I have a good friend who is a known local artist, and I try to support my friend’s work whenever possible. Usually this means attending events as a friend and cheerleader. Sometimes there’s a nominal fee, but I’m typically happy to pay it — I’m the parent of small children, so it gets me out of the house, lets me connect with other adults and helps me engage with my city in new ways.
The issue is that recently, my friend has begun two new endeavors: a paid Substack newsletter and a website where access to lectures and classes comes with a fee. My friend has made it clear that my support as a paid subscriber is expected. I don’t work outside the home. While it’s not an outright hardship to pay the $50 a month for both memberships, I’d rather spend that money elsewhere.
Do I really have to become a paying patron just because I’m a friend? And is there a kind, nonconfrontational way to express that I deeply value my friend’s work, but can’t commit to showing my support with a $50 subscription? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
It sounds as if supporting this person’s art has long been a natural extension of your friendship — cheering from the front row, waving the proverbial foam finger and championing your friend’s creative risks. You’ve shown up, applauded and perhaps even been roped into a postshow debrief or two. (“Was it too much when I read the poem in a Geordie accent?”) That kind of commitment, of your time and your attention, is the purest currency of friendship. It’s also a currency that can’t be withdrawn from an A.T.M. or transferred via Venmo. But now, it seems, supporting your friend is supposed to mean entering a world of monthly memberships and paywalled content, where devotion is measured in dollars. If adult life is increasingly twined around subscriptions — streaming services, meal kits, meditation apps — must our relationships join the list? Surely there are some things too precious to be set to autopay.
It’s a problem too if your friend’s creative endeavors are sustainable only through the dutiful subscriptions of an inner circle. When a 12-year-old sets up a lemonade stand, parents and neighbors can be expected to cough up 50 cents and pretend it’s the best lemonade this side of Amalfi. But if an adult’s venture requires the ongoing charity of friends, it’s not ready for the world, or the world isn’t ready for it. Either way, it’s no failing of yours.
You have already met and exceeded the demands of friendship, lending your presence and, on occasion, purchasing a ticket. But to be told, explicitly or by implication, that the relationship now requires a monthly outlay for online content is to muddle the boundary between support and subsidy. True friendship is best kept free of recurring charges.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who wants to use the remainder of their sick leave before leaving a job. They wrote: “I have about one month of sick days stored up, which I would like to count as my last month of work. My partner argues that this would be unethical/dishonest because I wouldn’t be sick (as far as I can tell at this point); I argue that sick time is a benefit that the company has given, and I am free to use it as I choose.”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “You may tell yourself you’ve ‘earned’ these days; what you’ve actually earned is the right to draw on them when needed, not the right to turn them into a monthlong victory lap. To use them when you’re not ill, just because nobody’s checking up on you, is to take advantage of a system based on trust.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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You had the chance to use these days but decided otherwise. Now it’s time to stand by your decision and learn something from it. Don’t misuse an employee-friendly approach and potentially worsen it for others. — Austin
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I am both an employment-law attorney and a union president. There is nothing wrong, legally or ethically, with using up all sick leave. It’s an earned benefit the company provided in return for your labor. The job isn’t a person you owe consideration. As you may have learned during your years of devoted work, it doesn’t love you back. — Melanie
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Your intention to try to cash in on 30 days of free pay and take the days consecutively seems ill-advised. The currency at stake here is your reputation. When leaving a job, what people remember most isn’t your previous accomplishments and years of service — they remember the final impression you made when you left. Did you leave with grace, flip a table or leave a mess for someone else to clean up? Schedule what doctor’s appointments you can and enjoy a few half-days off from work. — Rachel
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Vacation time belongs to the employee. They’ve earned it and it belongs to them. Sick leave belongs to the employer. It is meant only to save the employee from financial difficulty if they become sick and cannot work. It would be an abuse if used as the writer describes. If I were the employer, I would discharge the employee with cause. — Karl
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The Ethicist properly calls sick days a “currency in American office life.” As such, just like the poker chips at a casino, they’re part of your overall compensation — including salary, paid holidays, vacation days, health care and retirement plans and more — that you’re entitled to use at your discretion. And shifting work onto others is a very stinky red herring: You’re leaving in 30 days anyway, so what happens then? I hereby grant you license to burn through every last day, simply because you can. — Bob
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Sick days are paid time off that are part of your compensation and benefits, and one should absolutely use them or lose them. I am a public-school teacher and get 12 sick days per school year. Unused days get banked, and any maternity or paternity leave would come out of that. We have no provision for any other P.T.O. If I leave the position with days left, my sick days get paid out to me; some colleagues have banked enough days that they can retire a year early. It’s your compensation. Use it. — Kali
Kwame Anthony Appiah is The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist columnist and teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. To submit a query, send an email to [email protected].
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