Dear Eric: I love my job, but there is another employee there who likes to confide their life stories with me. It makes me upset and uncomfortable. I am a very compassionate person, but these stories are sad and depressing, which upsets my workday.

I try only to listen and not give any feedback. They also have asked for information on how to improve their job skills, which I have offered suggestions only to have them come back to me stating that the boss suggested other ideas instead.

I would like suggestions on how to communicate with this person without hurting their feelings and keep the workday positive.

— Co-worker Struggle

Dear Co-worker: Some professional distance will help here and stave off hurt feelings. Let’s start with the work advice. Since your co-worker seems to be crowdsourcing career guidance, next time you’re solicited, redirect them. “I’m not the best person to ask; your boss will have a better understanding of your job functions and performance.” Or, even more casually: “I’m not the one handing out the raises, so you’re better off just going up the ladder.”

While getting coaching from peers is a fine idea, you didn’t sign up for this. A reminder of that, itself, could be helpful peer advice. Understanding what’s appropriate at work is crucial to job success.

Having personal relationships at work can make the job easier and improve one’s performance, but if the relationship is distracting you or bringing you down, you can pump the brakes by reminding your co-worker about the standards and limits you’ve set for yourself.

Be direct about this by saying, “Work isn’t the best place to talk about this and I’m not in the right space to hear it. Can we shift gears?”

You might even ask for a break in conversation altogether. “I can’t talk a lot today. I’ve got too much work to do.” While the issue for you might be the depressing nature of these stories, more broadly it will help your co-worker to think through how much personal revelation is good for the workplace.

Dear Eric: My daughter died in 2009 at the age of 26. She had a chronic condition at the time and treatment was not available in the United States. She died in Mexico at a top hospital.

At the time she died, I had a friend of nearly 35 years. He came to the funeral, but the only time I have seen him since is at his father’s funeral. No personal contact other than the card sent on my birthday along with a package one year, which I threw away without opening. One of his siblings tried to intervene by telling me how sorry he is. That didn’t go well as I no longer speak to that person.

My anger is so great toward him that if I would see him in public, I don’t know what I would do. Every time I see or come across something that reminds me of the things we did together I could explode.

I am still bitter, and grief-stricken by her death so many years ago. So, what do you think?

— Abandoned Friend

Dear Friend: I am so sorry for the loss of your daughter. The intense grief has only been compounded by the loss of this friendship, and for that I’m sorry, too. From time to time in this column, people write letters about not knowing what to say when a friend or loved one is grieving. It’s common to feel trapped, not wanting to make things worse with the wrong words. The guidance is the same: Just reach out. I wish that your friend had heard this years ago.

You’re justified in your anger. But I want you to be free of this as much as possible, so that you can continue to care for yourself. One option is to acknowledge to yourself that your friend’s behavior was hurtful, that they didn’t make the right choices and that it had real, long-lasting consequences. Then, acknowledge that they’re a human and, like us all, prone to terrible mistakes. Choose to release them — not necessarily forgiving or forgetting, just moving it to the past so that it’s not always such a fresh wound.

Another option is to reach out to your friend directly and tell them, “I felt very hurt when you didn’t reach out. It was made worse by your continued distance over the last decade. It’s made my grief harder to navigate.” This doesn’t have to be a step on the path to reconciliation. Sometimes we simply have to have a conversation in which harm is conceded on both sides. There may be nothing that can be done to make amends, but you don’t have to continue to relive this pain.

Send questions to eric@ askingeric.com.

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