Carl, where's the benefit of your 'advice?'

by Ruth
(Richmond, Virginia)

Carl, I've read a few of your responses to these people begging for help -- and it really seems like you're a 'sounding board' more than anything else.

I don't expect you to come out and tell everybody to quit their jobs or take violent actions -- but the answers you give -- we could have figured out ourselves.

I was expecting to see actionable responses. Very disappointed. Seems like more of the same 'office politics' just only on the computer instead of face to face.

Response from Carl: I think for this section of the website - the favoritism one - it is more of a sounding board. I'm only hearing one side of the story - the person emailing me - so who am I to make a plan for them to fix the problem since at the end of the day it's their life and their career on the line, not mine. I also don't know what other information they've left out or neglected to tell me. If you've really read these messages from people, they tend to follow a similar pattern: it's either a family-run business or a business where the boss is friends with certain staff members. Plus, many of the people emailing me don't actually ask me for anything! They simply email me the details of what they're facing and leave it at that. For all I know, they are just venting.

To be honest, the best advice I try to give to people who send me long emails of complaints about their current job is this: how valuable is this job to you and is it really worth fighting for? In many cases the people already tell me all the things they've tried and in these cases, there isn't anything else I can think of suggesting to them that might help which begs the question, why are you staying in the job if it's so bad?

Carl