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<p>Setting boundaries between your personal life and your professional life is crucial for both your career and mental health, and some jobs make it trickier than others.</p><p>For example, if you work in software development you&#39;re less likely to have family friends ask you for favors than if they find out you work for a publisher or entertainment agency. Which is to say, anyone who works in a field that gatekeeps creative goals is bound to get a lot of unsolicited submissions from friends and acquaintances who want to skip the line.</p><h2>In a recent post on the Am I The A**hole subreddit, a woman who works in publishing asked if she was wrong for being mean to her mom&#39;s random friends who reach out about their manuscripts.</h2><blockquote> <p>AITA? I work in publishing. Mum keeps giving my contact info to aspiring writers. I am rude to them.</p> </blockquote><h2>OP shared that she&#39;s a senior editor at a publishing house, and not long after she got the job people started asking her to look at their writing.</h2><blockquote> <p>I am a senior editor at a publishing house. First piece of advice I got on being hired was not to tell people I work in publishing, because they&#39;ll ask me to look at their manuscript. I thought this was a joke, but the first time I told someone that I was in publishing, you get one guess what they said.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>While OP has stopped telling most people her job, her mom loves boasting about OP and often gives acquaintances OP&#39;s contact info.</h2><blockquote> <p>My mother sees this as a bonus, and wants to brag to everyone and their dog about &quot;my daughter the publisher&quot;, and &quot;my daughter, who could find the next JK Rowling&quot; and &quot;my daughter who can part the red sea with only a green pen&quot;. She finishes her boasting with giving them my contact information.</p> </blockquote><h2>OP has asked her mom to stop multiple times, to no avail, so now she&#39;s made a template response she sends to people who want special treatment.</h2><p>The response OP sends gives people a clear list of the channels they need to go through if they actually want a book published, and makes it clear that there&#39;s not shortcut or golden ticket.</p><blockquote> <p>If I&#39;ve asked her to stop it once, I&#39;ve asked her to stop it a thousand times, and yet I&#39;m still getting contacted by the nephew of my mother&#39;s butcher or my cousin&#39;s girlfriend&#39;s cousin, saying mum gave them my information so they could show me their work. I then tell them to get lost. I even have a template that I send back to most of them saying that there is a process in place for a reason, along with an outline of this process. If they get pushy, which they always do, I respond that the reason the process exists is so people like them don&#39;t waste my time as I could be using this time to find a manuscript actually worth publishing, which theirs clearly isn&#39;t, because if it was they could go through the regular channels like everyone else, rather than contact me directly and request special treatment.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>OP often goes so far as to explain to people why their writing is in nowhere near good enough shape to get published.</h2><p>In response, people have started lashing out at OP&#39;s mom over it, and OP&#39;s mom has asked her to be nicer.</p><blockquote> <p>In conclusion, I am not kind to these people. The consequence of this is that I am gradually ostracising my mother from her social circles as people have begun to blame her for me reaming out their acquaintance. Mum has asked that I be nicer. I&#39;ve asked her to stop putting me in this position. Mum claims that she stopped giving my info to people, and these are just the stragglers, but they just keep coming, so I&#39;m not fully convinced that she&#39;s stopped giving out my information.</p> </blockquote><h2>OP stood her ground and told her mom that if people get pushy in her inbox she has every right to set them straight, and this wouldn&#39;t be happening in the first place if her mom wasn&#39;t giving out her info.</h2><blockquote> <p>I told mum that if they get pushy after they receive the template, I reserve the right to give them everything I&#39;ve got, but mum has said that I&#39;m being really unfair, both to her and the aspiring authors, and that I&#39;m ruining her reputation, so I need to stop being so rude. I said I will deal with them however I feel is appropriate, and this wouldn&#39;t happen if she didn&#39;t give my info out. She says she learned her lesson so I need to stop, I said I&#39;ll stop when people stop using her as a reference. She says that I&#39;m enjoying humiliating and upsetting both these people and her and that the next time she hears from me she&#39;s expecting an apology.</p> <p>AITA?</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>Still, OP&#39;s mom claims OP is getting pleasure out of humiliating people and that she should tone it down, so OP brought the quandary to the court of the internet.</h2><blockquote> <p>EDIT: In regards to people saying that I may be costing us potentially valuable authors: if the material can stand up on it&#39;s own, then they can go through the regular process as we will be able to identify good writing. If they don&#39;t trust that we can identify good writing, then they should not be working with us. If they do trust us but want to skip the line anyway, then they are not someone we want to work with, as this suggests that they want special treatment, which will not end with me reading their manuscript and is likely to be a recurring theme throughout working with them.</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Hirora6/">Hirora6</a> thinks OP is doing the right thing.</h2><blockquote> <p>NTA. I used to work for a bookstore reviewing and accepting/rejecting local self-pubbed author submission. I know exactly how pushy aspiring authors can be.</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/LenoreSkellington/">LenoreSkellington</a> thinks OP should start charging the people emailing her.</h2><blockquote> <p>NTA.</p> <p>Tell anyone who contacts you with your mother&#39;s credentials it will cost them $$(however much you want to charge) for you to look at their manuscripts.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>It&#39;s your job...so you should be paid for it. Just make sure to charge a large enough sum that you scare off the people who aren&#39;t serious.</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Dear_Analysis_5116/">Dear_Analysis_5116</a> pointed out the fact that OP&#39;s mom is digging her own social grave.</h2><blockquote> <p>NTA. You are under NO obligation to be polite to pushy a**holes that contact you after your mother has <strong>improperly</strong> given them your info. Mom&#39;s rep being ruined is only because <em>she</em> can&#39;t resist playing the big shot (knows big Publishing exec). Her misery stops as soon as she quits giving away YOUR info.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Stragglers? Gee, maybe she shouldn&#39;t have been so free about giving away your name. And if they&#39;re that late, can&#39;t see how it would be enough of a connection to her.</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/cheesybutgrate/">cheesybutgrate</a> thinks OP is being wildly unprofessional.</h2><blockquote> <p>ESH - I also work in publishing. They suck, your mother sucks, but. You&#39;re being unprofessional and you WILL get a reputation.</p> <p>Send the template, and then delete any future emails. Mark them as spam if you have to.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Dangerous_Beans74/">Dangerous_Beans7</a> worked as a literary agent and completely understands where OP is coming from.</h2><blockquote> <p>NTA. As a former literary agent, I can testify to the fact that there is nothing more obnoxious or entitled than an aspiring author. Also, TBH, keeping agents and editors slightly difficult to reach so that aspiring authors have to do a bit of legwork to find them is a good way to weed out those who aren&#39;t really serious about seeing publishing as a business. Getting published is hard work, and it&#39;s not hurtful to try and clear the weeds a bit, especially those who have ridiculous expectations of being published despite being untalented, not having marketable manuscripts, etc. (and there are <strong>so many</strong> of them).</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>You asked your mother nicely not to give out your info, which was reasonable. She did it anyway. It is a harsh industry truth that you have to be...well, not rude, but harshly honest, because otherwise, you will find yourself inundated with unsolicited submissions that can take all your time to deal with (and people don&#39;t realize that that&#39;s unpaid time) on top of your regular workload. You don&#39;t owe anyone other than your employer your labour, and certainly not for free, and if they demand it of you, you have every right to set boundaries and be blunt with them.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/StarRevoir/">StarRevoir</a> thinks OP is being deeply unprofessional.</h2><blockquote> <p>Editor in chief here! If I found out one of my editors was doing this I would fire them on the spot. Yes, I do think you are the asshole. You could simply not respond. Instead, you are taking your anger out on strangers. This is between you and your mother. You should keep it that way. Extremely unprofessional and you should not be acting on behalf of a brand in that manner.</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HouseRenovations/">HouseRenovations</a> thinks everyone in this situation sucks.</h2><blockquote> <p>ESH - a few friends of mine worked in publishing for years and it&#39;s cutthroat and everyone is looking for a way in. I get OP&#39;s frustration, but I think the rudeness is over the top and unnecessary. You can be firm and direct without being nasty and it sounds to me like OP is being unnecessarily nasty to these people because she&#39;s angry at her mother for being completely obtuse.</p> </blockquote><p>One thing is for sure: the internet cannot agree about this one.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Editor asks if she's wrong for being 'mean' to her mom's friends who send manuscripts.

Setting boundaries between your personal life and your professional life is crucial for both your career and mental health, and some jobs make it trickier than others.For example, if you work in software development you&#39;re less likely to have family friends ask you for favors than if they find out you work for a publisher or entertainment agency. Which is to say, anyone who works in a field that gatekeeps creative goals is bound to get a lot of unsolicited submissions from friends and acquaintances who want to skip the line.In a recent post on the Am I The A**hole subreddit, a woman who works in publishing asked if she was wrong for being mean to her mom&#39;s random friends who reach out about their manuscripts. AITA? I work in publishing. Mum keeps giving my contact info to aspiring writers. I am rude to them. OP shared that she&#39;s a senior editor at a publishing house, and not long after she got the job people started asking her to look at their writing. I am a senior editor at a publishing house. First piece of advice I got on being hired was not to tell people I work in publishing, because they&#39;ll ask me to look at their manuscript. I thought this was a joke, but the first time I told someone that I was in publishing, you get one guess what they said. While OP has stopped telling most people her job, her mom loves boasting about OP and often gives acquaintances OP&#39;s contact info. My mother sees this as a bonus, and wants to brag to everyone and their dog about &quot;my daughter the publisher&quot;, and &quot;my daughter, who could find the next JK Rowling&quot; and &quot;my daughter who can part the red sea with only a green pen&quot;. She finishes her boasting with giving them my contact information. OP has asked her mom to stop multiple times, to no avail, so now she&#39;s made a template response she sends to people who want special treatment.The response OP sends gives people a clear list of the channels they need to go through if they actually want a book published, and makes it clear that there&#39;s not shortcut or golden ticket. If I&#39;ve asked her to stop it once, I&#39;ve asked her to stop it a thousand times, and yet I&#39;m still getting contacted by the nephew of my mother&#39;s butcher or my cousin&#39;s girlfriend&#39;s cousin, saying mum gave them my information so they could show me their work. I then tell them to get lost. I even have a template that I send back to most of them saying that there is a process in place for a reason, along with an outline of this process. If they get pushy, which they always do, I respond that the reason the process exists is so people like them don&#39;t waste my time as I could be using this time to find a manuscript actually worth publishing, which theirs clearly isn&#39;t, because if it was they could go through the regular channels like everyone else, rather than contact me directly and request special treatment. OP often goes so far as to explain to people why their writing is in nowhere near good enough shape to get published.In response, people have started lashing out at OP&#39;s mom over it, and OP&#39;s mom has asked her to be nicer. In conclusion, I am not kind to these people. The consequence of this is that I am gradually ostracising my mother from her social circles as people have begun to blame her for me reaming out their acquaintance. Mum has asked that I be nicer. I&#39;ve asked her to stop putting me in this position. Mum claims that she stopped giving my info to people, and these are just the stragglers, but they just keep coming, so I&#39;m not fully convinced that she&#39;s stopped giving out my information. OP stood her ground and told her mom that if people get pushy in her inbox she has every right to set them straight, and this wouldn&#39;t be happening in the first place if her mom wasn&#39;t giving out her info. I told mum that if they get pushy after they receive the template, I reserve the right to give them everything I&#39;ve got, but mum has said that I&#39;m being really unfair, both to her and the aspiring authors, and that I&#39;m ruining her reputation, so I need to stop being so rude. I said I will deal with them however I feel is appropriate, and this wouldn&#39;t happen if she didn&#39;t give my info out. She says she learned her lesson so I need to stop, I said I&#39;ll stop when people stop using her as a reference. She says that I&#39;m enjoying humiliating and upsetting both these people and her and that the next time she hears from me she&#39;s expecting an apology. AITA? Still, OP&#39;s mom claims OP is getting pleasure out of humiliating people and that she should tone it down, so OP brought the quandary to the court of the internet. EDIT: In regards to people saying that I may be costing us potentially valuable authors: if the material can stand up on it&#39;s own, then they can go through the regular process as we will be able to identify good writing. If they don&#39;t trust that we can identify good writing, then they should not be working with us. If they do trust us but want to skip the line anyway, then they are not someone we want to work with, as this suggests that they want special treatment, which will not end with me reading their manuscript and is likely to be a recurring theme throughout working with them. Hirora6 thinks OP is doing the right thing. NTA. I used to work for a bookstore reviewing and accepting/rejecting local self-pubbed author submission. I know exactly how pushy aspiring authors can be. LenoreSkellington thinks OP should start charging the people emailing her. NTA. Tell anyone who contacts you with your mother&#39;s credentials it will cost them $$(however much you want to charge) for you to look at their manuscripts.  It&#39;s your job...so you should be paid for it. Just make sure to charge a large enough sum that you scare off the people who aren&#39;t serious. Dear_Analysis_5116 pointed out the fact that OP&#39;s mom is digging her own social grave. NTA. You are under NO obligation to be polite to pushy a**holes that contact you after your mother has improperly given them your info. Mom&#39;s rep being ruined is only because she can&#39;t resist playing the big shot (knows big Publishing exec). Her misery stops as soon as she quits giving away YOUR info.  Stragglers? Gee, maybe she shouldn&#39;t have been so free about giving away your name. And if they&#39;re that late, can&#39;t see how it would be enough of a connection to her. cheesybutgrate thinks OP is being wildly unprofessional. ESH - I also work in publishing. They suck, your mother sucks, but. You&#39;re being unprofessional and you WILL get a reputation. Send the template, and then delete any future emails. Mark them as spam if you have to. Dangerous_Beans7 worked as a literary agent and completely understands where OP is coming from. NTA. As a former literary agent, I can testify to the fact that there is nothing more obnoxious or entitled than an aspiring author. Also, TBH, keeping agents and editors slightly difficult to reach so that aspiring authors have to do a bit of legwork to find them is a good way to weed out those who aren&#39;t really serious about seeing publishing as a business. Getting published is hard work, and it&#39;s not hurtful to try and clear the weeds a bit, especially those who have ridiculous expectations of being published despite being untalented, not having marketable manuscripts, etc. (and there are so many of them).  You asked your mother nicely not to give out your info, which was reasonable. She did it anyway. It is a harsh industry truth that you have to be...well, not rude, but harshly honest, because otherwise, you will find yourself inundated with unsolicited submissions that can take all your time to deal with (and people don&#39;t realize that that&#39;s unpaid time) on top of your regular workload. You don&#39;t owe anyone other than your employer your labour, and certainly not for free, and if they demand it of you, you have every right to set boundaries and be blunt with them. StarRevoir thinks OP is being deeply unprofessional. Editor in chief here! If I found out one of my editors was doing this I would fire them on the spot. Yes, I do think you are the asshole. You could simply not respond. Instead, you are taking your anger out on strangers. This is between you and your mother. You should keep it that way. Extremely unprofessional and you should not be acting on behalf of a brand in that manner. HouseRenovations thinks everyone in this situation sucks. ESH - a few friends of mine worked in publishing for years and it&#39;s cutthroat and everyone is looking for a way in. I get OP&#39;s frustration, but I think the rudeness is over the top and unnecessary. You can be firm and direct without being nasty and it sounds to me like OP is being unnecessarily nasty to these people because she&#39;s angry at her mother for being completely obtuse. One thing is for sure: the internet cannot agree about this one.

Editor asks if she's wrong for being 'mean' to her mom's friends who send manuscripts.

In a recent post on the Am I The A**hole subreddit, a woman who works in publishing asked if she was wrong for being mean to her mom's random friends who reach out about their manuscripts.

OP shared that she's a senior editor at a publishing house, and not long after she got the job people started asking her to look at their writing.