Welcome back, advice lovers. Thanksgiving break is quickly approaching, and if you’ve got one thing to be grateful for, it’s that I’m here to answer all your questions — this week, we’re tackling work missteps and roommate controversies. As always, if you’ve got a problem you need some help with that I didn’t answer, submit it to this anonymous form and I’ll give you a hand.

My bosses yelled at me yesterday about overstepping my boundaries at my job, and I know it’s my fault — this is a constant problem that I just don’t know how to fix. I try to be helpful in every organization I join, and then it just ends up backfiring in a way that makes me aware of how horrible of a person I am. Every time I feel so guilty and sad because I just don’t know how to fix myself. What do I do?

First of all, your job performance is never a reflection of your worth as a person. It can be hard to separate the two, especially if you’re passionate about your work, but remember that a mistake at your job doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person; it just means you messed up, like we all do. It sounds like your interest in your work can sometimes go beyond what’s expected of your position, and that’s not always a bad thing, but it’s important to make sure you’re not stifling the other people you work with. Take a minute to look back on past instances where your attempts to take more initiative didn’t work out. See if there’s any patterns: Did you inadvertently take over another person’s responsibilities instead of focusing on your own, or talk over others who might have felt less comfortable advocating for themselves? If you’re answering “yes” to any of those questions, then reframing the way you try to be helpful at work can help avoid these issues with your boss. 

Communicate with the people you work with — not just your bosses but your peers as well. If you find yourself wanting to go above and beyond in an area that’s not something you usually work on, talk to the people around you to find a way to implement your ideas without taking over a project someone else is already working on. By making the people around you feel heard, your inclinations to be helpful can become a huge benefit to your job instead of an overstep. Most importantly, a mistake doesn’t make you bad at your job; it means you’re learning. You got this!

All of my roommates want to live together next year except for one. She can be really mean to the rest of us and put people down, and it makes it difficult to live with her. Even though she acts like she has better friends than the rest of us, she still assumes we’re all still living together. We’re about to sign a lease with other people and without her, but we also still have to live with her for six more months after we break the news, so how should we do this?

It sounds like it’s for the best that you’re moving on from a living situation that’s stressing you out, even if your roommate won’t be happy to hear about it. It can be tempting to avoid conflict and wait as long as possible to tell her, but the kindest thing you can do is break the news sooner rather than later. While that might cause some tension in your house, telling her as early as you can allows her to figure out a different living situation for next year before everyone’s plans are already locked down. Even if she feels frustrated to hear that you’re living with different people, giving her plenty of time to find new arrangements will make the rest of your year a lot easier than if you wait until the last minute and leave her stranded and upset. If she asks why you’ve decided not to live with her, it’s okay to be honest about why you feel like you’re not the best fit as roommates — she might be upset, but it’ll be easier to eventually move on from if she feels like you’re being upfront and that she isn’t left in the dark. A direct conversation can clear the air about your plans for the future and hopefully reduce the conflict in your current living situation.  

Caroline Brown is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. This is the seventh installment of her column “Calling in With Caroline.”