From sending thank-you notes to touching your co-worker’s food, she’s ruled on it all

Maybe you hate spending the holidays with your snarky brother-in-law or fear committing a social faux pas at an acquaintance’s wedding. For 20 years, Bostonians facing such quandaries have sought advice from Harvard Business School’s Robin Abrahams via the Boston Globe’s Miss Conduct column.

Abrahams, a research associate for Professor Boris Groysberg, reminisced about her career as an advice writer ahead of her final column in early February. She discussed what has changed over the years, what hasn’t, and how to be better at giving advice in everyday life. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Tell me a little bit more about your work at Harvard and how, if at all, it has related to writing an advice column.

I’ve had the column for about six months longer than I’ve been working at Harvard Business School. Professor Groysberg specializes in organizational behavior, and so a lot of what we’ve studied, and stuff that I’ve read up on and written on, is very applicable to what’s going on, because it’s group dynamics.

One of my favorite questions was from a young teenager who was babysitting and didn’t get the rate that she had expected. I had this whole thing about, “You’re a teen, so it’s fine if you don’t handle it perfectly, but afterwards, think about what worked well and what didn’t, and write down some notes about how you felt about the whole experience. Because someday you’re going to maybe start your own business, or get that big account, and you’re going to have a difficult client, and you’ll want to know that you dealt with this before.” I didn’t used to think that way, I wasn’t a business-minded person, so there’s been a tremendous level of synergy, and I’ve really enjoyed that.

What other kinds of questions have you answered as Miss Conduct?

Certain questions have come up over and over and over again, and the No. 1 is still thank-you notes. So many questions about friends, Romans, countrymen, grandchildren, and whoever not sending thank-you notes. I probably get about as many from people saying, “I keep putting no gifts on invitations, and yet people will bring me gifts, and I don’t have room.” After a while, you’re not going to do those anymore.

It’s also been kind of a big 20 years, and a lot’s gone down. So I’ve gotten a fair bit of social-change questions.

One of my favorite questions was when gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts and a guy wrote in saying his brother and his brother’s partner were getting married, and he was the best man. He said, “I know best men throw the bachelor party, but they’re two guys, and they had the same friend group in common, and they’ve been together for 20 years, and what do we do?” I’m like, “I don’t know! Talk to your brother about it.” Even for straight couples, there’s a lot of variety. It’s not always the Vegas and hookers and blow kind of thing. Our ideas about marriage are different.

COVID, of course, was huge. And I wondered for a while, how I could be this alleged expert on social and organizational behavior who never leaves her house? But it turned out that there was some good stuff coming out of that. How do we not make each other sick came up a lot during COVID. “My co-workers touch my food.” “I see people who don’t wash their hands.” “There are people coughing on the subway.” That’s just a thing about living in groups. We have people with invisible disabilities. A woman wrote to me once saying she had a neurological condition that frequently made her appear drunk in public. We don’t live in a village anymore where everybody knows each other.

And the financial crisis in ’08 was really heartbreaking because I had a lot of people writing about not being able to do what they used to do socially. “I used to host a Christmas party, and I can’t this year.” Or “I know my kids can’t afford to give their teachers gifts.” And just people feeling so much shame and inadequacy, and I was like, “It’s not your fault.”

“I get an awful lot of questions that are fundamentally serenity prayer answers. You know, you can only control your own behavior.”

One thing that this column has really taught me is to be comfortable with being helpless. Being comfortable with saying, “That’s a really bad problem, and I don’t know the answer. There might not be an answer, but I see you, and I can help you understand why this is happening and that it’s not your fault and it’s not like you’re not smart enough to have figured out what to do.”

Do you think that there is a way to categorize the kinds of responses that people are looking for when they come to you for advice? Do certain people want to be coddled, want tough love, or just want to vent?

I don’t think I’ve gotten quite as many of the “I’m so clearly wrong, but I am so convinced I’m right.” Honestly, I always kind of envy other columnists who get a little bit more of those, because they can be fun. I have gotten a few, and especially since I have a really short word count, I give them advice as if their hearts were pure and make it very clear that this is what a good person would do.

I get an awful lot of questions that are fundamentally serenity prayer answers. You know, you can only control your own behavior. One thing I’ve repeated so many times over the years is the people who taught you manners when you were a little kid lied. There are no magic words. There is no way to tell someone they’re not getting something they want without making them unhappy. It doesn’t matter what they want.

Has anything drastically changed over the years that’s reflected in people’s questions?

The normalization of hate and the fact that people have to deal with that. When I started writing the column I said I don’t get directly political questions, and I do now. People are really afraid of being victims of bigotry — and that’s been an absolutely huge change, more ongoing than COVID. 

Have you ever wished you gave different advice to someone?

At 30,000 feet, yes, but I don’t know what those questions are, because I used to do live chats, which was a really a lot of fun. But I wound up taking my advice back about half the time because people wouldn’t tell you everything. Someone would be like, “Whenever my friend and I go out for coffee, I always wind up picking up the tab.” You should say that, by the way, she’s my kidney donor. Maybe buy her a coffee.

Do you have advice for either seeking out or giving advice in our everyday lives?

Asking for feedback is absolutely fantastic. Do it more than you think you need to, because not only does it give you information, it builds relationships. People like being asked advice. It makes them feel powerful and connected, and that’s what people want to feel.

And be clear when you are asking for advice and when you are not, and what kind of advice you’re asking for. That was something that I learned from my mother, because if she was going to complain about something, she would always say “I’m just saying this to vent,” or “I need help figuring this out,” or “I just want you to hate this person with me for a while.”