Professional industries, especially small ones, are insular and incestuous and more gossipy than a middle-school bathroom. You have learned that in your industry, as in mine, you cannot apply for a job without assuming everyone you work with and everyone you have ever worked with will know instantly. (My last boss spoke to the three references I gave her, plus at least a dozen more people, before I was hired.)

This sucks! A hiring manager should never contact your current boss without your permission, and you have no obligation to tell anyone you’re looking before you have an offer. It’s unfair, and like so many unfair things about work, you can’t do a damn thing about it. So use it to your advantage: Good managers live in fear of their best people leaving, and it can be helpful for them to get occasional “reminders” that other people see you as a catch.

I wonder if the bigger part of your justifiable anger isn’t actually about the hiring manager, but the assumption that your current boss trashed you and the fear that it could happen again. It’s tempting to stage a coup d’état, but since paychecks are useful for paying rent and buying stuff, take a stab at resetting your relationship. Tell her the truth: The new organization approached you, you had a few conversations and then they contacted her before you were ready. Explain why you were interested in the job and what it offered that you feel is lacking in your current one. Maybe a heart-to-heart turns things around, or maybe the memory of you taking the high road makes your boss reconsider next time she considers sabotaging you.

Whatever you do, though, don’t tell her you assume that’s what happened, both because you may be wrong and because confronting her is just going to make the next informal review even more negative. If the relationship doesn’t improve, start looking for other jobs less passively, being tactfully honest with hiring managers about your mismatch with your current boss and proactively volunteering the names of several other people who will rave about you. If only universally liked people could ever get hired, we’d all be screwed.

The Only Person Who’s Ever Felt Guilty About Joining the Peace Corps

I’m four months into my new job and two months away from joining the Peace Corps. Let me clarify: I applied for the Peace Corps before I took this job, but didn’t get their offer until after I started. So here I am now — excited about my future, but crushingly anxious and guilty about what I have to tell my boss and countless other employees. Do you have any advice on how I should bring up this discussion? Am I right to feel like I have wronged and let down my employer and coworkers? Should I tell my boss sooner than later — but then come to work for the next two months feeling awkward and guilty everyone knows?

— New York

As discussed above, money is useful for paying rent and buying stuff, so I’m going to need you to stop thinking you wronged anybody by getting a job when you needed a job. Life happens and people sometimes quit more quickly than is ideal, so you have my blessing to gracefully resign without explaining the entire timeline. Give as much notice as possible and offer to help with the transition, then stop beating yourself up and save your energy for the Peace Corps.

Megan Greenwell is the editor in chief of Deadspin. Write to her at workfriend@nytimes.com.