my coworkers are obsessed with talking about their kids … and I’m the only childless one here

A reader writes:

I work in a small public-facing office of a government agency. Due to some staffing changes in the past few months, my coworkers are now exclusively mothers of young children, with one exception who is the grandmother of young children. I am now the only man and only non-parent in the office. I have no problem covering shifts when people have childcare needs, but the amount of baby-related conversations at the office is driving me crazy!

In the past few months, I’ve heard detailed play-by-plays of potty training (including details like the texture of a toddler’s poop), frank conversations about postpartum depression, and details I as a gay man never thought I’d learn about the birthing process. On the one hand, I’m happy my coworkers are able to support one another, as I’ve gathered that such mother-affirming workplaces are pretty uncommon. On the other hand, I find it really distracting.

I tried using noise-cancelling headphones when chats get out of hand, but even this wasn’t foolproof: my colleagues often share with each other videos of, say, their seven-month-old eating carrots for the first time, played at maximum volume — and the shrieks of joy (cute to those who want to watch, I’m sure) still manage to pierce through my headphones and distract me. Moreover, since disgruntled members of the public sometimes come into the office, I have some safety concerns about not being able to hear all activity.

I really don’t want to shut down all the support my colleagues have found in one another — the support and care they have for each other is very touching. None of their work seems to be suffering, either. But at the same time, I don’t have a child and don’t plan on having one in the near future, so I find this an immense distraction. Is there a way I can bring this up or set a boundary without sounding like a woman hater or anti-natalist?

Oh, this is tricky.

In some ways this is like if you worked in an office where everyone but you was obsessed with sports and talked about it constantly, complete with shrieks of joy when a team won and graphic discussions of a player’s knee surgery. It would be annoying and distracting, and it would get really old.

This is similar, but with poop and childbirth thrown in.

In theory, with any topic that dominates office conversation, you should be able to say, “Y’all, this is a lot and I beg you for a topic change.” And you should definitely be able to speak up when the conversation is actually disruptive.

In reality, with this topic, there’s a pretty decent chance that it will land as “squeamish man doesn’t like women’s conversation.”

And that’s not fair. Your objections are reasonable. You should be able to work without constant bombardment on any one topic, and definitely without poop and childbirth discussions. But with the numbers in your office being what they are — and with the classic tropes that exist in society about men around this kind of talk — it’s still likely to land that way.

Given that, I think I’d just pick your battles carefully. You’re probably not going to be able to do much/anything about the prevalence of kids as a topic. But you can speak up when things are getting too graphic (“I learn a ton here about kids, but I really don’t want to hear about poop while I’m trying to focus — can you skip that?”). And if you really have safety concerns about not being able to hear over the noise, you should raise that too — possibly with your manager since that’s a pretty serious issue that should fall in her purview.

Beyond that … this is going to be a child-talk-heavy office and your best bet is to try to see it like any other topic you might not be interested in (again, like an office of sports-lovers or foodies or, I don’t know, avid hikers). Set some boundaries around the outlier stuff, and figure the rest is just this office’s quirk.

Also! Assuming you’re stuck with a good amount of this as long as you stay there, is it possible to mentally reframe this as an interesting opportunity to learn things you haven’t been this exposed to previously — a peek behind a curtain that a lot of men don’t get or don’t take advantage of? If you can approach it with more curiosity than aggravation, it would probably go a long way with your colleagues — and would also make it clearer that you’re not being anti-woman or anti-kid when you do set some boundaries. (To be clear, I’m not saying they should be overwhelming the space with this topic as much as they are; they shouldn’t be. But realistically, if you can’t change that, this could be a useful way to approach it.)

wearing revealing exercise clothes around coworkers, telling an employer I have another offer, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Wearing revealing clothes to exercise around coworkers

I’m a young woman at my first corporate job in a male-dominated field. I go to the gym across the street after work on most days; it’s not affiliated with the company. For comfort and convenience, I often wear somewhat revealing clothes to exercise (tight shorts and crop tops/sports bras). I dress modestly in the office and don’t change clothes there.

The problem is that many of my (male) coworkers go there too, and it’s the unofficial office gym. I’m concerned that it’ll damage my professional standing being seen in skimpy clothes, even though it’s technically outside of work. Do you suggest that I adhere to any sort of dress code while I’m there? Or should I dress as I please because I’m not at work? My office is pretty chill, but I’m still concerned about double standards.

Dress however you feel comfortable at the gym. You’re not walking through your office hallways in booty shorts; you’re dressed appropriately for the space and for the activities you’re participating in. It will not hurt your professional standing unless you work somewhere that’s far more dysfunctional and sexist than the average workplace (a bar that allows for a fair amount of dysfunction and sexism before this would be an issue).

2. My employee wants to be promoted into a job that doesn’t exist here (and probably shouldn’t)

I supervise a high-performing, early career employee who has been in his current role for two years. He would like to be promoted into a role that he’s written for himself. It’s a role that doesn’t exist in our industry or our organization. I’m happy to help this employee and be his champion, but I do not think this is a role that the organization needs. It is hard to make a business case for how the role adds anything to the existing set-up. If it did exist, I do not yet think this person would be ready to fill it. He’s not a bad employee, he just needs more experience in a broader variety of activities that relate to this position he’d like to have. Do you have any advice for me in coaching him or a path he would take?

You’re not doing him any favors (or serving your organization well) if you aren’t up-front about the challenges you see in his plan. Be direct with him — explain that you think it’ll be tough to make a business case for the role and why, and explain what qualifications you think the company would want if they did create it. At the same time, you can talk to him about what kind of path he’d need to take to get those qualifications, what that might look like, and whether there are opportunities in your organization for him to strengthen himself for that type of work, even if he doesn’t ultimately end up doing it there. And if he’s intent on making a case for it there, let him make that case — but being honest about your assessment will help him make better choices for himself.

3. How do I handle having to drop a job opportunity that I really wanted?

I’m entering my senior year of college after this semester, and I was recently able to secure an opportunity exactly in the field I wanted to be in. It would have opened a lot of doors in my field, and I was originally really stoked — except they never disclosed it was unpaid. That fact and an hour+ drive to the location multiple times a week on top of two other jobs (gotta pay rent) meant I had to drop the opportunity.

How do you get over something like this? I’m still in the regret phase even though I know I couldn’t afford to do it.

There are going to be a lot of job prospects in your future that would be perfect except for one thing, and that one thing will be significant enough that it’s a deal-breaker. It could be the salary, or the location, or the manager you’d be working with, or the hours, or the company culture. This is really normal, and it’s good to get comfortable with it early on, because when you try to ignore the “just one thing” that makes a job a bad fit for you, that’s how you end up in a job where you’re miserable (or broke). Take this as an early lesson in being clear-eyed and resolute about what does and doesn’t work for you, regardless of how enticing it might otherwise be.

Also, it’s sketchy as hell for them not to disclose up-front that the work was unpaid. That’s a red flag about them generally.

4. Timing my resignation with a week off and a company retreat

I am a program manager at a small company, and I’m the only staff member assigned to my program. Every summer my company shuts down for a mandatory paid week off, and the next Monday is our mandatory all-staff retreat, which consists of serious planning sessions interspersed with team-building activities. We have to set goals for ourselves and our programs and stand up in front of the whole company and declare what each of us is committing to for the upcoming year.

I’m planning to leave the company this summer to start my own business. I really want to take advantage of the paid week off, and I’m concerned that if I give notice right before the break they might let me go immediately to avoid paying me for that week off. I have a good relationship with my boss and don’t think he’d do that, but there are also some pretty horrible leaders above him who have screwed over employees before, and money has been really tight the past few years so I think there’s *some* risk.

I also don’t want to wait more than a week after the break to give my two weeks notice, because I need to get ready to launch my business in the fall. If it’s not ready in the fall, a big chunk of my prospective customers will sign on with other service providers for the year.

Is it better to fake my way through a full day of public planning, goal-setting, and making commitments, just to turn around later that week and say “just kidding!” or to give my notice before the break and cross my fingers they don’t let me go immediately? If it’s the former, any advice on how to reduce the awkwardness?

Why not give your notice right after the week-long break, on the first day of the retreat? Give it that Monday and ask whether your manager would rather you attend the rest of the retreat or spend that week getting your work in shape to transition. He can make that call — but that way if he wants you at the retreat, you won’t have to pretend to make commitments for the coming year because it’ll be out in the open that you’re leaving. If that timing seems awkward, you can note that specifically: “I know the timing isn’t ideal, but now that I’ve made the decision, I wanted you to have to maximum possible notice.”

5. Do I need to tell employers I have another offer I am considering?

I have been applying for positions and interviewing for a long time. A few weeks ago, two employers indicated they intended to make an offer. However, both still needed to go through their internal approval processes, which has taken several weeks.

Now, I have received one offer (I have two weeks to review it) and the other employer says they will send an offer in two days. Do I need to tell the employers that I have another offer? If so, what would be a good script to use?

I don’t want to make either employer think I am uninterested because I am considering another offer, but if I don’t mention it now they may be caught by surprise when I decline which may impact my reputation in my network. They are both great jobs but very different, and in different locations too, so it will be a difficult decision.

You’re not obligated to announce if you have other offers. Employers generally assume you’re interviewing with multiple companies and realize they could lose you to an offer you like better (or simply because their offer/job isn’t right for you, even if there aren’t other offers in play). If an employer is ever shocked to learn that you’ve been talking with other companies, that’s on them — not on you for not spelling it out.

You might choose to mention it anyway if the situation calls for it — like if the second company’s offer is delayed and you’re going to run up against your deadline for the first (in which case it could make sense to tell the second one that you’re very interested but you have another offer that you need to answer by X date). Or if you prefer Company A but Company B makes a higher offer, you might see if A is willing to match it. But you don’t need to announce it just on principle — only if it serves your interests in some way.

the plant saver, the altruistic horse, and other stories of kindness at work

Last week we talked about kindness at work. Here are 15 of my favorites of the stories you shared.

1. The teachers

I’m a teacher. Ive been at schools where our faculty has arranged housing and supplies for families after devestating fires. Currently, we’re gathering money to support one teacher (medical bills, heating issues) and another (family medical emergency). We regularly feed and cloth our students. I buy books and supplies for kids. I’ve had one student our entire department “adopted” from K-12. We bought her books, winter clothes, year books, food, went to her club sports games, paid for her extra curricular fees. I went to her graduation-her own parents didn’t show. I guess this is just to say … if you’re not a teacher you may not have any idea what all we are doing to try and keep these kids alive and loved.

2. The move

About two years ago, I moved cross-country to take my current job. The relative who lived nearby and was supposed to help me move in to my new house flaked on me, and the place I was moving to is a very remote, tiny village, so hiring help from the nearest town would have been astronomically expensive, especially on my budget. I posted a desperate message on the employee Facebook group to see if anyone could take ten minutes out of their day to help me carry a few larger pieces of furniture I knew I couldn’t move on my own.

When I arrived at my new house, four of my new coworkers I had never met before showed up with a housewarming gift, stayed to help me unload my entire U-haul, and helped me put together some of my furniture. What probably would have taken me all day to unload on a dangerously hot August day only ended up taking about 45 minutes.

3. The theft

I was a very new employee at a law firm and in the middle of a lot of life stuff: divorce, two children, elderly parents, and commuting. I was barely making ends meet. I had $100 for groceries in my wallet which was in my backpack and I got on the subway. When I got to my office, my backpack was unzipped and my wallet was gone, along with my grocery money.

I was really upset and my boss asked me what was going on. Then heard him on the phone talking to one of our vendors (he HATED talking to vendors) and arranging to go out to lunch that day. At 11:30 am, he told me to get my jacket, we’re going out. I was then wined and dined at a very fancy steakhouse for the next three hours. We got back to the office, slightly tipsy and feeling a little better about the world. When I got back to my desk, there was an envelope with $150 in cash and a note from all my coworkers telling me that they had my back. When I protested that this was more money than was stolen from me, my boss said, “Well, you need to buy a new wallet too, don’t you?”

4. The puppy

I was mid-20s when my childhood dog died. She had a stroke on a Saturday night, and the vet told me on the phone that there wasn’t enough time for me to get home because of her pain. She was my buddy.

At church on Sunday, I saw a coworker. She asked if I was okay, and I told her.

At work on Monday, I lost it while making copies before school in the front office. I got to my first period, and one of my high school sophomore male students looked at me and asked if I was okay. I told their class about my dog. He asked if he could check his phone because his mom was texting him – not uncommon – and I said sure.

35 minutes later, the principal and that mom walked in my classroom with that student’s new four-month-old puppy. My principal covered the rest of my morning classes, and I got to cry on, cuddle with, and play with a puppy – which healed a little bit of my broken heart.

5. The plants

I worked at a children’s museum at the onset of the pandemic, and most of the staff were enthusiastic Plant People. The office was full of plants of all kinds, some of which were decades old. People would get attached to other people’s plants, which were usually propagated or bequeathed to the office when folks retired or resigned. Folks would leave detailed instructions for the care of their plants when going on vacation or parental leave. On March 13, 2020 we stayed late preparing all the office plants to survive the two weeks (LOL) that the museum would be closed to mitigate the spread of Covid.

Obviously we did not go back after two weeks, by which time we were scrambling 24/7 to retain members, find cash to keep folks on payroll, and pivot to virtual programming. If anyone was thinking about the plants, we weren’t talking to each other about the plants.

Unfortunately, 80% of staff were laid off at the end of the July 2020, myself included. We had to arrange a day and time with the head of facilities to get access to the museum office to pack up our desks and return work laptops, etc. I remember driving over there and being overcome with sadness at the prospect of seeing all those dead plants.

Reader, there were no dead plants. The plants were just as healthy as the day we closed! Apparently the facilities guy (let’s call him Dan) had been taking care of the plants the entire time without mentioning anything to anyone!

Dan was always grumpy and never spoke more than was absolutely necessary, but it was the kind of workplace where everyone was friendly to him even if it was never reciprocated. He’d been there 30+ years and was never engaged in the plant mania in any way, but clearly it mattered to him that the plants were a big deal to us.

I took home some of my plants that day as well as clippings from a few communal plants I was particularly fond of, and today they’re thriving in my home office several states away. I really loved that job, so it means a lot to me to have a physical reminder of that part of my life. Really grateful to Dan for making it possible.

6. The plane tickets

My husband was away on a business trip to Europe when I received the news that his father had unexpectedly passed away. I had no way to reach my husband so I reached out to his boss. His boss’s response was for me to not worry, that he’d get ahold of my husband with the news.

About 45 minutes later he called me back to tell me that my husband would be on arriving that about midnight that same night, and would I be home for the next hour or so? Within the hour there was a knock on the door, I expected it to be a fruit basket or some flowers. It was not a gift basket, it was two plane tickets, return tickets to our home city, business class, on a flight leaving first thing the next morning. The return ticket was undated and they were issued by the travel service used by the company for all business related travel.

When we returned from our time at home for the funeral my husband took a thank-you card and went to speak with his boss. His boss had “absolutely no idea” that we’d received any travel assistance from anyone at the company and there was no way to arrange for us to reimburse them for the cost of tickets “that never existed.”

7. The pasta

In August of 2022, I fell off a boat, landing on the mooring gubbins, breaking five ribs. My boss, realizing I’d have to cancel my holiday to Italy, sent me pasta and sauces from a pretty high end pasta delivery service, saying that if I couldn’t go to Italy, it would come to me. I was VERY touched.

Entertainingly, some months later, I discovered another box from the same place on my doorstep. I messaged my boss, thanking him – I was very surprised and slightly confused. I realised then what had happened (and he admitted it) – he was ordering pasta for his own family and forgot to change the delivery address. He let me keep the pasta and we laughed about it :)

8. The phones

A coworker had a stroke in the office one morning, and he was rushed to the hospital. We were all obviously quite shaken. Two people from a business across the street heard what happened and walked over to cover our phones for the rest of the day so we could all focus on our coworker and one another.

9. The boss

My first boss with my current employer was amazing. She reached a manager position maybe a decade before she planned to retire, and her goal was to get all of her people (who were interested) launched in their careers with our employer. Our position was entry-level but many people didn’t have this kind of help and stayed there for years or decades. Not her people. When she had your twice annual review, she would ask what you were interested in for the future; if you didn’t know (as I didn’t when I first started) she would come up with suggestions based on what she knew of your strengths.

Once you gave her something to work with, she would do everything in her power (including getting involved in upper-level politics that I never fully understood) to get you experience in that area. For example, someone told her that they wanted to get into training, and after that she had them help with training every month for the next several months (along with others, so we all got experience with it) so she could add that to her resume. By the time she retired, every employee she’d had more than a year or two (who wanted to move on; some people were close to retirement and this was just a job for them to coast through those last few years) had their careers launched and many of us are still working those positions she helped get us into.

10. The basement

Coworker had a daughter with significant physical and mental disabilities. Coworker’s spouse was the fulltime caregiver to the daughter but they passed away suddenly. Coworker’s extended family planned to temporarily move in to help care for daughter. CEO of the company and about 5 staff members spent a several days finishing coworker’s basement to accommodate the extended family members, company paid for the materials as well.

11. The calendar

A few years ago, I was dealing with an awful personal crisis that just kept spiraling. The new (bad) news tended to show up around the same time every week (think test results), and I was just a mess for the next hour or two. I started blocking the time on my calendar so I didn’t have to deal with anything.

I confided some of the details to one of my colleagues, who is also a friend. He started blocking off his own calendar in the same period, so if I needed to come into his office and cry, he’d be available. It made me feel so much less alone through it.

12. The bags

I was working the job from hell. But, I worked with some absolutely amazing people, some of which I’m still friends with to this day. My last year there my father’s cancer turned terminal. I lived at home with him and took care of him while working full-time. I also had to coordinate nurses and home care, and did a lot of his home care myself including changing diapers.

I found myself one day running low on plastic shopping bags. We were using them to dispose of the diapers. and where I live, if you go shopping you have to use reusable bags or at the time pay for plastic (now plastic is banned and you have to use reusable). I sent an email to my entire office saying if anyone had any spare bags I could steal from them, I would be incredibly grateful to have them.

The next day I came in and my desk was covered in bags. There had to be 500+ bags.

And then the nicest thing was one girl spent the evening crocheting a bag to store the plastic bags in for me and even checked around to see what my favorite color was and made it from that color wool. It was so pretty and absolutely so kind.

My father passed two months later, and it took me another couple of years to go through all of the plastic bags I received, but I still have that teal crocheted bag holder the one woman made for me. It was something so simple, but so thoughtful and so kind.

13. The bike

In my early 20s, I didn’t have a license and biked to get around, including to work. One night when riding home I crashed my bike and it ended up needed to be taken to a repair shop to get fixed. The amount to repair it was a significant amount of money for me at the time, and I was worried about being able to pay the bill.

While my bike was getting fixed, I walked to work or got rides from coworkers. One of them asked me where my bike was getting fixed up and I told them, thinking nothing of the conversation.

When I went to pick up my bike and pay the bill, I was informed that the bill had already been taken care of and that I could just take my bike home. I found out that the repair bill had been taken care of by a VP at my employer — not a guy that I was super close to but that had heard about my transportation troubles through the grapevine. It was such a a kind act, and one that I will always remember.

14. The ally

I started my current job in the middle of covid, and it was still such a weird time. I had also just gotten out of a domestic violence situation, and between those two things I had terrible anxiety, especially related to being around other people.

I met and became friends with one of the few other people who came into the office, the IT manager. He had been with the company for 10 years and had a reputation as the grouchiest grumpiest guy around. He had never attended a single office event in all those years because he just kind of hated everyone. But being often the only two people in the office, we got to know each other and got along just fine. I learned he had PTSD and it made it really hard for him to be in groups, too.

When my company started having in person events again, I was a wreck. Being in a group of people that I had barely met was unbearable, and my anxiety was through the roof.

Wouldn’t you know it but from that point on Mr. Grumpy came to every single office event and just quietly sat where I could see him or reach him if I was having a panic attack. He barely said a word but kept other people from bothering me, and worked through his own social anxiety just so I would know I had a friend behind me. He still does it, years later.

It might seem like a little thing but it means everything to me. It’s one of the deepest kindnesses anyone has ever shown me. I work hard to let him know how much I appreciate him!

15. The one from a horse

When I was a teenager, I worked at a horse farm, and there was a “mean” horse there who was known for biting people. Let’s call him Bitey (I forget his real name). He was easily spooked and had probably been mistreated; I never knew the whole story.

Since my job was to feed the horses, they all liked me, and Bitey would even let me pet him. Therefore, I was assigned to hold Bitey’s halter while the farrier (the horse foot doctor) tended to his feet. It was a hot summer day, and I didn’t know that standing with your knees locked can make you pass out. Sure enough I started to feel woozy, and then I passed out cold. I heard the farrier and his assistant yelling as I blacked out.

When I came to a few minutes later, they told me that the supposedly “mean” horse had caught me mid-faint with his head, and gently lowered me to the ground! What a sweetie. Horse people love stories like this, and it was all anyone talked about for days.

the surprising agony of office coffee culture

You would think supplying employees with coffee would be a relatively straightforward task and yet … sometimes it’s anything but. At Slate today, I wrote about office coffee wars — from workplaces with intense bureaucratic in-fighting over coffee supplies, to meetings that get hijacked to debate coffee issues, to outrage when people bring in their own coffee makers.

You can read it here.

employee uses the bathroom stall with the door wide open

A reader writes:

I have (what I think is) an outlandish question for you, but I promise it’s true. It comes from my coworker’s spouse.

At her place of employment, they have found it difficult to retain anyone in the administrative assistant position. It sounds like there was a lot of turnover in that role, to the point that management is desperate to retain someone … anyone! The current admin assistant, lets call her Feyre, has some personal hygiene issues (i.e. not showering, coming to work unkempt in worn sweatpants, etc.) which had to be addressed by whoever oversees her.

While addressing personal hygiene is not out of the realm of possibilities in the workplace, one startling revelation was that other coworkers have walked into the bathroom where Feyre was “doing her business” with the stall door wide open! The affronted other employee excused themselves immediately and thought it an accident. However, this kept happening and a pattern emerged.
Management approached Feyre with this, and she said she has severe claustrophobia where she can’t use the bathroom with the door closed. In order to accommodate her, management made it clear she must either shut the stall door or use the private accessible toilet down the hall. She has refused to do this, and is still using the toilet with the stall door wide open. As management is desperate to retain someone in this position and her work is mildly satisfactory, they still want to keep her.

I’m obviously not in this situation as I don’t work there, but I do a lot of the hiring/HR at my smaller organization so I am both horrified and fascinated at what management’s next steps should be. We are in Canada so the laws may vary, but at what point does the employer exceed their duty to accommodate an employee for something like this? What would be the best way for management to navigate this situation?!

There are all kinds of accommodations that can be made for claustrophobia, but “use the toilet with the door wide open in a bathroom where other people are present” is not one of them. I can’t speak to Canadian law, but I suspect it’s the same as U.S. law in this circumstance: accommodations can’t require that other people’s rights be violated, and Feyre’s coworkers have the right not be subject to an practice that involves them being repeatedly and involuntarily exposed to a colleague with her pants down.

Having Feyre use the private accessible toilet down the hall was a good solution. Since she’s refused to do that, they need to find out why. Is it too far from her desk and she sometimes needs the bathroom more urgently? If so, can her desk be moved? Or is it a closed door that’s the issue for her, period? If so, they need a lawyer to guide them here. My instinct is that that’s a situation that can’t be resolved — because, again, accommodations can’t violate other people’s rights (which is why you can’t, for example, set accommodations that include things like “never has to speak to female employees” or “must be permitted to run nude through the hallways”) — but when you’re at the point of denying a medical accommodation, you want a lawyer to help you navigate it.

In this case, it sounds like the employer wants to throw up their hands and say, “Oh well, she’s going to use the bathroom with the door open, nothing we can do” because they want to keep her in the job. But the employees there would be on solid footing if they wanted to push back and say, “No, we’re not willing to be exposed to this.”

coworker wants to withhold PTO as punishment, religious gifts for colleagues, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Coworker wants to withhold PTO as punishment

We have a series of educational seminars by coworkers every month. I am expected to attend 80% of these seminars, online or in person (preferred). Attendance is monitored through completion of an anonymous survey with a follow-up page where you submit a daily code to get credit. The code is not always provided during the session, so sometimes we have to bother the presenter to provide it. Sometimes my role works off-site or has other expectations around the time of day that these sessions are held. When we are off-site, there is no expectation to attend and we are excused from the attendance requirement.

My coworker, who is involved in a committee that acts as a liaison with management, has been advocating for withholding PTO as punishment for failing to attend a sufficient amount of educational seminars. Our PTO is listed as a benefit in our contract so I don’t think it is legal to withhold PTO. My coworker disagrees and points to a time when we were severely understaffed due to Covid and PTO was denied automatically for all employees due to low staffing. Would withholding PTO like this be allowed?

Do you have actual contracts? If you’re in the U.S., that would be unusual — but if you do, then the answer depends on the specific wording in your contract. If you don’t, the legality depends on the wording of other company documents.

But it doesn’t really matter, because this would be a horribly ill-advised thing to do anyway. First, it’s ridiculously punitive and a far larger punishment than the offense warrants.

Second, PTO isn’t something an employer gives out of the goodness of their heart and which can/should be yanked back to teach a lesson; it’s part of employees’ compensation package, and it’s in your employer’s interest to have people use their PTO so they have rested, recharged employees. Revoking it to punish people is very likely to cost you good employees, who will leave over this.

Third, you don’t manage people via punishment. If someone isn’t attending enough seminars, then their manager should talk with them, figure out what’s going on, make the expectation clear, and then hold them to it like they would any other requirement of their job. If it’s happening with lots of people, then you look at root causes: are the seminars not helpful? Do people not have enough time for them? Are there legitimate reasons people aren’t prioritizing them? You don’t just bludgeon them by yanking their PTO.

Your coworker is being ridiculous, and I hope she doesn’t manage anyone with her instincts this off. And if you work at an even slightly well-managed company, your management should shut this idea down hard if she proposes it.

2. Are religious gifts ever appropriate for colleagues?

Is it ever appropriate to get a coworker a religious-themed gift (her religion, not mine)?

Our team’s administrative assistant is going through a really rough time with cancer treatment, and I’d like to get her something to let her know I’m thinking of her. Our team has some weird dynamics, and we work in academia, so there won’t be something central organized for her. I am not sure her schedule for being home or in hospital, or what she’s able to eat, etc. so don’t want to do any of the standard perishable gifts of food or flowers.

She has been quite open about her commitment to Islam (e.g., she was really excited to share when she recently made her first pilgrimage to Mecca). I have a strong sense she might appreciate something like a framed calligraphed section of the Qur’an that talks about healing, or a small bracelet with a prayer on it.

I myself am not Muslim, and don’t personally believe in the power of prayer (other than the healing effect of feeling happy and calm that prayer can bring about for people who believe in it), and normally am a big proponent of not mixing of work and religion, so I am surprised to be finding myself asking this. Is it totally whacky to get my coworker a religious gift? If it matters, I am higher than her in the hierarchy but she does not report to me.

I wouldn’t. There are indeed people who would be moved by a gift like this, and it’s possible your coworker is one of them. But it’s also possible it would feel like overstepping, or that you’ll miss the mark in some way because you don’t know the nuances of the religion or of her relationship with it.

What you’re proposing is a very personal and intimate gift, in the context of a work relationship, and there’s too much risk of it being a misfire (especially as someone outside of her religion and who lacks insight into the ways she connects with it). There are so many other thoughtful gifts you could choose that aren’t religious. Go for one of those.

3. I have to do math for a project and I’m terrible at math

I’m an office administrator at a mid-sized company and have been in the role for about five years. Based on my promotions and excellent performance reviews, I think it’s safe to say I’m good at my job. However, I have managed to go this entire time without doing more than the most basic math.

Our office is hosting a large conference this year that involves setting up several of our meeting rooms in a classroom style. I’ve been tasked with calculating how many tables and chairs can fit in each room while still allowing each attendee ample space to move around. Relatively basic surface area stuff, right?

I am terrible at math. I have pretty serious ADHD (and my boss is aware) but frankly, I seem to have been born without the math gene. The amount of mental math and spatial reasoning involved in this project, however simple in theory, has me spiraling.

This is going to sound ridiculous but I have a lot of low-key traumatic associations with math (parents yelling, teachers upset, lots of crying, elementary school homework taking countless hours to complete.) Being “academically gifted” in every other area only seemed to make adults angrier at me when I struggled with something. I don’t come from a family background where dyscalculia would have been taken seriously and I’m honestly not sure whether or not it applies to me. But yes. Terrible at math, zero spatial reasoning, can’t follow a map, etc…

I don’t want to admit defeat because it would be embarrassing to tell my boss that I’m essentially too dumb to do this. The project needs to get done. How do I get through it without authority figures getting upset, me crying, and a straightforward task taking countless hours to complete?

This isn’t about defeat or being dumb; it’s about being assigned a task that happens to play to a historical weakness of yours (and maybe a disability too). You’re known to be good at your job; no halfway decent boss will be outraged that you’re not good at math too. You clearly don’t normally need to rely on it in your job, so it’s not like you’re revealing something that makes you fundamentally unsuited for your work; you’re just explaining something that makes you unsuited to one minor task.

Your boss almost certainly doesn’t want you to spend hours on this or suffer major angst from it! Right now, though, she doesn’t know that’s happening, so she just needs you to let her know this isn’t a good plan.

So, own it! Meaning: “I’m terrible at math and spatial reasoning, and the amount of both of these needed to figure this out, however simple in theory, has me spiraling. I’m worried it will take hours and could still be wrong, and I don’t want that outcome. Is there someone who could help me with this?”

4. Taking an external offer when my manager has been fighting to promote me

I’m in what I consider to be a tough situation. My company has been going through a rough patch lately with a large portion of the company being impacted by a layoff and rumors of more layoffs coming in the near future. As a result, I felt it responsible to explore other opportunities, just in case. I’ve been approached for an exciting role and am now faced with having to make a decision of staying or leaving. Meanwhile, my manager is terrified of me leaving my current company (he should be!) and has put me up for a promotion that’s in the final stages now. I’ve been pushing for this promotion for quite some time and working my tail off to prove that I’m worthy, so the recognition is appreciated.

Normally, I would say that this isn’t a tough decision. However, our promotions this year had a VERY low quota and were heavily scrutinized. My manager had to fight very hard to get me into one of the few slots available and others in my organization were cut from the list even though many of them deserve a promotion as well. If I accept an external offer, I’ve basically taken one of the very few promotion spots and made no use of it all. It’s too late in the promo cycle for them to substitute my spot as the decisions have been made and the cycle is now closed.

Would I be in the wrong to accept an external offer that I’m excited about after taking one of the promotion spots? On the one hand, it’s not my fault that my company has locked down promotion quotas so much this year. But, I also feel a bit guilty about going through with the promotion process knowing there was a good chance I’d be leaving.

If you want the other job, take it. Yes, the timing is too bad, but you don’t owe it to your manager to turn down a better offer. And keep in mind that your employer isn’t promoting you as a favor or a gift; if they promote you, it’s because it makes business sense for them. That doesn’t mean that your manager might not feel disappointed that he used capital (and a limited promotion slot) only for it not to pay off, but that’s how this stuff goes sometimes. It’s absolutely not something you should sacrifice your own career progression for! Act in your own interests, and just let your boss know that you appreciated he fought for you.

5. Can my boss make me use AI?

Can our management team force us to use AI transcription services? Our staff (all nine of us) share one multi-user Zoom account, and our executive director has turned on the “AI transcription” option for all our accounts, and locked it so we can’t turn it off on our individual accounts. I find the AI transcription piece unnerving and unnecessary (someone always takes meeting notes), especially given our line of work (similar to 12-step/recovery sharing, a lot of what we discuss in meetings we and our patrons do not want published, ever!). So far the only “discussion” has been an FYI that it was happening.

If it matters, we work in Illinois, which has new legislation around AI use during video interview review, but most of my colleagues are remote and work across the U.S.

Yes, they can do that. Your employer can choose what tools it does and doesn’t want to use in the course of its business. (The Illinois law you mentioned only applies to job interviews.) You can certainly raise it for discussion and explain your concerns, and you can attempt to rally coworkers to push back with you, but ultimately it’s your employer’s call.

weekend open thread – March 23-24, 2024

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: You Only Call When You’re in Trouble, by Stephen McCauley. A man going through a break-up and his niece, who’s in a professional crisis, navigate their relationships with their high-maintenance sister/mother. It’s quietly funny.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

open thread – March 22-23, 2024

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

coworker is taking credit for my work when she applies for jobs, scam job offer, and more

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker is taking credit for my work when she applies for jobs

I work in a creative and highly competitive industry. I have a longstanding problem where a coworker, Bella, has been taking credit for my work, without actually producing any work of her own. I confronted Bella about this a few times and she became extremely angry. I am younger than her and I have less experience, so I didn’t find the courage to speak up about it until early this year. When I did, our boss was shocked by Bella’s behavior and apparently had some stern words for her. It wasn’t considered serious enough to take to HR, but I think she did receive a verbal warning. Understandably, this has strained our working relationship a lot, to the point that Bella is now looking for a new role elsewhere.

Here’s my problem — Bella is still claiming credit for my work. A friend reached out to me to say that Bella had applied to their company using my work in her portfolio, and after a quick glance at her LinkedIn I discovered that she’s claiming credit there, too. She’s even writing guest blogs about it!

This is a tiny industry, and I’m worried that Bella’s claims will affect my own job search down the line. My own portfolio is public, so any of these hiring managers could see that it’s identical to Bella’s and come to the conclusion that I’m exaggerating my own contribution to the work. Since we still work together she has access to all my original files, and I’ve noticed that she’s accessed a few early sketches, presumably so she can show them as proof of process.

It was hard enough for me to kick up a fuss at my own company. How on earth am I supposed to stop Bella plagiarizing my work elsewhere?

Go back to your boss and share with her the exact concerns you shared here. Your boss can’t control how Bella behaves in her job search but can do two things that will help: she can ensure Bella doesn’t have access to your work files, and she can vouch for you in the future if anyone questions your claim to your own work.

Beyond that, there are really only two effective ways to stop Bella from what she’s doing: (1) social shaming (maybe), like if you’re willing to call her out or — better — your boss and/or HR are; or (2) legal pressure, like a lawyer contacting her on your behalf; you could talk to a lawyer about how you can protect yourself.

2. My job offer is a scam

I am job searching and got an interview request that seemed legit to begin with, but had a few red flags. There really is a company named [company], and the address the interviewer used is what said company has on their website. They even do almost what the interviewer said they do. After the interview — which was entirely conducted in text via Signal, one of the eventual MANY red flags — I was offered a job at a fairly ludicrous wage for the supposed duties. I used a DNS lookup on the email address domain to determine whether it was even provided by the same hosting provider as the real company the scam was posing as, and surprise surprise, they are not.

Anyway, the contact is supposedly going to send me a check to purchase the equipment and software I’ll need to fully create my home office and will be contacting me tomorrow with a tracking number for the package containing the check. Should I pretend I don’t know this is a scam and act like I’m going to go through with this, or should I let them know I’ve determined this is a scam?

It doesn’t really matter; all that matters is that you have nothing further to do with them because, yes, they are obviously a scam. Not because of the DNS thing (it’s not unusual to have separate providers for email hosting and website hosting), but because of absolutely everything else, starting with the text-based interview over Signal and ending with the classic scam move of sending you a check you’ll need to cash to purchase things. You can let them know you know it’s a scam or not; it’s up to you. The main thing is to have nothing more to do with them. Block them from contacting you, and don’t get drawn in any further.

3. Colleague doesn’t wash his hands after he goes to the bathroom, and people are making it my problem

You wouldn’t think that we’d have this issue in 2024, but here we are: a man in my office does not wash his hands after he uses the bathroom. It’s common knowledge because the other men on the floor notice and object. People have spoken to him about it, but nothing changes. Worse, we have communal snacks, and he likes to run his dirty little fingers over biscuits (“cookies”) and fruit before he chooses one. Fruit can be washed — biscuits not so much.

I’ve read the previous letters you received about this sort of thing, and your advice has been along the lines of: This is a common problem, it’s gross, but you can’t do anything about it.

That’s always been my position, too, but as the office manager and the person in charge of ordering groceries for the floor (biscuits, fruit, etc), people are asking me to either fix the problem or find different storage solutions that will remove the opportunity for him to fiddle with the food.

I don’t have standing to speak to this very senior man about his basic hygiene, and I’ve tried to find storage solutions — but lids don’t get sealed, packages get opened and left sitting out, and individually wrapped biscuits don’t get eaten. But then, neither do the regular snacks, because at this point no one else is touching them. Am I missing an obvious solution? Should I simply stop ordering snacks? Is my colleague a pile of rats wearing a human suit?

Why isn’t someone with authority telling him that he needs to stop caressing all the food? That would be gross even without the bathroom thing; it’s unhygienic regardless and someone with power over him (not you) needs to address that.

In any case, if no one is eating the food, there’s no point in continuing to order it. If people weren’t eating it for some other reason, you wouldn’t keep ordering more, right? It might be that the only solution is that people bring in their own food if they want it. And maybe explaining to someone above you why it doesn’t make sense to keep providing food might prod them to actually address it with the gross coworker.

Regardless, though, you don’t need to find a magical solution just because people want you to. You’ve tried different storage options and they don’t work. At this point the only answer to demands that you fix the problem is, “I’ve tried everything I can, but I don’t have the authority to make him change his behavior. If you have a solution that works, I’d welcome it.”

4. Questions in my onboarding paperwork

I am currently filling out some on-boarding paperwork for a new job. The employer is asking the usual questions — name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, etc. My question is about the field for marital status – why would this be relevant information for business purposes? The choices are married, single, domestic partner, widow, divorced. Next they ask for emergency contact names. I understand they need that, especially since I will be working in a remote area, but I don’t know why they need to know the relationship between me and that person. Would there be problems if I listed “next door neighbor” or “friend”? I may be overthinking this but I’ve become more aware of what information I am willing to share and who I share it with.

They’re asking about your marital status because they need it for insurance and benefits administration (and I suspect they’re offering a wider of choices than just married/single/domestic partner because someone who is, say, widowed may prefer listing that rather than calling themselves “single”). As for emergency contacts, it’s fine to list a friend or next door neighbor (and to label them as such). The reason they want to know the relationship is because if you have, for example, a medical emergency at work, the info they share with a spouse might be different than the info they would share with your neighbor.

how do I stop myself from getting overly attached in the application process?

A reader writes:

I was in law school, but between middling grades and some very personal issues, have since decided to pivot to paralegal work. I’ve noticed that with the job applications I’ve sent out that have actually gone somewhere (no offers yet), the cycle has been as follows:

– I get a request for an interview.
– I research the company and start to think about what I would look like as an employee there.
– The interview happens, and I feel pretty good about it. I send a follow-up email as soon as possible afterwards, thanking them for their time.
– Days go by without contact from the company. I flip between excitement about a potential hire and dread that I haven’t been hired.
– If it gets long enough and there’s still radio silence, I send another follow-up email reiterating my interest and asking when I should expect to hear back. The hope-dread flips get worse. (I’ve seen you tell other letter writers to pretend that they didn’t get the job and put it out of mind; I’ve tried this and it only feeds my anxiety.)
– So far: either ghosting or rejection.

I’ve spoken with my therapist and psychiatrist about this, but I do want some advice from the other side, as it were: how do I divorce my feelings enough from the process that I don’t feel affected by negative outcomes or delays in the process, but not enough to where I come across as disinterested to a hiring manager?

You’re getting excited and invested too quickly.

A single interview is too early to be confident that you should be excited about the job/the manager/the team/the company.

Maybe it’s a great job/manager/team/company. Or maybe the boss tapes people’s mouths shut, the team is toxic, they don’t allow humor, and the CEO pours urine down the kitchen sink. More realistically, maybe the boss is a micromanager or AWOL when you need them, the work is different than what you’re picturing, or the culture isn’t a great fit for you.

Your job in a hiring process — in addition to helping your interviewers see what you’d bring to the job — is to assess them right back and try to figure out what it would really be like to work there. If you are too invested from the beginning, it makes it really hard to do that accurately. You’ve got to have your eyes wide open for a whole range of problems … and not just for problems, but also for things that would make it a less-than-ideal situation for you, even if it would be great for someone else.

It’s sort of like with dating: you don’t want to get so excited by your idea of someone after just one date that you start picturing a future with them. If you do that, you can miss all kinds of ways you’re not right for each other … although those ways will definitely come out later, after you’re already much more entangled and it’s harder/more painful to extract yourself. (Obviously it’s not exactly like dating, because with jobs you have to make a decision much faster — but it’s similar.)

In your case, because you’re getting so invested so quickly, I recommend actively looking for downsides — even imagining some in your head before you know for sure, because you need something to temper what sounds like unwarranted enthusiasm at early stages.

In fact, it might be interesting to recall past jobs you’ve had that weren’t a great fit. If you were Very Excited about those early on, thinking about those experiences might help you recalibrate your responses at early stages now.

That said … it sounds like there may be anxiety at play here that’s less about the situation and more about plain old clinical-level anxiety. And if that’s the case, treating the anxiety may be the only thing that helps. But hopefully some of the above can shift your thinking a little too.