Hi Sars,

I know that I am not the only one out there grappling with the awkwardness of losing colleagues to layoffs and “workforce reductions” right now but I haven’t been able to find a good answer to my question, which I am hoping you and/or your readers can advise.

My team at work is all based on the west coast and we all work in the same office building, with the exception of one teammate who works from her home office on the east coast, who I will call EST. EST is a very nice lady, but she never quite seemed to “fit” into our team (who I think is over-cliquey, but that’s a whole other issue) and while everyone was nice to her, no one ever really became friends with her the way they did with the rest of the group who work inside the same office.

Unfortunately, EST was laid off recently as part of a budgetary cutback action (along with hundreds of other people) and she is in the process of transitioning her workload and will be with our group for another few weeks.

When I found out about EST’s situation, I called her up and offered my condolences and even sent out her résumé to some friends in our industry that might have jobs available for her. However, I seem to be the only one on the team — including the manager — who has said anything (professionally or personally) to EST. Everyone else seems hardly affected since they didn’t know her well. I didn’t know her any better than anyone else (I met her only once in person, for a quick lunch when I was in her area on a personal vacation and I rarely worked one-on-one with her), but I seem to be the only one who feels bad for EST.

Anyway, I think that for her years of service and her dedication to our team, we should do something for her. Whether it’s a bouquet of flowers or gift basket, I think a token of appreciation would be really nice. But no one else seems to care much about doing anything and I feel like it would be out of line for me to coordinate something for our team, since our manager didn’t instigate it. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or try and “guilt-trip” them into participating, this is really something just from my heart. But I also feel like if I send her a nice card and some flowers or something on my own that my team will interpret it as I am showing them up and trying to make them look bad.

Is there any nice way to handle this? I am torn because if she and I had a closer relationship, I could sort of justify it by saying “she’s my friend and I am sending flowers” but since we’re not particularly close I fear that my west coast colleagues will think I am trying to make them look bad (which is dangerous for all kinds of political reasons).

One final question: can anyone recommend a really good “sorry you got laid off” gift? I think flowers are kind of safe/universal, but would something like a gift certificate be better? Maybe something like Fandango? Kind of a “forget your cares and go to the show” thing? Or is any kind of monetary exchange just tacky?

Thank you!

I can’t believe I just called movies “the show.” I am turning into my mother.

Dear Show,

You mention repeatedly that you’re not particularly close with EST — isn’t that the end of the story?I think your question here is motivated in large part by feelings of pity for EST that she isn’t closer with you and the team, and that horse is out of the barn; she didn’t work with you guys in person, really, and nobody became close with her, and that’s unfortunate, I guess, but it’s the workplace.Bonding isn’t required, and I feel like you want to get her a present almost as an apology for the fact that bonding didn’t happen.

You’ve sent her c.v. around, which is good of you; I don’t think you have to do anything else.If you’d like to send a note thanking her for all her work, and include a small gift card to Starbucks or AMC theaters or something, go for it (I don’t think I understand why the rest of the team would find out about it, if EST is leaving and they don’t really deal with her socially anyway).

But if nobody else on the team really cares, well, you can’t make them, and you can’t make EST think they do.It is what it is.You can leave it now.

Dear Sars,

I have a grammatical question for you regarding apostrophes being used to pluralize acronyms.

At my workplace we use a lot of acronyms. An example of what I would use is Work Activities = WAs and Work Activity = WA. I was editing a document with a work colleague who wanted to alter the punctuation of a similar acronym, to show Work Activities = WA’s.

I disagreed and enjoyed half a minute of silence, then a changed topic. Later I heard this colleague laughing about it with another (oh, the fate of the eavesdropper), as they both believe I’m wrong.

I’m not pigheaded enough to go running back to them with the answer (assuming I’m right) but I am pigheaded enough to want to know for myself if I’ve been doing this the right or wrong way.

My Googling only seems to reveal “both ways are used, but some prefer this way, but then again, in other cases…”

I can understand using a full stop to show the omission of a letter in an acronym but I really hate the use of an apostrophe for pluralizing. It’s depressing when apostrophes are used incorrectly for “standard” words, so why change the rules for acronyms? I guess my question is, is there an official rule other than personal preference?

Pigheaded if I do and pigheaded if I don’t

Dear Pig,

First: if someone else doesn’t go ahead and write the epic poem “O, The Fate Of The Eavesdropper,” I will be forced to do so, and I do not have the time, so could a reader get on that, please and thank you.

Second: my personal preference is to grit my teeth every time I see “Oakland A’s” or any other abbreviation or acronym pluralized with an apostrophe.I know why it’s done — the intent, I believe, is to set off the acronym visually to avoid confusion — but I cannot stand it.

Garner does not have a specific note on it (in the older edition; I can’t seem to find my newer edition, which, speaking of gritting my teeth), so I’ll have to rule without him.

An acronym is a noun.A plural noun does not take an apostrophe, ever.Just because every grocery store in existence does it on the specials board doesn’t make it right.

Hey Sars,

I have a friend problem I’m not sure how to resolve.I started college in 2001 and after a five-year break, I’m back at school to finish up my bachelor’s.I don’t exactly fit in with all the younger kids, but I’ve found a couple good friends and I have plenty of folks to hang with outside of school.One of these friends is a really sweet girl, but she’s a bit sheltered and immature.This wasn’t a big problem until recently.

For about a month, she wasn’t exactly silent treatment-ing me, but she was acting…weird.I finally got sick of it and asked her what the problem was, and she said that first of all, we’d been drifting as new friends and activities came into the picture (not untrue), but also that she was upset about my reaction to her announcement that she and the guy she was seeing were Official Boyfriend and Girlfriend.Never mind that she informed me of this status change in the middle of a class, never mind that she wouldn’t even have met the guy unless I brought her out on a weekday night, never mind that we have talked many times about how I view relationships.

I have told her that I don’t really get the whole rigid hierarchy of dating/seeing/boyfriend-girlfriend, and it’s come up numerous times just in casual discussion of relationships.Admittedly, I probably could have handled it better — I did note that labels weren’t important to me at the time — but seriously, you’re going to act like I ran over your puppy for a month because I didn’t get excited enough about something?I have told her that I am stoked she’s in a healthy adult relationship, whatever she wants to call it, and I truly am…she’s a good girl and deserves better than the douchebags she’s wound up with in recent history.

In any case, we talked about it and the mood improved.I did decide that I wasn’t going to exert too much energy into the friendship, because to me the fact that she behaved that way for that reason for a freaking month just indicates that she’ll always attach more importance to her romantic relationships than her friendships, and that’s not something I’m particularly interested in.

The problem was solved for a while, but just recently, I found out there’s another component to the weird behavior.She told one of our mutual friends that she was also upset because she is not in my bridal party, and that I had told her that if I had a big bridal party, she would be in it.This bugs the shit out of me for several reasons.First, I never considered including her in my bridal party, so I don’t see any way it ever would have occurred to me to tell her she would be in it.There’s just no way.

Second, if your participation was predicated on an If Statement, and you are not participating, then clearly the conditions of said If Statement did not come to fruition.Third, why not say something about this when we were talking about why you’re in a weird mood?

What really chaps my ass is that I get the sense, between the whole Not Being Excited Enough About A Relationship I’m Not Involved In incident and now this bizarre bridal party thing, that this has nothing to do with wanting to be a good friend and support me on my wedding day, and everything to do with wanting validation that she is officially one of my Specialest Friends and being able to share the attention of the day by wearing the pretty dress and all that jazz.It just feels very selfish to me and it actually has made me so upset I don’t even want to see her or talk to her.

What I WANT to do is let her have it on the topic of not being a selfish wench, but I also know that the resulting argument would be so stupid and aggravating that my brain would explode, because we’ve got completely different philosophies on the matters at hand.Still, I’m so angry and irritated that I almost can’t stand not saying anything.

What would you do, Sars?Do I just say “the hell with it” and move on?I know now that the friendship is destined to wither away, but this is so hurtful that I almost don’t want to just let it go.

Thanks for your help and also for reading, like, eight pages of whine,

Ballistic Bride

Dear Ball,

I think you’re right — that she does want you to consider her an official Specialest Friend.I think she thinks of you that way, and now she has two pieces of evidence that you don’t: you didn’t fawn over her new relationship, and you didn’t ask her to be a bridesmaid.

This isn’t really selfishness on her part, though.Not that she isn’t selfish, but it’s a separate issue from this one, namely that the two of you don’t see the friendship the same way.She considers you close friends; you consider you…friends.Or you did, until the disparity came to light and she started behaving in a way you consider presumptuous, and while I agree that that presumption is a bit annoying, it’s not coming from a bad place.She’s just more invested in the friendship than you are.

Don’t confront her.You say that this is “so hurtful” to you, but then the rest of the letter is basically about how she cares about you and your opinion and you don’t reciprocate, really, so any “discussion” you have with her about it is going to boil down to “your hurt feelings have hurt my feelings,” which…again, yes, it’s tiresome to deal with it, but have some compassion for the girl.She feels rejected.Why amplify those feelings by telling her she has no right to them?Why bother at all if the central conflict is that you…don’t actually care that much?

You have a wedding to plan.Do that; leave this alone.

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