Hypothetical: Helping people versus screwing people over.
 

I'm witnessing a situation that has me intrigued, and thought it would make a good poll.

Imagine that you have a Class-A friend. A Class-A friend is the Barney Rubble to your Fred Flintstone. You do things together and hang out together all the time, and you talk about stuff passionately, like whether K-Mart would have been better than Target if Jaclyn Smith had been used more extensively as a spokeswoman.

You have a chance to do something for your A-friend that you think will be really cool. And big. Like, you can set him up on a date with a woman who has exactly the same kinky fetishes that he does. Or you can point him to his all-time favorite car, a 1981 DeLorean, at an absurdly low price. Or you can get him a deal on a Panda Express franchise, and we all know that a Panda Express franchise is a lock on wealth.

However, this gesture on your part comes with a catch. In order to help your A-friend, you know that you're going to publicly screw someone else over, another person that you know. This person is not a Class-A friend, and they're either already set up to go out with the kinky woman, or they're already negotiating on the DeLorean, or they just signed a lease on a Popeye's chicken next door to the Panda Express site.

This person will know that you screwed them over, and it's going to destroy the relationship. So do you do it?

I'll give you four scenarios of people who get screwed over. In all cases, you're helping your Class-A friend at the expense of these people.


Scenario 1 - Screwing over a Class-B friend.

A Class-B friend is a friend who you'll invite to every party, and you'll socialize with them one-on-one occasionally.

Scenario 2 - Screwing over a Class-C friend.

A Class-C friend is a friend that you'll occasionally invite to parties if you need to fill out a list. They're fun to talk with when you see them.

Scenario 3 - Screwing over a Class-D friend.

A Class-D friend is someone you don't ever really think about, but they're fun to talk to when you happen to run into them.

Scenario 4 - Screwing over a Class-E acquaintance.

An acquaintance is a person you see occasionally and are friendly with, but your relationship is shallow and it takes you a minute to remember their name when you see them.

Scenario 5 - Screwing over a Class-F acquaintance, which is you don't really like, but are friendly with.

A Class-F acquaintance is someone who annoys you and you try to avoid them if you see them first, but at the same time you're not unfriendly at all and you wave in a friendly manner if you see them across the room.

Scenario 6 - Screwing over a Class-G friendly stranger.

A friendly stranger is someone you don't know, but they seemed nice during the minor interaction you had with them.

Woah. Are you screwing me over just by making me read it without a flow-chart?

Easy answer: you **** over the Class A and Class __ friends to put yourself in the best situation.

So what class is the second friend in? If it's a class B or C friend, i probably wouldn't screw them over to help my class A friend.

What drugs are you taking? They might be of interest.

I'm assuming that you have a Class-A friend who has the patience to explain the poll to you.

Just to save some time, you can check the final option.

Bold the important parts please and I'll vote.

The poll gives you flexibility to consider various scenarios.

I feel like somebody got reallllly, realllllllly high, had a philosophical debate with a friend, and now they are taking their "Sudden Clarity Clarence" out on us.

It's all important. You can't vote without a full understanding of the situation and the scenarios.

I don't have any friends. I just watch other people interact with friends, and I find it fascinating.

Well **** give me 15 minutes then I'll vote accordingly.

What if you'd rather screw under a friend? :shrug:

Sorry. There was no other way.

Loaded poll, no gaz option. Need more defensive homer to make decision.

Rain Man just wanted to screw over Gaz.

tldr

sorry rainman
not going through that for you pool

make it much simpler

I wouldn't screw anyone over. Obviously, if I have no choice and one person HAS to be screwed it would anyone that's a lower class friend/acquaintance.

Lazy bastards. Read the entire thing and voted appropriately

Clearly there are mushrooms or acid involved here...

37 minutes of reading, and no Gaz option. I want my 37 minutes back.

1) Never take from another man's happiness to increase your own.
2) No matter what you steal from someone it will always be worth more to them than you...

I only really have one Class A friend in my life, and he needs a few favors more than anything.

I'd screw over anyone for that guy, and we'd have a good laugh about it.

It's win-win.

What if it is a class D or lower person willing to kill you to death when you do occasionally run into them? I never thought about that.

I must say, I'm shocked at these results. 14% of you would sacrifice a Class-B friendship to help out a Class-A friend? And 25% would sacrifice a Class-C friendship for that purpose? And perhaps the most shocking of all, 65% would sacrifice a Class-D friend? Wow.

My philosophy is that a Class-A friend wouldn't expect you to destroy relationships to help them, so there's no harm done if you don't. I voted no on everything but the Class-G friendly stranger, and even then I felt kind of bad about it.

Agreed. Although I read the entire thing and voted massively inappropriately.

this

It's six paragraphs, three of which are one line long, and then a few definitions. I didn't have the budget to put it in comic book form.

This poll reads like the instructions to that Korean-made bicycle you are putting together at 3 a.m. Christmas morning.

The thing I am worried about, most likely people on here consider most other ChiefPlanet posters to be class D or lower. Be scared, very scared. And be afraid too.

I voted no for B and C, but yes to the rest of them... I took D as one of those facebook friends who you might have initially chatted with when the connection was made, but otherwise hardly ever chat with online and might not even remember the last time you were interested in one of their updates or even noticed one.

I'd feel somewhat bad knowing they were on the wrong end of it, but C seemed to be the cutoff as far as those who really mean anything to you... in my mind, there's a pretty good gap between C and D, and there's not a huge difference between screwing over a D friend and a stranger (who might very well be D-friend material).

ROFL

Target is better than K-Mart?

Not interested in the poll but I did see an apricot BMW convertable Saturday.

Only because K-Mart didn't leverage Jaclyn Smith properly.

Class F and Class G are gonna get screwed over. Everyone else, no.

The way I'm reading the information in the OP is that this is just one-upping in a quest to get something nice. I'm not burning this person's house down or having sex with his wife or anything.

It's like on The Price Is Right when you bid $1 over the previous contestant. It's legal, it happens all the time, and if you didn't do it, somebody else would. It's a screw over, yes, but I'm not necessarily doing harm to this person to favor my Class A friend.

So if my occasional acquaintance that I see in the hall on Tuesdays doesn't like it, that's just too bad. I didn't do anything wrong. About the worst thing that can happen is they unfriend me on Facebook, in which case they were probably one of those friends I had who posts chains of stuff like "LIKE AND SHARE THIS STATUS IF YOU VALUE HUMAN LIFE." They probably wouldn't have survived the next friend purge anyway.

Online relationships complicate the question a little. I was assuming that a Class-D friend would be someone who you see in social situations with some regularity because you run in the same social circle. You know their name and remember them and they seem nice, but you're not going to seek them out.

This poll is enlightening to me in a depressing way. If I can help a friend by screwing over a nameless, faceless stranger, obviously I will. But I sure wouldn't convert someone in my social circle into an enemy in a situation that is optional.

None of the examples seem important enough to screw anyone over (nor does it sound like anyone would be screwed over in many of the options.)

Basically, these are varying degrees of being sort of shitty, and the question is how okay am I with being a little shitty to someone based on how well I know them? I am not okay with being a little shitty ever, but I also think it is possible to act on some of these examples without being shitty, but by being honest and straightforward.

Now if it was something that really meant screwing someone else over, then no, I wouldn't do it to anyone knowingly.

I'm probably understating it a little bit. Here's the situation, with some details changed for confidentiality.

An acquaintance of mine has a Class-D friend/co-worker (maybe Class C, not sure) who is up for a promotion at work to a vacant position and is kind of the default choice (and wants it). These two people are in different work groups but have an overlap in their social circles.

However, he has a Class-A friend who is out of work, and he's been going all out to influence the management team to give the Class-A the job, and it's more out of friendship than any work reason. The Class-D friend is aware of this and is doing a slow burn, and word is spreading among the social circle to the detriment of my acquaintance.

I don't think he means harm to the Class-D and is just stoked about helping out his Class-A homie, but he is harming the Class-D and I think he's causing himself some damage in the larger social circle. It's kind of painful to watch, though I'm distant enough that I'm not going to get involved.

I may be over simplifying but since Class-A is totally out of work, can Class-D get the promotion, and Class-A fill the vacancy Class-D leaves?

In that case, it might also depend on whether the A friend and D friend run in the same circle as well.

On one hand, if they know each other and I tell A about an opportunity and mention D has already expressed interest, it then pretty much falls on A to decide if they're going to screw D... OTOH, I'd still feel bad, since it would destroy a couple of friendships. In that case, I'd probably lean towards staying quiet.

If A doesn't know D, then I think I'd be more likely to tell A and then deal with the fallout of D... except maybe if D is an A friend of one of my other A or B friends... :hmmm: I mean, I only see some people when hanging out with an A/B friend, so that's significantly different than perhaps someone I see due to some other link (a friend of a friend at a tailgate, a former coworker who I didn't work closely with, etc).

You'd think. But that's not how it's playing out.

Another oh shit about this, I assume Class D will get interviewed and considered for the position regardless of Class A so if the acquaintance jilts Class D, Class D gets the job over Class A, Class A is still out of work, he is in a lose/lose situation. Especially if the promotion puts Class D in a position of authority over him. Yikes.

I don't think that Class D would be in a position of authority, but at the same time I imagine there's going to be some karmic payback somewhere along the line. This guy is creating a sense of outrage among a decent-sized group of people.

Ah yes, I am quite familiar with this scenario, as I have recommended many friends for jobs in my industry, some who had previous qualifications and some who didn't, and without a doubt I will always be very up front with my pressure on the hiring group and those that it will effect, and with the friend seeking work as well.

If I am in the hiring position, I disclose my relationship to the candidate to all who are deciding (this happens often with freelance positions,) and be sure to objectively evaluate against others, and then only if there is an all things being equal type tie breaker needed do I press my influence to tip the scale. I have this argument with my union leadership all the time when they want me to hire previous union members first and I refuse to use that as a metric unless there is a tie breaker needed.

If I am not in the hiring position but just applying pressure to consider my friend, I am very cautious, just as open about the relationship to the candidate, and never make reciprocal promises. It is not unusual for my friend candidate to be up against other co-worker's friend candidate too so the waters can be quite muddy. I communicate my expectation to the hiring team, how I would rank the candidate for the position, especially if they are up against internal candidates that I know well. I know I will be held accountable for a poor recommendation if it goes wrong, so I take it very seriously.

The situation as you have described sounds like caution is not being exercised and your friend could end up doing more harm than good. And the current coworkers are not likely to forget being treated poorly. That is a very hard thing to watch. If the friend is more qualified, then there is really no issue that honesty can't solve, and on the other hand if the opposite is true, they are definitely screwing someone over and deserve the backlash.

You DO realize he's the one having sex with your mom. Right ?

IMO, letting the A know about the job and even putting a good word in for him isn't out of bounds in that case, but really going all out might be bad form. Putting myself in the D's shoes, I wouldn't be upset if a coworker recommended an out of work best friend for a position that I was looking at, unless perhaps they were looking at bending some rules, like if the position was up for internal employees only.

If I was the D, I wouldn't destroy the relationship if the guy's friend got the job... a lot of positions are about who you know, and just as I've used connections to help land jobs, I've probably been passed over for someone with better connections.