Hypothetical: Helping people versus screwing people over.

[Rain Man]

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.

[underEJ]

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.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Alex Smith HATER

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.

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

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

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.

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.