Expert: Joan Schramm - 10/18/2006

Question
I see favoritism at work and need to know what to do about it. has been approched to employee his answer is.[ well we try not to] and it continues. to excell at work is only possible when your a favorite. when new jobs are posted seniority usually gets it which is ok but theyve already decide before it gets posted who gets it,ive seen it.also a relative cant work under a relative that is a boss that [would be me ] and a week later they hired my cousin who will be workin under our relative that they wouldnt let me work under. to get me to hush up they gave me another position with full benifits but i will be losing 2$ more an hour. what can i do?

Answer
It's a hard fact of life that there is always favoritism at work. People get hired and promoted for a lot of different reasons -- and some of those reasons are favoritism.

If you weren't given a position because company policy says you can't work for a relative, and then the company hired a relative anyway, then it appears that they've violated their own rules. You can take your complaint to HR, or to your union (if you're in one) and see what they say. Are you more closely related to the person that your cousin is? Maybe that was a factor.

There's not a lot you can do. It sounds like the company compensated already by offering you another job. Yes, it pays less, but you also get full benefits, so it's a trade-off. Full benefits are usually worth a lot more than $2 per hour. So, you can take the new job, work hard and prove yourself, or you can continue to complain about how unfair everything in and do nothing, or if things are that intolerable you can always get another job and leave.

Good luck.