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Manners Matter: Bosses Are Always Going to be Bosses

Dear Mary Pat,

My daughter is disenchanted with her job and her boss. She’s been out of college for eight years now and is working in her field and makes a great living. I understand how hard it is to work and raise a daughter at the same time. Life has its challenges. Between her schedule and her husband’s, they don’t need to send their 23-month-old to daycare, which I think is a blessing. A lot of young couples see a big percentage of their paycheck go to child care. I’ve met her boss on several occasions and he’s not a bad guy. He expects a lot of my daughter but she is paid accordingly. Every time she complains, I think she’s waiting for me to tell her to quit and find another job, but I can’t do that. She thinks I’m not being supportive and I think she doesn’t realize how good she has it. I don’t know how to get through to her.

 

Mother Knows Best

Sister Bay, Wis.

 

 

Dear Mother Knows Best,

 

Having a job, whether you are raising a family or not, is usually hard work. It is part and parcel of being an adult.

Schedule some time with your daughter where you can talk without being interrupted and see if you can get to the bottom of her reasoning. If her boss is verbally abusive or threatening (which it doesn’t sound like based on your question) then that is a different story. If her boss is, as I suspect, like nearly every other boss in the world, he wants to get the maximum productivity out of his employees. That’s normal and he is just doing his job.

A big paycheck shouldn’t be the only motivating factor in your daughter’s choice of jobs, however, it certainly is a nice one. A lot of people work very hard and don’t necessarily see the evidence of that on their W-2s. Before she makes the decision to potentially quit, she should realistically weigh other job choices. Will she be able to make as much? Will she have the schedule that she has now which allows her to keep her daughter at home? The grass is always greener and as I said, bosses are always going to be bosses.

 

Good luck,

Mary Pat

 

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