Recently, one of my friends posted a comment on Facebook about how to deal with unsolicited advice. It's an interesting challenge. Often, those who give such advice are well-meaning. In her particular case, she's been posting that her current task is ending and those of us in government contracting know that means she's going to be on overhead soon. Depending on the company, being on overhead can be the kiss of death, leading to RIFs and other bad things. So I suspect that the unsolicited advice she's been getting has been related to next steps she could take career-wise.
The problem with that is three-fold: 1) unless you work for her particular company and know how it operates, any advice may or may not apply, 2) it's hard not to see this advice as criticism of what she is or is not doing, and really whatever she is or is not doing is her business, and 3) she probably knows already what she needs or wants to do, or is already talking to the people whose opinions she trusts on the subject, so any unsolicited advice is likely superfluous.
And really that's the problem with unsolicited advice. It's superfluous. And it puts an obligation on the advisee to react positively to the advisor, even when the advice may be completely offbase and inappropriate. After all, you don't want to tell people to mind their own business. That's just not nice. On the other hand, it's very hard to *nicely* tell someone they have no idea what they are talking about.
I've been in her position a couple of times. I've either been in a job that was at risk or been unemployed. And it stinks. But advice on what to do about it - even when well-meaning - just reminds you of the situation and, most of the time, isn't really all that helpful. And when you get it from a lot of people, it gets very wearing.
She ended the discussion with the comment "I think the world would be a much nicer place if everyone thought long and hard before offering unsolicited advice". Amen to that.
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