I sent my older sister an anonymous email from HR about her work performance.
By @laneliterally · Family
She was on the verge of getting fired, and I knew she wouldn't listen to me directly. I thought an 'official' warning would shock her into getting her act together, but now she's having a full-blown panic attack about who reported her.
The full story
My sister has been at her job for about three years. For the first two she was great, but this past year she's been spiraling. She's always late, misses deadlines, and I know from a mutual friend who works there that she's on extremely thin ice. I've tried talking to her. I've been gentle, I've been direct, I've offered to help her with her resume. She just gets defensive and says I'm exaggerating and that everyone loves her at work. But I knew she was one mistake away from getting fired from a job she can't afford to lose. So I did something kind of crazy. I created a fake email address that looked vaguely official and wrote a message that was a 'final confidential warning' from HR. I mentioned her lateness and performance issues, and said she was at risk of termination. I thought seeing it in black and white would be the reality check she needed. It worked, but not how I expected. She called me sobbing, reading the email to me, totally panicking. She isn't focused on her performance, she's just obsessed with finding out which one of her 'backstabbing' coworkers reported her to HR. She's convinced there's a conspiracy to get her fired. I feel like I've just made everything a million times worse and I don't know how to fix it without admitting what I did.
How people voted
- Side A — 30% (86 votes)
- Both — 41% (119 votes)
- Side B — 30% (86 votes)
Readers say “Both” (41%) — 291 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@codyok2 — L sister.
@whoops — dont tell her do it again next week
@lateagain — Classic projection, she's turning her performance anxiety into a conspiracy theory.
@hannahb — I'm not convinced your 'gentle' conversations were actually all that gentle.
@alsoyikes — You really thought that through.
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