Picture this: It’s my externship during veterinary school, and I’m working at a small animal hospital in my hometown in West Virginia. A few weeks in, I’m getting comfortable with the routine when the clinic owner gets a call from a fellow veterinarian who needs help. He’s short-staffed, drowning in appointments, and desperate.
“Can I borrow your extern for the day?”
I’d heard the rumors about this doc. “Rough around the edges.” “A bit of a pill.” “Old school to the extreme.” Naturally, I was both nervous and intrigued.
When I arrived at his clinic that morning, I quickly understood what “short-staffed” meant. It was me, one receptionist, and him. Oh, and we had three surgeries scheduled.
No problem, right?
Within minutes, I went from “veterinary student observer” to “the entire anesthesia monitoring system” (thankfully, he had a pulse oximeter—luxury!). As he’s elbow-deep in his second spay of the morning, I casually ask, “So… how many staff members do you usually have here?”
“Well,” he says, not looking up from his work, “normally I have a vet tech and a vet assistant. Good workers, both of them. But they’ve been fighting like cats and dogs for weeks now.”
“So where are they today?”
He paused his suturing for just a moment and looked up at me with a slight grin.
“I gave them a $50 bill this morning and told them to go to lunch together. They can talk through their problems, figure out how to work together productively, or they’re both fired. Simple as that.”
I must have looked shocked because he chuckled and went back to his surgery.
“I call it ‘The $50 Fix.’ And in all my years of practice, it’s only resulted in one mutual termination.”
Fast Forward Ten Years
I’m now ten years into my career in academic veterinary medicine, and I think about that story constantly.
Here’s what keeps me up at night: In every workplace I’ve been in—whether it’s a teaching hospital, a corporate office, a retail environment, or a tech startup—we encourage people to communicate. We practically beg them to.
“Please, just talk to each other. Work it out. You’re both professionals.”
Whether it’s clinicians and vet techs, managers and employees, colleagues on the same team, or even family members in a family business—it doesn’t matter. They nod. They agree communication is important. They attend the workshops, read the emails, acknowledge the policies.
And then they just… won’t.
Instead, they’ll:
- Avoid each other in hallways, break rooms, or Zoom meetings.
- Send passive-aggressive emails with unnecessary CCs.
- Complain to everyone except the person they actually need to talk to.
- Make their conflict everyone else’s problem.
I’ve sat in countless mediation meetings where I’m listening to two people air their grievances about each other, and the whole time I’m thinking: This entire meeting could have been avoided if you two had just talked to each other for five minutes.
The Real Cost of Avoiding Conversation
In a teaching hospital, unresolved conflict isn’t just inconvenient—it’s infectious. It impacts students trying to learn in a toxic environment. It affects clients who can sense the tension the moment they walk through the door. It demoralizes the entire team who has to tiptoe around two people refusing to have one honest conversation.
But this isn’t unique to veterinary medicine. This pattern plays out everywhere:
- Corporate offices: Two team members won’t collaborate, so projects stall and deadlines are missed while everyone else scrambles to compensate.
- Retail and hospitality: Staff members create awkward shifts where tension affects customer service and others have to pick sides or play referee.
- Schools: Teachers or administrators in conflict create uncomfortable environments that students pick up on immediately.
- Families: Relatives who won’t address issues turn every holiday gathering into a minefield for everyone else.
- Creative industries: Collaborators who won’t communicate derail entire productions, leaving crews and colleagues in limbo.
The pattern is universal. Two people won’t talk, and suddenly it’s everyone’s problem.
We’ve Built Beautiful Systems That Don’t Work
Over the past few decades, we’ve constructed elaborate frameworks to support workplace communication—open-door policies, conflict resolution trainings, anonymous feedback systems, team-building retreats, communication style assessments, HR mediation services, employee resource groups.
These are all valuable. Genuinely. I’ve sat through many of these programs, and they’re well-intentioned and often well-designed.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Despite all these systems, people will still choose months of misery over one uncomfortable 30-minute conversation.
Why?
Because we’ve accidentally made communication optional. We’ve created so many support systems, safety nets, and intermediaries that we’ve sent an unintended message: Two adults can’t sit down and work through a problem without a referee.
Enter: The $50 Fix
That old veterinarian in rural West Virginia didn’t give his employees an option.
Here’s $50. Go to lunch. Talk it through. No mediator. No HR rep. No structured framework. Just the two of you. Come back with a path forward or don’t come back at all.
He made direct communication without a mediator unavoidable.
Was it perfect? Absolutely not.
Was it probably problematic by 2025 workplace standards? Without question.
Would HR have me in their office before the appetizers arrived if I tried this today? Definitely.
But here’s what it did: It forced two adults to actually sit across from each other and communicate. Not complain. Not vent. Not build their cases for why they were right and the other person was wrong.
Actually talk. Actually listen. Actually find a way forward.
When The $50 Fix Works (And When It Doesn’t)
Now, I’m not naive. This approach doesn’t work in every situation.
Power dynamics matter. A conflict between a manager and their direct report is fundamentally different from a conflict between peers. When there’s an imbalance of power, you can’t just send them to lunch and expect equal footing.
Harassment and discrimination are not communication problems. If someone is being harassed or experiencing a hostile work environment, that requires formal intervention, not a lunch conversation.
Safety concerns are non-negotiable. If there’s any concern about violence or retaliation, professional mediation is essential.
But those situations aren’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about conflicts between peers—between professionals who simply don’t want to deal with the discomfort of a real conversation.
Those situations? Maybe we need fewer mediators and more $50 bills.
What The $50 Fix Actually Teaches Us
The genius of The $50 Fix isn’t really about the money or the ultimatum—it’s about making direct communication unavoidable.
Here’s what that old veterinarian understood that we’ve somehow forgotten:
- Discomfort is a feature, not a bug. Sometimes discomfort is exactly what’s needed to move people past their avoidance.
- People are more capable than we give them credit for. Most of the time, they can work things out—they just need to be required to.
- Shared stakes create shared solutions. When both people know they either fix it or both lose, there’s motivation to find common ground.
- Time limits force action. “You have a lunch period to figure this out” leaves no room for endless procrastination.
- Privacy enables honesty. Without mediators, people can often be more open and genuine.
How to Apply This Lesson (Without Getting Fired)
So how do we apply this lesson in 2025 without violating every HR policy ever written?
For Managers and Leaders
- Make direct communication an expectation, not a suggestion.
- Set clear parameters for peer conflict—direct communication comes first, mediation later if needed.
- Create low-stakes opportunities for honest talks (a conference room and 30 minutes can work wonders).
- Stop rewarding avoidance—if someone refuses to communicate directly, there must be consequences.
For Individual Contributors
- Initiate the conversation before you’re forced to.
- Use the magic phrase: “I’d like to understand your perspective.”
- Choose a neutral location to ease tension.
- Set a deadline for yourself to have the talk.
For Everyone
Remember: Your discomfort doesn’t justify everyone else’s misery. When your unwillingness to have one awkward conversation makes your entire team miserable, that’s not okay.
The Bottom Line
We’ve built incredibly sophisticated systems for managing workplace conflict. And yet, many could be solved by two people sitting down over lunch and actually talking to each other.
Not emailing. Not Slacking. Not venting. Just… talking.
The $50 Fix reminds us that sometimes the most sophisticated solution is the simplest one: remove the escape routes, create the space, set the expectation, and trust that two functioning adults can figure it out.
I’m not suggesting we dismantle HR or mediation systems—they exist for good reasons. But maybe, just maybe, we could start by expecting people to try talking to each other first.
Because at the end of the day, you don’t get to hold the entire team hostage to your conflict just because talking it out feels awkward.
A Final Note
That day in rural West Virginia, the two employees came back from lunch. They weren’t best friends. They didn’t suddenly love working together. But they had figured out how to coexist productively.
They’d talked through their problems, set ground rules, and agreed to give each other the benefit of the doubt.
In other words, they did exactly what any two reasonable adults could do if they just sat down and communicated.
The $50? The veterinarian told me he didn’t even get it back. They probably spent it on their lunch.
Best $50 he ever spent.