A reader writes:

This was back in the late 1980s. I had a car, so it was probably sometime after my freshman year of college.

My friend Jason’s parents were ex-hippies. And their friends (J & W) owned a fruit & veg stand/plant nursery/gourmet shop. (Yeah, it was that kind of place.) Anyway, I needed a summer job, so I put in an application and used Jason’s parents as references, even though I hadn’t asked.

Arthur D. Ent notes: Yes, you really should ask people before you use them as references. But as this was the late 1980s, in a small town (and also pre-internet), and LW was young, we can excuse this.

J did call my friend Jason’s parents and they told him basically, yeah, he’s hung out here, he knows plants (Jason’s parents ran an organic market garden; we were all geeky science people who played D&D), he’ll probably do well there. So J called me and offered me a job without an interview. I was pretty happy about this.

W was not, however. She usually did the hiring, and she always hired young women. (FWIW, I worked with a number of young women in the few months I was there, and with the exception of one who was simply clueless, they were all remarkably good at their jobs.) She did not like me, and she always made it clear that she was just at the limits of her patience with me.

It was easy enough to avoid her in spring and early summer when we were selling bedding plants. I spent most of my days watering flats of annuals and vegetables in the greenhouse and reading the care tags for people who had no idea they could learn how to care for their very expensive perennial plant just by reading the care tag. But when that part of the season was over, I moved inside, where we sold fresh produce and “gourmet” items such as smoked cheese and trail mix.

I really didn’t have any idea that W didn’t like me. She had always found fault with me, but growing up as a POC in a small town, I was used to that. But things really got out of hand once the greenhouse portion of the business closed down and I was working full time inside.

My breaking point came one day when I was doing an ordinary task (and this was 30 years ago, so forgive me for not being able to remember what it was specifically; all I can remember is that it involved some gourmet fingerling potatoes). I had done this task at least times before, and always in the presence of W. But this time, for some reason, was the breaking point for her.

There were no customers about that I recall. I did whatever I had done three or four times before with the potatoes and she suddenly yelled “You know, I would think that by now you would know what to do with these potatoes! I can’t believe you don’t know what to do with them!” And with that, she grabbed the tray of potatoes out of my hands and huffed off with them.

I just stopped showing up for work after that. I don’t think I invented ghosting, but when I heard about it and how people just got into a high dudgeon about being ghosted, I just thought “should have told them how to do the potatoes, then.” I mean, honestly—if you watch me do something two or three times and don’t say anything about how I do it, I’m going to assume that I’m doing it correctly. If I’m doing it wrong but you don’t say anything, then that’s on you.

Arthur here: One of my principles of good management is that feedback should be as immediate as it is actionable. In other words, if you are watching somebody do something wrong, you should say something before they have to do this task again, or at they very least before they have to think and plan about doing this task again.

The only thing I learned from this job is that there is a right way and a wrong way to do potatoes.

Alas, I have no idea what those ways are. Oh, well.