Direct Answers from Wayne and Tamara
 
Unfair Practices
 
I work for a small course company that offers several online courses that start a new session every month, with the start date being the third Wednesday of the month.
 
I requested three weeks in advance to take an hour off at the end of the Monday of last month’s start week, to take my daughter for her one year checkup and shots.  My boss denied the request because it was a start week.  Then she sent an e-mail emphatically stating that no time off will be given during start week.
 
This was last month.  This month another new mother in my department took the actual start day completely off to take her daughter to the doctor for a checkup and shots.  She was allowed to do this by our boss.
 
Because of her denial for my hour’s early leave, I had to reschedule my daughter making her two months late for this checkup and shots.  This seems to be a double standard, and I am unsure how to approach this issue.
 
Millie
 
 
Millie, a few years ago primatologists Frans de Waal and Sarah Brosnan reported an experiment they did with capuchin monkeys.  Capuchins like cucumbers but love grapes.  These capuchins were trained to exchange pebbles for food, and when one monkey got a grape for a pebble, while another got cucumber, the second monkey was miffed.  That monkey might throw the cucumber away or refuse to pay a pebble for it.
 
de Waal observed that we are taught to believe fairness is an idea introduced by wise men “after pondering right, wrong, and our place in the cosmos.”  Actually, the idea may be wired into our genes.  That’s why you feel angry, insulted, and embarrassed.
 
The question is, what to do about it?  The standard advice says communication is the key.  Don’t get emotional, document what happened, and pick an opportune time to discuss this with your boss.  But if you felt you could talk to your boss, or if your company had firm procedures, you would not be writing.
 
Here’s the problem.  Shove the idea of fair play into the face of someone who does not play fair, and it could backfire.  Whistleblowers don’t usually get rewarded.  They get sacked.  And people who hold grudges remember every slight, every roll of the eyes, and every slow response to, “I’m right aren’t I?”
 
There are only two good answers to unfairness in the workplace: rank so high in the social network you are protected, or perform your job so well you are indispensable.  You’d like to have an hour-long bitchfest with your girlfriend, drown your sorrows in chocolate cake, and then tell your boss where to go.  But you know that won’t do any good.
 
What will help is asking yourself the most basic questions.  Why did someone get a day off when you could not get off even for an hour?   Are you held in low esteem there?  Are the rules quirky and capricious?  Is your boss unapproachable?  Answer those questions and a strategy will emerge.
 
If communication is out of the question, make sure the favored people don’t know of your resentment and find an outlet for your anger.  We don’t normally recommend this kind of gamesmanship because it comes with a high emotional cost.  Unfairness makes us wear even more of a masked face than we typically wear in public.
 
If you are deeply upset with what happened yet powerless to change it, you have to get out of that zone.  Tonight instead of watching a movie on television, spend two hours working over your resume, looking at job postings, or upgrading your skills.
 
We have to react productively to the foibles of those in power.  If you believe the chef will spit on your food if you send it back, the only power you have is not to go there again.
 
Wayne & Tamara
 
 
Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.
 
Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com .