Imagine being a grad student and also working at the college you attend. Part of your job is to supervise resident advisors (RAs). Would you become friends with the RAs, or would you keep your relationship more professional?

In this story, two coworkers who supervise RAs have completely different answers to this question, and now they’re arguing with each other about it.

Keep reading for the perspective of the coworker who chooses not to be friends with the RAs.

AITA for telling a co-worker the reason the people she supervises are confused the line between friend and supervisor is her fault.

I work as a junior resident director at a college. It’s a graduate assistant ship so the position is somewhere in between a student job and a professional job.

Part of what I do is supervise 6 Resident advisors.

It’s my first year in this position but, I feel like I’ve been a good supervisor. I make sure my RAs are doing their job well, let them know when they need to do better and work through the things they could do better on.

I let them know I am always there for them but also make sure they know there is still that professional line that needs to be their.

She has a coworker who does not draw a professional line with the RAs.

My co worker seems to have an issue with this.

She supervised a couple of my RAs last year and from what I can see, she approached as “I’m more of a friend than I am a supervisor.”

She apparently goes out to dinner and stuff with the RAs she closer too, has them over for drinks (keep in mind some of them are under 21).

But her coworker also has really high standards.

A couple days ago, my conworker asked one of my RAs (one she is close to) and another RA to do a task while they were on duty.

They did it but apparently not to my co workers standard.

So my coworker told them they had to drop whatever they were doing and do the task she asked over again. (keep in my the RAs only work 20 hours a week, have classes, some have second jobs ect.

My one RA didn’t understand why my co worker was acting like this and told her “you’re my friend you know I’m super busy and stressed right now why are you making me drop everything to do this random task”

She told her coworker her honest thoughts.

My co worker came to me mad saying I needed to put my RA and check because what she said was unacceptable.

I told her that while my Ra talking back was not acceptable I understood why she was frustrated and said, it’s understandable why some RAs (not just mine) were questioning her about things. It’s because she has muddied the line and made it seem like she is more for friend so, when she turns around and demands things. It gets confusing for them.

She told me that I needed to mind my own business and let her supervise the way she wants.

I only brought it up to her because she was complaining about why RAs don’t listen to her. AITA?

They definitely have two different styles when it comes to supervising the RAs. I tend to agree with OP that the coworker being friends with the RAs could make it a bit confusing when she’s also so demanding.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this story.

This person agrees that the coworker is unprofessional.

Another person agrees that the coworker is handling her job incorrectly.

This is a good point!

A former RA weighs in.

It’s harder to supervise friends.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.