurt. And it may seem to you that you have good answers. And you might!! But, as I’m sure you know, you can lead a horse to water (or therapy, or better communication) but you can’t make it talk about its feelings in a productive way.

      Can you find the things you can control – like maybe focusing on just being an extra presence for the kids and giving them a chance to get out of the house? The adults are adults and they’ll continue making their own choices. But studies show that having an adult who is a stable and loving presence (even when not always there physically) can make a HUGE difference in outcomes for children. And you don’t need to be their therapist – you just need to show up for them, make it clear you love them, and be consistent.

      And I just want to echo Alison’s sentiment about divorce, in case that helps. My parents didn’t divorce until I was fourteen and my brothers were out of the house. That was terrible for us, and we were all mad at them for not doing it sooner. Even before I was consciously aware of the problems in my parents’ marriage (they worked really hard to hide all the fighting from us), the stress of living with them gave me chronic headaches that no one could figure out. As hard as the divorce was, it was the first step toward peace and healing for everyone. It took one parent about twenty years to acknowledge it, but now everyone agrees it was the best thing and we’re all better off for it.

    6. Nodramalama*

      Wait, you’re wondering what the purpose of giving advice was over a decade ago?! If they were having issues ten years ago and managed to work through it for a other ten years that’s hardly a waste.

    7. Hyaline*

      If I’m reading correctly, you’re living at home–but is your brother and his family living there, too? It might be worthwhile to talk to your parents about setting some boundaries for their problems infiltrating your home in either circumstance–that if they live there, too, they need to respect communal areas as not “off limits” very often, and if they’re not living there, that they don’t get to come over and air their problems to a select audience. In fact, maybe they need to focus on figuring things out without family input for a while.

      The fact that you’re referencing “family discussions meant to help them” is a bit of a red flag for dysfunction, or at least something atypical to most US households. It’s not really “normal” in my experience to have conversations about marital problems with the family–you might talk to your mom or dad individually about your problems, but the idea of sitting down with the whole fam to discuss your marriage is…odd? These expectations might be affecting how you’re perceiving this situation (you feel it’s weird to be excluded, but it’s not something normal to have in the first place), and you might benefit from a little distance. Maybe it’s time to consider moving out–even if you can’t right away, starting to plan and consider your choices can be a good outlet when things at home are weird.

        1. Hyaline*

          I have to be honest—that’s even less normal. I think the dynamics of family hyper-involvement are making this a lot harder than it would be otherwise and I’d really encourage you to recalibrate and gain some distance.

          1. Baela Targaryen*

            I’m basically just screaming “ENMESHMENT” over and over at my laptop at this point.

            1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

              I looked up the term. I can see how I’ve phrased things might lend to this perception, but I do not think it applies to me. I cannot say the same about the rest of the family, of course.

              There’s plenty enough strangeness around the circumstances as it is.

    8. Magpie*

      It seems like you feel very entitled to get involved in your brother’s marital situation. The way you say you’re not “allowed” to help and how you’re frustrated that advice you offered ten years ago hasn’t helped their situation in the long term. I think it would really help your emotional state if you took a big step back from this situation. Marital difficulties are incredibly sensitive situations and it makes sense that the people in the marriage would want to limit the number of people involved and offering advice. Just because your brother has asked for your advice in the past doesn’t mean you should have a standing invitation to get involved whenever you want. If anything, expressing frustration that you’re not allowed to be involved will likely push your brother even farther away. Let them handle their marital problems in a way that makes the most sense to them without worrying about how it affects you and you’ll be much more likely to have a better relationship with them down the road.

    9. MigraineMonth*

      Hey LW3, I’m a “fixer”, and I’m wondering from this comment if you are too. I love being the asked for help/advice, and I love swooping in to save the day and put everything right. It makes me feel wise and powerful. Except sometimes people don’t listen to my advice, or they don’t notice all the effort I put in, or they don’t realize that they need to be saved, and I get resentful.

      Like that time I was staying at my sister’s house and shoveled all the snow off her driveway, even hurting my back to do so (!), and she never thanked me when she got home. Later I found out that she hadn’t noticed because she already paid someone to plow the driveway. It turns out that doing generous things for people (that they never asked you to do) can be generosity, but it can also be narcissism. I need to carefully check my motivations before doing something for someone else, and sometimes I actually have to leave a situation entirely when I get the overwhelming urge to give advice/fix something/meddle.

    10. Observer*

      so there’a an aspect of “why’d I even help then, anyway?” to it now.

      Because you help when you are invited? Because it seemed to work for a while?

      it is the disinvitation to family discussions meant to help them that stings most

      But that’s not really fair. I get it- you feel how you feel. But it’s worth keeping in mind that sometimes our feeling really are unreasonable. Especially since you say that you would not have tried to help anyway. That makes it sound like you wanted it to be YOUR choice, rather than recognizing that it was you brother’s choice to make.

    11. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Ohhhh.

      You’ve got to find a way to put some emotional distance between yourself and the advice you gave. Advice that was a long time ago, when you were all different people, the world was different, etc.

      I mean, compare it to a less emotional subject, like “what refrigerator should I buy?”. It’s been 12 years, time for your brother to buy a new one. Except they don’t make that exact model of refrigerator anymore. And that was back when your brother ate fewer salads and more frozen meals. And now he’s a lot more concerned about energy efficiency than he was back then. Plus he has kids and wants to make sure they can reach the milk and juice on their own without spilling. Etc.

      Just because your brother buys a different refrigerator today doesn’t invalidate the advice you gave 12 years ago. He’s not buying a new refrigerator to spite you.

    12. Ellen Ripley*

      Are the family discussions based around helping their marriage, or helping them in other ways (like with finances or something)?

  26. I should really pick a name*

    I’m not sure I could stop myself from including some “electronic mail guidance for noobs” on how to disengage from an email storm

    This feels like it’s putting all the blame on the recipients.
    Yes, they should know better than to reply-all, but at this point we all know that people don’t know better,
    The career centre should not have sent an email in such a way that recipients COULD reply to everyone.
    If it’s a mailing list, replying to it should go to a single address, not everyone.
    If it’s a bunch of email addresses, they should be bcc’d.

      1. Someguy*

        So in one of the previous here on a prior reply-all-pocalypses, a commenter gave a quick 2-3 click disengage method when you are caught in one. I can understand wanting to share that one weird trick for escaping the storm if you are caught it one.

        But including it in the apology/explanation and it may be interpreted as antagonistic/victim blaming as opposed to sharing a useful tip.

        (Do i remember the one weird trick? No. But I now know it exists and I am reasonably certain I could find it if need be.)

      2. SarahKay*

        Not only that, but you can bet that only about 2% of people getting all these emails were actually adding to them.
        If I were in the 98% that had to live through it, sensibly keeping my fingers off my keyboard, only to receive a scolding ‘Are you stupid?!?’ “apology”, that’s the point at which I would see red.

        1. Antilles*

          Same. If I got that follow-up email, I’d think you needed to go look in a mirror. The person who really needs that “email guidance for noobs” is actually you, the person who screwed up the original email.

  27. Stew Redman*

    I think the punishment for abusing reply-all should be death by orange juice and toothpaste.
    So let it be done.

  28. Diane*

    LW1: my husband and I are considering leaving the twin cities area because the bias you describe is so pervasive here. He’s from India, I’m from Philly area, and we’re both seeing it. It’s not only harder to make friends here than anywhere I’ve lived before, but my husband is starting to feel he’s hit a ceiling in his career after being passed over for promotion over and over in favor of candidates who grew up here with all the people in charge. His field is very diverse overall, but everyone in management is a good ol boy/girl from the Midwest.

    All this to say: I’m glad you’re noticing this tendency and trying to work on it. It’s real, and it impacts lives, and the culture will stay homogeneous until people start actively trying to make it otherwise.

    1. Paint N Drip*

      Thanks for contributing the other side to this. I don’t think the OP is part of the ‘bad guys’ since they’re now aware, but it is pervasive and does have consequences. OP would actually be doing a world of good to start speaking to the possibilities of bias and loudly pushing for quantifiable interview processes in both their company and to their Midwestern cohort.

    2. Lizzo*

      I am in another major city in the Midwest. A friend who grew up here but spent a LONG time in Minneapolis (she married a Minnesotan) said it felt particularly hard to “belong” socially, even after 10+ years. Sorry you’re dealing with this. :-(

    3. Ole Pammy's Getting What She Wants*

      HIIIIII FELLOW EAST COASTER! I live in Chicago (11 yrs now) but grew up in the southeast and i see it SOOOO much here as well. People cannot seem to comprehend that I am not from Michigan, Wisconsin, or the suburbs. It’s impossible to make friends (i’m in my mid30s) because everyone has their friend groups all sorted out and often they reach back to high school or even childhood. I have had issues with communication at work because, bless their hearts, midwesterners tend to talk soooooooo arouuuunnnndddd the buuusssshhhh that I literally do not understand what is being asked of me. Anyway, I feel it too. I will never belong here so I’m just dealing with it. Best of luck to you and your husband – you deserve to feel included in your community <3

      1. Texan in exile on her phone*

        And even in-staters divide themselves. My Milwaukee co-workers were split between Madison and Marquette camps. (With the occasional MSOE thrown in for variety.)

        1. Ole Pammy's Getting What She Wants*

          oh lord, completely …..dont even get me started on Michigan vs Michigan State in Chicago. I still dont know which colors go with which and i hope i never memorize it.

      2. Lizzo*

        Also an East Coast transplant to the Windy City.
        I assure you, there are other transplants here in your age bracket who would like to make friends! And even local folks who are interested, too. Best thing to do is find a hobby where you’re in a group setting with people, e.g. something with sports, something that involves regular classes, some sort of meetup around a shared interest that isn’t the bar scene.
        Also, consider that you may need a change of neighborhoods if you’ve been in the same place since you arrived here. A dear friend of mine spent her 20s in Wrigleyville, but then relocated to Ravenswood in her 30s and was much happier there.

      3. judyjudyjudy*

        That’s just being in your 30s, dude. It’s hard making friends once you leave college. Join some kind of hobby group, like a sport or game group or photo group. One of my friends from college moved to my town and made more friends and went to more parties in 6 months than I had gone to in 3 years, because he joined an ultimate frisbee team.

    4. Butterfly*

      This touches upon an issue I have with LW1’s bias. I think she is trying to play it off as more of a ‘similar communication style’ thing…but is it?

      I’m Asian-American East Coaster, but a lot of my personality traits and cultural upbringing is actually more similar to that of Midwesterners. My parents’ culture is very ‘guess culture’ and very preoccupied with politeness and manners. I’ve always been very open to talking to strangers and community-oriented.

      However, having these traits in common with many (largely white, non-immigrant) Midwesterners did not make me more welcomed by them. Idk what LW1’s race is and if this is how it’s playing out with her, but I would look into how much it is about personality traits or just hiring people who look like you.

  29. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    LW3- it sounds like you’ve got big feelings about it all, which is understandable, but the details should be kept outside work.

    If personal things are filling your brain and there’s things you can do at work that will help to quiet those voices or burn off frustration without causing much disruption, in an ideal world you could say “Ugh, some stuff at home is making me cranky, I could use an hour or two to reorganize the stock room/do the monotonous data entry pile that we all hate/take the mail to the PO for Sue.” And your boss/team would say, “go for it” and maybe give you some grace for a day or two.

    Odds are your boss/team don’t actually want to take on your personal drama anyway. Make work your safe space.

  30. WantonSeedStitch*

    For LW #1, behavioral interview questions can be really helpful at more objectively assessing people’s fitness for a role, even for stuff like communication style. You can ask candidates how they have handled specific communication situations in the past (e.g., telling someone something they don’t want to hear, convincing someone to give an idea a try when they were opposed to it, etc.). Make sure you’re asking all your candidates the same questions, so you can better compare them.

  31. Dandylions*

    Considering coastal bias is so prevalent (how many times is our entire region dismissed as flyover country) I don’t see an issue with defaulting to Midwest when it’s an otherwise coastal company. You are literally introducing the diversity in this instance and I see no issue with, if all things are equal, go with the diversity hire.

    1. Angstrom*

      What about candidates from the Deep South, or the Mountain West, or other regions that are not coastal? There shouldn’t be a regional “default”.

    2. Nodramalama*

      Im not sure combating one bias with another is a great solution when ideally where someone’s from shouldn’t be relevant to hiring at all.

    3. Hyaline*

      I appreciate the concept here–and I think that if the question was changed slightly to “I am the only woman in a very male industry, so all things being equal I suggest the woman in a pool of candidates” or “I am Black and there are few people from historically marginalized groups in our company, so I tend to favor marginalized people in hiring, valuing their perspectives” most commenters would say it was a valuable thing to “be biased” in these circumstances, especially as that might be countering bias coming from others on the hiring committee. And to be fair, it may be countering bias toward East Coasters to point out the skills and assets of the Midwesterner, particularly if they might get lost in a cultural blind spot.

      So yes, I agree: If you value the elements that diversity brings to a team, you have to consider diversity in hiring. However, I think there are two key differences here. One is that Midwestern isn’t necessarily a marginalized group, so important facets of the argument are different. The other is questioning whether people from different regions have the potential to bring significantly different perspectives, values, skills, etc–I think they do, personally, but I can see the argument that they may not or that those differences may not be relevant to the company’s needs.

    4. Andrew*

      > (how many times is our entire region dismissed as flyover country)

      I know I may be starting a flame war / diversion discussion here, but as someone who grew up in California, has lived over a decade of his adult life in the Northeast (Boston and New York), and has lived three years in Chicago and has a sibling and sibling-in-law living in Minnesota — I have literally never heard “flyover country” used in a real conversation anywhere I’ve lived, be it the West Coast, Northeast, or Midwest.

      It’s not to deny that there are stereotypes everywhere (for every coastal inhabitant who thinks the Midwest is full of uneducated rubes, there’s someone who thinks I live in New York, crime-ridden godforsaken wasteland) but this specific accusation I’ve always found baffling because I’ve never heard it, _except_ when people bring up the phrase specifically (and only ever to accuse other people of saying it!)

        1. Fellow Michigander*

          I once had a coworker in Boston ask: Why is Michigan shaped like a hand? So it can wave as everyone flies over!

          I found it equal parts hilarious and obnoxious.

      2. Hyaline*

        I’ve heard it plenty. Often when people from the coasts ask me (or my husband) where we’re from, and then have the gall to call our home state “lol so flyover country.”

        Friend, some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been are in “flyover country.” Keep flying so I can keep them uncluttered by jerks.

      3. judyjudyjudy*

        Even if you haven’t heard that specific phrase, the attitude is there. Plenty of Midwesterners including myself have been condescended to by coasties because we are from the Midwest. I grew up in LA and have lived in a few places in the Midwest since 2009, if it matters. “Fly over state” energy is real, and it sucks.

    5. VP of Monitoring Employees' LinkedIn Profiles*

      Your “flyover”comment reminded me of an article in The Onion from 1996 (!):

      ‘Midwest’ Discovered Between East, West Coasts

      A U.S. Geographic Survey expeditionary force announced yesterday that it has discovered an unexplored and heretofore unknown land region between the New York and California coasts….

  32. Sherri*

    For LW4 – please do respond for two reasons.

    1) Gesture of good will
    2) Otherwise, you will have nothing to share for AMA update season. :) Sounds like you could provide some juicy details for that with just a tiny bit of contact!

    Cheers!

    2. Database Developer Dude*

      I respectfully (towards you) and disrespectfully (towards OP’s former workplace) disagree. OP owes them less than nothing, because THEY burned this bridge by how they treated OP when he/she was trying to do the right thing while still there.

  33. Baela Targaryen*

    OP3 — You are absolutely and entirely WAY too enmeshed in your brother’s personal life. I don’t say this with judgement but please, please talk to a therapist.

    1. Database Developer Dude*

      I wholeheartedly concur. OP should tell work nothing, and get help. This can and will be used against him.

    2. Hyaline*

      After reading the update above…not only do I agree, and think therapy would be hugely beneficial, but I think the entire family is too enmeshed. If nothing else, find people outside the situation to confide in. Even if you share parts of this situation in surfacey ways at work, I think you’d recalibrate what normal looks like right quick.

      “Hey, Anon, how’s it going?” “Not fantastic, my brother and his wife are divorcing and I’m kinda bummed about it.” “Aw, man, that’s rough, I’m sorry” –> yes this normal.

      “Hey, Anon, how was your weekend?” “OK, except on Saturday my brother and his wife and my parents and her mom spent three hours talking about my brother’s marital problems in our living room and I just wanted to go veg out on the couch with a sandwich but I couldn’t–families, amirite?” *Awkward silence* *Blink Blink* “That’s…tough…I uh…” –> no that is not normal.

  34. platgeua*

    #2: you don’t need to do anything, just move on from it and ignore it. Everyone who replied is also capable of using the delete key on their email system to remove it.

    Yes, if you have the power, get IT to fix whatever happened with the service tickets, if that even has anything to do with your job in the first place.

    But for the most part, these things happen, and the people at fault were the ones replying-all. You should not bend over backwards to appease the people causing and compounding the problem in the first place.

  35. Manic Pixie HR Girl*

    OP 5, give your resignation to HR! They may also advise you let the C-level person know as well, but either way they’ll be in a good position to advise on next steps. (You could also give to both C level with a cc to HR.) I say this in particular as, given your current situation there’s a non-zero chance HR might not be notified timely of your departure and that can cause a lot of issues! (Ask me how I know … ha ha ha.)

    1. ferrina*

      Yes, definitely give the resignation to HR directly. I would email both the C-level person and HR on the same email- that way neither entity can say they didn’t know.

  36. HailRobonia*

    The one time I really REALLY wanted to hire someone who was like me was when we had a candidate who was like my doppelganger – same height, build, hair color, facial hair… and the kicker was his name was very close to mine.

    The reason I wanted to hire him was for all the potential chaos and confusion that might ensue! Think of the possibilities… “if you go to x meeting and pretend to be me, I will go to that working group session as you…”

    He was a very strong candidate but alas chose a position elsewhere.

    (Obviously I wouldn’t seriously do this… and in any case I wasn’t on the actual hiring committee, just involved in a “meet the rest of the team” type interview which was more about us explaining the office/positions rather than evaluating the candidate)

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      Heck, after Ireland had a really popular president, the next election for president, not only were four fifths of the candidates female (she was our first female president) but the winning candidate was a similar age to she had been when she was elected, had the same job and even the same first name. I don’t think she got elected completely because of those similarities, but I suspect that subconsciously, they likely played a part in some voters’ minds.

    2. ferrina*

      I had a boss decline to hire someone because the candidate had the same name as the boss.

  37. Database Developer Dude*

    #2 (Reply-all storm)
    I’m working on developing PDF instructions for the most popular email clients, teaching how to disengage from a reply-all storm. I’m wondering how appropriate it would be, were I to fall under one, to respond with these PDF instructions and just say “Here’s a set of instructions how how to disengage so you won’t get your email inbox filled up with this”, and leave it there.

    #3 (Family stress affecting work)
    OP, you HAVE to find a way to deal with this outside of work, not at work, and do not tell ANYONE. It will be used against you. Even attacking cardboard boxes can and will be misconstrued as you getting violent. Get counseling.

    #4 (Responding to work questions after having quit)
    Alison got this one wrong. Even if it’s a small question, don’t “just do it”. You went out of your way to ensure a smooth transition, and you got ignored, and your documentation got ignored. OP, you owe them nothing. Burning a bridge works -both- ways. They lit the match. Don’t respond at all.

  38. Lily*

    “lots of grown children, including me, will tell you firsthand that the damage to kids when their parents don’t divorce but should can be harder on them than a split would have been”

    I second this SO MUCH.

    1. Baela Targaryen*

      Thirded — who could have guessed that living with people who hated each other was bad?!
      /s

      1. I Have RBF*

        Fourthed.

        My parents divorced when I was a teenager. They should have split a decade earlier. My mother used to get really angry at me swearing, but I learned all those words listening to my parents fight. For the longest time, I thought insults, yelling and swearing were just part of a relationship.

        You know how we say that working in a dysfunctional environment will screw with a person’s perception of what “normal” looks like? The same applies to kids of a dysfunctional marriage. Substitute “Boss yelling all the time” with “Parent yelling all the time” and you get the idea.

        For years my parents’ dysfunctional relationship warped my perception of what normal human interaction looked like, and yes, it bled over into work.

    2. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish*

      I wish this were more discussed and acknowledged culturally. Does anyone know of reliable info to share with others about this? It feels like there’s a lot more books, articles, etc. for children of divorce than for “children whose parents treated each other like garbage but kept pretending everything was fine”.

  39. Alan*

    LW #3, about the only time I will lie to people is when they’re asking me about something that is none of their d@mn business. Then I lie with abandon. Is it possible that you are too up in your extended-family grill?

    1. KateM*

      I once lied to my own mother when she asked if I was pregnant. I was not happy to do that, but I saw no other possible answer to give in that situation – I was not ready to broadcast my pregnancy to all my relatives.

      1. April*

        My mother doesn’t know my husband has had a vasectomy when she pressures me for grandkids. It’s none of her damn business.

        I can’t imagine sharing how my marriage is going with my siblings or them being ANGRY I didn’t tell them things weren’t going well!

  40. Wolfie*

    LW 4, the same thing happened to me with a previous job. I organized everything in clearly labeled boxes as clearly as I could (I cut and mailed checks so each box was where the check request was in the process) and offered to my two supervisors and the rest of my team to go over things before I left. No one took me up on it. A couple weeks after I left, I got a text message asking me the status of a particular payment. It was something I couldn’t answer without being back in the office at my computer but, even if I could answer it, there was no way that I would with how my coworkers and bosses blew me off. So I ignored it and never heard from them again.

    I highly recommend you ignore them too!

  41. Lisa*

    Alison, thank you for publishing letter #1. When I try to talk about unconscious bias people always get so hung up on “but I’m not racist/sexist!” that it’s hard to get past that. This is an excellent example that drops the race/gender component for something less loaded that almost everyone (in the US at least) can relate to, so I will definitely use it in the future.

  42. A Book about Metals*

    Do reply alls really require an apology? We’ve all experienced them and realize sometimes these things happen. I think most of us forget about it the minute it’s done

    1. I should really pick a name*

      In a situation like this where they’ve inconvenienced people that they’re trying to build relationships with, it’s probably a good idea.

      1. Meep1*

        I feel this. We told both our parents at 6 weeks so they were aware why we weren’t coming down for Mother’s Day. Within an hour, I was forced to call both of his siblings, his aunt, and grandmother before the two of them told. Two seconds after we told my SIL, all of my BIL’s (her younger brother) friends knew. By Monday, their best friends and my SIL’s boss all knew I was pregnant. I didn’t even tell my sister!

        I get they were excited. Heck, god knows my husband’s sister or brother are not going to end up with their own kids (she’s asexual, he is… well misogynistic…), but if there is a next time, they are lucky to know at the birth (which is a whole other storm I have to deal with!).

    2. Hyaline*

      Typically, no, I don’t think they do require an apology, but the particular relationship here and that it was a systemic glitch that allowed for it–and you want to reassure people that the glitch has been resolved–makes it a different case IMO.

  43. Observer*

    #2 – Email storm

    If I were them and I were instructed to send an apology email, I’m not sure I could stop myself from including some “electronic mail guidance for noobs” on how to disengage from an email storm…

    Really? Service messed up – and more than once – multiple times, and it took way to long for anyone to figure out how to atop it.

    The two two tickets responding to the queries were especially bad – that should not have happened either, so something it wrong with their ticketing system. And the question of “What does this ticket have to do with me?” is perfectly normal, since it doesn’t actually look like the typical “reply all” mess- a ticket email implies that there is some expectation here.

    And fundamentally, when you mess up, you need to focus on how to avoid a repetition, and apologizing for your mistakes and stay away from criticizing the less than perfect behavior of the people who got flooded.

    And BTW, although I get why you’re rolling your eyes at the reply all’s, the ones *I* am rolling my eyes at are the sysadmins who set this mess up. It’s been years since any sort of external large email list had any excuse for allowing a reply all of this sort.

  44. TMarin*

    LW4 – sometimes people don’t know what questions to ask until they get into the situation. You don’t always know what you don’t know.

  45. Gretta*

    For LW #1, I totally feel you. I’m a midwestern person (Ohio) and I’ve lived in a few different places. I couldn’t take cultures that were predominantly more brusque, cold, and less chit-chatty to strangers. I ended up settling in a place (Virginia) that is very similar to Ohio in terms of friendliness and community.

    That being said, I guess we may annoy some people, but I actually think it’s a better way to be – warm, open, friendly to strangers, wanting to help others out, want to resolve conflict. If those are the traits you prioritize in your hires, I don’t think it’s wrong to hire for them. If they happen to be midwestern, so be it.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      What you describe is how midwesterners come across TO YOU. A midwesterner.
      It’s a very subjective interpretation.

      1. Columbill*

        Somebody else upthread portrayed the Midwest default in a similar way. It’s why LW 1 should be commended, and why all of us really need to stay aware of our bias.

      2. Butterfly*

        Yeah…not all Midwesterners are kind.

        That being said, it might be worth it to parse out what about Midwesterners LW1 gravitates to. If she is truly just selecting for good professional communication skills, that’s not a bad thing. Are Midwesterners just more professional?

  46. Meep*

    LW2 reminded me the time someone emailed the entire class asking when and where the final was 3 minutes before it started. He did such on an email where the professor had reminded the entire class when and where the exam was.

    Another time, we had an alum “reply all” to an email asking why on Earth he was included. It was about an alumni mixer being held. /headdesk

    Point is, it is pretty common in academia for whatever reason. People just laugh and move on.

  47. Relax... I'm (mostly) teasing...*

    LW1, as a lifetime mid-westerner, I have come to acknowledge the coast bias that is so prevalent… so I have to admit, I’m taking a little delight in the fact that you have bias TOWARD us in the mid-west. Many thanks! ;)

  48. Brain the Brian*

    Wow, what a set of letters to miss for a day of travel. LW3, I’m saying this as kindly as I can: please see a therapist if you’re not already. Under no circumstances should you be so upset about *someone else’s* divorce — even your own brother’s — and without options to work through your anger that you need to take that out at work — even if it’s “just” on boxes. If your employer has an EAP, call that number and see about talking to one of the therapists / counselors on call there for a few sessions. If you’re already seeing a therapist, it’s time to be more honest with them about how you’re feeling so they can help you through it. It sounds like you’re in a dark place and negatively internalizing a lot of things that should be peripheral to you, and I’m worried for your own sake.

    1. ANON FOR A WHILE*

      It was nothing like taking frustration out on boxes as people seem to have latched on to – it was literally just manually counting individual items out instead of batching them together – stretching out a count to distract my mind with math so it didn’t wander into ‘what ifs’.

      As was previously said, I wrote in the day I found out, and several days later, my perspective has averaged out to “What will be will be” – either they work it out, or they don’t.

      I probably would’ve been better served rephrasing the letter to the more basic question: “If there are things going on in my life and family that are frustrating me to the point of distraction at work, how much do I need to disclose?”

      Because it’s not a perpetual distraction until the mind wanders to those “What ifs”……

  49. Private Proxies*

    I keep listening to the news broadcast lecture about receiving boundless online grant applications so I have been looking around for the most excellent site to get one. Could you tell me please, where could i get some?

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