How to Get Someone to Take One for the Team

In a former job, I had a coworker who liked and respected me much more than I liked and respected him. But I was pleasant and professional to him, so he didn’t realize the disparity in our attitudes. We had various managers who we reported to on different days. He had a specific problem with one of the managers, an African American woman I respected and liked. I defended her to my coworker more than once, but he was oblivious. Literally oblivious, like he couldn’t even hear my defense of her.

One day he asked me to read a letter he was sending to someone three rungs up the ladder from us, two up from the manager in question, explaining exactly why he didn’t think she should be employed by our company anymore. He asked me to read it and tell him what I thought.

It was hand-written, in very large letters, and spoke specifically about how she dressed, what parts of her body her clothing accentuated, and what kind of impression her appearance gave, in his opinion. “Whore” was one of the nicer words involved.

He signed his name to this letter, by the way.

Strangely, I found myself torn. I didn’t want someone saying these things about the manager, but I knew that sending the letter would do tremendous damage to the career of the guy who sent it and, if anything, demonstrate to the higher-ups exactly what she had to put up with.

In the end I did what I thought was the decent thing and told him that he shouldn’t send the letter, because I didn’t agree with anything in it and that I thought it would reflect badly on him. To show you how oblivious he was, he came in the next day with a smug look on his face and told me he sent it.

I never saw any sign that the note caused any damage to the manager’s career, and while the letter writer wasn’t fired, he certainly never got promoted past the position he was in.

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