Little Happier: How Do You Write a Letter of Recommendation for Someone You Can’t Honestly Recommend?

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin / The Onward Project

Education, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement

4.7 • 13K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2020

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

NOTE: This episode was recorded before the COVID-19 situation took hold. Given the rapidly changing situation, it may be jarring to hear me ignore it—and that’s why. When he was asked to write an informational letter about a difficult boss, my friend found an elegant way to be helpful, truthful, and prudent. Get in touch: @gretchenrubin; @elizabethcraft; [email protected] Get in touch on Instagram: @GretchenRubin & @LizCraft Get the podcast show notes by email every week here: http://gretchenrubin.com/#newsletter Order a copy of Gretchen’s new book OUTER ORDER, INNER CALM here: http://outerorderinnercalmbook.com Leave a voicemail message on: 774-277-9336 For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to happiercast.com/sponsors. Happier with Gretchen Rubin is part of ‘The Onward Project,’ a family of podcasts brought together by Gretchen Rubin—all about how to make your life better. Check out the other Onward Project podcasts—Do The Thing, Side Hustle School, and Happier in Hollywood. If you liked this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.
0:04.3	As I've often remarked throughout life, one common challenge is finding the right words
0:08.5	to say, and I do love finding examples of situations where someone knew exactly what to
0:14.0	say or what to do.
0:16.5	One of my friends from law school provided me with one of my favorite examples with his
0:20.7	elegant and practical solution to a familiar situation.
0:25.1	Now, many of our fellow law students wanted to clerk.
0:29.0	That is, they wanted to serve as a clerk to a judge or justice after graduation.
0:33.7	The process for applying for these one-year clerkships was long and arduous, and one big
0:38.7	problem for the students was that it was hard to get good information about a lot of judges
0:43.5	in a reasonable amount of time.
0:46.1	For this reason, our law school kept a binder in its career services office.
0:50.7	If you graduated and held a clerkship, you were invited to send a letter back to be included
0:55.6	in the binder to give helpful information to the student who might be applying after
0:59.8	you.
1:01.4	So my friend, and even after all these years, I won't say his name because I don't want
1:06.2	him to get into trouble.
1:08.0	My friend was asked to send a letter, but he'd had a terrible experience with his position.
1:13.8	The judge was an awful boss and an nasty person.
1:18.7	So what should my friend do?
1:22.4	He could send an honest letter, but that would have very serious reputational risks.
1:28.1	He could send a letter with false praise, but that would be dishonest.
	...

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