ArcaMax

Dear Eric: I have a stressful job with coworkers that I think are nice but inept. My boss’s boss is his brother and there are a few other family members at the company, so it’s no surprise to me that people with no skills seem to have succeeded. After work, I like to blow off steam by recounting the latest idiocy to my wife. She agrees with me and has always backed me up.

Recently, we were at a social event, and the subject of my work came up. For reasons I still can’t understand, my wife started complaining about the people at my job. What neither she nor I realized is that one of the people we were talking to is related to the family at my job. So now I’m in trouble and I can’t shake the feeling that if my wife hadn’t blabbed, we’d be fine. She says she’s not at fault. Who is right?

– Office Disgrace

Dear Office: I don’t know that you’re going to get much mileage out of placing the blame squarely on her shoulders or yours. Having a negative opinion is no crime but if your wife is hearing it every day, it stands to reason that it would come spilling out elsewhere.

That said, if this family is as ever-present as they seem, it seems prudent to confirm the lineage of anyone with whom she’s going to gossip.

Here’s the bright side: this awkward encounter might push you to start looking for a job you like with coworkers you respect. Easier said than done, I know, but even a step in that direction might relieve some of your frustration and allow you to talk about other things with your wife.

Dear Eric: I've become small-time successful in my local arts scene. Part of my practice has been to bring people new to the scene in on collaborative projects to help them get a foot in the door and meet other people in the community.

Because of that, I'm now seeing an uptick of very new artists asking for my feedback on their works. And I've said yes to the first few, because I sincerely wanted to see what they had.

Unfortunately, what I've seen so far is very rough/amateur and I do not like it. I mean, I make plenty of bad art, it's a valuable step in the process. But I just don't know how to respond when I really struggle to identify any positives, either on a technical or personal level.

They trusted me with their art, and so I want to respond with care and grace rather than dumping a bucket of cold water on them. But I don't know them well enough to be frank about what they need to work on, and I don't have availability to foster a longer term or a one-on-one relationship to help them develop those skills.

I would appreciate advice or scripts on how to respond when I struggle to identify any positives, but I do still want them to keep making art, while maintaining the boundary that I can't problem solve or mentor them. And if you have pointers on how to respond to future requests, I would appreciate those, too. I'm not sure if I should start turning those down.

– Conflicted in Creative Community

Dear Conflicted: Consider asking these new artists what their specific areas of concern are, what or whom they are referencing, and what they’re excited about in their work. This will give you something about which to respond that’s not rooted in whether or not you like it.

The goal here is not to create a curriculum for them or to guide them one-on-one, but to reflect back to them what they say they’re trying to do and to perhaps suggest to them one actionable step that will get them closer to it. Something like, “you say you’re trying to capture energy in your portraiture; you might take a look at the way Amy Sherald positions her subjects.”

It’s easy for these kinds of interactions to take on a mentor/mentee tenor. Try to bring it back down to peer-to-peer by telling them that you don’t feel you’re in the best position to give feedback, but that you’d be happy to hear about their process and answer questions about your process. Respect from a peer can sometimes go a lot further than a “thumbs up/thumbs down.”

Decide in advance how much of your time you can reasonably allot to these kinds of conversations, too, and when you hit your cap, tell the artist that you’re excited to be in community with them but that you don’t have the capacity to be as responsive as you’d like. You might, instead, encourage them to form peer response groups or formal mentorships with others.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

©2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.