Question:

Answers:

“Get a new job. ”
— Gritty Gossiper: Writer’s Cramp

“I see options for this situation, depending on your nature, mostly:

1. Seek employment elsewhere. If you’re good at your job, you shouldn’t have to deal with a hostile work environment, and I think this would qualify as hostile, especially since working there too long in those conditions could drive you to want to shoot somebody. Also, let your boss know you’re looking for a job in which such a condition doesn’t exist. By ‘not rocking the boat’, he’s basically not helping a potentially bad situation. There are ways employers can deal with such situations with tact and respect, which should allow for you to enjoy your job and not have to tolerate such things. A good boss would know how to approach the situation and handle it with minimal ‘boat rocking’. There are many obese people in the world, but adding to it a tight wardrobe and a bad attitude, could indicate a more serious problem that, if overlooked, could cause trouble for the business and all concerned.

2. Get to know this person better. Find out, if you can, in a very careful way, why they’re fat, wearing clothes sizes too small, and hate everyone. Honestly, all 3 of these issues could be caused by the same thing — depression. If a person is depressed, they can have mood swings and binge eat as a way of dealing with their problems. Obviously, without exercise, they’ll grow larger, and then no longer fit in their cloths so well. This certainly won’t help their mood, and they will not want to buy larger clothes because they’re still hoping to get over it and lose the weight again. In any case, dealing with an individual with these defining characteristics is a sensitive issue and flogging them into walking the plank and feeding them to the sharks is probably not the answer. Seriously, though, there is hope in dealing with a person like this. They just need to re-establish their balance and become once again comfortable with who they are.”
— Gritty Gossiper: Boss Pirate

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Tags: co-worker, employer, overweight

Question:

“How do you handle a female in your work force that is the boss’s spy?”
— Anonymous

Answers:

“Be her best friend, never gossip and always be on time. At least when she’s around…”
— Gritty Gossiper: Writer’s Cramp

Completely “shut her out”. Don’t give her any avenues or opportunities to gather information from you. If you have to deal with her on a daily basis, be formal & polite, but don’t include her in any of your social activities.
— Gritty Gossiper: Lady Fierce

There are really a few possibilities to consider for this particular question…

1. Are you the boss? Often, I am (as you can see by my name; Boss Pirate), so in this case, the female in question would be under my employ. That being the case, I’d manage her as any wise boss would, and work to ensure that she appears to the rest of the crew to be as alienated with me as they, so she can properly blend in. Of course, I’d also have to ensure she’s attractive so as to better get the rest of the crew’s guard down. Lastly, I’d ensure that she is only planted within the workforce for as long as needed to find the desired information, whatever that may be.

2. Is she a peer/co-worker? If she’s a peer, you can take her under your wing, gain her confidence, and feed her some interesting and useless slew about the boss or better yet, turn her against the one she’s spying for. The world LOVEs double-agents.

3. Is she subordinate to you, but ’secretly’ working for your boss? Well in this case, simply firing her is probably not the answer, but if you have direct control of her, you can easily give her the worst tasks in the workplace and ensure she never gets the information the boss seeks.

4. Now, if you’re the candid type who keeps no secrets, well the answer is really easy. Start by telling the boss what you really think, both about the job and the perception such an action as planting a female spy gives the honest, hard-working employees you work with.

Of course, I’m assuming away the possibility that she’s ‘HAWT’. If that’s the case, then all the male employees will probably ogle her constantly, the female employees will hate her because she makes them look less desirable, and the boss will defeat all best intentions in planting her within the work force because productivity will probably decline significantly as a result.
— Gritty Gossiper: Boss Pirate

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Tags: Activities, Boss, Female, Friend, Gossip, Office, Social, Spy, Work