Friend has said she couldn’t be friends with me if I took the job

[lnterviewWoes]

I’ve been offered a really fascinating job that would involve a lot of travel and meeting lots of interesting people.

It involves working for a former politician. Not directly but closely. I don’t support most of their views but the role is independent of their politics.

I have a small group of close friends. I told one friend and she’s said she couldn’t be friends with me if I took it, which has really dampened things. It also comes with a 20% wage increase. I want to take the role but I don’t want to lose one of my oldest friends. I’m really not sure what to do.

@Wolfricbriandumbledore Rude. I didn't say it was a minor issue.

We have differing opinions on politics so to avoid arguing or falling out we just don't talk about it.

It is sensible.

I'm not the idiot.

@Lastchancechica "We rarely have all of the facts. So judging from above sometimes means you miss the underlying reasons."

I have to confess that I'm getting a little pissed of with how rude you're being. But one last try. Can you think of any morally acceptable reason why someone, who already had a good job, would take a job finding ways to sell cigarettes to young people in the developing world?

I only mentioned racists because you did first - you said ‘The problem you have is that unless a racist is educated to know the harm they cause, then how on earth will anything improve. Shutting down debate is not the answer.’

That’s my point - no one knows. Maybe she was being bullied in her old work place and felt too embarrassed to tell you. Or she had massive debts and had to take the offer with more money. There could be so many reasons, but I doubt she could tell you the truth fearing your harsh judgment, not unreasonably.

The main difference between you and me is that I trust my friends, I know them well enough to be sure they will have their reasons. Good reasons for what seems like a strange or unethical decision. They may not be able to tell me, or share the background at that moment but I don’t need to be their judge and jury. I can say I don’t agree with you doing x,y and z without inflicting my judgment on them. Remaining open to a conversation, and not withdrawing my friendship.

Some of my friends have made horrendous mistakes, but I don’t expect them to be flawless or perfect. I love my friends and I hold them high esteem, we may not agree on everything but it’s that the beauty of diverse friendships - that you learn so much from them 🤷🏼‍♀️

Really depends on who it is - personally I couldn’t be friends with someone who aligned themselves with certain characters or politics but I wouldn’t give an ultimatum I’d just gradually see less of them recognising they were not the person I’d assumed them to be. She’s got every right to hold her standards - and I salute her for standing by them.

No wonder so few people have real life friends on MN! High standards are great for food hygiene, restaurants, hotels, flights - not other peoples jobs! It’s actually NONE of your business fgs. I am not sure who you think you are to judge.

@Lastchancechica Fair enough. Enjoy your fantasy life. Toodles.

Isn't it an indication that someone would sell out principles (and people) for a career leg up? Or financial gain?

If we don't have some standards then how do you actually have a moral compass?

Yes of course we should have high standards and a moral compass.

My moral compass is very well developed. I am a vegetarian of many decades and it absolutely sickens me the way animals are treated and slaughtered, and then eaten - do I demand all of my friends become vegetarian or vegan? No. It’s not my choice to make. My moral compass is there to guide MY life not everyone else’s.

We don’t get to decide what jobs our friends do, what they eat, how they vote, what religion they choose to follow, how green they are or otherwise etc. We can offer an opinion if asked, but otherwise it is really is none of our business.

You don’t get to control other peoples lives with your moral compass. Okay. They have their morals and principles and can choose for themselves.

No one has said that people have the right to control others’ choices. But we do have the right to control our own and if someone doesn’t want to be around someone because their choices don’t align with their own morality then that’s their right.

Your vegan example is very tame compared to the other ones on the thread.

You are controlling friends choices by saying unless you follow my rules then we can’t be friends. Almost like blackmail.

I don’t think the slaughter of millions of innocent animals is ‘tame’ at all, it just highlights our different values right there. How dare you minimise mine.
The barbaric way animals are treated is by far the worst thing to me, because I feel so strongly about voiceless and defenceless animals.

Your post is the perfect example of how we can not assume our values and principles are superior to others.

There is arrogance assuming your values are more important, more superior than someone else’s, and it says an awful lot about you. Who are you to judge what is right or wrong? You don’t get to walk around telling others how they should think, what jobs they can do etc.

"Who are you to judge what is right or wrong?"

When it comes to selling cigarettes to young people I am fine with judging whether that's right or wrong. I thought it was the "lefties" who are judged for moral relativism!

We don’t get to decide what jobs our friends do, what they eat, how they vote, what religion they choose to follow, how green they are or otherwise etc. We can offer an opinion if asked, but otherwise it is really is none of our business.

We do get to decide whether we're going to be friends with them or not. I like to like my close friends. I'm not someone who needs to align with someone to get along with them and several of my friends do indeed have jobs that I philosophically disagree with but they are not immoral. However if one of them turned round and said "tomorrow I start a new job, getting paid to encourage Vietnamese kids to smoke because it's illegal to get British kids to smoke now" I'd question how well I ever knew them, and whilst I might not just cut them off, it would certainly change my opinion on them considerably and I would understand if other friends did cut them off.

You say we shouldn't have high standards in our friends jobs but where you get your coin can define your character quite a bit and we should certainly have high standards and expectations of our close friends.

So there's really no cut off point for you? As long as it's allowed by current law it's fine?

You just sound silly and immature. Why not ask your ex friend how it feels to have a job like that? That’s what adults do!

She’s not interested in how it ‘feels’ — to her, it’s ethically indefensible. She doesn’t sound at all silly or immature, she sounds like someone with ethics who chooses her friends carefully, and thinks that those friends’ decisions matter.

The issue is this.

Everyone is different, if you are going to measure everyone on your rigid values yardstick, and decide that they fall short who is to say what happens to your own values if you become destitute?

There are times when we can’t always adhere to even our own morals much less someone else’s! We are human and humans make mistakes, they deny and distort reality.

What is wrong with discussing the reasons for the decision in a non judgemental way? What happened to make her take a job so seemingly at odds with her values (as you knew them)

I don’t cut people off for making decisions I don’t agree with, because I don’t ever assume I have all of the facts (mostly true) and because I haven’t lived their life in their shoes.

You can be friends with whoever you like, but cutting ties with a close and trusted friend over a job choice is ludicrous to me (and the majority of people on here)

Its none of your business how she earns a living.

92% of people believe op is not being unreasonable, so thankfully you are very much in the minority.

There is far too much black and white thinking going on.

if they were your friend, they wouldn't be giving you ultimatums!

No friend gives ultimatums. Cut her loose if she cannot accept your choices.

You could tell her : how it makes me happy to see that my closest friends are totally with me when I do well in my professional life! Your encouragements make it worth all the hard work.

If she was really that concerned about this, why couldn’t she be bothered to vote, even in the referendum? It doesn’t sound as if she really cares all that much to me.

You're talking about 2 different people

Yes, I can see that I replied to the wrong post there, apologies! But there are plenty of posters applauding the OP’s friend for sticking up for her supposed ‘principles’. If it’s political principles, why doesn’t she bother to vote? The friend doesn’t sound that bothered to me.

FWIW, re the post I mistakenly replied to, I am thoroughly in agreement that that poster doesn’t sound in the least ‘silly and immature’.

There’s nothing wrong with not voting!
I didn’t vote in the referendum because I thought that both Leave and Remain fought revolting campaigns. I voted in the last general election but I won’t be voting in the next one because I don’t think either of the main parties deserves my vote.
It is perfectly possible to abstain from voting and still have principles!

The OP doesn’t present the decision not to vote as being down to principle, more that she couldn’t be bothered. (Obviously she isn’t necessarily being objective about this.)

I can accept that there are good principled reasons not to vote in a general election. I nearly didn’t last time, as I could hardly bring myself to vote for any of the parties.

But I don’t agree where the referendum was concerned. Especially if you’re now very unhappy with Brexit; voting remain could have stopped it from happening at all if enough non voters had gone out to vote that way.