Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. It’s anonymous!

Dear Good Job,

One of my dearest friends was recently squeezed into an unwanted early retirement by DOGE. The work she was doing at the government agency where she’s spent most of her career is on the verge of being eliminated or slashed into oblivion, and it kills me to know that her life’s work is about to be reversed. I want to support her through this. She can’t just go get a private sector job because she’s a scientist in a field where most funding comes from government agencies. Mostly, I’ve just been listening. What else can I do? Do you have any good suggestions for “I’m so sorry you lost your job, those mother-effers!” gifts? Because I have a bunch of other friends who are also out of work with poor prospects due to the gutting of our federal agencies, and I’m seeking a good gift for this unfortunate occasion.

—Friend of Science, Not Elon

Dear Friend,

Thank you for supporting your friend as she loses her government job to this administration of mass destruction. Listening can be a huge comfort to anyone in a crisis, but it’s especially important for the scientists who dedicated their careers to advancing health, serving the public, and understanding the nature of reality, and whose work is now being called waste. Listen to them vent, affirm that their work mattered, that they’re right, and the DOGE goons are utterly wrong.

Goofy gifts can help! If your friend swears a lot (and these days, who doesn’t), consider a care package labeled for a “bad ass bitch.” Effin Birds products might appeal to her “eff those mother-effers” spirit. Flowers are nice, or send her a fancy bottle of booze, funny books, or some of her favorite foods. Perhaps she’d like to work out some frustrations by axe throwing? A friend of mine created a retirement bingo card for another friend, with entries like “smash alarm clock,” “read books all day,” and “see a matinee.”

When someone loses a job that mattered to them, they can also suffer a loss of identity. Who are they now, and will people still like them if they don’t have an impressive title? So remind people who are “consulting” (a euphemism for “unemployed”) that they are people first, and are more than their former jobs. Your question, Friend, is about your close friend, but I encourage you and anyone reading this to contact even distant friends and acquaintances when they lose a job. Tell them you appreciate them and hope to stay in touch as they figure out their next plans. (This kind of support sure helped me when I lost a job.)

One of the hardest parts of going from working hard to hardly working is the isolation. Your friend’s job probably involved endless meetings, emails, text messages, and conferences. She probably had more social interaction than she needed through work, and once that’s gone, it will be easy for her to get lonely. Check in on her regularly, connect her with people you know who live near her, invite her to gatherings, and go on outings together. Maybe a lively Tesla Takedown protest?

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Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir want to help you navigate your social dynamics at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry? Ask us your question here!

Dear Good Job,

I am personally against the use of AI and ChatGPT for any task—I think it’s a slippery slope, and we have not truly considered its far-reaching consequences. At work, my boss has increasingly pressured us to use ChatGPT to speed up the processing/parsing of Excel documents, write emails, and perform other tasks. I am uncomfortable using ChatGPT, but I don’t know how to approach this with my boss because I consider it an ethical issue. I have been able to get around this so far, but he continues to add to our workload with the expectation that we’ll use ChatGPT to handle it. Should I just get with the times and concede or stick to my guns?

—Against AI

Dear Against AI,

There seems to be an inverse relationship between how well a boss understands their team’s work and how enthusiastic the boss is about replacing that team’s work with AI. I’m sorry you and so many people are stuck with bosses who think this technology is the cost-cutting future of their industry. They’re wrong. You’re right to object to it on ethical grounds, just as you would be right to object to the environmental costs or massive theft of intellectual property used to create ChatGPT and similar programs that are hyped as “intelligent.”

Your boss doesn’t seem overly troubled by ethics, so the best approach may be to show him that using ChatGPT can reflect badly on him. The trick when contradicting bosses, especially ones who think they know more than they do, is to present a problem out of an abundance of concern. You’re not challenging his ideas or expertise, heavens no, of course not. You just want to make sure your team is producing quality work. Your boss also doesn’t seem burdened by a lot of curiosity, but you could try pointing him to articles about how predictive models are biased, bullshit-generating machines. More likely, though, the only thing that will get through to him is examples of how AI has made embarrassing or costly mistakes when unleashed on your spreadsheets or your email interactions with clients or customers. If you have co-workers who are using ChatGPT and are willing to help, ask them to collect examples of mistakes that you or they could show the boss. Of course, your boss was being a modern, forward-thinking leader (you’ll say or imply) when he assigned business-critical tasks to ChatGPT, but gosh darn, look at all these problems it’s causing.

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Dear Good Job,

I recently started a new job where I was brought in for my specific expertise—my boss even said on day one that I’d be leading in the areas I was hired for. I’ve been a director for over a decade, and while that’s not my title here, I’m functioning at that level.

One colleague, who’s at my same title level and reports to a different manager, has taken a particular interest in “helping” me. That help has included correcting me publicly (incorrectly) about whether I hold a Ph.D. (I do), telling me I won’t be making decisions because I’m not a director, and telling others she’s trying to “help [sic] without being her boss.” She’s also repeatedly given me inaccurate information about our organization’s processes, which I’ve had to double-check with others. Spoiler: She’s been wrong every time.

She keeps notes from our meetings using an annotated version of my job description, has inserted herself into areas outside her role, and recently posted a list of “data projects she’s working on” in our shared group chat—as if she’s setting the direction for the entire team.

I’ve looped in my boss, who is supportive, and made it clear this person wasn’t a candidate for my role and doesn’t have the skills I was brought in for. But I still have to work with her. I want to be collaborative, but I’m struggling to stay generous when someone seems to be power-tripping and subtly undermining me at every turn. Am I right to feel wary? How do I assert myself without looking territorial—or worse, catty?

—Tired of Being “Managed” By a Peer

Dear Tired,

You are right to feel wary. Can you tell whether your colleague is just reckless, overconfident, and/or misinformed? Or is she intentionally feeding you bad information about your organization and misrepresenting your accomplishments to undermine you? Both things could be true, but let’s hope she’s more incompetent than malevolent. In either case, you do need to establish some territorial boundaries with your colleague.

My Daughter Did a Favor for a Popular Girl at School. Her Brother Told Me How It Ended. My Uncle the Priest Is Coming to Visit for Father’s Day, and My Mom Has Made an Unholy Request Help! I’ve Found There Is One Way to Get the Medical Care You Need. My Boyfriend Refuses to Do It. I Discovered Something in My Husband’s Underwear Drawer. Uh, I Think He Has Something Big He Needs to Tell Me.

Good for you for looping in your boss, and I’m glad they trusted you enough to share some history about your job opening. Keep a running list of ways your colleague is interfering with your work, and update your boss if the problem continues or intensifies. It can be tricky to figure out which examples are truly disruptive and worth relaying, and which are just annoying, so make your list as factual, selective, and dispassionate as possible. (Her shared list of data projects is probably on the just-annoying side, since she could plausibly say she’s trying to improve communication and collaboration.) Keep another, related list of ways you’re trying to de-escalate the conflict and establish clear roles for the two of you on each project. Share these ideas with your boss as well, and ask them for advice on how to set boundaries with your colleague. You want to present yourself as the person trying to solve the problem, with your boss’s help, and not just complaining about it. If things escalate, your boss should talk with your colleague’s boss.

That’s the official, business-like, org-chart way to deal with her. But realistically, it sounds like she’s threatened by you and should not be trusted. Telling other people you don’t have a Ph.D.? Some people are weird about doctorates, but that’s spectacular. You don’t say whether you corrected her at the time, but for the future, correct her calmly and kindly when she makes big errors (not little ones, to avoid sounding pedantic). Don’t let her know she’s upsetting you, but do let her know you won’t allow her to spread misinformation.

—Laura

Classic Prudie

I just started a new job. It’s at the same company as a casual friend of mine (her husband and mine work together and hang out sometimes), but I didn’t see any problem with that. She was a bit funny about it when she heard I had applied, but we aren’t that close so I wasn’t really worried. It turns out the reason she was odd is because she’s a diabetic who lost her lower leg to complications from the disease. At least, she is from 9 to 5…

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