Dear Prudence,
I’m having a problem at my job. My workplace is small, with a single supervisor and just a handful of subordinates. We all work on similar but freestanding projects, so there’s some coordination, but my coworkers and I are largely unaffected by one another’s work. I recently learned that my supervisor did something that I consider inexcusable, effectively damaging a coworker’s reputation with important collaborators and setting them up for failure. My supervisor has not acknowledged the impact of this action and has aggressively minimized my coworker’s concerns. I’m feeling both outraged and conflicted about it. How can I best support my coworker through this horrible experience of sabotage? And how can I continue a working relationship with a person I’ve lost a lot of respect for? The term of my project is almost over, and if I walk away before completion I’ll have nothing to show for years of work.
—Workplace Conundrum