boss won’t stop complaining about my maternity leave, team doesn’t read email, and more

by Alison Green on July 29, 2024

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

1. My boss won’t stop complaining about my maternity leave

I’m four months pregnant and I had to (chose to) tell my boss when I was eight weeks due to my nausea and sickness. When I told him, his first reaction was, “How much maternity leave are you taking?” I replied, “All of it.” We get FMLA 12 weeks — nothing special.

Since that point, at least once a week/once every other week, he talks in front of others about how we’re going to have to handle my “situation,” to which I say, “It’s only 12 weeks and it’s a standard leave.” He most often rebuts, “It’s a very important 12 weeks for us.” Obviously I’m going to set up my team for success and do everything I can to make sure people have what they need.

But at this point, the constant put down about how I’m leaving for 12 weeks and that will leave the team in a lurch is really getting to me. What do I do about it?

Are you comfortable talking to HR and letting them know that your boss is constantly complaining about your upcoming maternity leave and making you worry you’re going to be professionally penalized for taking it? This doesn’t sound quite bad enough to count as pregnant harrassment, but competent HR still usually prefers that employees not be hassled for taking legally protected leave.

Alternately, an option is to address it with your boss directly: “Do you want to have a conversation about plans for my leave? I’m taking a pretty standard amount of leave, but you’ve sounded so concerned that I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing.” If he repeats that it’s a very important time for your team, then say, “Is there something you want me to do differently? Obviously I can’t change the timing of the leave, so is there something else you’re looking for?” At some point in that conversation, you might also want to say, “I’d appreciate it if you’d treat this like any other medically necessary leave that’s protected by law.”

2. Communicating with a team that doesn’t read email

I am one of several managers in my building and I manage a team of about a dozen people who all have different schedules, with two people manning the floor at once. They all overlap with me at some point, at different times, throughout the week. All the jobs are part-time and most people have a second job. Because I can’t get everyone into the same room together to have regular meetings, I’ve been trying to use email to communicate. But people don’t read their email, or they skim and forget, because when I ask to make a change it just … doesn’t get made. As an example, I recently sent an email asking everyone to please put out X in the morning and bring it in at night, and it hasn’t been moving.

These are work email addresses, and the staff in question are stationed at computers at service desks; the bulk of their job is helping customers, but there’s downtime that could be spent checking email.

Higher management and I have repeated “can you PLEASE read your email” ad nauseam, and for really important issues have started sending out emails with PLEASE REPLY in the title, insisting that everyone reply with some detail from the email. Nothing has helped and I’m at a point where I feel like I need to accept that email is not going to work here as a way to communicate.

But what will? I can talk to everyone individually about every tiny issue that comes up, but it would be prohibitively hard to remember to do that, and to remember who I’ve already talked to, every time a shift change happens all week, and then it would also take much longer to get information out. I could print out reminders and leave them on counters, but 1) those would also get ignored and 2) there isn’t a lot of counter space. Maybe you have another creative idea?

Since these emails sound mostly like one-way announcements that they just need to read and be aware of (as opposed to something with back-and-forth), you need an announcement binder. Print out announcements, put them in the binder, and ask people to initial them once they’ve read them. Hell, have a standard list of everyone’s names that get pasted onto the bottom of each announcement so that it’s easy to see who’s initialed it and who hasn’t. And then make checking the announcement binder a requirement at the start of every shift.

If they don’t have jobs that use email a lot (and it sounds like they don’t?), it’s easy for people to not even think to check for messages. You’ll probably haven an easier time making “check the announcement binder at the start of every shift” a routine part of people’s work. That said, there will be a learning curve! You should expect to have to remind people a lot at first, you should stick a “check the announcement binder!” sign at the service desks, and you should make a point of quickly following up with people who haven’t initialed things. If you’re diligent about that, it should stick in time. (And as new people are hired, make that part of how they’re trained from the start. It’s easier when it’s part of people’s routine from the beginning.)

To be clear, if these were email-heavy jobs, this wouldn’t be a reasonable solution; in some jobs people just have to be responsive to emails, period. But I think the problem you’re running into here is that email isn’t a central part of their work.

3. People keep commenting on my rosacea

I have rosacea, and my face is red most of the time. I am currently exploring treatments with a dermatologist. The cream I’m using makes it so I can’t really wear foundation to cover it. On an almost daily basis, someone I work with makes a comment about it. I get asked if I’ve been out in the sun or they just comment on how red I am. What would be a way to politely tell them it’s a medical condition and to stop commenting? I feel unattractive and embarrassed when people point it out so often.

“It’s rosacea.”
“It’s rosacea, you don’t need to let me know.”
“That’s just my skin.”
“Yes.”

Most people will understand the subtext is “stop commenting.” But if anyone continues: “It’s a medical condition and I’d rather not get into it.”

4. Telling a rejected candidate I wish they had been hired

I’m a consultant working part-time for a global nonprofit with a very small staff (three in total). As the workload is increasing and I can’t do more than part-time, we just made an offer to a more junior person who will take on part of my workload so I can focus on specific projects. I think they were the weakest candidate by far and I supported another candidate. I was overruled by the two other members of the hiring committee, both more senior than me but with no direct experience in my field. We’re very transparent as a team; I know their reasons for choosing that person and they know I strongly disagree.

Anyway, I know this battle is lost so I’ll obviously make the new hire feel welcome and I’ll work with them as well as possible. However, I’m really disappointed for my favorite candidate who ticked all the boxes – experience, technical skills, soft skills, background, work culture, you name it.

I know I can’t email them to say, “Hey, I’m so sorry, you should have gotten the job because you were the best.” But is there a professional way to let them know, directly or indirectly, that they’re awesome and that I wish they had been hired? The standard rejection emails have been sent and they replied very courteously and professionally. I’ve been on the receiving end of rejection emails as many of us have and I know how disheartening it can be when you know you were a good candidate.

You definitely shouldn’t imply they were the best and should have been hired (that could cause problems for your organization, as well as just being out of sync with the kind of united front you’re generally expect to put on once a decision is made). But you could say something like, “I wanted to contact you personally to let you know how much I enjoyed talking with you and how impressed I was by (details).” You can include specifics about why you thought they were great, as long as you do it without comparing them to the person who was ultimately hired. And you could conclude by saying you’d love to stay in touch and hope there might be opportunities to work together in the future. (I’m slightly torn on that last part because I don’t want to raise false hopes that your org might hire them in the future, given how small it is, but you could finesse the wording to whatever makes sense.)

5. Deescalation techniques for poll workers

After hearing about the nationwide poll worker shortage, I volunteered as a poll worker for the spring presidential primary and will be working again for a state level primary next month and then the November election. I just attended a more in-depth training, which had very specific instructions for how to handle ballots when various issues arise. The early voting process was brand new in the spring and is more convoluted compared to the traditional election day process (mostly boils down to early voting requiring a voter to be marked off in a physical binder along with a digital check-in) so the majority of the training was spent making sure everyone was clear on what to do. The town registrar emphasized how important it was to get every process right because tensions are expected to be high in November. However, there was no advice or real discussion on de-escalation when a voter gets angry with a poll worker, beyond flagging the person who administers that location’s election.

In the spring election, there was some grumbling about “what was the point of early voting” by voters, which I felt was difficult to redirect without crossing a line into something that could be considered a political statement (by law, we’re not allowed to discuss politics). I didn’t run into any true anger in the spring, even when we had a slowdown in processing people, but in the past as a voter, I’ve definitely seen poll workers get yelled at for things out of their control (like a voter didn’t realize their assigned location had changed and were told they needed to go elsewhere to vote after standing in a long line). The registrar also glossed over questions about more serious security concerns, so they don’t seem to be the best resource on getting a script to direct people to the moderator’s station. The moderator for my location has been doing this for 40+ years and said they’ve seen everything so while we should expect it to be hectic in November, we shouldn’t worry. The only work experience I have with dealing with members of the public who might get angry was limited to phone interactions, so I’m still a bit nervous about getting yelled at in person. Do you have any advice or know of free resources on de-escalation and redirection techniques?

Mostly, I just want to build more confidence, especially as the moderator for my location is hoping that the summer election will be enough additional experience so they can move me into an assistant position in November. While that seems quick to me, the moderators seem very eager to give the younger crowd experience and more responsibility because most of the town’s poll workers are retirees and they’re having issues with retention between elections.

I don’t but I will bet a lot of money that some readers do. Commenters? (I also found a lot when I googled that could be helpful.)

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{ 503 comments }

{ 503 comments… read them below }

    1. Aphrodite*

      OP #5, thank you for volunteering to be a poll worker. You have made me think about taking a vacation day from work and volunteering my time there as well

      1. Cmdrshprd*

        I think part of it is learning to detach/not take complaints personally that is something that I think comes with time and/or prior experience in front/direct facing customer service work.

        Another is to try and truly listen even if it’s the 3/10/20th time you have heard X complaint and try to understand if there is an underlying issue and find a suggestion/solution/action even if you know 99.999% it won’t do anything.

        Especially for complaints where the response is “I just work here, I don’t decide on x policies.” I will say here is the number you can call and complain/provide your suggestions too, knowing that it will likely get logged and nothing will happen. Or say “I will pass along the information to the head election committee”, and then I actually do, by leaving a note/calling/email etc again even if I know 99.999% that no one will actually see it or do anything about. But if you are asked you can honestly say you followed up on the complaint. You don’t/can’t guarantee something will change but you can guarantee what you will do.

        A big tip is realizing that you can’t get everyone to agree with you even if you layout all the facts and should not make it your mission to enlighten voters.

        Someone says “what is the point of doing XYZ.” You don’t have to actually try to educate and/or convince them why they should do XYZ, you just have to get them to either do XYZ or admit they won’t and they need to leave. Sir/ma’am this is the process we have been instructed to follow, if you would like to vote you have to do XYZ, if you don’t want to do XYZ we need you to leave the polling place.

        I have been a poll worker for 8 years now, others with more experience can have other insights and/or conflicting suggestions I think you have to figure it out for yourself what will work, one person’s style might work for them but won’t work for you.

        1. Rooby*

          This is a good point, and also remembering that someone can’t hold you hostage for a long rant/tirade – you get to decline to continue to engage when you decide it’s best. So if someone goes beyond something you can easily respond to, you can politely but firmly redirect or end the interaction. (Not a poll worker so correct me if that’s wrong, but I do have lots of experience being complained at by the general public about both reasonable and unreasonable topics.)

        2. Ms. Elaneous*

          The point of Early voting is an easy one to answer.. it’s so voters don’t have to stand in line for 5 hours on election day.
          [So Thank You sir/madam for voting early]

          (been a poll worker 3 times, but most of this knowhow comes from
          developing a Teacher Voice)

          1. NotAlwaysFaster*

            Early voting here often takes longer than regular voting because they consolidate all of the polling locations for a town into one location. So that may not be an attraction. For me the early polling location is easier to get to than my normal polling spot and I don’t have to worry about missing the chance to vote if the weather’s bad or I’m sick on election day (both of which have happened to me). So I’d stress the ability to ensure you’ve voted even if something goes wrong on election day.

      2. Inner City Rigger*

        Absolutely. We need as many motivated volunteers this November as we can get.

        1. Texan In Exile*

          That’s the exact reason I am a pollworker in an underserved area. And why I do voter registration with immigrants. I work with non-partisan groups and I do not discuss politics with any of the voters or people registering, but man do I have an agenda.

      3. JLP*

        Check your local laws about this. In my area, it’s treated similar to jury duty so our companies can’t penalize us by using PTO or sick leave. They can deduct our pay from our paychecks though. For example, I work 8 hours in my job but when I work an election it’s easily a 12-hour day. I make $10 an hour working the election, so they can only deduct $80 from my paycheck. So it might be easier to volunteer than you think!

    2. Eric*

      Long time head poll worker here:
      Physically walking people to the moderator can help. Those who like to argue will tend to follow you if you start walking to another part of the room. I tend to keep an eye out for problematic situations and am ready to go over there and say “why don’t you come here with me and we’ll figure it out”

      talk to your moderator about if there is some sort of sign or signal for when you need help with a voter. Even something as simple as raising your hand.

      Pretending that you aren’t sure of the answer can help. If they feel like you are referring them to the moderator because the moderator might be able to resolve the problem, they are going to be more receptive than if they feel like there is no good with the moderator and you are just trying to get them out of your hair.

      And at the end of the day, some degree of thick skin is needed. Must people like this just want to complain for a bit, and a simple “I hear you, but I’ve got to follow the law as written” ends things with most complainers. And the ones that are more aggressive than that, likely no strategy will be all that effective with.

      1. Elk*

        RE your last point, a former principal encouraged me to let angry parents “sing their song” and see if just being heard was enough to calm them down. It doesn’t always work, but often that is all someone wants. And it made me less anxious about conflict (and I am VERY anxious about conflict) because I didn’t have to defend myself or come up with excuses, I could just listen and agree that it was difficult and feel like I was on their side instead of against them.

        1. LadyAmalthea*

          From years in retail, with the last few years in retail as a manager, absolutely agreed. People spend a lot of time getting their complaint just right, and often get angrier when you quickly get them a solution than when you take a few moments to hear them speak their piece, even, and often especially, if you give them the same solution.

        2. bamcheeks*

          Co-sign this! Obviously you’ve got to be careful not to be seen to agreeing with them because that might be political, but you can go a really long way with,

          “Uh-huh – uh-huh”
          “I hear what you’re saying”
          “that sounds frustrating”
          “we’ll take that on board”
          “I’m so sorry that happened”
          “that sounds really annoying!”

          Genuinely practise these, and deliver them with a serious face making eye contact with the person and nodding, even if you’re thinking, “omg, chemtrails, seriously?” and the vast majority of people wind down pretty quickly, or at least don’t wind further UP.

          (I always remember phoning up to complain about the post leaving a “sorry you were out” card without ringing the bell, fully prepared to rant because I’d taken half a day off to wait for the delivery, and the guy on the phone doing a really sincere sounding, “I’m SO sorry that happened, that’s not good enough at all, I’m really, REALLY sorry. Let’s get that sorted out for you.” I was instantly transformed into an embarrassed, “Yeah, OK, thanks, obviously it’s not that big a deal, it’s just a bit annoying, right? Thanks, yeah, that’s great.”)

          1. Great Frogs of Literature*

            This reminded me of a thing we were told that we could do with upset clients, which may or may not be applicable to this situation:

            If you sort of… preempt the person’s upset-ness, where you’re more upset about their problem than they are, it kind of automatically sets them into a role of telling you that it’s not as big a deal as all that — exactly what happened to you, bamcheeks.

            So if someone is mad that their polling place got moved, your line could be, “It is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE that your polling place got moved without notifying you, and now you have to go ANOTHER mile in a different direction, when you already had to come a mile to get here, and that’s an awfully long way to walk. I have no idea what they were thinking; I’m going to submit a complaint to the town registrar of voters [or whoever] right now…”
            It doesn’t always work, but it can put the other person into the mode of de-escalating YOU, and feeling like you’re on their side.

            And then your note to the registrar is “Fifteen voters were really annoyed because they missed the change of polling place notification.”

        3. londonedit*

          In my work I occasionally have to deal with authors who are angry about something or other (they don’t like the cover designs we’ve sent them, they’re not happy with the text design for their book, they’re blowing up about the copy edit…that sort of thing). I completely agree that the best way to handle them is to let them have their rant (while making sympathetic ‘Mmm-hmm/OK/Right, I see…’ noises), and then see what can be done about the whole thing.

          Most of the time, what starts as ‘I hate everything about this and you have ruined my book and I will not put my name to this and I am so angry and cannot even bear to look at it’ will, eventually, come down to ‘I’m disappointed that the chapter titles aren’t bigger and I don’t like the way the bullet points are centred on the page’. And then I say OK, that’s no problem, I can go back to the typesetter and ask them to bump up the point size for the chapter titles and see how the bullet lists look if they’re left-aligned. To which the response is invariably ‘Oh. Really? Is that OK? I don’t want to cause problems…’. So often people just need to get their ‘I hate everything’ rant out, and by listening to that rant, you can pinpoint the one or two small things that are *actually* bothering them, and then those can be dealt with.

          1. bamcheeks*

            I 100% know this technique works on me (see above example!) but I still find it funny because it’s exactly what I do with my 6yo when she has a tantrum. It starts with “I’m furious I’m not allowed to hit my sister / watch cartoons instead of going to bed” and as long as you are careful not to escalate it eventually turns into “a banana before bed” and it’s like, OK, that we CAN provide. Only you cannot possible offer the banana too early– she has to believe it’s her idea that I’m providing an enormous concession by letting her have a banana.

            1. Ophelia*

              I was going to say, all of these techniques also work REALLY well on angry preschoolers. Guess we are all human after all!

        4. iglwif*

          Yes! I learned this as a synagogue board member — everybody comes and complains to you about things, and maybe 2 of every 10 really genuinely want you to change something, but the other 8 (sometimes more) have been feeling like no one is listening, and once you listen, they feel better … even if nothing changes.

        5. KGD*

          I agree – my go-to for dealing with tough complaints in my job is to start by sincerely thanking the person for alerting me to the issue. I try to keep my face/voice as warm as possible, thank them for sharing their concerns (even when they are ridiculous), and then tell them next steps for having their concerns addressed (even when I know nothing will come of it). So you can say something like, “Wow, thanks so much for letting me know, that sounds like such a frustrating situation! The moderator is probably the person who will be able to help the most, so let me show you how to find them” – basically you want to say something reasonably vague/neutral that implies you are on their team without promising anything, and then pass them on to the next person. Good luck and thanks for volunteering!

      2. Brain the Brian*

        These are all strategies that my mother — a semi-new poll worker — has told me her training reviewed. In her county, the local election commissioners have also requested that police be present at all polling sites on Election Day in November. She’s lucky to live in an area where law enforcement receives training in de-escalation tactics, and in any case the hope is that their presence will keep people from becoming violent or disrupting the voting process.

      3. Uranus Wars*

        I started volunteering during the election in 2020 and was worried about what might happen in my very southern conservative town that was embroiled in racial tensions and violence. I think what you have stated here is what I found then and at subsequent elections on all kinds of topics that are over-the-top controversial (and at times quite dated) in my state. All circumstances will be different, but I found that a lot of people just wanted to be heard and a simple, I know but that’s how it is did work (from why it was the wrong location for them to how they could be sure votes were counted, etc.) Every situation will be different though and every location should be prepared with a plan for sure. I think that’s true of everything from mayoral to presidential elections. And in our town, school board.

      4. Aerin*

        I definitely learned this at Disneyland, and continue to use (and train) it working tech support. So many people having problems just want the chance to talk it out, and to hear someone with some modicum of authority confirm that yes, that really sucks.

        The moment that completely changed how I approach unhappy customers:

        I had just arrived on the parade route, and someone asked me to go try and get a family of four who were refusing to stand up in the viewing area. So I cheerfully went over and said, “Hey folks, can I get you to stand up? We can only have people seated on the curb, so as many people as possible get to see the show.”

        The mom looked at me and snapped, “Well I can’t stand that long.”

        Something about the way she emphasized “I” caught my attention. I eyed the curb situation and said, “If I can find a seat for you, can the rest of your family stand?”

        There was much grumbling, but they agreed. I got the people on the curb to squeeze closer together (the word “skooch” has a primal impact on the human motor system, I swear), and the family all stood up.

        You guys, Mom was VERY pregnant. Like, keep custodial on standby for breaking water pregnant. And it instantly explained the whole situation. Of *course* she was in a bad mood, she had likely spent the whole day powering through some serious physical discomfort for the sake of her family. And yes, her main concern was extremely correct, she couldn’t stand for that long. She was just trying to solve the problem in a specific way that didn’t fit how we did things.

        So the framework I use for difficult customers is: The problem you are having, and your feelings around it, those are valid. Your proposed solution doesn’t work because [reasons], but let’s see what else we can figure out. Pivot from combative to collaborative.

        (In hindsight, I wish I would have arranged for the family to have actual chairs for fireworks/Fantasmic as a way to win them back over. Not just acknowledging the immediate problem, but looking ahead to the other effects it might have and proactively address those. But that’s a skill I learned later, alas.)

      5. Fake Eleanor*

        I have worked at the past couple elections. I started doing it for similar reasons – older folks who normally volunteered were less numerous after covid. There generally are some poll workers with experience and they are helpful in cases where conflict arises. If a voter yelled at me too much, I would take them to the inspector (the person in charge of our site). He had years of retail experience and a calm demeanor and was excellent at diffusing situations. People also feel better when they think they are talking to the highest level of representative at the site, so that was a good move when things were tense.

        As the marshal, I was charged with confronting people for breaking rules (campaigning inside the protected zone, carrying weapons, taking pictures). I was really nervous leading up to both of the elections I worked, and the training related to these situations was minimal, but the confrontations never got violent. We had people coming in to vote with an agenda or a chip on their shoulder, ready to yell at workers or sometimes making “announcements” to the entire facility full of voters that we were trying to steal their vote via some conspiracy, but they generally laid off their yelling once they were told they had to vote or leave.

        We had some issues with the vote tabulators (due to the ink on one of the ballot printers) so there was added skepticism at the tail end of the voting process. I had to help voters insert their ballots to be read, and if the ballot wasn’t read then we would tell them their ballot would be hand-counted. Many people were angry at this, but we have a pretty good vote tracking system in my state. There was a poster on the wall with the link to register to track your ballot, and I would have the skeptics note the website and tell them they could log in to see that their ballot was counted after the fact. This was sufficient for most people to at least stop being angry in my face.

        The above commenter is right though, that you just have to get a thick skin to survive the day. I almost quit at one point because the anger was too much (and it was still early in the morning), but the team of poll workers stepped up and supported me by doing my role for a few minutes while I went to a bathroom and collected myself, and then I was able to push through the rest of the day.

      6. Princess Sparklepony*

        I also work the polls, but I stopped doing ballot handout because it was too stressful – closing the polls is really persnickety in my state and more than once people have been left in tears. Now I do info desk where I send people to the right table.

        A few years ago we had a redesign of districts so we had so many redirects. I usually did the big smile greeting when we started out, looking helpful seems to help. In my state, if you go to the wrong polling place, we have a form for the correct polling place and if you have that form, you won’t have to wait in line at the next polling place, so I would always stress that. And I would apologize and tell them it’s not their fault, it’s the redistricting. Sort of a we’re in this together thing to get some sympathy instead of a tantrum. This last primary I think I only had a handful of redirects. One of the other polling stations is right near a nice bakery and I always point that out if they need to go there.

        For bigger problems, we have a supervisor we can call over. But she’s kind of mean. So they take their lives in their hands there and her answer is usually no to anything, but she can stare anyone down.

        We have had a few voters have a tantrum. Those are always fun. One guy was awful. And we ended up being rude and laughing at him when he was leaving. It was near the close of polls and it was about 8:30 pm, we had all been there since 5:00 am – so all 20 of us were pretty punchy. And no one could ignore his tantrum. It was loud and ugly.

        Usually, it’s just a few comments or grumbling that I can easily ignore.

    4. Lucy*

      Empathise! Or pretend to. The response we have to someone shouting at us, is generally to get stressed, upset, angry, defensive, and to explain all the excellent reasons for the “problem”… But it makes things worse. No one wants to hear why their intense negative reaction is “wrong”. If you can stick to, “I know, it’s such a pain”. “It’s so frustrating!”, “tell me about it!”, “we’ve had so many people face that issue – they should do something about it!” etc, while avoiding taking on any false responsibility, that can help.

      If it’s more serious paranoia about election fraud, you can pretend to be taking it seriously without agreeing, by acting shocked at their accusations saying things like, “really?! That sounds bad. Thankfully I haven’t seen anything like that here!”, or “oh my gosh, of course not! Do people really do that?! I would never!”, “oh my goodness, no! That’s completely against the training we had!”, “no way! Really?! Well, we’re not doing that!” Etc. That last one, I have to be honest, I can only bring myself to use in situations where I fear for my physical safety. Otherwise I just don’t have the poker face and I get argumentative. But when you desperately need to deescalate, acting like an airhead who has never heard of anything they’re saying can help – angry men love to explain things. Obviously, you don’t very often have to engage. General, mild grumbling can just be met with a confused expression and totally ignoring/brushing past it. But if it’s direct, and the person isn’t going to go away without some sort of engagement this can help. If it were a job where you were helping these people question their own views, I’d suggest more open questions like, “huh. Why do you think that?” Which may also be a decent strategy – but again, if you’re worried about violence, you can risk them thinking you’re being condescending. If you can’t bring yourself to the acting job though, it’s a good plan b, and “huh. What makes you say that? Well, I haven’t see anything like that here.” in a non-airhead way might be effective too. But the airhead/matching their feelings way has often felt safest to me when I’ve been physically threatened.

      Don’t get me wrong, in another circumstance, you’d have to fight your corner and defend your principles etc. But you’re not going to persuade these people by arguing with them and it sounds like you can’t really argue anyway and stay within boundaries.

      Fundamentally, people want to be heard. They want to know the people they’re speaking with agree with them. Even if you don’t, sometimes it can be easier to pretend, or at least leave open the option that you agree, with careful neutrality. I’m a bad liar, so in non-physically concerning situations, I tend to talk around it with things like, “wow, that’s a really scary thought. Do you really think that’s happening?” etc.

      My source is managing significantly challenging behaviour in schools, furious parental complaints, working in adult mental health, working in the youth justice system, often with young people charged with causing serious harm, and working with teens in the care system who are legitimately angry with a broken system. Also, living as a woman in the world. Of all these roles, the highest number of threats to my physical safety came from the angry parents, but at least with that, I mostly didn’t have to fake the empathy. Mostly.

      1. Lucy*

        P.S. When I say, “match emotion”, I don’t mean, “they’re angry, so you should get angry”. That’s a recipe for escalation. I just mean, take their anger as an indication of their level of concern and show that you’re taking that concern seriously. Rather than pretending, like I’ve said above, it’s more, show how concerned you would be, if their worry were accurate. Show that you aren’t blasé about something they’re very emotional about.

        1. CTT*

          On the flip side of matching emotion, if someone is chill when there is an issue, you can be calmly efficient in return! I went to the wrong polling place once (we were redistricted and I did not pay attention when I got my polling information, which is on me!) and I think I was the first time the workers had encountered that and they were freaked out trying to solve it and given that I live in a more conservative state that is trying to restrict voting, it made me panicky in turn and just, not a fun experience! I wish they had just pulled over a supervisor when she was free to figure it out because I told them multiple times that I wasn’t in a hurry.

          1. Aerin*

            Yes, exactly! As the service provider, you ideally want people to feel like you are calm and confident and will be able to get them a solution. If those things aren’t true, you fake it. It helps to recognize that “let me get you to the right person” and “I really wish I had another answer for you, but it’s way over our heads” *are* solutions, and you don’t have to feel like you’ve failed or done something wrong by providing them.

          2. Lucy*

            Yes, if someone is flustered, absolutes – model calm to them. But if someone is angry and you want to make them feel heard, sitting there saying in a totally flat tone of voice, “oh, I’m sorry, that must be frustrating” makes you sound insincere. Match emotion while empathising, model calm when offering a solution. But if you’re talking about aggression, anger, etc, you need to empathise and deescalate before the person will even hear your solution.

            I’m not talking about those who are panicked and flustered and stressed, I’m talking about those who are angry and look for someone to yell at, or worse…

      2. Panne*

        For the fraud concerns, you could also try to name the underlying emotion: You’re worried! I understand, we’ve been hearing a lot about people possibly doing [specific fraud the voter mentions]. We have been trained to recognize this [specific type of fraud], but if you see anything suspicious please let [moderator/other poll worker responsible for complaints] know and we will look into it.

        1. Panne*

          People mostly just want to be understood and taken seriously. Most people will de-escalate when they feel seen and heard.

          Slight caveat: people WILL correct you if you name the wrong emotion. If they do, just briefly apologize and repeat their words in a slightly different order.

          So: “no, I’m not worried, I’m angry bc [reason]!” might give you the chance to reflect back to them: “I’m sorry, I misheard. [reason] makes you angry. I understand, it’s aggravating.
          We at [location] do [actions] to prevent [specific fraud]. We could use your help. If you see anything suspicious, please let [person responsible for complaints] know. We take this very seriously”.

          Of course, this script assumes you know what safety measures are in place. If you don’t, you could send them on to the person who does know. If no one is allowed to name specific safety measures, keep it to general alertness to the issue.

          Also, most angry people will interject at some point in the script. Allow room for that, but try to only reflect back their emotions without going into the details of the subject matter. Try to direct the conversation back to your script once they seem calm enough to hear what you’re saying.

          Make your own scripts. Maybe you’d like to use a different type of reflection, or mix them up to help calm people down.

          Another type of reflection is: “even though you [feel emotion/think thoughts], you still came to vote. I’m happy you did, because every vote counts.” Where the goal is to focus people’s thoughts in a more positive direction. This can also help de-escalate them.

          1. Lucy*

            Oh! Yes, totally forgot that last one, and it’s so effective. I used to use the redirect with teenagers all the time – e.g. “I hear that you’re really mad Miss X said that. I know you’ve said before that you don’t think she likes you. I’m just really proud that you stayed in the whole lesson without answering back, and then came to tell me! That was such a good response!”

            1. irritable vowel*

              Saying “I hear you” or “I get it” is really important in terms of acknowledging their viewpoint without explicitly co-signing it.

              1. Lucy*

                Absolutely. Honestly, sometimes I did agree with them. Other times I didn’t at all. But it doesn’t really matter because whatever happened, the emotion is real, and they just need you to validate that, mostly. They don’t need you to tell them the feeling is founded in absolute truth, as long as you understand and empathise that they’re feeling it.

          2. TootsNYC*

            also, you can say, “I’m angry for you,” or “I’d be so frustrated,” and then you’re joining them, but if it’s the wrong emotion, they won’t mind, because it’s yours

        2. By the lake*

          So, what would happen if you encounter people concerned about voter fraud, agreed that it worried you too, and told them that is why you are now volunteering? And then give them the link to sign up?

          I think anyone who volunteers to help with voting is awesome and, as voting is my soapbox, please go vote in all the things.

          1. Freelance Librarian*

            I encourage everyone I can to join the ranks of Election Inspector, especially if they come spouting lies about fraud.

            We have one new inspector who was talking about voter fraud/machine fraud on her first day with us so I showed her how many checks and balances there are and now she’s a reliable inspector. We still disagree on a LOT, but I think she’s learned that the fraud cries are BS.

          2. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

            I would be really concerned about someone working a polling place expressing that they were worried about voter fraud. That leads to the possibility of the person or people wandering off to announce (mostly accurately!) that an actual poll worker admitted that they thought election fraud was likely to happen too, which in turn may lead people to disenfranchise themselves based on that info.

            Questioning the process as a representative of the process is not good. You aren’t speaking as an individual in this circumstance. That’s why you need to remain as neutral as humanly possible.

      3. KGD*

        This is such a helpful comment – I totally agree with the airhead move when necessary. It can help turn an angry dude into a mansplaining dude, which is still annoying but less terrifying. If the gendered aspect feels too depressing, a male friend of mine used a similar approach with rude customers that he called “stupid and charming.” He basically just took everything they said at face value with a smile on his face, and made it super clear that he was just a tiny cog in the wheel who didn’t know anything about anything, but that maybe the “boss over there” could help clear things up. It can definitely feel gross to use in some situations, but I think it’s extremely effective if you’re feeling threatened.

        1. M*

          Yup, slightly-stupid-but-kind is very, very disarming to a certain type of angry person. That said, for this kind of angry person, the perception that poll workers are “useful idiots” won’t always be helpful in de-escalating. I’d go a little more towards “oh, I *know*, we’ve had so much training in spotting anything like that. If you see anything you’re worried about, go straight to [moderator], they’re On. It.”

        2. Lucy*

          Yep. Mansplaining drives me up the wall, but I’ll take it over being physically threatened, any day. Unfortunately, I suspect with many of the angriest (given the subject matter and politics involved) the effectiveness of this may depend on race. It may not at all, “ignorant but innocent” is always better than “the enemy” when someone is that angry. But I know that being a white, baby-faced woman, who can make my eyes go really wide is one of the factors in making this work for me.

          Even if the angry person is hostile to the airhead though, I do think the airhead attitude can reduce to respond to verbal rather than physical abuse. Which is… Something…

        3. Kinsey*

          I’ve been a chief election judge a bunch of times, and one thing that I think is unique about being a poll worker is that you’re basically a one-day volunteer. Of course you don’t know what you’re doing! Of course things go wrong! Everyone working in this critical role is basically on their first day on the job. So I use that when I’m talking to voters, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy! I don’t know what is going on! You know we’re all volunteers here just trying to make sure everyone gets to vote, let’s see what we can do about this!” Reminding people that you’re a volunteer tends to convey that you’re on the same team and it’s “the system” that’s the enemy.

          At some point I also pivoted my language with voters. So I no longer say things like, “I have to follow the rules” or “This is how we have to do this” or “This is how the policy works.” I say things more like, “My role here is to make sure that everyone gets the opportunity to vote, and based on my volunteer training, in your situation the way to make sure you can vote is for you to go to this other locations/fill out a provisional ballot/go file a complaint with the board/etc.”

          When people get really mad about how “ridiculous” the system is and are just going on and on, my final move to is to tell them that they are absolutely right and they should voluteer for the next election so they can do it better. Our polling places actually have a sign-up sheet for poll volunteers at each polling place, and I have been known to very loudly walk someone over and publically shame them into signing up. “You’re right, this is awful! We need people like you to make this work better! Just put your name and email address right there, and next time you can be in my place and help this run more smoothly!”

    5. AnonForThis*

      I don’t work in elections but I do work in mental health and addiction. We’re trained that one of the first things to do is to try to find something to empathize with the person about and even better if it’s something you can solve. It helps to deescalate as people naturally want to befriend people who they see as helping them.

      Doesn’t work in every situation but I definitely have seen it work to lower the temperature a few degrees.

      1. CowWhisperer*

        Repeating – or summarizing what the person is saying – can also be a powerful technique to help the other person feel heard and verify that you are discussing their concern.

        I was in an IEP meeting that wasn’t run well by an administrator and a parent was getting upset (understandably IMHO.). I listened to the parent and said, “I want to be sure I am clear on your concerns. You don’t want your child to change schools because you believe it will cause X and Y behavior issues because it will trigger A due to Q and K previous tramas.”. The parent because much calmer and stated that was their concerns. I asked if they had any other concerns. They did not. I had staff add an additional sentence about why the family didn’t want that placement to the IEP and verified that the sentence fit their objections. It did.

        1. Aerin*

          It also gives them the chance to correct you if you do have anything wrong, and generally helps them focus on “no, Q is actually L” without having to rehash the whole thing.

          (I do this a lot when I have to put in a fix ticket for something that’s not in my skill wheelhouse. I may only vaguely know what half those words mean, but if you’re good with it and the tech who gets the ticket will understand, it’s all good.)

    6. Goody*

      I’ve been working the polls for every election since the 2020 primary in my state. I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had any real conflicts (the worst was a guy who hung around outside until literally 2 minutes before closing and then dragged his feet, mismarked his ballot, and a couple other annoyances but no real problems), but we also have no moderator type assignment in my county – all poll workers are completely equal and we are also usually understaffed from what the policy states we should have. It’s honestly quite a bit of fun at my voting location with four precincts and crews that have been working together for years now. And it’s a great way to fulfill civic obligations and give back to the community, because workers are usually assigned to precincts near their home but not at their own assigned polling location.

      That said, I do feel that having had a customer service background was a huge help in just being prepared for unusual questions and grumpy people. As other commenters suggested, just letting them speak their mind and feel heard was often enough, especially when what they wanted wasn’t in our power to make happen but we could at least document concerns and pass them upstream.

    7. Nice cup of tea*

      Broken record technique can be helpful.
      Just keep repeating the main reason that you can’t do whatever it is they want.

      Sprinkle in some “I hear what you are saying”

      Let them rant and see if it is enough to make them feel better.

      If it is appropriate in your situation then its often helpful to get people seated.

    8. RCB*

      This one is very election specific and not general de-escalation: The majority of reasons someone will be mad is because something got screwed up and they can’t vote for some reason. People take their right to vote VERY seriously, as they should, and they see you as taking something sacred from them, so never treat it as something trivial, that’s a very important first step. From there, my best advice is to call the county election headquarters to ask them what to do and they will almost always have the answer. Worse case scenario, and double check in your state to be sure, but I think it’s pretty universal now that anyone can cast a provisional ballot if there is an issue with them trying to vote and then they have a certain number of days to go to the election office to get the ballots correctly counted (cured, in election terms). So you shouldn’t have to send them away without having to vote, they can do a provisional ballot, and that should satisfy most people enough to calm the situation down significantly, at least in my experience.

      1. CB212*

        We get at least a couple of people per election thundering that they are being deprived of their vote – whether because they can’t fill in the paper ballot correctly, or because there’s no primary race in their district/party, or anything in between. I have done well with assuring them that nobody in the nation wants their vote to count more than *literally every poll worker*. Every worker from every party is there to make sure they cast a vote.

        We aren’t allowed to discuss politics on site but there are ways to make people feel heard without affirming them, and as long as you’re prioritizing “making sure their vote is registered”, it has always turned out okay. (That said in my city we do have police at every poll site, which definitely helps with personal safety fears.)

        1. Lily Rowan*

          Yeah, every so often in party primaries we have someone who is registered for the wrong party — either because they picked that when they registered or some error on our side, I have no idea — and some of those people are furious. That’s probably the trickiest situation I can think of.

      2. Clisby*

        It’s that way in my state – the last time I voted I had to have a provisional ballot because of some glitch in the elections system. They accepted mine, but in another case someone had gone to the wrong precinct to vote and flatly refused to leave and go to the right precinct. Apparently the poll workers had her fill out a provisional ballot, explained what happened, and the election board said “Nope – not counting it.” (This person hadn’t bothered to come to the meeting where they accept/reject provisional ballots.)

        1. TeaCoziesRUs*

          I’m so grateful that the county in which I vote, which has millions of people, allows you to vote anywhere in the county! It’s been like this my whole voting life, so it baffles me why it isn’t this way everywhere. :) That and early voting also allow me to skip long lines and be relaxed, especially since I’ve just spent HOURS researching all the races – “Aww, there’s a line at the library! Good thing I’m just here to drop off and pick up books.” then “Oooh, the school I just passed has no line!” or ” Ehhh, I’ll check early next week, since we have two weeks to election day.”

          1. Clisby*

            In the US, the ballots would be different from county to county and state to state. The presidential candidates would be the same countrywide (although 3rd-party candidates might not be on the ballot in every state), but nothing else would be uniform.

            1. iglwif*

              Pretty sure TeaCoziesRUs is talking about being able to vote at any of the polling stations located *within their own county*.

              1. Lily Rowan*

                Yes, but even so — my city (one of several cities within the county) has many different ballots, depending on the level of election, because the state district boundaries don’t line up with the national district boundaries OR the city district boundaries! So two blocks might have the same US rep and same state rep, but different city council members. It’s very annoying.

                1. iglwif*

                  OK, fair!

                  I live in Canada and vote by absentee ballot from the last place I lived in the US, so my experience of US ballots is very limited.

                  (In Canada, where I also vote, the experience is completely different in almost every way — from how we vote to when we vote to who we vote for — but the biggest difference is that elections are run by electoral commissions, and federal elections are run by Elections Canada and work consistently across the entire country.)

                2. Lenora Rose*

                  As a Canadian, that feels odd; not that we don’t have ballots with multiple levels, but we don’t try to simultaneously run federal, provincial and municipal roles on one ballot. The borders of districts are completely different for all three, so while I may vote for city mayor, council rep, school trustee, and some other roles at the same time in one ballot, I am not ALSO trying to elect my federal representative AND my provincial one at the same time.

                3. Huttj*

                  My county (possibly my state) does electronic assisted voting. I can vote from any of the polling stations and my voter reg info pulls up my specific ballot info, which the machine reads, I vote by touchpad (where the font size can be increased for folks who want that), then it gets printed on the ballot in a format I can visually verify and is easily machine readable.

                  I quite like it.

                4. Occasional Poll-Worker*

                  At least in my County, once you’ve verified your name and address, Poll Workers will print your ballot on demand, so we can print any ballot in the County despite the differences in what races or measures are on them (which is handy, because I think last election we had at least 20 different ballots).

              2. Teej*

                Even within the county, there are different races – I.e. Local DogCatcher, or regional County/township seats, and so on forth. So the ballots may be different, requiring specific attendance at a site.

              3. doreen*

                Even voting anywhere within the county often isn’t practical in the US. I live in the same county as my mother- in fact she’s only ten minutes away but we have different state senators, different state assembly members etc. Our ballots are mostly different for anything below statewide offices like “governor” . Even though we have early voting, I can’t just vote at any polling place in person – I will be assigned an early voting site.

                1. iglwif*

                  This is how it works in Canada too — they send you a card in the mail telling you where your early voting location is and where you can vote on the day of the election, and if you show up somewhere else, that’s going to be a problem. (Of course if you don’t get a card but are eligible to vote, you can just show up at the polling station and register … but I’m not 100% sure what happens if you try to register at a polling station really far from your actual address.)

              4. BestBet*

                Even within the mid-sized city I’ve worked polls in, ballots can vary from precinct to precinct due to things like school board elections.

                1. iglwif*

                  That makes sense! Here in Canada we don’t vote for all levels of government at the same time like y’all do, but for municipal elections you definitely get different ballots depending on your ward — everyone in the city votes for the mayor but different wards vote for different lists of aldermen/councillors/whatever and school board trustees.

                2. By the lake*

                  This is for iglwif – I think for federal you can go to any elections Canada office on set dates (like two weeks before the elections or something) and vote. I couldn’t make the election date or the early polling dates as I was away for work and was thrilled to find another solution. I was also too late for the mail in ballot option.

              5. Clisby*

                But the same would apply within my county. Not for a presidential election, but for county council, county school board, state legislators – the ballot will differ depending on what precinct you live in.

            2. Hyaline*

              We have open polling in my county even though the ballot can vary depending on which city or township you live in–you check in with your ID at any polling location and they pull up your ballot. I imagine this could be done without ID, too, but their process uses the ID and it expedites the process.

          2. RagingADHD*

            My county (and several other counties in my state) has more than one municipality, more than one school district, and more than one state house / congressional district overlapping it.

            The voting precinct matters because each precinct is serving a specific mix of constituencies, that may not apply to the next precinct over. It would be far more confusing for the voters to have to pick out which ballot items pertained to them, and introduce far more opportunity for error in counting, if the voters marked the wrong items.

          3. AngryOctopus*

            I can only speak for my district, but we have a kind of a weird split in the district lines, so the people across the street from me are in a different precinct than our side. This actually means that they are choosing from different people running for some town offices, so they’d have a different ballot. Add to that that the lines for state senatorial representation don’t actually jibe with county lines, and the number of ballots you’d have to hand out if you let people vote anywhere in the county would make it too easy to make mistakes.

          4. CommanderBanana*

            It’s because America isn’t actually one country, we’re 50 counties in a trench coat masquerading as one country.

          5. Florp*

            This is true in some places in the US, but every state runs their own elections–even for President–and has their own methods. In my county in NY, we have fairly recently gone digital. For early voting you can go to any polling place in the county, sign in on an iPad, and they will print your correct ballot on demand. It’s super convenient. On election day, however, there are individual polling places based on your address and you have to go to the right one.

            It’s worth noting that in many places in the US, the actual geographical area your federal representatives cover will be different from the geographical area that your state representatives cover, which could be different again from the county representatives. So it’s complicated and there can be a lot of different ballots in one county.

            1. Loves Libraries*

              Georgia poll worker here. We have the same set up for early. voting and actual election day. I hope eventually that everyone will be able to go to any polling. place in the county.

          6. Elsewise*

            I live in Oregon, where we default to vote by mail. There are polling places you *can* go to if you really want, but in general we get our ballots mailed to us, along with a voter information packet with info on the bills and statements from the candidates, and then we vote on our own time and drop it off at a ballot box or mail it back. I’ve never been to a poll in my life, and I’ve voted in every election since I turned 18. Honestly, if you ever have the chance to advocate for vote by mail in your state, I’d really recommend it!

      3. My Brain is Exploding*

        Yes! A long time ago, my HS daughter and I went to vote in a primary. She had registered as an independent but didn’t get the ballot for school board members. The head election judge INSISTED that independent voters didn’t get one. Daughter knew better (was currently taking civics with a great teacher) and we wound up having to DRIVE TO THE COUNTY ELECTION office to complain. The election judge said they would not/could not call them, but somehow the election office got hold of them and she went back to get her ballot. (Some of the details may be off here, it was years ago.) I don’t think there are many independent voters in our jurisdiction but I did often wonder how many other people were shorted a ballot.

        1. Clisby*

          Fortunately, in SC we don’t register by party so anyone can vote in any primary/election.

      4. Texan In Exile*

        A provisional ballot decided a race in my town.

        The voter had forgotten to bring his photo ID, so they had him complete a provisional ballot, which was then sealed and sent to the city clerk.

        On election night, we discovered one of the city council races was tied.

        The voter had the opportunity to go to the clerk in the next 2 – 3? – days to cure his ballot – that is, show his ID, and have his ballot be counted.

        Which he did. Because he was the tiebreaker.

        And on Friday, with the press, the candidates, the city clerk, and other election officials present, along with anyone else who wanted to watch, they opened the ballot.

        They did ask the press not to identify the voter by name in any news stories, even though part of the process – by law – is that the voter name be read out loud at the opening.

    9. tappity tap*

      The main thing I remember from some de-escalation training my work offered a while back is that the more angry or stressed someone is, the harder it is for them to take in new information. So if you’re talking to someone who’s very agitated, you might have to repeat yourself several times before they grasp what you’re saying even once.

      1. Aerin*

        And avoid giving any indication that you’re repeating yourself. Stuff that links it back into the conversation, like “Yes, that’s why we do [thing I have already explained twice.]”

        I pretend I’m a toy or animatronic pre-programmed with certain phrases. So I’m just gonna keep pushing that button on the control board as many times as necessary, with the same cheerful and/or sympathetic cadence each time.

        1. Aerin*

          Sorry, first paragraph should read “stuff that links it back into the conversation is fine.” Brain fog makes commenting hard sometimes.

    10. Cathie from Canada*

      I’ve worked several elections over the years, and one of the challenges is that most of the time, the people doing the work are new at it. So that always makes it more challenging to understand what issues might come up and how to handle them.
      Most of the elections I worked at had a poll supervisor or coordinator, and one of their jobs was to circulate down the line of people waiting to vote just to make sure they were in the right poll. That stopped most of the problems with people waiting at the wrong poll to vote.
      In terms of dealing with angry people, one useful technique is to just refuse to argue with them — its a Transactional Analysis technique called “fogging”, as I recall, and the way it works is to just keep agreeing with them that yes, its very late and yes, everyone is getting tired, and yes, sometimes the rules aren’t efficient, and yes, we’re all just wanting to get the election done properly — basically, don’t get defensive and try to justify or explain or get them to see reason, just keep on saying yes until they run out of steam and then they are more likely to listen to your solution. Its amazing how effective this technique can be in getting someone to calm down and focus on a solution instead of a problem.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I just want to highlight your point about someone checking the people in line. That was my first thought of an obvious preventative action to take when reading OPs example; people are much more agreeable when they haven’t been waiting for a long time and they feel like people are making an attempt to be organised.

    11. Radiant*

      My experience isn’t totally applicable, but I’ll offer it just in case. I was a first time election clerk for the General Election we just had in the UK.

      It was the first major election where photo ID was required to vote (it came in for the local elections we had in May, but those always have a very low turnout, so for most people, the General Election was the first time they’d had to bring ID). Our training had a section on how to deal with any complaints about needing ID or arguments over which ID we could accept. We had two people who forgot their IDs, and just my luck – it was two people I knew. So they tried to push their luck a bit – “Do I have to go back and get some, really? You know me, Radiant!” – but I had to push back and send them home to get their ID. We also had someone arguing that the ID they’d brought was valid (it was a Costco card – “it’s got my name and face on it!”); they were not backing down so I had to refer them to the head election clerk who eventually managed to get the person to show their valid ID, their driving licence, which they’d had on them the whole time anyway.

      TLDR – my approach to the issues we had was basically “These are the rules; I don’t make the rules, and I don’t break the rules.”

      1. Ellis Bell*

        THEY’D HAD IT ON THEM THE WHOLE TIME ANYWAY!!!!! WTAF. Anyway. Your point about referring to the rules as a third party really reminds me of being coached on behaviour management in teaching. One of the tenets is that well behaved schools have consistent guidelines that everyone refers to, using the same language. It stops interpersonal conflict and gives a clearer message of what everyone needs to do. It often takes repetition from multiple people when bringing in something new, because it’s a change in people’s habits. One thing stressed is the importance of signage so that people can wrap their head around the rules outside of a face to face conversation. I think I saw signage about photo ID during the most recent election?

        1. Radiant*

          The rest of the team and I discussed Costco Lady afterwards, and we THINK she was trying to make a point about Photo ID being pointless? It was weird! Made the day interesting at least – it was a 16 hour shift haha.

          Yeah, we had signs around the village hall about various stuff (an A3 copy of the ballot paper; the fact they’d need photo ID; who to approach with any issues etc), and at the ‘check in’ desk we had a laminated A3 sheet with photos of all the ID types we could accept.

          I’m glad I volunteered, we moved to this village during lockdown – so I’ve started to try and get more involved in village life a little more (and I could take the day off work as ‘volunteering leave’ which was nice).

        2. Irish Teacher.*

          The having it on them the whole time happened a number of times when I worked retail. We didn’t accept credit or debit cards except one specific one – it was 20 years ago and yes, it was stupid even then, but it wasn’t exactly under my control – and we’d have people insist they didn’t have either the card we accepted or the money in cash and look at me like, “now, figure it out.” When they realised that no, there was no way for me to accept a card we didn’t have any way of scanning…oh, suddenly, they had the money after all.

          There were people who genuinely didn’t and we’d put their items aside for them while they went to a cashpoint, but…some people just like to argue or feel they are getting special treatment.

          In Ireland, by the way, we’ve long been technically required to bring photo ID when we vote, but in over 20 years (and we have referenda so often along with government, presidential, EU and local elections, that we probably vote on average once every year or two), I’ve maybe been asked for it once. But then, Irish towns are mostly small. I suspect people in Dublin might get asked more often as they are less likely to be recognised.

          1. Mairead*

            Sample size of 1, but I’m in Dublin and I’m pretty sure I’ve never been asked for ID (I always bring it, though).
            I’m always puzzled by how much of an ordeal voting seems to be in US. Maybe it works smoothly here because we vote so often ;-)

            1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

              It is partly an ordeal here because some politicians work hard to make it so. They’re more concerned about ineligible people voting fraudulently (a very, very rare occurrence) and less with eligible people being unable to vote.

              1. Frieda*

                IMO they’re interested in *looking like* they’re preventing ineligible people from voting and not looking like they’re working to prevent people of color from voting, which they definitely are doing.

                1. bamcheeks*

                  We have had the same thing with the introduction of voter ID in the UK, and honestly, looking like they are working to prevent PoC from voting is ALSO part of it. There are a lot of people whose commitment to racism is a lot deeper than their commitment to democracy.

            2. allathian*

              It’s easy in Finland, too. Mainly because voter registration isn’t a thing. Every citizen who’s 18 on election day is automatically registered to vote. EU citizens are allowed to vote in EU Parliamentary elections here if they register with the pertinent authority. Permanent residents who are citizens of the EU, Norway, or Iceland can vote in regional and municipal elections. Voting in Finnish Parliamentary and Presidential elections requires Finnish citizenship.

              I still remember how proud I was when I’d voted for the first time, that’s when I really felt like an adult.

              We probably don’t vote quite as often as you do in Ireland, but nearly. This year we’ve had two elections, the presidential election in January and the EU parliamentary election in June. The only referendum we’ve had while I’ve been old enough to vote was in 1994 on whether or not to apply for membership in the EU.

              I’ve always had to show ID. They scan it and mark the electoral register to stop people voting more than once.

              1. iglwif*

                In Canada, we register to vote by ticking a box on our income tax return. (You can also register in other ways, including showing up at a local polling station with 2 pieces of ID and registering on the spot, but ticking that box is how most people do it.)

                Decades ago, before that became the process, Elections Canada used to send out teams of “enumerators” — basically temp workers who were trained and assigned a list of addresses to go and visit and find out who lived there and, if they were eligible to vote (Canadian citizen and 18+), register them to do so. This may not have been super efficient, but it did make VERY clear that the goal was to make registering easy and encourage people to vote!

                We do have to show ID and be crossed off the list before voting. The list of forms of ID they’ll accept is fairly broad, though.

                1. Elizabeth West*

                  I moved from a formerly purple state that went deep red to a blue one. When I changed my driver’s license, they automatically registered me to vote — though not party-affiliated. So I guess I’ll see when I get to the polls what I get. Now that my ID is correct for this state, it shouldn’t be a problem. I also got an application in the mail to vote by mail, but I probably won’t, since my polling place is literally across the street from my apartment.

                  I love the automatic registration. It’s such a contrast to OldState’s commitment to making it more difficult for people (and also completely ignoring us and doing whatever they want anyway).

            3. Lady_Lessa*

              When I’ve worked, it hasn’t been much of a problem. I can only remember 1 voter where there was a big issue. Their driver’s license was expired, and they didn’t have the time to do a provisional ballot.

              When I am checking voters in, and their driver’s license is almost expired, I mention it.

            4. Pokemon Go To The Polls*

              Sadly there are many that think that
              1. It’s not a valid civic duty unless it’s difficult and
              2. Certain people should not vote
              Therefore, voting becomes more and more difficult for everyday people to do. It’s relatively easy in my state since you can register right at the polls, not have to be registered weeks or even months in advance, but you still need valid ID with proof of residency, which was difficult when I first moved because I hadn’t been able to switch over my ID and car registration in time for the first election. I think my lease did it but it was not a stress-free process

              1. TiffIf*

                I moved to a new state last December and one of the first things I did was get a go to the DMV to get a new license and checked the box to register to vote during that process (motor voter laws are helpful!). Unfortunately my new license got lost in the mail somewhere and so I still didn’t have it by the time the Presidential Primary happened – so I used my Passport as my ID when I voted.

            5. KC*

              Weirdly, the US’s seemingly chaotic voting approach makes it a lot harder for widespread fraud!

            6. Cat*

              Voting difficulties in the US vary by state, by county, etc. I live in Chicago, and voting is so easy. I walk to the park district a block from my house, stand in line for 20 minutes at most, and poll workers clearly explain the process. I can also vote early or vote by mail. The issue is that the process varies from state to state – laws are different, machines are different, etc. Also, the last few elections have brought out some serious crazies who have threatened election judges, protested processes, etc. This is in small pockets in the country, but of course they are often in swing states. As a result, they get a lot of news coverage and we are all paying attention to make sure everything is done to ensure people can vote, election judges are safe, and everything is done right. There are many checks and balances to ensure there is no voter fraud (and it works well). Some states make voting more arduous (I would argue sometimes intentionally, but not always). Some places, particularly rural areas, cannot afford numerous polling stations, so people have to travel forever to get to one. Some of these people don’t have cars. Some states have machines that take longer or are broken or more complicated in some way. Some require more from voters (and many argue these requirements are racist). That’s when you hear about people standing in line for hours.

              Programs like early voting, voting by mail, driving people to the polls, etc are meant to alleviate these issues. Some of the crazies are pushing back on some of these policies, and it creates threats to the democratic process. That said, we are a huge country with different voting laws/processes in different states, and some of the processes SHOULD be challenged. Although my faith in the system has been somewhat shaken in recent years because it is absolutely under attack, I do mostly feel particularly patriotic on Election Day. Listening to the news all night as the results come in, I hear all the issues that come up and how they are being resolved. I hear all the ways the checks and balances work here.

              Finally, although the Presidential election is every four years, the midterm elections (Congress) is every two years. We also have local elections. Also, the primary elections happen when each party chooses their candidate. You must be a registered Democrat or Republican to vote in a primary. This is why some Republicans were saying Kamala Harris cannot be the nominee – she wasn’t voted on during the primary (not true since Biden stepped down BEFORE the convention….he was the presumptive nominee, not the nominee. Also, as VP, her name was on the ticket). I feel like I’m voting all the time!

              1. Texan In Exile*

                “the last few elections have brought out some serious crazies who have threatened election judges, protested processes, etc.”

                The female Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director got death threats and rape threats. (As has my state legislator, who is also a woman.)

              2. OneBean TwoBean*

                “You must be a registered Democrat or Republican to vote in a primary.”

                Nope, that varies by state too. My state has open primaries where everyone can vote, and you can pick the party whose primary you want to vote in at the polls.

            7. HA2*

              When in doubt, the answer to many “why the heck is the US like that” The answer is racism. Many of the barriers to voting are a response to the government making it illegal to bar black peoples from voting, so now there’s a whole host of laws that try to make it harder for them to vote without using the word “black”.

              1. Texan In Exile*

                Exactly. In Wisconsin, who is most hurt by the photo ID law?

                People who do not drive.

                Which is poor people who rely on public transportation in the bigger cities.

                And who cannot easily get to the DMV for a photo ID – because it’s hard if not impossible to get to the DMV locations on the bus.

                1. IDsArentJustDriversLicenses*

                  Most people who do not/cannot drive actually do have an alternate form of ID. because unless you’re working under the table you need one to work.

                  I am medically unable to drive and have never had a driver’s license in my life. I have a state issued ID that folks are legally obligated to accept for any purpose they would accept a driver’s license except for actual driving. Sometimes I have to show them the law saying that – which is conveniently printed on the back of the ID at this point, almost certainly in response to how frequently its use gets challenged.

            8. CowWhisperer*

              The US votes way more often than yearly.

              We have the presidential election every 4 years along with a variety of federal legislative races at the same time as state level races in all three branches and local level election. These may – or may not – also hold various school board and referendum races as well. This year tends to get high turnout levels because of all the hoopla around the presidential race.

              We also have midterm elections which are the second year after a presidential election. Those can hold a similar number of races minus the federal executive race.

              The bit that gets minimal international coverage is the ever-ongoing set of local races that pop up yearly because of a county that has commissioners and school board on a 3 year term plus various milages (taxes) or referendums (voter initiated laws that are voted on) at the local level. There are three set election dates for this yearly that may be used in my state – but the late winter date in Feb or March is rarely used because an ice storm could severely mess up the election.

              For my political district (which has 3 different school boards that overlap in a weird way) in the last 12 months, I’ve voted on a school milage and a school board seat that came open. There’s a primary in August for the county commission and township board before the presidential election in November.

              The issue is that one political party has been claiming that the growing number of elections won by the other party is due to widespread fraud committed by historical discriminated against minorities rather than the fact that the political party has been running on reducing taxes, being vocally LGTBQ-phobic and making abortion illegal. It’s not a hugely attractive platform and consistently worked out to cutting taxes for the rich and passing token anti-abortion bills that could be as draconic as they want because federal law would prevent the laws from being implemented.

              Then the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion – and the GOP was caught flat-footed because now they had a long, documented history of being rabidly anti-abortion (or swearing that no one had to worry about Roe v. Wade being overturned) and a whole lotta voters cared a bunch.

            9. AngryOctopus*

              My first boss was from Italy, and when she became a citizen she was so excited to vote in what she called a “finally meaningful election” because in Italy she felt like they were just constantly voting the same people in and out of office in short time periods.

            10. Retired Accountant*

              For 95+% of people it’s really not an ordeal. In my red state I can vote early at the county board of elections for several weeks prior to the election or vote at a polling location down the street on Election Day. Or you can vote absentee. The biggest issue people have is if they move and their polling location changed. But drama creates attention so there will be some drama.

            11. Jackalope*

              It’s because there are politicians who actively work to make it so people can’t vote. For example, in one state (Texas), you can only enroll in very specific locations, at specific times, it’s a crime to help someone enroll who isn’t in your county, and so on. The hoops to jump through are enormous. And many places make it hard to vote the day off. Our voting always happens on a Tuesday, but some places have early voting or mail-in voting. Some states have gotten rid of voting early; they pretended they had a legit motivation for it, but they were just trying to stop the voters (more often minorities and poor people) who couldn’t take that day off work from being able to vote. Another strategy (although I’m not sure if this was allowed) was to say that each city or town would have only 1-2 polling stations, total. That means it’s significantly easier to vote in a small town than in a big city (where you have to deal with lines, distance to get to the polling station, etc.). At one point in time (I think this may have been struck down) there was a law in one state making it illegal to provide bottles of water to people waiting in line at the polls. The voter suppression is crazy in some places here.

              (That’s not even getting into things like, “Make activity X that’s more commonly engaged in by minorities illegal, arrest lots of people doing that thing and give them criminal backgrounds, then make it illegal for those with criminal backgrounds to vote.” Or “Make it necessary to provide your birth certificate and proof of every name change in your life to establish that you’re the person on your ID,” which targets women more severely because they often change their names when they change their marital status.)

              1. Retired Accountant*

                Interesting. The Texas Secretary of State’s website makes it seem much easier.

                1. Jackalope*

                  Look up Texas voter suppression and you can find some of it (ACLU had a good page on it). Some of it be gotten from discussions with people who are working to try to enroll Texans to vote so I don’t have a link for those.

                  (Also, just in case this wasn’t clear, not all of the above voter suppression techniques are from Texas, just the ones in that part of my post.)

            12. penny dreadful analyzer*

              The average member of the US electorate has the opportunity to vote at least twice a year (party primaries and general elections are every year — the odd-numbered years are for a lot of non-federal-level positions; federal elections are generally on even-numbered years — and sometimes there are special elections); most people just don’t actually do it, because your average American thinks politics consists in its entirety of 1) the President and 2) having opinions.

      2. bamcheeks*

        Honestly, I think Johnson probably did everyone a favour getting turned away in the locals– it definitely raised the profile of voter ID and probably made it easier to enforce the “no, seriously, no exceptions” rule!

      3. Lady Lessa*

        As a long time poll worker, I agree about being sympathetic, listening, and making sure that you are not the person making the rules, just following them.

        In my experience, the most challenging conflicts were with other poll workers. I had been a person checking voters in for several elections and was asked to move up to asst. manager at the same place I had been working. As a lower level, no problem, but just under the manager, problems. I told my friend while we were delivering the ballots back to the board of elections that I WOULD NOT work under the person again.(and the recruiter listened to me). I’ve been a floater in the following elections, twice as an asst. manager and once as a manager. It will be interesting to see what happens come late Sept. early October. (That’s when training begins)

      4. KC*

        LOL! I’m on a state that doesn’t require any ID of someone is registered and people get so mad about that too! Mostly because they assume it makes fraud easier… it doesn’t, you’d have to know a lot of info about the person you’re impersonating and if you get busted you’ll be in federal prison for 20 years!

        When people complained about the process, I told them how becoming an election judge made me feel better about the process and that they should consider it too. That seemed to reassure them a bit.

    12. Arnold Shortman*

      Hey OP #5, as a fellow poll worker, I completely understand your concerns and hopefully my advice might be helpful. I’ve served in 6 elections in the Bay Area of California over the past few years, most recently as captain of a precinct. My first major election as a poll worker was the 2020 General Election. It was trial by fire and I actually fell in love with volunteering at the polls because of it.

      As to your question, there are tons of de-escalation techniques you can use, depending on the situation. My one caveat is that mine are based on local election laws and rules where I live. But the fundamentals should translate over. You need to listen to the underlying concern, ensure the voter feels heard, and offer them a solution/choice. Obviously you won’t be able to solve everything, but if you treat them with respect and expect to be treated with respect back, you’ll have done your duty.

      In my experience, the most common issues are as follows:

      1. Person at the wrong polling place. Double-check address, DOB, DL’s #, and name. If still at the wrong polling place, determine how far off – wrong precinct, city, or county? Help to get directions to their actual polling place and offer a provisional ballot. Depending on how far off they are, the provisional ballot may be missing some of the races they could vote in. Make sure to communicate that. Let them decide which option to take. Tell them you’re sorry for whatever issue at the voter registrar led to this situation (even if it may be their fault for not reading or filling out a form correctly). If they want contact info for the registrar, write it down for them on paper or pass them a voter guide book.
      2. Person worried/angry about voter fraud. Tell them you understand and that you’ve never seen any evidence of voter fraud at this precinct. Everything you’ve seen has shown that voter fraud is very rare and prepatrators are always caught. Explain the election integrity procedures that you take, from the two-person rule and independent inspectors to provisional ballots and tamper seals. If there’s a question you can’t answer or don’t know, tell them so. If not busy, offer to look up the info with them. If busy, refer them to the voter registrar to get an answer to their question.
      3. Person upset about wait times. If you have a long line, talk with your fellow poll workers to see if you can temporarily open another check-in spot. Communicate an approximate wait time to the entire line and apologize for any inconvenience. Explain why the wait is long, if possible – lots of voters, machines down/slow, people on mandated breaks, etc. If near to closing, make sure voters know that leaving the line could mean they’re unable to vote. Check with the polling place host about putting out extra chairs. You can’t offer water or food, but the host might be able to. If the line is short, give a brief apology for the wait, and redirect them to check in.
      4. Person crossing the line into electioneering at the polls. Ask to speak to them and redirect to an isolated area close by. Explain the issue and why. Make sure you’re comfortable defending that position. Apologize for the inconvenience. If they’re wearing certain clothes or hats, allow them to put the items in their car, in a bag, etc. Offer to hold their place in line as a courtesy. If they refuse, refer them to the voter registrar rules, and reiterate. If they completely refuse, advise them you may have to temporarily close the polls in order to call for assistance (e.g. registrar and/or cops). If that doesn’t work, tell your fellow poll workers what’s up, call the registrar, and follow their instructions.
      5. Person having trouble filling out their ballot. If it’s an ADA issue, make sure you’ve provided the legally mandated accomodations. Depending on the disability, that may include more direct help, like hand-guided assistance at their instruction. You can’t tell them who to vote for, but if they’re having a hard time reading, you can read it for them. You can show them sample ballots, the voter guide, etc. For language access, you should have staff with a second language proficiency. If not, or they don’t speak the right language, call the voter registrar and follow their instructions. Always communicate what you’re doing and why to the voter (as best as you can).

      Regardless of the situation, there’s zero tolerance for physical and verbal abuse. If someone lays hands on you or anyone else, call the cops and stop the polls. If someone is being verbally abusive and won’t stop, call the voter registrar and follow their instructions. Ignore the person while you do and instruct others to ignore them too. Everyone has a right to vote. No one has a right to mistreat you or others at the polls.

      Again, if you’re communicating what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how it’s done, you’re all set in almost every situation.

      Take note, take care, and good luck.

    13. Bronze Betty*

      This is all very helpful. I was a first-time poll worker in February, for the presidential primary, and I will be working for the November election (sorry I have to miss the August primary, since I am unable to work it). Our first election with early voting was in February, and, since everyone can vote absentee, in-person voting was pretty sparse. I was fortunate to only have to deal with what I will call technical issues (like people in the wrong precinct), but our precinct chair did deal with someone who went on a rant about early voting, and I’ve been preparing myself mentally for dealing with something similar in November, if necessary. I’m looking forward to working the polls in November, armed with all this advice.

      Also: If you are able to work as a poll worker, I encourage you to do so! My single time working was a long day, although not difficult, but it could have been shorter if we had more poll workers. And, you get paid!

    15. Curt Sawyer*

      This doesn’t help #5, but this is why in NYC there is an NYPD officer at every single polling location.

      1. RagingADHD*

        The community’s relationship to the police also matters in that context. There were a number of precincts in my stare and neighboring states where police officers made an unprecedented and very heavy handed presence at the polls in 2020, which had a chilling effect on people of color feeling safe to vote.

    16. Deirdre Honner*

      Pollworker and precinct chair. A couple of comments.
      – you are going to be busy. If someone is upset or yelling, pull them aside and call the clerk’s office. Our jobs aren’t to appease or spend time on conversation, it’s to get voters through the process.
      – have a handout with the contact information for your clerk’s office and the Secretary of State. If someone is upset, hand them the information and suggest they contact these offices as they are the people who can address issues.
      – I don’t tolerate anger directed at my team. In one instance, I told a person that we are all volunteers and if he wasn’t happy, the best course of action was to sign up and work with us.
      – when anyone suggests voter fraud or intimidation, and working the election doesn’t work, I suggest they become a poll challenger. Most people don’t know elections are a public process; if they don’t want to be a poll challenger, suggest they sit in the public access area and watch how the process works.
      – Lastly, you can contact your Secretary of State for additional resources on this.

    17. Jenny F Scientist*

      Hi! I’ve been an election officer for years. As many others have also said: My best advice is to acknowledge the feelings (“I know, it’s so frustrating!”) and deflect the responsibility back to the legislature/state board of elections (“We just have to be really careful to follow the exact letter of the law and the Legislature said we have to ask for ID/ make you fill out this form/ everyone has a new polling place. The rules change every year!”)

      This is also helpful because it’s legitimately not your fault. You are following the rules set out by law and regulations! You can’t just give them a ballot! It’s against the law!

    18. Yellow*

      Poll Worker here- If people get upset with you, call in you Judge of Elections. Don’t even try. Just exuse yourself and grab them and stay out of it.

    19. Ready for the weekend*

      Hi OP. My late aunt was a volunteer poll worker. She shared stories with us on everything from people getting angry with her that they couldn’t vote because they weren’t already registered or they moved and didn’t update their registration info in time for elections. She was a tough NY lady so you have to take what they say to you at face value. I think also having a police/security presence can help de-escalate tirades.

      Another issue she and the other poll workers dealt with was more so with candidates on the ballot trying to sway over voters at the last minute. Some tried to give pamphlets to voters on the way inside the building (which poll workers had to send someone outside to get them to stop doing us and set up a trash for collecting them) or they would be standing too close to the doors (which is not allowed).

    20. ijustworkhere*

      First of all, THANK YOU for agreeing to be a poll worker! It’s such an important role and we need a lot more people than we currently have.

      I’ve served as both a regular judge and chief judge, so I want to affirm that you have every right to ask about security protocols and your Board of Elections should have information for you.

      We do a few things to try and keep the line moving and things generally civil.

      1. We set up a “help station” where the chief judge handles situations that seem to be escalating, as well as more complex issues like registration issues, etc. If your precinct isn’t set up that way, you might suggest it.

      2. Our BOE policy is that no one is told they cannot vote. They can always cast a provisional ballot and the Board of Elections will decide if it counts or not. However , somebody might not be able to vote for their own district reps if they use our ballot, because we are set up to elect representatives by district and my precinct may not be in their district. (We get a lot of people who work in our district, but don’t live here, that want to vote at our voting site on their way into work, or on their way home. ). That’s what I tell them to encourage them to go to their home precinct to vote, rather than voting a provisional ballot in our precinct. I hope you have that option to offer people.

      3. We have set up security in busier precincts and in precincts where we have previously had issues. That presence has done a lot to keep things civil. The police/sheriff wears plain clothes and a badge -not in full regalia but certainly visible. They stay off in a corner or outside in their cars.

      Finally, my experience has been that most people understand that poll workers are ordinary citizens and that we don’t make the rules, we just follow them. I’ve been a precinct worker for many years, and I have only experienced one or two situations that got way out of hand. That’s what 911 is for.

      1. Lady_Lessa*

        In Ohio, we have the same rules about provisional ballots and voters not in the precinct. We also have transfer slips to help the voter get to their correct vote center.

    21. Annie Mae*

      Whatever you do, please don’t cover up the windows to prevent outside observers from actually seeing you count the votes! Democracy dies in the darkness; if voters lose confidence in the democratic process then disaster follows.

      1. Caroline*

        In my state and many other states, votes are counted automatically by vote tabulators. Machine counters are much faster and more accurate than humans. Ballots only manually counted if there is some kind of discrepancy or they have a write-in.

        1. RussianInTexas*

          During the last primaries, Texas GOP decided to count by hand in Gillespie County.
          Hilarity ensued.
          Link below, if it does not come through, google “Republicans in a Texas county ditched technology and counted votes by hand. Here’s what happened.” Texas Tribune.

          1. Random European*

            How the hell did they manage to take so long on that???

            For the record, my entire country counts votes manually every election and results are usually in during the evening of the day in question.

      2. Cmdrshprd*

        Outside observers are allowed and welcome in polling places. People can’t just waltz in off the streety but they can sign up to be poll watchers (have to follow certain procedures) and they can enter the polling place during preopening setup and stay in the polling place during voting, and stay in the polling place during post closing procedures.

        It is usually fairly easy to sign up, you can work with a specific candidate to volunteer as their poll watcher, sign up as a political party poll watcher, or volunteer through a local 501(c)(3) like a civil rights organization or attorney bar association.

        Covering up windows so you don’t feel like a animal at the zoo/pet store is valid when you have several other options/opportunities for the public to observe.

    22. Hyaline*

      One thing you can lean into is the hierarchy of the position. If you’re the person on the lowest rung of the ladder, you should not expect to de-escalate any and all situations. Let the person above you take on that responsibility when someone gets belligerent with you. Sometimes people just want to be heard, and escalating their complaint “up” to your supervisor (or having someone escalate to you if you’re in a supervisory role) actually helps–even if nothing gets done. It’s weird, but it’s a good tool in your toolbox.

      An example: I used to be the one full-time admin-y person in a student services office at a large university. The rest of our staff were part-time student workers. When I came on board, the practice was for the full-time person to man the phone and desk and student workers did other work. Over time, I shifted that so that the student workers were our front-line phone and desk people–with the caveat that if they couldn’t answer a question, or if someone got belligerent with them, they transferred the person to me. You would think this would only annoy callers, right? Wrong. When someone called with an unsolvable problem or the only answer was one they didn’t want (stuff not unlike “you’re at the wrong poll location” or “I’m sorry, but you’re not registered to vote”), and they got belligerent, they got transferred to me–and the EXACT SAME kind of call suddenly went differently. I was a supervisor. I was higher up. They’d been heard, and someone “more important” was listening to them. The result was often the same, but they accepted it from me when they wouldn’t from a front desk worker.

      Also, if people vent about practices or rules or regulations that seem unfair to them, don’t take it personally, and let it roll off your back. You can even show them some sympathy without it being a “political” statement. “The voter registration system is so hard! I hate using it!” *Sympathetic head nod* “I’ve been hearing that a lot/I can pass that along/That does sound difficult.” Arguing or even pointing out valid facts with this person is not helpful and will only make them more cranky. Showing they’ve been heard may end the conversation (they know that you, a lowly poll worker, is not going to magically change the process…usually.)

    23. N*

      I’ve been a pollworker for 4 years.
      This is what your captain/manager is for. They’re trained for this, and have the experience, are paid more to deal with these situations, and have contacts at the election office. Empathize with the voter (e.g. “this process is really frustrating, I’m sorry”), take them to your captain/manager, and move on to the next person.

      In 2022 my precinct had a poll watcher, someone appointed by a political party to watch the pollworkers all day to make sure they are doing everything correctly. I was really worried about having someone breathing down my neck all day, but it turned out she had no idea what she was looking at so it was just annoying to explain my work to someone all day, rather than threatening.
      (We also had someone who claimed to be a poll watcher but did not have their appointment paperwork. That person I just directed to the captain/manager.)

      1. wordswords*

        Agreed! I’ve been a pollworker for 4 years and, for most of that time, one of the higher ranking ones. (In my state, every polling place has someone in charge, someone under them who handles provisional ballots and paperwork and such, and then all the rest of the pollworkers. I’m in that #2 position.) The people who are in charge, in whatever set-up your area has — manager, mediator, whatever — are more experienced and more trained to be able to handle this. If you run into anything you’re not comfortable handling, whether it’s an issue above your paygrade or just somebody being upset/impatient/unpleasant, empathize with their frustration and pass them along to the senior person. “I’m so sorry this has been a frustrating experience. Let me bring you to my supervisor, and they can help you get it sorted out / help address your concerns / help figure out what we can do for you.”

    24. Garblesnark*

      Hi LW 5, I got a lot of help on this kind of thing from the book Say The Thing by Kami Orange. It looks thick but is a quick read, and has many great strategies for setting limits with others while coming across as a kind community member.

    25. darlingpants*

      I 100% understand why you’re nervous and want some tools, but I wanted to reassure you that I’ve been a poll worker since 2020 and have never gotten yelled at. Even if people are cranky about something, they do know it’s not *your* fault. The news stories are scary, but they make the news because they are unique, not because it’s definitely going to happen.

      I’ve also had some people complain to me about early voting, or not needing to show a picture ID, and my go to line is something like “we didn’t make the law, we just have to follow it.” If they don’t want to stop complying, I have added “that’s really up the Secretary of State, you can contact his office to let him know your thoughts.”

      2. ijustworkhere*

        I had a guy harassing me to look at his ID (we were an ID not required state) and I finally joked and said, “Please don’t make my kids see me on the evening news in handcuffs! Cause that’s what will happen if I take your ID! ”

        He blinked and then he burst out laughing and said, I guess you’re right. Issue handled.

        1. Yellow*

          In PA we’re allowed to look at ID’s if people offer them. We just can’t require them.

      3. iglwif*

        There can be power in being at the bottom of the command chain! “I just work here, feel free to write to the Secretary of State.”

    26. Raine*

      So many other commenters here have the same advice, but I’ll chime in to reinforce it! I’ve been working as a Judge of Elections in my county for 2+ years now, and before that I was a Clerk in an adjacent county, starting from 2020. It’s been interesting reading all the responses in here and seeing the different types of pollworker titles and such. :)

      -Working the polls is 100% like working in retail: it’s really just customer service. As long as they see that you’re working to solve the problem within the system, the customer is usually going to remain reasonable. That’s why passing up the chain works.
      -It also means you shouldn’t take the voters’ anger personally. They’re frustrated with the system, and that’s a legitimate concern to have! The key is to remember that you’re only capable of doing so much. If what they want is outside your ability, you pass it up to someone who can handle it further.
      -When it’s an issue with party affiliation or signature matching, I have a stack of voter registration forms handy to have them fill out that I turn in directly to the elections office at the end of the night. Our system also tells us if someone is registered at another location in the county, complete with address, so we can direct them to the right place. I hope you have these same resources available to you, because the best de-escalation is an actionable solution.
      -When voters grumble because things didn’t go their way…just let them grumble. You don’t have to defend the system! Just nod, express sympathy, and let them work it out on their own.

      Finally, thank you *so much* for being a pollworker. The profession truly needs younger blood – our county went digital with the pollbooks, and many of the older workers have trouble with the technology. I myself am in my 40’s and the youngest pollworker in the district, which I was assigned to because the position was vacant. I cross my fingers and hope for the day when there are more people interested in working the polls than positions available. <3

      1. OP #5*

        Thanks! I think you and others have with made good points about customer service skills and reassured me of how/when to pass people up the chain. We do have the resources to look people up so we can direct them to the right location or if they’re no longer registered (or maybe have never been registered), we can direct them to the location in town where there’s same day registration. Early voting will be held in the same place as same day registration but I do think it’s a potential pain point if someone has driven to polling place A, has to then drive to place B to fix their registration and then back to polling place A. But at the very least, I think we have a lot solutions to help eligible voters when they show up.

        We have a weird juxtaposition where our town (I don’t know if this is just local politics or typical of the state) has a very rigid structure in terms of assigning positions based on seniority but a lot of the older workers with seniority don’t want anything to do with early voting because of the implementation of a digital check-in (where the poll worker has to type in a name and print something out); one of the most experienced checkers had never used a computer professionally and walked out of the spring early voting training because of it. So the people who assign positions seem to be trying to balance not upsetting those with seniority because they want to retain them for at least election day (where their experience is kind of vital and the process hasn’t changed) and trying to bring in younger/newer pollworkers who are comfortable working both the early voting days and the actual election day itself.

    27. Sundance Kid*

      I’ve worked as a judge of elections (like the location administrator you mention) for the past few elections. Good on you, OP, for stepping up to work! It’s underappreciated and wildly important.

      It sounds like you have a competent person in charge of your voting location, which is HUGE. Never be afraid to rely on them. If any one of my poll workers is getting hassled, I pause whatever I’m doing to step in, and I’m glad to do it. Your person will probably feel the same way – they’re your de facto manager for the day, and they have a vested interest in making sure your “employee” experience is a good one so you come back. There is a shortage of poll workers!

      That said, you asked for tips for dealing with the public. When you have a low-grade angry person (really, less angry and more kind of irritated), give yourself a script for the situation. For anything even vaguely political (ie: a candidate or party), go with what you wrote here: “It’s really important we’re impartial as poll workers, so I’m not allowed to discuss politics at all. But I’m happy to answer any questions for you that I can about voting today. Would you like to [next step in their voting process] so that you get get your vote in today?” Try to keep a smile on your face if possible, but that’s harder as the day goes on.

      For anyone who’s anything beyond kind of irritated, if anyone actually yells or says anything remotely threatening, flag your person in charge IMMEDIATELY. Do not take it lightly. Threatening activities or those that impede others from voting are illegal, and do not be afraid to treat those things as such. You may have a sheriff’s deputy on site for unruly people. I often do not. In those cases, we’re told by the county staff that 911 is expecting our calls that day. Police are not allowed to be posted in a polling location, but they are definitely allowed to respond to calls for assistance, even if it’s simply escorting someone out of the building.

      I’ve heard conspiracy theorists (please sir, we’ve got a long line, can I get you to sign here so you can get your ballot?). I’ve had virulent antisemites (who was 10 seconds away from getting the cops called on him, but he took a warning and left).

      You got this, OP. Smile on your face, explain what you can’t talk about, and keep reminding them of the next step of the voting process to try to get them to move. And flag your administrator whenever needed, please! That’s literally why they are there.

    28. Caroline*

      My spouse works for a county auditor’s office and trains poll workers. His advice would be to ask your trainers for support role-playing some of the common questions and concerns, and don’t be shy about calling your county auditor’s office if you need help, that’s literally why they are there and they welcome the chance to support you.

    30. Bird Lady*

      I just started as a poll worker this June at the state-level primary. Most of the time folks got upset about being told they were at the wrong location due to some recent re-districting. I found that the new poll-pads allow you to text directions to any cellphone number. When I offered to send turn by turn directions, they really did become more thankful.

    31. Texan In Exile*

      Also, re the people waiting in long lines only to be told they’re in the wrong location.

      At the polling place where I volunteer, we have maps of the wards at the door and we have a greeter who verifies that the voters are in the proper location before they get in line.

    32. hi there*

      Not a poll worker, but in homeless services (so crisis response). Lots of great advice here already, so my two cents is simpler: Remember that angry people are feeling unheard.

      That may be the moderator/supervisor’s job to give them space for feeling heard, rather than the poll worker’s job – and that’s okay. You don’t have to be a hero, and you don’t have to endure disrespect or abuse in the name of letting them be heard. Techniques on “reflective listening” might be helpful for the worker who has to at least walk with the person to the moderator/supervisor. Basically, just paraphrase back in neutral language what the person is saying. It will help make the moderator’s job easier, and also limits the chances of a poll worker escalating a situation by trying to engage personally in the content.

    33. Freelance Librarian*

      I’ve been working as an Election Inspector since the 2020 elections, mostly to take the place of people like my father who I knew was bowing out, but also cos I’m nosy AF and love catching up with my neighbors. Since I’m in a suburb of a major city we have both sides and one is VERY angry quite often and yell at me about why I won’t take their license as proof of residency. Some of those people I’ve given up on and just know that they’re going to yell and nothing I say will make any difference.

      As others here have said, the key is separating yourself from everyone else in the polling place–disassociate from the voters (but in a “positive” way).

      If a voter comes in complaining about the process being rigged and they seem somewhat receptive, I’ll be excessively clear and calm with them about the process and explain each step as we go through it (especially going over how many checks and balances we have throughout the process). I know that at least a couple of voters who came in angry and talking about fraud have left my table feeling more confident in the process. If they’re not receptive, I just shut down emotion and go through the motions–making sure they know what to do and how, but not spending any extra energy on them.

      I’m usually my District Chair so I get to deal with the problem people and when they won’t listen to me (sometimes cos I’m a young-presenting middle-aged woman), I have my buddy in the polling location (another District Chair), an older white dude from the opposite political party who I have to back me up. Most other workers find him to be tedious, and I did in our first few times working together, but he and I have a great rapport and he backs me up every time. Find a veteran inspector in your location that you can go to for backup and advice–that’s key for me.

      Good luck and thank you for joining the ranks!

    34. NekoMich*

      Editing when I went back to reread: As you said, you have a moderator for your location, the person in charge for the day. I call my poll workers and confirm that they will be there on the Monday before and address any concerns they might have. Talk with your moderator then about how she will want to handle any issues you are worried about.

      “I’m sorry you’re upset, let me get you to *moderator*” and start walking to the moderator as you talk generally works best.

      My experienced poll book ladies are comfortable enough to explain why they may need to go to a different location, so they handle that, but my setup is by the check in table so I can quickly intervene if I need to. If there’s an issue I’m not aware of they just holler “Chief!” (as I am considered the Chief Election Officer) and I go and deal with it right away and pull them away from my poll workers and other voters. I also have the “bat” phone and if the person is really problematic I call the election office and they can handle it (I’ve only had that happen once)

      Thank you for volunteering! I got made an Assistant on my second election, to a first time Chief, so we learned together (thankfully a slower election). Use the summer election to ask your moderator lots of questions! What has she had to deal with, and how did she handle it?

      ——- Leaving my original reply
      As someone who is now the Chief Officer at their polling place, how is the work structured? I don’t want to assume you have the same setup of a Chief and Asst Chief that handle the complaints and are expected to interfere directly if there are problems. Our training doesn’t go a lot into de-escalation and redirection. I use a lot of what I’ve learned from working retail and make it a point to let them know I’m listening, I understand the concerns, explain as clearly as possible what the process they’re arguing about is and why it is the way it is. I’ve only had to deal with a handful of these, and only one actually required a call to the registrars office for them to continue to de-escalate, none have required the election board with police to show up (the election board are all with a police officer during the election in case it’s needed)

      1. OP #5*

        I definitely plan on talking to the moderator during the summer election and given everyone’s advice here, I’ll be able to ask more specific questions. I’ve seen a few people suggest the “walk the person to another location” technique which makes a lot of sense.

        In terms of how it is structured in this state, individual towns are responsible for setting up elections to the specifications of the state requirements and moderators are assigned to each polling location; the moderator applies at a state level and takes a much more formal course with a test and they have to renew their qualifications every few years. Once the election starts, the moderator is in charge of administering a location but before that the town is in charge. For everything under that (selecting all the other pollworkers, training, assigning their work locations, etc.), it seems to be up to each town although the moderators in our town seem to have some influence in getting who they want assigned to their location. The moderator and their assistants provide break coverage for all the other positions and deal with any issues that occur.

        Each moderator is assigned two assistants (legally, they have to belong to different political parties) and the assistants are formally there to sign off that procedures administered by the moderator have occurred correctly (like shutting off the tabulator after the polls have closed requires the assistants to watch the moderator press the buttons & then all 3 sign something to confirm the procedure was followed). But mostly, the assistants are there as the step in-between the various other pollworkers and the moderator on the escalation chain; so they’re expected to help provide solutions (such as finding someone’s correct voting location and directing them there) that don’t need to be escalated to the moderator.

    35. WestsideStory*

      I’ve been a poll worker for over 30 years – in New York City and yes I certainly have concerns that things might get overly aggressive at the polls this year.
      A lot of it will be crowd control, and your Moderator will probably assign some poll workers just to handle the lines. Part of the problem, of course, is you get the folks who only turn out every four years and then get upset because the lines are out the door. Or we can’t find their name in the registry because they moved and actually their polling place is another precinct – which of course we can find for you if you stop raging at us.
      Our NYC trainings deal with irate citizens as a matter of course. All polling sites have one or two Coordinators (Moderators) and any issue that needs escalation we either call over a Coordinator or walk them over to a Coordinator. Generally they are tough cookies and most antagonists back down after a stern conversation.
      In NYC each polling site also has two police officers (at minimum) and more than once we have had to A) mention to a patron that if they don’t behave we will bring the cop over or B)actually have police officers escort them out of the building.
      The problem with “talking out” the issue with the patron is that you literally don’t have the time for a long conversation as the line for registrants gets longer and longer. Which makes the waiting voters madder and madder so that by the time they get to the desk steam is coming out of their ears as well.
      Never allow anyone to get angry with YOU. Remember it’s not about you, it’s situational, so your focus needs to be resolving the situation while being professional at all times. Save your b*tching for after hours, don’t waste energy on people just looking for a fight.
      The most common issues we see:
      1. Can’t find the name in the registry. Make sure you go over ALL the steps you got in training, try finding alternate spellings, or go by address – if someone’s moved, or (in the case of a primary) is not registered with a party, they will be hard to find – send them over to the Info Desk if you polling site has one (ours generally have at least two foreign language interpreters) or refer to Coordinator.
      2. Insisting on voting at your site even if they are not registered but claiming they are. Refer to Coordinator; typically they are given an Affidavit Ballot to fill out, which is vetted at the Election Board before counted.
      3. Aggressive “poll watchers.” In our state, news media must check in with the Coordinator at a polling place and show credentials, and they are not allowed to go into polling booths or interact with voters inside the building. Party-affiliated poll watchers must also sign in with the Coordinator, must not engage with voters, and when they start crowding around when we are calling the canvas we often have to physically block them with our bodies to do our work or even call over a police officer to keep order.
      4. Blatant electioneering – leaving pamphlets in the voting booth, loudly proclaiming their candidate choice on line, accusing polling staff of partisanship. First they get a polite reminder that this is not allowed; the more fractious are referred to the police officer on site. I should say sometimes even poll workers do this – showing up with a hat or T-shirt – last year a worker who started with conspiracy talk had to be escorted out by the cops.
      Notably, you want to keep your patience for the voters who do need extra help – either because of a disability or language issue.
      My other advice is to bring coffee/tea in a thermos and a lot of energy snacks/power bars and take all your breaks. It can be a long day and you do need stamina. If there is any slow time, review the Manual for special situations to be prepared.
      Finally, be proud to serve your country and your community in this way. Be kind especially to first-time voters. Last few times we have had a lot of young people and some had some silly questions which we answered very sincerely. In the primaries, as the lines werent’ often long, we would make a big deal out of first time voters “Hey, First Time Voter here!” round of applause etc. Some of our older first-time voters were folks who only recently got citizenship, it is not unusual to see someone crying when they get to vote for the first time. Helping them is an honor.

      Anytime anyone has an issue we can’t resolve

    36. Susan L*

      Poll worker since 2020. Lots of great advice from everyone! I’m one of the leads so I keep an eye out for upset voters and am happy to take them on. One technique I use is to put myself on the same ‘team’ as the complainer. My go to is some version of “I’m so glad you are passionate about voting like me/all our poll workers!”. I then listen, take their issue seriously, and follow through. I can often answer their question about the process and will do so in more detail than they want. I channel my most enthusiastic and nerdy self about voting. If you don’t know, escalate! Our county supplies fliers on common topics, including who to call for more info. Good luck and I hope you enjoy it enough to continue.

    38. commensally*

      Poll worker + library worker who sees a lot of similar issues (and actually got de-escalation training at the library) here!

      As many people above have said, the #1 key is that angry people want to be listened too. If someone is ranting at you, just let them talk and give lots of “mm-hmms” and “oh-no”s until they have worked off some steam – even if you have a solution to their complaint, letting them complain it out will fix it better than actually fixing it, a lot of the time. Don’t take anything personally, and sympathize as much as you can. Even if you have to tell them no to an unreasonable demand, couch it as agreeing with them about the problem and working with them as best you can to get them what they need.

      A couple extremely useful tips for when that doesn’t work on its own:

      If you’ve already gotten enough on their bad side that they consider you part of the problem now (this can happen very easily and without you ever making a mistake), pass them on to somebody else. Up the chain is good (whiter/maler/older or more similar demographic to customer can also help), but the closest other person is good enough. The other person can do exactly what you did, but something about being passed to a new person often deescalates the situation considerably all by itself, either by making the customer feel important or making them see themself from the outside for a moment, or both.

      Also, sometimes you get someone who really wants you to verbally agree about a political position you can’t agree with while on the job (regardless of how you feel personally, either way) and the response there is to very regretfully say “I’m not allowed to express political opinions on the job, can’t appear biased, you know,” in a way that implies you would agree with them if you could, and then go back to nods and mm-hmms.

      If someone will not de-escalate, which happens sometimes, the first step beyond that is to outnumber them. I don’t know how much chance you’ll have to co-ordinate with other workers but it’s a good idea if you can to check in with someone working nearby to establish that you will back them up if needed. That can entail just coming over and standing a few feet away, or politely interrupting you with a fake work question (this can also be a way to help with transferring to a new person.)

      Most of the time, people who are just upset about the services they are trying to use will de-escalate with those. You do occasionally get people where the underlying problem is different and at least in the library they tend to be divisible into three broad groups:
      –this person came in determined to cause a disruption regardless of what you do
      –the conflict is between to customers, not between customer and staff
      –this person is having a psychological crisis unrelated to your services and just happens to be having it here

      The third one is probably less likely to happen at a polling place than a library, so I’ll skip over that, but the same de-escalation usually helps up until the point you have to call the paramedics.

      The second one: the key here I learned in training is that two people having a fight in a public place are generally posturing, and want an excuse to back down, so your job is to provide one. Ideally you get two members of staff and they each pick one of the people and “take their side” by doing the listening-to-you thing, and while doing that, maneuver them physically apart from each other until you can get one or both to agree to leave the premises temporarily.

      The first one is the toughest and it’s really hard to predict what they will do, and often if they can’t provoke you they will succeed in provoking other members of the public and turn it into a category 2, but the general strategy of stonewall them with polite sympathy and try to get them to leave the building is the same.

      And finally: Be ready to call the police. A lot of people hesitate to do that (for good reason, because the police aren’t always trustworthy) but if someone is threatening violence, actually being violent, or preventing other people from voting, tell them in very firm words that you are calling the police, and then do so. 90% of the time they will bluster at you to go ahead and do it, the police will agree with them, at which point you agree with *them* and ask them to please wait for the police to arrive, and then they find an excuse to leave before the police get there (which is the ideal solution, they’re gone and the police don’t do anything.)

    39. TheNinthBear*

      I work as a public librarian so I’ve had a lot of deescalation training. I’ve also helped out as a poll worker in the past, hopefully some of these tips will resonate with you!

      – When you’re having a difficult interaction, intentionally respond to people with the tone and body language you would use if you were having a normal, reasonable conversation. Given that you’re working at the polls I assume you care about people feeling heard and knowing that the process works. Listen to what people are saying and respond like you would to anyone with good faith questions or concerns. Often people have real concerns buried under the yelling, and adressing them with a sincere desire to help cuts through a lot of the anger. Other people are just looking for a reaction, and responding to them in good faith cuts through that too.

      – Remember that you’re very safe. A lot of people have the (very reasonable) fear that they will be in physical danger if an altercation happens. Fortunately, the vast majority of people are not dangerous. They might be rude, disconcerting, aberrant, whatever – but they’re not actually dangerous. It is much easier easier to stay calm in situations once you internalize the fact that very very few people want to get physical. DO NOT ignore instincts telling you there’s an iminent threat – if you think someone is going to throw a punch, get out of the way. DO remember that most people just want to feel heard. Being yelled at sucks hard, but you will survive it.

      – If someone yells at you or you have an otherwise difficult interaction, take a few minutes to yourself if at all possible. I know polling locations can get pretty hectic, but if there’s any way you can slip into the bathroom for 5 minutes, do it. Feel what you’re feeling, be upset and angry, recognize that what you have just dealt with was unfair and unreasonable. If you have a trusted friend text them about what happened (without any identifying information, obviously. Privacy matters, even for dipshits.) Give yourself a minute to let the adrenaline in your system pass. You’ll be way more effective if you are able to get back to your baseline rather than trying to work from an elevated emotional state all day.

    40. RagingADHD*

      I’m glad so many experienced poll workers and judges are weighing in, but I also notice there’s a lot of advice related to retail customer service or things like mental health counseling here, which is partially helpful but not really the same thing. I’m seeing a general tenor in those type of comments that seem to assume a frustrated voter is always being unreasonable.

      Given the fact that a number of US states are purging voter rolls of legitimate registered voters for arbitrary reasons, as well as pulling dirty tricks like closing polling stations in majority-minority districts to create excessive wait times, banning volunteers from offering water to waiting voters, etc, I don’t think that’s a fair assumption.

      I really hope any newer poll workers reading this avoid that error, take voter issues seriously, follow their training, and ask their onsite leaders for advice, rather than assuming that anyone who is upset at the polls must just be a troublemaker who needs a pat on the head and a brushoff.

      These aren’t grumpy shoppers trying to use an expired coupon. There are people being actively disenfranchised by the system, and they aren’t necessarily being unreasonable if they get upset about it.

      1. commensally*

        You’ve got a valid point, but unfortunately it isn’t really relevant to on-the-day de-escalation techniques. As an election judge your job is to carry out the procedures that are in place, and the in-the-moment de-escalation strategies are the same whether somebody’s concerns are valid or not. The point isn’t to give someone a pat on the head and a brushoff, the point is to help an upset person calm down enough that they are willing to let you walk them through the procedures that are in place for someone with a real problem and do the best you can to help them. (In fact, the strategies tend to work better if you can make yourself truly believe, at least in the moment, that *every* upset customer has valid concerns; if it made someone that upset it’s a valid concern. But the strategies are the same whether you secretly agree or not, and making them more upset does not help solve the the problem.)

        If you truly believe that the voting system in your area is so broken that helping customers carry out the established procedures won’t help them, then you should be one of the people pushing for changes before voting starts, and/or one of the people outside trying to cause deliberate disruption, not an election judge. (How to work around unjust rules and procedures as a judge without invalidating anything is a whole different topic and is going to vary wildly by site.)

    42. Aly4556*

      I worked in dental so you can just imagine. I find telling them “I hear you, and I understand.. repeat what is upsetting them… and I would feel the same way.” When they are still kind of rational works wonders. “I would like to help you. Here is what I can do, and this is what my direct manager can do. I know it doesn’t solve everything, but would something I listed make it easier for you?”

      It’s hard to yell at someone who is genuinely helpful and trying. You feel bad. So often they get quieter and tend to try to work with you or leave.

  2. Nia*

    2. If my boss and their boss repeatedly instructed me to do something and I continually ignored their instructions there would be consequences for me. The onus would not be on them to change their behavior to accommodate me. Especially when the thing they’re telling me to do is extremely simple.

    1. Hohumdrum*

      That’s not really reasonable for the work LW2 described though. If you’re doing active work on a busy floor and helping customers you usually get dinged if you *are* using a computer or phone during work time. Or if other chores are left undone while you’re on the computer. It’s an active, busy workplace where lots of people, employees and customers, are coming and going. It’s not a “start your morning with a cup of coffee at your desk and skim emails” place. If your work is asking something of you that just doesn’t really fit for the kind of work you do, maybe they should reconsider the best way to handle that.

      Alison’s suggestion is best. When I worked retail, food service, help desk, etc I never bothered with my work email because 90% of the emails weren’t for me/required nothing of me and my work time was utterly consumed by other tasks. Boss used a notice board for important stuff and that did the trick. The binder sounds even better.

      1. Nia*

        LW says they’re on computers. LW says they have work email addresses. It is not unreasonable to require people to check their work email addresses.

        There is functionally no difference between LW telling them to check a binder every morning or check their email every morning. If they’re capable of doing one they are capable of doing the other. LW is the manager she should not have to do extra work because her employees are incapable of following simple instructions.

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          That’s one way to look at it. As the manager, the LW has the authority to say “you must do this.” But when an entire group is failing to use a system, it makes sense to look at whether the system is the problem, and whether there are better ways to accomplish the same thing. People are generally better managers when they bring some nuance to their exercise of authority, rather than just trying to enforce their will on people.

          There are times when you will need to require process X be followed. But often, what you need is outcome X. In this case, the outcome she needs is “the notices are read.” A good manager will consider whether there’s more than one way to achieve that.

          1. Nia*

            If this were some complex task that everyone was trying and failing at I’d agree. But checking email is extremely simple and LW doesn’t even say they try checking it for awhile before falling off. If they can’t be bothered to try a super simple thing for even a week the fault is with them.

              1. Sam*

                My company would have fired them long ago. Checking your email daily is a requirement and if you are not meeting that requirement then goodbye.

                1. hohumdrum*

                  If someone who works on the floor doing shift work, and deals with the many demands of customers warmly and effectively, shows up on time for all their shifts, isn’t causing drama and fights between other teammates, and is generally a reliable and steady worker at what constitutes the vast majority of their job tasks, you’d be an absolute moron to fire them for not checking email enough. Especially when it’s your entire team.

                  Do you know how much time and money it takes to retrain people? Do you know how long it takes someone, even a quick learner, to internalize enough company knowledge to not have to refer back to a manger for any customer question that is slightly left field? And especially do you know how hard it is to find people willing to work with the random odd hours shift work entails and also have the personality to keep customers happy and effectively do their job?

                  Absolutely stupid to fire an entire crew of people whose performance you’re otherwise pleased with because of this one small thing. So out of step with the realities of front facing shift work it’s mind boggling.

                2. Hannah Lee*

                  Okay.

                  And then you would hire new people (if you could) and likely have the same problem with them unless you change the work environment, nature of the jobs so using email is a more natural, routine part of the work day.

                3. Observer*

                  My company would have fired them long ago.

                  All of them? This is a real issue – when you see an entire group acting in a certain way, it’s really important to think about why that is happening.

                  Checking your email daily is a requirement and if you are not meeting that requirement then goodbye.

                  Which is fine. But if the only thing that ever shows up in email is the occasional announcement from management, there are many environments where skipping that “requirement” makes a lot of sense.

                4. Statler von Waldorf*

                  There are jobs where that is reasonable. If I didn’t reply to email at my current job in an office, I’d get fired and reasonably so.

                  If we fired all our blue-collar workers in the field for not regularly reading email, our business would go under. It’s hard enough to get oilfield workers who are sober and show up on time regularly. Firing them for not checking emails, when email has almost nothing to do with their job duties, would be an incredible poor idea.

                  The commenting community here unsurprisingly has a very white-collar bias. Thinking it’s reasonable to fire people for not reading email is a very clear example of this.

                5. Irish Teacher.*

                  It’s not really practical for most companies to fire their entire staff. And it would look terrible if it got out. Who would apply to a company that had just fired most of its staff. The assumption would be either that the company was in the verge of bankruptcy or was completely impossible to work for.

                6. LW2*

                  Whoa, that sounds like an intense workplace. I’m suddenly grateful that email is the biggest problem I’m having lately!

              2. Dawn*

                Enforce consequences for not completing a necessary task, that seems rather obviously implied here…

                1. Lenora Rose*

                  That’s rather vague. Be specific. What consequences? How necessary is the task, and what other tasks have to slide if it’s done?

            2. Arrietty*

              It’s quite feasible that they’re too busy for an entire shift to go and log into a computer and check email. Are you suggesting they should do unpaid overtime to check email at home?

              1. Fluffy bnuy*

                They work at computers. You can just turn on Outlook or even your company’s webmail while doing the rest of your start-up and check e-mails then.

                Most even have notification settings so you can even see/hear when a new e-mail comes in (depending on what you prefer) even when the app/site is in the background.

                1. Yellow rainbow*

                  Not if the computers are shared or ever visible to customers.

                  I’m imagining staff selling phones or similar. There’s all these computers on the floor with no privacy around them. Different staff might use the same computer and multiple staff can unlock them to do stuff.

                  In that case leaving a personally logged in email is not a good idea. So you need enough time between customers, with nothing more pressing to do, to go through the log in process – which you immediately kill if a customer comes in.

                  Telling staff to read email clearly isn’t working for any staff. Sacking all of them and finding new staff might work – but that’s a lot of expense when you can just add a notice board in a tea room. Or buy a binder.

                  I actually wish we used physical notice boards for a lot of stuff. We’re get too many emails, and some things would be better consumed as notices on a board.

                2. br_612*

                  Not necessarily . . . When I worked membership services at the YMCA (signing people up for memberships and all the sports and camps and lessons and whatnot), not that long ago, they still had a DOS based system for the actual work. Based on what I can see on the screens, some auto repair places are the same. Since the system we needed for work was DOS, while the computers technically had Windows loaded it was JUST Windows. No office products. We’d have to exit the work system and open a browser to check email. And notifications would not come through over the DOS system.

                  They did our notifications in a little binder too. It worked. If these employees are otherwise good at their jobs, there is no reason to not just do a binder instead of insisting on a method that isn’t working just to insist on it.

                3. CowWhisperer*

                  At my most recent retail job I was on a computer most of the day to run paint mixing equipment and fix customer orders.

                  The computers were not set up for email. We used – you guessed it – info binders. It worked just fine.

                1. sparkle emoji*

                  It’s always possible the employees have some reason why checking an email is more challenging than it would seem to a manager observing. If none of the employees are doing checking email regularly, I’d prefer to assume good faith and operate as if there’s a reason and not that the whole group is just choosing to willfully disobey instructions. It sounds like there’s not much use for their work email besides these announcement emails, I can see myself forgetting to log in to a work email and check if I only ever needed to check for occasional announcements. An announcement binder is easy to set up, LW can see how it works and proceed from there.

                2. Sheesh*

                  I think this is just a situation where you can choose to die on the hill or you can adjust to get the required outcome. Why are you so wed to enforcing a process that is clearly broken? Ego?
                  The email reading is not an issue of safety or compliance- it’s a tool (to communicate expectations) and it’s clearly not a tool thats achieving the desired outcome (all staff is in the same page).
                  Do you want to be right or do you want to solve the problem???

              3. Nocturna*

                The LW specifically stated that they’re at workstations with computers, and implied that they are on the computers as part of the customer service parts of their job. The LW also stated that they normally have downtime during their shifts.

                While I agree with Alison that the widespread nature of the problem does mean that it’s probably a good idea to try to find a different approach, we should take the LW at their word that this is not the sort of job where the workers might not be able to easily access computers during their shift.

              4. Apex Mountain*

                Are you suggesting they bill the employer for the 45 seconds it takes to login, open, and read the email?

                1. AmyKat*

                  Why shouldn’t people get paid for their time? If you work a job like I do, where you have to be on the floor at the start of your shift, you shouldn’t have to come in early on your own time to read emails. When it became clear at my workplace that people weren’t checking their emails regularly, we all got five minutes added to our morning breaks so that we could have full coverage and also time to read and respond to emails.

                2. Apex Mountain*

                  People should get paid for their time of course. What would you do though, submit an invoice for 1/60th of your hourly rate for checking emails?

                  If you call in sick before your shift starts does that time on the phone count also?

                  If I’m the manager who answers your call or email and my shift hasn’t started, am I charging for that time also if I’m hourly?

                  I don’t mean to sound snarky I’m genuinely curious as I havent’ been at an hourly job in many years

                3. AmyKat*

                  Well, as I said, we now get five minutes a day as scheduled time to check emails. Admittedly that doesn’t allow us time to respond to any emails that require a response, so we have to use our limited office time for that. I work in child care, so we have to have steady coverage and sometimes you just can’t get away for office time. It’s also a job where it’s easy to find yourself working off the clock, staying late to organize or doing prep at home. It’s part of the culture of child care and teaching that we are trying to change, so we more often push back on all the little ways our unpaid work time creeps in.

                4. Apex Mountain*

                  Yes the five minutes sounds like at least an acknowledgement that you need the extra time AND that they don’t want you to have to do it off the clock.

                  Having two kids myself, ime child care workers are shamefully underpaid and overworked so you deserve whatever you can get in both money and time.

              5. Nancy*

                They can check their work email when they are at their work computer during downtime, as LW said. LW should tell them to that checking emails is part of their job and they must do it, not ask them to do it.

                Or ask them what method they prefer. I’d be really annoyed if I was told I had to go check some paper binder and initial it.

                1. Hohumdrum*

                  It’s not uncommon in shift work to have a standard list of opening and closing chores that you initial off that you’ve done though, which is why I thought the binder idea was a great solution. Because you have so many people coming and going with odd shift hours, you do kind of need a paper tracking sheet to ensure nothing essential is ignored.

            3. Roland*

              Again, like Alison says, the goal is the outcome – notices are read. It literally doesn’t matter how right you are if your outcome is being reached. “Should” and “could” is all very well and good but that doesn’t actually help the LW.

            4. Ellis Bell*

              Complexity isn’t the only barrier and unlikely to be the barrier in this case. It’s a fair point to consider if you’re the worker “this isn’t complex, so why I am failing to do it?” But it’s lazy and glib if you’re the manager: “It isn’t complicated, so I can’t be bothered thinking about what the actual barrier is”.

            5. Smooth Criminal*

              You can certainly choose to wave your authority around like a big stick and make it all about you being the big cheese, if that’s the sort of person you choose to be. No one is stopping you.

              Or you could, you know, try actually managing and solve the real problem.

              Good managers know how to use their authority appropriately, as and when needed. Weak managers always need to wield it in defence because they can’t lead.

              1. Lady Danbury*

                I have a family member who is a family therapist, who advises clients to use the approach or “You can be right, I can be right or we can both be happy.” Focusing on who is right can be counterproductive to finding a solution, both in personal relationships and as a manager. Imo, the fact that not one person seems to be retaining the information from the emails suggests that there is a problem with the system, not the individuals (unless there are some wider team issues, which LW doesn’t state). Just because someone has time to read an email doesn’t mean that they have time to process it and retain the information, which may be what’s happening here. Quickly reading something between dealing with customers (which can take a ton of mental energy) doesn’t exactly promote good comprehension and retention.

                1. Irish Teacher.*

                  Yeah, I always think of that as “do you want to be right or do you want to solve the issue?” Sure, firing everybody would prove to them that the boss is in charge and they were in the wrong by not doing this, but…it would make the situation much worse as they now need to completely restaff, figure out a way to manage the company until they do so, probably take a hit to their reputation, have to train a whole load of new staff and manage for a while with untrained staff and still no guarantee the issue will be resolved as the new staff may do the same.

                  Yeah, maybe the boss is right but that doesn’t solve the problem.

            6. Peanut Hamper*

              This is definitely a case of “pick your battle”. I’m not so sure I would want to die on this hill, and I can’t figure out why you are encouraging LW to do precisely that.

              1. sparkle emoji*

                Yeah, LW could choose to fight this windmill but do they want to? This sounds like a job with some retail-esque features and coverage needs. This expectation to be checking email every day would be out of sync with the jobs I’ve had matching that description. The binder is much closer to how these announcements were handled IME. Maybe there really is a reason email makes sense for LW’s team, but it’s worth evaluating if that’s true instead if just assuming it is.

            7. ecnaseener*

              As a general rule, when zero out of a dozen people are following the system, there is a problem with the system. You can dig your heels in and say “no, all twelve of the employees are just wrong in the same way,” but it’s a better idea to remove the friction from the system.

              2. AngryOctopus*

                This. If none of your staff is doing a task in the way you want them to, you have to consider that the way you’re going about it is a way that doesn’t work for the staff.

              1. Nia*

                My solution would be to put up a job posting and start hiring people who aren’t too lazy or incompetent to check their email.

                1. nnn*

                  You’d be a terrible manager if you fired an entire team of otherwise good employees, especially in this job market where retail is struggling to hire.

                  Lots of people telling on themselves today.

                2. Nia*

                  They aren’t good employees. Good employees would not refuse to do a simple thing after being told to multiple times by their manager and their manager’s manager.

                3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

                  And then you wonder why you have such high turnover and can’t get so called good employees anymore.

                  Firing everyone is not the solution to a fixable problem. Good managers try to problem solve before moving to firing. Just do it my way is the way to get employees who aren’t really good at anything but behaving like little automatons.

                4. Nodramalama*

                  Sorry what. Your solution would be to mass fire heaps of people? And when the same issue happens you’ll just keep firing people?

            9. Deborah Vance, Vance Refrigeration*

              I think it really depends whether the set-up is more like a store, with everyone standing and sharing computers, or more like a sitting down customer service station with individual computers. If it’s the latter, then I agree that OP should try to enforce the e-mail use.
              But I definitely agree with your overall point: if the employees are supposed to do it (regardless of it being an e-mail or a binder), they don’t get to just not do it.

            10. nnn*

              Your comments are a good illustration of the difference between being a manager and being a good manager…

            11. Molehills*

              This does not seem like a hill worth getting a paper cut over, let alone dying for. The outcome is key, not the specific process, and the current process is not working. If sticking the notices in a binder they check as they sign in for their shift works, that’s a better process than insisting on email or else.

              1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

                I love the line this is not worth getting a paper cut over.
                Like there is a simpler solution than fire them all and start over. Try the binder first. Make it clear it must be checked. Then if it is still a problem, consider further steps up to and including firing. But to say well what I want is not working so fire them all is not good management.

            12. Observer*

              . But checking email is extremely simple and LW doesn’t even say they try checking it for awhile before falling off.

              It’s simple but that doesn’t make it reasonable from a workflow perspective. And when a whole group is failing it makes sense to take a step back and think about whether a different way of doing things makes sense.

              That’s the key thing. Sure, you could say that the *whole group* is a problem, but if the place is functioning otherwise, that’s not the most realistic place to start.

          2. SatsumaWolf*

            The thing is, the outcome the OP desires is not that “the notices are read”, it’s that changes are not being made to tasks and processes as pwr their example. So changing the methid if communication may not work here either – people could sign paper in a binder and still not make the change. Perhaps they even ARE reading their email! inwould be digging into WHY chnages arent being made. Do people forget? Are instructions not clear? Is a process broken? Does everything think it’s not for them to do? Ask your employees as you see them what’s up and you’ll likely get some useful input.

            1. Observer*

              So changing the methid if communication may not work here either – people could sign paper in a binder and still not make the change

              That’s true. But in this case that seems to be a widespread problem as well. Which again goes back to the question of WHY is this happening.

              Step one is making sure that people are actually seeing the notice. Once the LW has that down, they can focus on why thing are not being implemented.

              In a way, this issue makes it all the more important for the LW not to focus on email vs paper. What they really need to do is figure out why stuff doesn’t get done. And one reasonable way to start that process is to check the typical bottle-necks, starting with making sure that everyone “gets the memo”. Literally, in this case.

              1. Agent Diane*

                Also, the initialing provides an audit trail. If all 12 staff initial to say they’ve read and understood, but only 11 of them change what they are doing, you can have a performance conversation with that one person. Fire them, keep the rest.

                However, OP doesn’t need everyone to follow the change note. They just need enough to do it that the rest catch on. That allows the people who learn by seeing, not reading, to pick up the change.

          3. I'm A Little Teapot*

            This. And I’m the auditor. Set people up for success, you will always get better results. If they’re not regularly checking email, they’re unlikely to start doing so.

            1. Hannah Lee*

              Yes!

              And IME, if you get a manager who focuses on an interim step instead of the end outcome (ie in this case, focusing on “Must Check Email” part instead of “Read Daily Instructions and Follow Them” part) you can find yourself with compliance on that interim step at the expense of other, more essential to the success of the department, things.

        2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          Back when I was in college, there was a prod who said, after a particularly brutal midterm, “If one or two of you (this was an upper level class with about 15 students) do poorly, that’s on you. If most of you do, that’s on me.” He adjusted grades and went over the problematic material again.

          Yes, he would have been within his rights to say “you should have known this”. But it was better all around to admit being imperfect and adjust the process.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            I had the converse of this in college, the prof who would come in and say, “Well, you all bombed the test yesterday.” My thought, that I never voiced out loud, was always, “Well, who’s fault is that??” (His, obv.)

          2. Cascadia*

            Yes! I am a teacher and it’s the exact same way. If one or two students fail a test, that’s on them. If most/all of the students fail a test then I either 1) wrote a poor test or 2) Didn’t adequately teach them the material or 3) both. If everyone fails the test then there’s a problem with the test or the teacher – not the student!

        3. Hohumdrum*

          Being on a computer to help a customer isn’t the same as being on to read emails though, we would get the complaints for being on our iPads looking down instead of being up and making eye contact to greet new customers. It was hard to read and take in info while glancing up every 20 seconds to smile and make eye contact with anyone roaming the store. Our managers also thought we had more free time than we did, but working with customers is exhausting and endless, and when you have tons of people punching in and out at random times there’s always some kind of chore or task left undone that needs attention, and email will just always feel like a really low priority in the face of all the direct, IRL need in front of you. When I say it’s not like a desk job where you can start your morning with a chill email catch up I didn’t mean they didn’t have access to computers, I meant the pace and expectations. My desk job now, despite being considered more “skilled” is 100x less exhausting and grueling than my front facing shift work experiences. My brain actually has energy and time to crunch through 50 emails to find the 2 pertinent to me ones.

          And I’m not arguing this because I think it’s unreasonable for any shift work job to ask you to check emails, but if literally none of them are then yeah, sounds like the problem is with expecting the emails to get read. If LW had said only one person wasn’t doing it I would have said nothing about my experiences with this work, because then obviously there is no disconnect with how the workplace communicates, just one person not getting it. But if it’s your whole team not doing it then yeah, you need to reassess your expectations and make a different plan. LW seems like a great manger to look for another way. Mangers who dig in and are dogmatic about being obeyed, like a nun in a 50s catholic school, are actually not good managers.

          Also, fwiw, email *is* different than the binder. People really don’t read and retain info from a screen the way they do from an IRL source. Making it physical and making them initial has a way of making it sink in more than skimming through on a screen. It also helps highlight what’s actually important if part of the issue is LW’s messages are lost in the shuffle of a lot of stuff that doesn’t apply to LW’s team. In my workplace (a desk job) my boss has said 1,000 times people just don’t all pay attention to emails so when we need to know something she posts a notice and everyone tends to take stock. It’s just human nature. Again, if it was one employee I wouldn’t make this argument, but when it’s everyone then I’m sorry, yes, maybe the email just doesn’t work for this team. What’s more important, obedience or clear communication?

          1. Cascadia*

            Yes! As someone who used to work a customer service facing job with a computer station I feel this so much. You’re just so much more ‘on’, especially if you are doing your job well. The other thing they didn’t mention is – how much email are these people getting, and how many emails are relevant to them? If 100% of the email is important notices from their manager, then that’s pretty easy to deal with. But if their workplace is anything like mine, where there are SO MANY EMAILS, of varying levels of importance, many sent to ‘all employees’ with a lot of not-so-important information, then it can be hard to expect employees to wade through all the nonsense emails to get to the few relevant ones, pertain that information, and act on it.

      2. Snow Globe*

        What I noticed is that the OP’s instructions seem to be phrased as requests – “can you please read your email”. It is possible that the employees don’t realize it isn’t a request, it is a necessary part of the job.

        If they are told that this is a necessary part of the job, and no one is able to do it, then trying to figure out a different process makes sense. But I’m not sure that the problem isn’t more in how this is communicated – do people know this is an expectation of the job, or do they think it is optional?

        1. metadata minion*

          It seems very unlikely that all 12 people are misunderstanding a very common idiom for a polite command, unless they’re coming from a different cultural/language background from the LW.

          1. Dawn*

            I don’t know, I’ve been in those environments before, where management is collectively afraid to manage because it might hurt someone’s feelings.

          2. Statler von Waldorf*

            I disagree. I’ve met too many managers who have trouble exercising authority. I’ve also read way too many letters here about managers who are too soft in their delivery asking for advice on how to solve their issues.

            In this specific case, I think it’s more likely than not that the manager was too soft in their communications. If 12 people didn’t think it was a command instead of a request, the problem is more likely with the person making the command. What’s more likely? One person being too soft on their delivery or 12 people being oblivious?

        2. anotherfan*

          One of my thoughts is that the manager believes ‘everybody has down time to read emails, so why aren’t they?’ is that the manager’s definition of ‘down time’ might not be realistic. Like, is the five minutes between coming back from lunch to being on call considered ‘down time’? is ‘if you have time to lean, you have time to clean’ considered downtime? The five minutes between calls/customers considered down time?

      3. Frank*

        In LW2’s example, they asked everyone to put out X in the morning, and bring it back in the evening.

        I wonder if LW2’s emails describe things that someone needs to do, and it doesn’t really matter who. Unfortunately, in many workplaces it’s unwise to be that someone, if everyone else is focusing on their own work.

        I waited tables at Pizza Hut back in the day, and the phones would constantly go unanswered for precisely this reason.

        1. Dawnshadow*

          This is a very good point. After reading your comment I agree, based on my retail jobs, this is probably what is happening.

          It would be a good idea to assign this task appropriately to one particular person (and for better luck, remove a task from this person’s list so it’s at least a wash.) It’s like tragedy of the commons, if somebody should do it, no one will. Everyone assumes someone else will handle it, or if it’s a lot of trouble, they can at least claim plausible deniability even if they all knew privately it wouldn’t get done.

        2. Lily Rowan*

          That’s a great point — even if they get the message, “someone should do this” is tough, because each person can reasonably think someone else should do it.

        3. iglwif*

          Ooooh this is a really good point!

          Years ago I managed 2 people who functionally did the same job, just for different … clients, let’s say. They had both individual and shared/common tasks, and they were always arguing about the latter, until my boss and I came up with the idea of dividing up those common tasks and assigning each to one of these 2 people. Suddenly each task had an owner, whereas before they had belonged to both and therefore to neither.

          I have no idea why they couldn’t get to that place on their own, but who cares? It solved the problem.

        4. londonedit*

          Definitely a good point. If it’s being phrased as ‘Display tables need to be set out first thing in the morning and packed away at the end of the last shift’ then it’s very easy for everyone to think ‘Oh, someone will do that’, and then no one does it because no one wants to/can be bothered to take responsibility. Especially if it’s something that feels pointless or arduous. Maybe try assigning it to one person, or having a rota, or something.

          1. sparkle emoji*

            Yeah, in my retail experience these tasks would have been the responsibility of the openers and closers. When you know it’s you (and maybe one other person) who need to do x, y and z you can’t assume that “someone” will get to it eventually. If most of the tasks being forgotten are opening and closing tasks, it might make sense to add an opening and closing checklist if there isn’t one already.

        5. Bitte Meddler*

          Yep, I was thinking that the issue wasn’t “People aren’t reading their emails” but “The instructions are directed at everyone, even though it doesn’t apply to everyone, so everyone thinks the instructions are for someone else.”

          A part-timer who typically comes in mid-morning and leaves mid-afternoon isn’t going to pay attention to “Things To Do at Opening” and “Things to Do at Closing”. Then, when they get scheduled to cover Open / Close, they won’t have any idea that they are supposed to put X out in the morning / bring X in at night.

          This is where an “Opening Checklist” and a “Closing Checklist” would work wonders.

          When first implementing the checklists, explain to each employee, as they overlap with you, that working through the applicable checklist and signing off after each task is completed is a requirement of the job.

          And then have a Serious Talk with the people who fail to use the checklists.

          If they’re at work when you’re not and they’ll be working several shifts before you two overlap again, can you call up there and have the Serious Talk with them over the phone?

      4. LCH*

        agree. it sounds like email is not effective communication for this team if EVERYONE is missing the emails. the manager should definitely try another method first, and the binder sounds like a good choice. if it continues after this, then the manager could look into punitive action. but not yet.

      5. TootsNYC*

        I think another thing I’d do is write the new changes on a whiteboard where they see it.

        Also, I’d be looking into having processes written down and posted somewhere, then updated and followed.

    2. 2e asteroid*

      If you are one person who continually ignores your boss’s instructions, there will be consequences for you.

      If everyone is continually ignoring the boss’s instructions, the boss needs to figure out a global change, and it’s unlikely that the correct global change is “fire everybody and start over with a new set of employees”.

      1. TheBunny*

        This.

        If it’s a whole group of people all on different shifts and schedules doing the email ignoring, which it sounds like it is, then checking the email for those sent by managers isn’t something they are doing…for whatever reason.

        If the work product and output are good aside from tne email failure, I agree it’s on the manager to find a new way.

        1. Pop ups*

          OP2 The other option would be to deliver the messages via a pop up that appears when your staff log in, and must be confirmed as read before they can move to anything else.

          More up front complexity, but it would reduce the admin load of updating the binder, checking staff initials and finding the binder after it goes missing.

          1. The Prettiest Curse*

            I think the likely issue with that would be that people would cancel out of the pop-up quickly without having read the whole thing – which is an entirely logical thing to do if you have customers waiting to be served. Also, unless the OP has the ability to programme the system themselves, it’s unlikely to be as easy a fix as a binder.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        I think they need to find a way for the new instruction to pop into people’s awareness close to when they would execute it. Check lists might work–e.g. add it to “morning checklist” or “start of shift checklist.”

      5. kiki*

        Yeah, unless there’s reason to believe all these coworkers are binding together to antagonize LW, since the process is failing to “take” for everyone it seems like this system is unusually cumbersome and hard to be consistently enforced. I know it seems simple, “just read your email!” but there are genuinely some jobs and workflows that make it tricky to do that.

        I also want to add that for an average group of adults, an announcement/ change in procedure needs to be mentioned 2-4 times (preferably in different formats, like spoken in a meeting and an email) before it fully registers with people as something they need to take action on. Not sure from the letter if LW is already doing this, but they’ll need to send more than one email about an issue and perhaps find another method to convey procedure changes. It’s frustrating to have to do this– it feels like you’re repeating yourself a crazy number of times– but it really is necessary, even for teams of diligent, high achievers.

        1. TootsNYC*

          also, why fight against something like that?
          Find a way that works better.

          It’s sort of like placing sidewalks where people naturally want to walk.

    3. learnedthehardway*

      I’m wondering if the workforce is quite young – a frequent comment I get is that I should text people, rather than email.

      Perhaps the OP should ask the team how they want to be communicated with.

      You can do group texts – just set it up the first time, and then you can send to “Team” every time after.

      1. UrsiB*

        I was wondering what system they use to tell the workers their shifts. My partner works in retail and he either gets his schedule via text/whatsapp or via a portal with a worker specific login. If LW is using such a system, couldn’t it also be used for these messages?

    4. Jay (no, the other one)*

      I work Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’m a doc and Email is a significant part of my work. When I come in on Tuesdays I often have 200 Emails, most of which I don’t need to read in detail. I skim everything in order to find the ones I do need, and I still miss stuff. My immediate colleagues, my boss, and our coordinator know that if there’s something they absolutely need me to do/see/know first thing on Tuesday, they need to send it another way. I’m the only part-time worker so they text me on my personal phone – they either send the info directly or tell me specifically what to look for in my Email. Since I’m the only part-time worker in a small group, they don’t mind doing that. If there were a bunch of us we would need to figure out some other method – mass Emails would still not work.

      tl;dr – you can insist all you want and some things may still not be possible. Do what works in the real world.

      1. AndersonDarling*

        This is the exact issue in play. It’s not that the team is ignoring the message to read their emails. It’s that any regular organization has 100s mass emails that a non computer user needs to sort through. If reading email isn’t a major piece of your job, then you don’t know how to efficiently go through the emails.
        It may seem bizarre to those of us who sit at computers all day, but some people’s jobs don’t revolve around email communication. There are whole industries that make communication methods for on call techs so they get the exact information they need. They get company phones where they receive texts, or they have pads that have specialized software to work with techs.
        I want my techs out working, not spending an hour deleting emails that pertain to donuts in the kitchen or the #5 database being down. I’d rather have them doing the specialized work I hired them for.

      2. Garblesnark*

        When I supported part time docs, I often would send bulk texts and also, in very serious cases (like, “your license is expiring” serious) send “if I don’t hear an update from you by Friday, I will call you daily until I do.”

        1. Jay (no, the other one)*

          That would have been great in my last per diem job, when I was off for a month and thus. missed the escalating Emails about my credentialing. I had an OOO message that made it clear I was not looking at Email. No one called me. No one called my boss or the coordinator or the scheduler or anyone else. And it was an actual person sending the Emails, not a bot. So I got back, logged on the night before my first session, and realized I was no longer credentialed. Um.

    5. Falling Diphthong*

      I think this is a situation where it’s reasonable to ask “Do you want to be able to say you’re right? Or do you want a solution that actually changes things in the direction you need?”

      Particularly as this is an across the board problem, not a single employee problem in the sea of employees for whom the current system is working fine.

      Fwiw I was picturing some sort of mass-cc culture, where most of the emails you receive aren’t actually relevant to you and so you learn to largely ignore them.

      1. a clockwork lemon*

        I have an emails job and at any given moment, there’s a hundred or more unreads, most of which don’t have a clearly articulated ask. If there’s no clear action item addressed specifically to me, I ignore them. If someone needs me, specifically, to do something, I assume they’ll come talk to me.

        I cannot remember ever once checking my email at a part time service-oriented job, even when I worked at a call center where we were on computers all day. Important information was communicated by SOMEONE (shift lead, manager, random person delegated to do the telling) in person with specific directives for various tasks.

    6. iglwif*

      If this were just one person, sure.

      When it’s an entire team AND the issue likely relates to the nature of their job vs the nature of the communication they’re ignoring? OP is likely to have much, much more success by changing how they communicate.

    7. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      But this is not just one staff member. It sounds like it is the majority. What do you expect them to do? threaten to fire them because they don’t check their emails. That is just going to cause otherwise good workers to want to leave.

    8. Spiritbrand*

      Maybe the solution is to ding them on the thing they were asked to do in the email. After that happening a few times, they may be more likely to check their email to see if there is something new they should be doing.

    9. Observer*

      If my boss and their boss repeatedly instructed me to do something and I continually ignored their instructions there would be consequences for me. The onus would not be on them to change their behavior to accommodate me

      In theory, you are correct. And I think it’s worth while for the LW to think about that.

      Having said that, it sounds like what the LW is asking for is simple, but perhaps not so reasonable. If email is not is much use in their workplace, expecting people to actually check their email every day in case there is an announcement from the boss is a bit unrealistic.

      It makes a lot more sense to find a way to communicate that works well with the normal workflow.

    10. Hyaline*

      I mean, fundamentally, the question is “what is the real problem here?” If the problem is simply that email is not a part of the workers’ daily routines, and checking it frequently is not easy or even useful or necessary outside of the occasional message from the manager, then it’s just not a conducive messaging method and it’s stupid to try to force it. Another method that fits their workplace and routines should show improvement in reading and complying–a binder as suggested, or printouts on their desks, or a weekly newsletter printout, or signage…whatever. But if the problem is that these employees DO NOT CARE about the manager’s requests for changes or new policies or whatever, then you have to address that instead, because a change in communication method won’t help. And honestly, it’s not just an “employee attitude” problem. I’m reading this as a job these people have been given very little reason to care about (part time customer service, seems very anonymous and soul-draining, and it’s a secondary job for many) and the management may not be checking in frequently (based on LW’s insistence that meetings are useless since not everyone can meet at once, and it’s too time consuming to communicate information individually). Well…are you meeting at all? Individual check-ins in general? A regular staff meeting (even if you have to do it twice to catch everyone or whatever)? I guess…there are whiffs here of “I want these employees to care about their jobs but I haven’t invested much in caring about these employees” and I think you have to address that if you want them to give a rat’s heinie. And then, yes, there’s also the stick–if some people just refuse to do the actual work as assigned (including new or updated work communicated by whatever method), you’ve got the tools to discipline that.

    11. Agent Diane*

      This whole thread seems to be a “tell me you’ve never worked shifts in retail or fast food, without telling me you’ve never worked shifts in retail or fast food.”

      Anyone who fired the whole team would spend a lot of money replacing them and would still have the same problem. There’s a reason fast food chains have a physical board with all the “must read” notices for staff.

      1. Zeus*

        I wanted to say the same – you can really tell who here has and hasn’t worked retail or similar jobs!

  3. Jellybean_Thief*

    OP#4, in addition to what Alison suggests, when I’ve had to choose between two excellent candidates, I’ve made a point of keeping my eye out for the candidate I didn’t choose, and (with their permission), connected them to other job opportunities that seemed like a good fit and where I had a connection. Becoming part of their job-searching network is a great way to show them that you thought they had value.

    1. Artemesia*

      You can make it clear to a candidate that you think they are ALSO terrific without saying or hinting you preferred them which may create unanticipated issues (including a lawsuit for discrimination if the candidate is a woman or minority or older person).

      1. Garblesnark*

        Just a quick note here that everyone is part of a protected class.

        Like, it’s not that women are protected because of their gender and men aren’t. It’s illegal to not hire any kind of person based on their gender, including men.

        White people are also in a protected class based on their race.

    2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      The classic line is usually “would strongly recommend you apply for other vacancies in our team if they arise”.

      I was once passed over for a job, but very kindly, and shortly afterwards was invited to apply for the equivalent role in another team, which I got. The team I ended up in was a far better fit than the original, and I must admit to some smugness when that preferred candidate dropped out before her starting date.

    3. davethetrucker*

      Yes, that’s what I waded into the comments to say. I had an interview once with two people, and I could tell one of them really, really liked me. I didn’t get the job, but a couple months later, she reached out to me to ask if I was still looking, because there was a job opening in another department. I wasn’t; I was at the job I’d have for the next fourteen years, but I’ll never forget her kindness and the subtle recognition that she really wanted to hire me.

    4. allathian*

      When we’ve hired new people for my team, more than once we reached out to other strong candidates when another position opened up.

  4. Brain the Brian*

    LW1, where is your grandboss in all of this? Are they aware of the pressure your boss is putting on you? How is your relationship with them? Would you be comfortable talking with them about it if your boss doesn’t respond to a direct request to lay off?

    1. Dandylions*

      Yeah I’m pretty concerned by this talk as a new mom myself.

      I’d probably offer .absolution in the moment when I hear this talk.

      “We are going to have to figure out OP’s situation”

      OP. “I’ve been thinking and how about we hire a temporary 12 month contractot as soon as possible? That way I have time to crosstrain them in preparation for X time and if I end up giving birth earlier then they can cover my items. After I return my temp can bring me up to speed on what’s happened and then handle odd work as needed until their contract ends.”

  5. Goldie*

    For LW #4 think about what the point of this reach out is? Even if someone did a great interview, they didn’t get the job. Some people might feel even worse or confused by your reach out. You sounds really frustrated that the person you didn’t prefer was selected. Are you trying to resolve something within yourself? Or do you genuinely think this will help this person. I think it’s best just to leave it alone.

    1. Second Choice*

      I’ve been a job candidate in #4 and having a panel member reach out to me after was really helpful. I appreciated that they took the time to go beyond the standard rejection email. It gave me confidence that I’d done well at the interview process. But yes, like you said, this could make someone feel worse or be confused. If the panel member scheduled a call with the person before they received the standard rejection, that could get the candidate’s hopes up and backfire!

      1. Yellow rainbow*

        I appreciated it too. It is good to know that the problem wasn’t you as such. But rather that there was someone else they picked.

      2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        Not saying the non-hired candidate will do this, but how many times have we seen someone take you were great and please consider us for future positions to mean they will definitely be hired as soon as a position opens up, then bombards the company with any openings emails?

        Make sure you don’t give false hope.

      3. Oryx*

        Yes, I’ve been rejected and had several people from the panel reach out to me. This was a decade ago and we still keep in touch.

      5. smirkette*

        Same. I was one of two finalists and lost out on my dream job at my dream employer, and the HR consultant running the search process reached out to say it was the closest decision they’d seen in her career, that they thought I was a great fit, and if I saw any other open positions at this large employer, to let them know and they’d connect me with the hiring consultant since I was fully vetted. It truly did take some of the sting out of the rejection.

    2. learnedthehardway*

      I follow up with some candidates who were great, but who didn’t get the job. I want to build a relationship into the future, if there will be other opportunities. I’ve filled a lot of roles this way.

      I would write a note along the lines of what Allison suggested – the personal connection that goes beyond the “thanks for interviewing. You weren’t hired” email will be enough to signal to the candidate that you were impressed.

      I would NOT, however, mention that they were a better candidate than the one hired. Or that they should have gotten the role, or anything like that. Normally, I will say something like “we have hired a candidate who was a closer match to our company’s current needs” – which is definitely not saying that the candidate was less qualified. You can, however, state something more neutral, such as “many factors went into this decision, and the selection team has decided to make an offer to another candidate”. Then express how impressed you were with their candidacy.

    3. SheLooksFamiliar*

      ‘You sounds really frustrated that the person you didn’t prefer was selected. Are you trying to resolve something within yourself?’

      Goldie, I think this is an important question for the OP to ask themself. It seems like the OP still feels strongly about the candidate, but also isn’t okay with being overruled – ‘the battle is lost’ really isn’t a neutral comment.

      I think it’s fine to let a candidate know they weren’t chosen for a particular role, and you’d like to reconnect for future roles. That might not take away their disappointment in not getting the job today, but it assures them they are solid talent.

      That’s really all you can do when you’re part of the decision-making process. There is no upside in telling a candidate, ‘I was overruled on hiring you’ or ‘I thought you were the best candidate, but the rest of the panel didn’t.’

    4. AvonLady Barksdale*

      I think it depends on what the LW really feels she can offer the candidate. I was once rejected from a job and got a similar message from the hiring manager. Then I heard from his boss, who offered to share my resume with his colleagues who were hiring. I ended up getting a job that kicked off a 20-year career and I owe a lot of it to that rejection.

      So I don’t think these messages are always one-sided, though I do think the LW should think through how she wants to approach it. A simple, “Just so you know, I think you were better” isn’t very helpful. But a, “Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know if I can help you in your search” is.

    5. The Cosmic Avenger*

      As someone who has been on both ends of this, I respectfully disagree. I’ve benefitted from people in my network who wished they could hire me (and either did later, or referred me to others), and I’ve done the same for others who I still keep in contact with many years later. I agree they have to be careful about not showing that they didn’t agree with the hiring decision, but other than that, I don’t see how it could be problematic.

      1. Goldie*

        I guess what I’m thinking is that it’s great to be on the look out for opportunities to hire a great candidate in the future. But reaching out with false hope or to clear a conscience doesn’t actually help the other person

  6. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

    The boss in letter #1 is being a real butthead. I don’t know how severe his behavior has to be to meet the “official” definition of harassment, but this sounds awfully close to me, especially since he is showing no signs of letting up with 4 more months(!) to go. I definitely agree with taking this to HR.

    1. Ellis Bell*

      This is awful and above OPs paygrade to solve. I hope HR do something before they start haemorrhaging employees. When I had saw similar behaviour it was a message to everyone that if they wanted a family, they should probably get a new job first. To help OP in the meantime I would just try to pretend that it’s no more than strategic planning; that the boss is of course going to plan for her absence, it’s his job!

      1. Greengirl*

        Yeah. I saw how my colleague was treated when she had a baby and it told me I needed to leave that employee before starting a family.

      2. A Simple Narwhal*

        Yes, I definitely remember in past jobs seeing the leave policy and how other pregnant employees were treated and noting that I didn’t want to be at that job when I started a family.

        Alternatively, seeing the benefits/leave policy and how pregnant employees were treated at my current company made me feel a lot better about my job when we decided to start a family. They even just added an additional 4 weeks of paid leave apropos of nothing! While my job isn’t perfect it’s made me definitely want to stick around while we decide if we want to have another kid.

    2. Madame Arcati*

      It’s so illogical as well. I mean what does he expect her to do? “OK boss I’ve faxed the stork and she’s going to hold off, there’ll be nothing under the gooseberry bush this financial year”

      1. Magpie*

        I’m sure the boss is hoping she’ll feel pressured to cut her leave short rather than using all 12 weeks. Which is exactly why FMLA is protected, so people can use their guaranteed leave without feeling pressured to return to work before they’re able and ready.

        1. londonedit*

          Yes, I think the response the boss is looking for is ‘Oh dear…well, if I can’t do the full 12 weeks, how much would be OK? Would you mind if I took 8 weeks instead? Oh, that’s still too much…? I guess I could come back after a month, if you really need me to…?’ Which is ridiculous, but I bet it’s what he’s hoping will happen. OP needs to stand her ground and make it clear that she’ll be taking the 12 weeks she’s legally entitled to, and that’s that.

          1. Portlandia*

            The legal part of this is important, and I think that line from Alison should definitely come up in any conversation about this.

        2. Madame Arcati*

          I see, well I’m glad she evidently has no intention of caving. How old is FMLA? I’d hope that soon enough it’s so…obvious? that people will take their standard 12 weeks that it won’t be a thing. Over here our leave (which is more generous) is so entrenched as an idea I don’t think it would even occur to anyone that an expectant mother might come back earlier, much less hint that she should. But is FMLA paid or unpaid?

          1. NotRealAnonForThis*

            FMLA is unpaid**, and there are boxes to check (i.e. so many employees within such and such distance; hours worked; etc.) before it applies.

            I’ve even had to gently explain to my parent that I couldn’t use FMLA for something or other with one of my children as it was not a qualifying event, and even IF I could, it wouldn’t cover the hole in my paycheck from using it. We moved from that pretty quickly as my parents thankfully understand that the world they were raised in was different from the world they raised me in, and similarly that the world is again different as far as me raising my kids.

          2. Clisby*

            It’s not guaranteed to be paid, but can be. I took 8 weeks of maternity leave, and it was paid – but that was because I used 6 weeks of banked sick leave and 2 weeks of vacation leave. I had more than six weeks of sick leave saved up, but company policy required a doctor’s certification saying how long you had a medical need to be out. Standard certifications were 6 weeks for a vaginal birth and 8 for a C-section, although doctors could certify longer if needed. I could have taken the additional 4 weeks unpaid, but I was more than ready to go back to work.

          3. Daisy-dog*

            FMLA was passed in the Clinton era, so quite likely has been around for the majority of the time that boss has been working.

            FMLA is UNPAID. It serves as job protection. If you qualify, you can take up to 12 weeks off and will come back to either the same job or an equivalent job.

            Some companies provide paid add-ons. Those are optional (but are pretty important for recruitment/retention in some industries). They are *concurrent* with FMLA (like short-term disability, paid parental leave plans, PTO donations, etc.), but not FMLA.

        3. Observer*

          I’m sure the boss is hoping she’ll feel pressured to cut her leave short rather than using all 12 weeks.

          And also to agree “help out” from home as soon as she has the baby. And to be “so grateful” for being allowed to take leave and “inconvenience” her boss that she won’t push for raises, promotions and / or better projects when she gets back. And will swallow any mistreatment he dishes out, I suspect.

          Which is exactly why FMLA is protected, so people can use their guaranteed leave without feeling pressured to return to work before they’re able and ready.

          100%. Bosses like this are the reason that there is an explicit cause of action for “FMLA interference.”

    3. Cat Tree*

      My company started offering paid parental leave to all parents about 6 years ago. And I hate that it has to be this way, but by men taking leave it normalized it for everyone. I’m a single mother so my family overall didn’t directly benefit from a father or second parent taking leave. But when I had my kid, two men in my department had kids and took leave within a few months of me. So I didn’t feel singled out or like an inconvenience for doing it.

      This doesn’t help LW directly, but I would recommend to job seekers that have plans to have kids in the future, to look for companies that have parental leave for fathers too and a culture where they actually take it.

      1. Walk on the Left Side*

        Whenever possible, I would recommend to job seekers that care about parental leave — even if they aren’t planning to have kids in the future — to look for companies with strong parental leave policies. I’m done having kids, but I still “care” when I interview somewhere whether they offer expecting and/or adoptive parents of all genders adequate leave.

      2. Lady Danbury*

        This last part (a culture where they actually take it) is key! One of my law school classmates working for a finance company where they had 3 months paid paternal leave, but taking it was highly frowned upon. He already knew that he was going to law school later in the year, so he happily took the full paternity leave, knowing that the professional repercussions wouldn’t matter to him anyway. But many employees who were planning to stay chose not to take paternity leave or only take minimal leave because they knew that it would impact their advancement within the company.

      3. Hyaline*

        So much this. When my husband was feeling guilty taking his company-provided parental leave, I told him he was normalizing it for everyone else in his workplace (and that his immediate boss could piss up a rope if he was upset about it, but that’s another story).

      4. Artemesia*

        And it does vary a lot by company — my son in law was working at two different companies when each of his kids was born and in both cases had more paid paternity leave than my daughter had paid maternity leave at her companies.

        1. Artemesia*

          FWIW My husband was allowed off to be with my for the birth — that was it — one day.

    4. Loose Socks*

      It’s also teetering dangerously close to FMLA interference, which is a big no no that HR will want to be aware of. Employers cannot discourage employees from taking their FMLA leave, and that is exactly what this boss is doing.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        This. Make sure in every conversation with Boss about this and with HR you use the magic words – protected by law.

        That will get through if nothing else does. HRs job is to protect the company from lawsuits. Boss may be savvy enough to know getting the company involved in a lawsuit will not help his career much. Cynical – yes. But will it get OP what she needs – more likely.

    5. Rachel*

      When I had my third child I was in a role where I was entitled to 12 weeks of FMLA leave. However, the company would give us only six weeks paid, and then I used two weeks of vacation time, returning to the office after 8 weeks. I then asked if I could leave 30 minutes early each day for a month following my return to the office, because for that month my three kids were in three different locations. I was hourly, so I told them I was willing to accept the pay reduction, and that it would only be for a month, because my two oldest would be in the same summer program and then at the same school going forward. They refused to let me do this. I wish I had taken the extra four weeks unpaid. So frustrating.

    6. iglwif*

      Yeah, even if this behaviour doesn’t meet the legal definition of a hostile workplace, it sounds (colloquially) hostile AF.

      It’s four months. FOUR MONTHS. And what is OP supposed to do, agree to come back sooner, while even more underslept and even less recovered? Somehow magically extend the length of her pregnancy until after the busy period is over? Genuinely if you can’t cover a 12-week leave with existing staff and you won’t bring someone in to help cover, the problem is you, not the person taking leave.

      1. iglwif*

        Correction: it is THREE MONTHS. (Which obviously makes OP1’s boss’s behaviour worse, not better.)

        1. Deborah*

          Small correction (as a person who recently took it): It is less than three months! Since only February is exactly 4 weeks long. (Not arguing that it’s not a good general approximation, but I really felt it that my baby was less than three months old when I had to go back to work (and way less than three months when I had to start gearing up for that.)

          1. iglwif*

            Yeah :/

            As a person who once upon a time was parenting a 3-month-old child (and shortly before that, a 12-week-old one), I cannot fathom why any employer would have wanted me back in the office at that point. I was exhausted and underslept and still kind of zombie-like, honestly, although things had improved vastly from the 6-week mark when everything was still a blur. I was NOT in any condition to contribute meaningfully at work!

    7. Ghost*

      I’d hate to see how Boss in #1 would do in a country that has reasonable periods of parental leave.

      1. Observer*

        I’d hate to see how Boss in #1 would do in a country that has reasonable periods of parental leave

        In a competently run company with staff who are willing to speak up? He’d be smacked upside the head, in an employment way. And it might take more than one job, but I suspect he’d learn to rein it in.

      2. WorkerAlias*

        I live in the EU and when I told my manager I was pregnant, she asked, “Do you think you’ll take the whole three years?” really casually. (Where I live, the first 14 months are paid and you can take up to three years with the rest unpaid, with job protection.) When I told her I was planning to be back after the paid 14 month period, she was like, “Oh, that’s nothing! Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

    8. Csethiro Ceredin*

      I’m in awe of her managing not to snap “yes, it’s a very important time for me too!”

  8. BigLawEx*

    #4 If you can help behind the scenes, do that. I’ve been *that* candidate. (Coupled with being a black woman when the hire was usually a white man did not make it better).

    Honestly, the candidate may be better off not working for an organization (as a whole, not you) who can’t see their worth/skill. Because it’s also hard being a standout in an org that hires a bunch of other middling people.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I’m curious as to why the other 2 members of the hiring committee were so keen on the other candidate and so determined to ignore the OP who knows the actual work.
      The OP would presumably have mentioned blatant bigotry, but did they favour characteristics that were like them / required privilege?

      1. learnedthehardway*

        So many things could go into the decision – could be that the more junior person is more affordable, that they’re connected with someone on the board, that they want someone who will grow into the role (and presumably stay a longer time – definitely not a guarantee, of course), or maybe they just feel the person is a better personality fit, or maybe they liked their enthusiasm for the role more.

        All this, of course, can also be a curtain over bias – which makes it so difficult to combat.

        1. ScruffyInternHerder*

          There’s also the (IMO a little “dangerous”) combination of a “good marketer” as an applicant and a majority of the hiring committee who doesn’t know the role well enough to see past the bovine fecal matter.

      2. Malarkey01*

        This is a TINY organization. Two full time and one part time employee. I think it’s probably a stretch to think the other two don’t know the business.
        For me when you have such a micro organization there’s a lot that goes into hiring since this person will be core to your organization.

  9. Allonge*

    LW1 – my boss tends to do stuff like this – not specifically about maternity, but getting Stuck!On! completely normal things that are logistically a bother but that a manager needs to take care of all the time.

    What helps (beyond taking deep breaths) is a twofold attack: 1. create a Plan, have her approve it and keep referring to the Plan every time she seems to get into this spiral and 2. reasonably calmly challenge her in the moment about whatever stupid thing she is worried about, focusing on the immediate action items.

    Just to clarify: you should not have to do this (nor should I). It sucks. It just works better than anything I tried.

    1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      Exactly this. We’re all humans with bodies, not robots. People are going to need to take leave. The boss has ~8 months to come up with a plan to manage this leave. Managing staffing is literally his job, as the LW’s boss. And if one person taking legally protected leave is enough to cause major disruptions, even with this kind of notice, it sounds like he might be understaffed.

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yah, OP1’s boss reminds me of a friend of mine who perseverates on problems and constantly brings them up in conversation to the point where I have to ask her to please talk about something else, because her stressing out about things she has no control over stresses me out. I’m happy to listen to her problems once and maybe bounce around some ideas, but whenever she brings the same issue up without any change in the situation nor any way to solve the problem, I deliberately change the subject.

      So while it doesn’t sound to me like OP1’s boss is being deliberately terrible, the effect is the same: it’s stressing OP out. Boss is probably obtuse and doesn’t realize that a) he’s stressing OP out about something that can’t be changed and isn’t her problem and b) what he’s doing borders on illegal if he’s interfering with OP’s guaranteed FMLA. I agree that OP should come up with a plan for her leave (b/c after all, that is something anyone should do if they know they’ll be out for any length of time); in the meantime, if boss brings it up again OP can say, “Yes, I know, that’s why I’m working on a plan for who should cover what while I’m out.” Repeat ad nauseum, and after the plan is finished, switch to “Yes, that’s covered in the plan I came up with for my leave.”

      Although this boss also sounds like the kind of boss who would be obtuse enough to contact OP during her leave to ask non-emergency work questions instead of looking at her plan and/or asking someone not on leave. In that case, talking to HR is a very good idea so that they can go over with him what he is and isn’t allowed to do WRT OP’s leave.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Exactly!
      He doesn’t want her to take mat leave and is probably trying to bully/guilt her into just taking 2-3 weeks (ridiculous and evil man)

      1. Ganymede*

        The thought of a new mom being forced away from her baby at 2-3 weeks postpartum puts me in a blind rage. It’s cruel to both her and the tiny human who relies on contact with a caring adult 24/7. Its inhumane and should be downright criminal to put this kind of pressure on anyone.

        1. We Need Paid Parental Leave*

          Hard agree. I had to go back to work 6 days after birthing one of my children because it was a new job and I did not yet have any leave time and did not qualify yet for FMLA. It was awful. Thankfully, I had a very understanding boss and officemate, and they allowed me to bring the baby in with me and assigned me a very light workload during that time.

          1. Ganymede*

            Gosh, I’m so sorry. I was barely functional at 6 days post-partum. I couldn’t leave the house, let alone go to work. The American system just doesn’t work, it needs urgent reform for the sake of the babies and the people who birthed them.

        2. CommanderBanana*

          Just a reminder that it’s illegal to sell puppies before 8 weeks, which is longer than human babies get with their mothers in America. Such freedom, amirite?

          1. Ganymede II*

            Oh no! Just a space fan celebrating one of my favorite moons… But I will henceforth rename myself Ganymede II to avoid confusions :)

      2. Miette*

        Yep! His concern in the matter starts/stops at where OP’s leave inconveniences HIM, and that’s it. I don’t know if he can be reasoned with–this kind of selfishness is rarely touchable. He just needs to be told to cut the sh*t, which is why OP should go to HR or her grandboss and report it.

    2. iglwif*

      Yes, and for why the US needs legally mandated parental leave like other countries have. Someone about to have their entire life upended by a new baby absolutely does not need this kind of crap (and do we think he’s going to stop harassing her after the baby arrives? I sure don’t).

  11. Clementine*

    I say send a connection request to the candidate on LinkedIn, and say something like “I enjoyed meeting you a few weeks ago, and I like to connect with people in our field.” But no hint of saying ‘You would have been my first choice if I could have done it.”

    2. Susan Calvin*

      That’s how I’d handle it too – sending an email is maybe too intense, but LinkedIn connections are so low-key it doesn’t commit to anything, and easy to ignore if the candidate prefers.

    3. El l*

      Was going to recommend too. Just leave the substance atb”I was impressed with you, let’s stay in touch.”

      This case is another example why job seekers don’t get a peek behind the hiring curtain. Because knowing this wouldn’t help them. Moral victory…

  12. General von Klinkerhoffen*

    “It’s a very important 12 weeks for us.”

    I’m pretty certain it’s a very important twelve weeks for LW as well. I think I would struggle not to remind Boss of that the next time that particular complaint is rolled out, perhaps with a side of “if I’m so mission critical maybe I should be paid more.”

    1. Bossy*

      Why hold it in? I’d be like “Yeah the first 12 weeks if my child’s life is very important to us tho I understand it’s not for you.” Said in dry and bored tones because boss is a total fucking bore.

    2. Generic Name*

      Seriously. OP, how is your boss otherwise? Honestly, this type of behavior would make me start to put feelers out for other jobs, because it’s clear he sees you only as a tool and not a person. I’d also bet that if the situation were reversed and he were eligible for leave, he would unapologetically take the full amount, regardless of the inconvenience to others.

      1. Agnes Grey*

        I suspect you’re right about this, and I love the General’s suggestions. Perhaps a blend of that and Alison’s script: “It’s an important 12 weeks for my family, too, which is why my leave is federally protected….”

    3. AvonLady Barksdale*

      “Yes, I realize that, which is why you’re getting MONTHS OF NOTICE.” There is nothing that can’t be handled if given enough notice.

    4. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Haha, this could be a good comeback for OP: “Yes, it’ll be a very important 12 weeks for me as well. And probably also for my new baby, I imagine….”

    5. BikeWalkBarb*

      I like the idea of replying, “It’s a very important 12 weeks for my new baby and for me in my new role as a mom.” Full stop with eye contact. Let the boss feel awkward about ignoring that fact. Possibly with the addition after a pause of “That’s why this type of leave is protected by law.”

    6. Meep*

      One thing I learned from my former boss who was like this (and a woman to boot), there is never going to be a good time for him for you to have a baby.

      Either way, I would report it to HR so there is a paper trail when he tries to fire her.

  13. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    #3 You work with a lot of rude people and you shouldn’t have to put up with this. I’d have to bite my tongue not to be rude in return, but Alison has good scripts and hoppefully each person will only have to be told once (sigh)

  14. Bay*

    Re LW #3, rosacea:

    Oof, I really feel for you. I had terrible rosacea for years while working at a health food store, and it seemed like everyone and their mother wanted to cure it by suggesting the magic bullet I hadn’t tried yet or bring it to my attention like I hadn’t noticed or any number of things that indicated they couldn’t see me beyond my red face.

    Alison’s suggestions are great, and as long as you work with a relatively small and regular population they should quickly get used to it and treat you normally. If it’s the public, you’ll have new people bringing it up all the time. I found it helpful to bring it up proactively if I noticed someone being distracted by it, and developed a range of ‘kind’ to ‘rude/sharp’ explanations depending on whether I wanted to convey that they were out of line. This was mostly for my sake, because it is a huge psychological burden to have people so captivated by something distressing and anything that helped me feel like I had control tipped the balance.

    On that note, I found it really helpful to talk to my closer people about it; I was better able to track its impact on me psychologically. A dermatologist finally found a medication that worked for me and now my face only gets red sometimes (looking at you, alcohol), but I still need to process the impacts from time to time because that stuff is complex and hard to handle.

    I wish you all the best with taking good care of yourself and hope you can quickly convince people not to bring it up!

    1. bookshelves*

      If you’re comfortable sharing, can you tell us some of your responses based on the levels of rudeness people asked you with? I am not a snappy thinker and my eczema gets so many comments, especially from my boss.

    2. Deborah Vance, Vance Refrigeration*

      Ugh, I also have a skin condition, though not rosacea, that people feel the need to comment on. I second the suggestion to have a few scrips to preemptively stop the comments. Most of them boil down to “Don’t worry, I’ve been medicated and it’s not contagious. So, do you need help with the TPS report?” with varying degrees of sweetness.

      To the people who comment on others skin/ weight/ physical appearance in general: rest assured that we know that we look like this and that we’ve tried what you were going to suggest (or didn’t try, for good reason) with our medical team.

  15. Yellow rainbow*

    LW1 it might not be a good idea given work protections seem limited in the US from my limited understanding.

    But I’d say go to HR and make a complaint. And if necessary just say directly do I need to worry about losing my job because I’m pregnant? Preferably with witnesses.

    1. BellaStella*

      I agree with this. I would email HR, outlining the issue and ask for their guidance, set up a meeting, then after the meeting follow up with an email recapping it all – then forward email to your home email address. Also, the week before you go on FMLA, reply to said email, stating you are going on FMLA as of X date, will return in 12 weeks, and understand your role is protected. Also, after sent, do the same, and forward this to your home email address – esp if they reply too, send any emails that they reply to also to your home email. Then, the week before returning, email them again, noting your return date and that you are excited to come back. Same, forward to home email. Then, when you are back if anything goes amiss, go back to HR and discuss options.

      Hard agree that noting ” directly do I need to worry about losing my job because I’m pregnant? Preferably with witnesses. ” this is key and in emails make sure there is the HR director included, too. I know this sounds a bit aggressive but you are protecting yourself and ensuring t hey know that if you are fired, you have a case of discrimination, I think. I am not a lawyer but in any case having all these emails handy will help if you need to see one.

      best of luck OP. I really hope your boss also gets a talking to about how wrong this is and a warning on his behaviour. Which is gross.

    2. Snow Globe*

      US work protections are limited in many cases, but this is one case in which there is a legal protection in place, and any retaliation for bringing a “good faith” complaint to HR is also protected. (Which only means that a competent HR department will react appropriately, but an incompetent HR department may not.)

    3. Observer*

      LW1 it might not be a good idea given work protections seem limited in the US

      Except that here there are two things at play. One is FMLA, which is legally protected and has been around for decades. As someone noted, probably at least as long as this guy has been working. The second is pregnancy discrimination, which is currently explicitly illegal. And retaliation for trying to protect either right is also explicitly illegal.

  17. TeapotNinja*

    LW1: Your manager is an ass. Respond with: “It’s the most important 12 weeks of my life.”

      1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        I really want to know if there’s anything specific happening during that time period, or if it’s just a random 12 weeks and boss is even a bigger asshat than he seems. (He certainly seems like the kind of person who must have the last word.)

        1. Meep*

          Based on the time-frame, it is going into the holidays, so I suppose depending on what they do they could be more or less busy, but I guarantee, it was never going to be a good time.

  18. Dahlia*

    RE LW3: I don’t have rosacea, but I do get very red and flushed in the face if I’m even a little warm (or bend over a lot or drink or…) and last spring I actually announced to the people I see most often that, “It’s the time of year where I’m read and we don’t need to talk about. Thanks!”

    Everyone was cool with it.

  19. duinath*

    LW1 I would definitely go to HR with this, and I would also take this into account with any future decision you make about your job.

    This is not a boss who should know you’re job searching (honestly no boss should, but this one especially) or given any extra notice if and when you decide to quit.

  20. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, your boss is being ridiculous. I mean, you probably know this but sometimes when somebody goes on and on like this, it’s hard not to question whether there is some validity to their complaint or if you should try to “meet them halfway,” so just in case he is making you doubt yourself, I want to point out that he’d have to manage if you had an illness or accident that meant you were out those three months. One of my colleagues just returned at the end of May, having been out since early December due to cancer treatment. Another was out for at least four months (covid hit in at that point and we were working from home so not sure exactly when he came back) due to an operation for a relatively minor-sounding issue.

    At least with pregnancy, you’ve given him plenty of time to make arrangements/hire a temp. If somebody crashed their car one morning, the company would have to cope. If one person being out causes major issues, that is a staffing problem. They should be aware of the possibility that people get sick, quit unexpectedly, get pregnant, etc and be able to cope with such situations.

    I know that probably isn’t something you can say to him though.

  21. Buni*

    #2 I used to work in an office where the protocol for important announcements was to hit Reply & Send, ie sending a blank reply back. The boss never opened these, it was just a way of seeing who’d clocked it.

    1. SeeReeves*

      But what if someone had an actually reply or question? Their email would be ignored? I suppose they’d had to start a new email thread with a different subject line?

  22. Ellis Bell*

    OP2, I work on a team that struggles to respond to emails, and we work in an email heavy culture where it’s an expectation. Nevertheless, if something goes out on email, at least half our team will fail to see it/action it. The department head spoke to people individually (even though we do have weekly meetings, it’s a working meeting) and based on their feedback, switched to using WhatsApp. If something important comes through on email they disseminate it to the team on WhatsApp. The problem with coverage based roles where you’re expected to look at emails in “downtime” is that it will constantly be deprioritised no matter the urgency of the email. It prevents people developing a habit of when and how to check their emails (a constant issue for us is we have no time to play with the sort of settings that would filter or organise email – sometimes the right email isn’t even showing up in “focused” inboxes). The plan of “get to it when you can” also doesn’t take into account busy periods. In WhatsApp people are falling over each other to be responsive. It still doesn’t work for everyone, we have one colleague with a dumb phone, and a lot of people/places would balk at this solution because they’re our personal phones. The other thing that has worked for us is specifically taking people off main duties and onto admin for part of the role.

  23. TwinCities HR*

    OP5: I started as a poll worker in 2020 (I am in my late 30’s) I was willing to wear and mask and I wanted to see how the process worked myself. I have worked 5 elections since then. When people get irritated or make a comments about security or the process etc I simple state I’m a volunteer and they can reach out to their state representatives if they want to express making a change. Or if they want to volunteer themselves to see how the process works and do their own civic duty I can introduce them to the head judge to get more information on how to sign up. That always shuts people up for me. I even have wrote down the website with contact info for our state reps for people and shockingly nobody wants to write it down or take a photo.

    Thanks for volunteering! It’s always a LONG day but so rewarding to be part of the process! Good luck!

    1. MI poll worker*

      I like the idea of referring them to volunteer/work. I hear frequent comments in my daily life about voting that I know not to be true from my experience. It is a great learning experience!

    2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      It’s amazing how many people want to complain about something but don’t want to do anything at all to affect the thing. I still remember reading a thread (so many years ago) about how Wikipedia had so much information about topic A but almost nothing about very-related topic B. When I pointed out that Wikipedia is designed to be written & edited by the people reading it, and how about we make a small working group to add information … crickets.

  24. F P*

    #5 my big problem is how to keep myself calm during the closing process. There is so much to do during this time.

  25. MI poll worker*

    I am a poll worker in Michigan which may be where you are since this is your first year early voting. I have worked with the public before and have dealt with many disgruntled people. Generally, my goal is to get them moving on so as not to interfere with other people voting. I’m not going to fix everything for them and often they are upset about something else entirely. I listen but I don’t pretend to agree with something I don’t agree with. If I need to answer I try to come up with the simplest answer I can. Many times, people just want to make a comment and move on. If someone wants to escalate, get your precinct leadership involved. They are in those rolls because of their experience. You aren’t expected to handle everything on your own.

  26. DJ Abbott*

    #4, that they hired the weakest candidate by far pings my radar. I would be watching for something else going on here.

    1. Apex Mountain*

      You could be right, but hiring is an inexact science and I don’t think one example of the OP not getting their way is evidence of anything else.

      Plus, it sounds like the other two are more senior in overall experience and the OP is only part time anyway.

      Either way though, as long as OP is open and welcoming to the new hire it shouldn’t matter

    2. Dust Bunny*

      . . . according to the LW, who is part-time and may or may not have as much experience.

    3. Generic Name*

      Maybe, but I’ve seen a lot of mediocre or worse people get hired because that can talk a good talk and the people doing the hiring don’t know enough to tell a person is bullshitting. Some people are good enough at bullshitting that they’ll fool an expert long enough to get hired.

      1. pally*

        Yep! Lived it!
        I was told to hire the candidate that had the ‘too good to be true’ resume.
        She came across so bubbly and friendly that upper management insisted we hire her.

        Unfortunately, I was her manager.
        Didn’t want to do her work (so I had to complete it), was always on the phone, not dependable schedule-wise, usually late. When she didn’t like something, like limiting her phone calls to breaks and lunch, she’d get right into my face and scream at me. Told me that was illegal (because she was in the military reserve and might be called up). And made it very clear that she owned a firearm.

        That was 10 months of stress for me. When she decided not to carry out a task assigned to her by upper management, THEY decided she had to be let go.

    4. CommanderBanana*

      At my last horrible org, they hired a woman to be the director of our department despite the serious red flags that I and my coworker raised.

      She was there for a little over a year, about 9 months of that spent on medical leave, caused us both to quit when she came back because she was a vicious, nasty person, then was fired. The org also had to pay through the nose for a consultant to do her job while she was out. Of the three people they had to hire to replace me and my colleague, one has already quit and one was already fired.

      Oh, then she lied about still being employed by the org for months after she was fired.

      Sure hope it was worth it!

      1. Busy Middle Manager*

        Why do we all have stories like this? I once did a coworkers job while he went MIA working from home back when WFH wasn’t a thing. They wouldn’t fire him. No clue how this was the best they got from the candidate pool

        1. CommanderBanana*

          Right?? I have no idea.

          We had one standout candidate, they didn’t hire her because she was a Black woman and this org had definite problems with racial and religious minorities (one of the many reasons I left).

        2. I Have RBF*

          I was on the interview team for a junior coworker. There was a guy I liked, eager to learn, personable, etc. Manager said “We can do better than that.” So the guy we hired had some “rack monkey” experience. I figured he was okay, but I wasn’t impressed with his interview. He turned out to be such a horrible flake that we canned him. The thing that made it aggravating for me? The guy we didn’t hire was black, the guy we did hire was white. I figured manager was being unconsciously racist.

    5. fhqwhgads*

      Could be something nefarious like discrimination (conscious or not).
      Could be they picked the least expensive candidate.
      Could be the two other people thing skills A+B are most important and C is nice to have, while OP thinks C is the most important, and it’s not that they’re disagreeing about the abilities of the candidates themselves. Rather they’ve assessed the candidates and come to the same objective conclusions, but the subjective “what matters more” is where they disagree.
      Or a little of all three.

      1. Hroethvitnir*

        Yeah, I just assumed it was 100% about money. Which might be fine, might make extra work for the LW without having noticeable impact out of the department, or might have enough impact that it’s easily measurable… which IME often still goes unnoticed or at least handwaved, so. It is what it is.

    6. DJ Abbott*

      Ha, I was thinking something worse, like sabotaging the organization with a bad hire. But it could just be incompetence!

  27. Ganymede*

    LW3: your coworkers are behaving badly and I’m sorry you have to put up with them.

    I would sharpen Alison’s script by adding the word “again” or similar.

    “Again, it’s rosacea and I know I have it”

    “As I have said before, it’s rosacea, aren’t you glad you don’t have it?” (OK that’s snark and may not be appropriate, but honestly, don’t these people understand empathy?)

    1. Jan*

      Well it’s not appropriate to make personal remarks like that in the first place, so I don’t think OP is under any obligation to respond nicely.

  28. Seashell*

    LW2, it’s not really clear if these people have assigned desks or computers that stay in the office, but I’d be tempted to go old school and tape a piece of paper with the printed-out email at everyone’s work station. Heck, you could tape one to the door going outside or the bathroom doors if you don’t have to share with another company. I would fear the book method would result in people initialing for their friends, so maybe it’s better to up the odds that they’ll see it.

    Otherwise, maybe you need to assign someone or a couple people to specifically to take (whatever) in and out each shift or anything else that has to be done regularly.

  29. Grey Coder*

    LW1: Take notes every time your boss says how difficult things will be without you or how important you are. Use them in your next salary review.

  30. SeeReeves*

    LW #2 didn’t mention the average age of the staff or if they tried texts. I have found that people younger than me just don’t check email and communicate for most things through texts (or other chat programs). Though I think the binder sounds like it can work just fine, I’m curious if texts might work too.

    1. Justme, The OG*

      I would 100% ignore work texts to my personal cell phone. Because that’s what email and Teams are for.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        So would I, but if they’re dealing with people who don’t touch their work email, then obviously the target audience doesn’t get that that’s what email is for.
        If I were in this position I’d probably treat it as a serious performance problem: you have work email, we told you announcements come through that way, you need to check them, you still aren’t. This needs to change. It’s a requirement of the job. Can you do that?
        BUT if the only thing about these people’s jobs handled through email is announcements, I see why the advice was to go a different route and meet the people where they are.
        That said, OP did say the employees are stationed at computers…soo…. it’s weird to me they’d be resistant to using them, which is why I lean more in a “what the hell, people?” direction. But AAM’s advice will probably work.

  31. TX_Trucker*

    LW2. We use the binder system with our mechanics with great success. Although they have email, most of them use it only to submit PTO requests.

    For our summer office interns, we use group texts. They also have email, but not a dedicated desk. They may check their emails once a week or so.

  32. Jay*

    As regards to LW #2: How is email prioritized during work hours? And are on-site management/supervisors in sync with you on this?
    If you have an old fashioned “If You’ve Got Time To Lean, You’ve Got Time To Clean” supervisor who will tear them a new one if they see them doing anything on the computer, that’s an issue.
    Also, how many hours a week is “part time”? That can cover a lot of hours, and if they don’t have other downtime, the time you assume that they have to check their email might represent their only breaks in a very long day.
    You also mentioned that everyone has other jobs. Where does your job stand in comparison? Is it their “main job”, or is it just a side hustle to fill in the gaps in their paychecks? Because if it’s a side hustle, expect it to be treated as a side hustle. That is, much less effort, energy, and attention than their “main” job.
    Sorry if this came out too negative. It’s just that I’ve worked some crappy jobs “part time” jobs (somehow always working the most possible hours before being labeled full time, at the time 36hrs. per week) before where management just didn’t see these kinds of issues (mostly because they didn’t want to and it was easier to label workers as “lazy” than change what they were doing).

    1. LW2*

      I will say there tends to be a lot of downtime, enough that I usually see people reading/checking personal email/just generally doing other things because it’s not a “nonstop action” kind of job (and I’m DEFINITELY not a “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean” kind of manager). I do get what you’re saying, and I don’t want to ask too much from people, but there are certain times that I just need to get info out to the whole team for whatever reason. I like Alison’s notice binder solution.

  33. ThatOtherClare*

    Funny story tangentially related to #3: my dermatologist prescribed me an ivermectin cream for rosacea around 2021, and he’d clearly had a lot of comments about it because his instructions were, and I quote:

    “I’m going to prescribe you an ivermectin cream. Yes, that ivermectin. Don’t eat it.”

  34. yikes*

    for the pregnant worker whose boss is making comments making her feel insecure about taking the time off. i highly recommend a sit down conversation with him where you bring up that he seems to be bringing it up uncomfortably often and making you feel like you’re doing something wrong and see what he says. but have your phone or a recorder going in your pocket. if he’s dumb enough to harass you about protected leave like that he may say something stupid enough for you to take it to HR or a lawyer and get a big payout (or extended leave).

    1. 2 party consent*

      But be very careful if you are in a 2 party consent state because this would be illegal

  35. Delta Delta*

    #2 – Just a thought – maybe ask the employees what they find would be the most effective way to disseminate information to them. It sounds like for whatever the reason(s), email isn’t effective. It doesn’t mean anyone’s doing anything wrong, it just means that system doesn’t work in this situation. The idea of a binder is a good one. Or maybe an announcement board near the time clock (or other location where people absolutely go every day), or whatever they tell you would be effective.

    1. Somehow I Manage*

      I was thinking something similar. Emails might be getting read, but the instructions in said emails are not being followed. I think it is time to reset. While it is hard to get people together, it might be time for a staff meeting with everyone in attendance … paid of course … and go through the things that aren’t being done. Ask everyone what the best way for these instructions to be presented. And then hold people accountable when they’re on shift. If something is to be put out in the morning and taken to the back in the evening, the evening shift workers need to be accountable for that. That might mean an escalating set of steps starting with a reminder conversation.

  36. LD*

    OP #3 – I also have rosacea that shows up with even small amounts of heat or exercise. For a few years worked a job that had outdoor labor in the summer were heat exhaustion and severe sun burns were theoretically actual concerns, so I didn’t fault anyone with pointing out that I was suddenly bright red. It could have been a sign of something serious that required action, but I was always fine and hated people bringing my tomato face to my attention.

    One time I got flustered and just said, “I’m fine! I’m just a pink American!” and it was so effective at shutting people down nicely that became my go-to response. Maybe because it’s a joke, but still communicated that this was just an intrinsic part of who I am and it really does not require any action or commentary from anyone else.

    1. I Have RBF*

      I get really red, really fast with heat. It also is not good for me, but I seldom notice it. But when people spot it and tell me I make sure to hydrate and try to cool down.

  37. Walk on the Left Side*

    LW1 — I’m not sure I’d have the guts to do it, but I would LOVE to see the look on your boss’s face if you were able to respond point-blank to his comment about the ‘important’ 12 weeks with a direct look into his eyes and a statement like “It’s a very important 12 weeks for me and my newborn child.”

  38. another manager*

    For LW2: It does sound like email just isn’t feasible. But why is speaking to each individual during their shift not possible? I used to do that for a role where folks also had limited email access. Take a checklist and mark off when you’ve talked to someone, or consider having a brief meeting at the start of a shift with everyone or groups of employees. I’d suggest this in addition to posting announcements in a central area.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I was curious about why meetings aren’t feasible? I get that not everyone is at work at the same time, but is there a way OP could hold very brief announcement meetings a few times during the week when some specific procedure needs to change? Showing, not telling, is probably more effective for procedural changes like the one OP describes. If, say, the job is working at a garden store and managers want everyone to be sure the wheelbarrows and bird feeders get put out in the morning and taken in at night, that seems like the kind of thing that would be really easy to tell everyone en masse, even if you have to hold the meeting a few times (right before opening, right after the afternoon shift starts, etc) to be sure everyone attends. And even if there are a few people who miss the mtgs, presumably their coworkers would be able to fill them in.

      I guess I just feel like if the job is something manual, writing to your staff about it is much less effective than just verbally communicating it to them. Even the announcement binder AAM suggested doesn’t seem as helpful as telling them verbally. I get that it’d be tough for OP to remember who they’ve told so far (although I like your suggestion of a checklist, another manager), but that’s why I think a few mtgs would be a bit of a time-saver for OP.

      Or, as someone else suggested in another thread, have a checklist of each procedure (store opening, closing, etc) and be sure to add “put out the wheelbarrows and birdfeeders” to the opening checklist, for instance. Actually, do this anyway; it can’t hurt to have the info written down, even if most people won’t read it.

      1. Broadway Duchess*

        Many moons ago, I managed three teams for a large home improvement store. While I could justify a quarterly everyone meeting, getting even each individual team together was a nightmare because no matter time of day, some people were going to have to either stick around past their shifts, come in early, or come on their off day. The binder system worked really well for us. Everyone knew to check the training binder and announcement binder at the beginning of each shift and I stopped having to chase people down to verify their understanding of these items.

  39. AppleStan*

    OP#1 — first of all, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PREGNANCY!!!!

    Now, just so your boss doesn’t find a way to pull the rug out from under you.

    **Technically** (and Alison, I would absolutely love feedback if I’m wrong), since this particular FMLA is related to your pregnancy, my understanding is that everything you do related to your pregnancy is going to go against your 12 weeks. Got an obstetrician appointment and you’re gone for that after lunch? That’s 4 hours of your FMLA. Need to go get some testing done? That’s 2 hours of your FMLA. “Morning” sickness knocks you out for the day? That’s 8 hours of your FMLA.

    Pretty soon, you’ve nickled and dimed your way down to 8 weeks of FMLA when the birth happens (or even 6 weeks, as happened to one of my team members). It was a true surprise to her that she couldn’t take a full 12 weeks of FMLA after the baby was born — we didn’t find that out until we got closer to the birth and were arranging leave dates.

    To be clear, it wasn’t as if she expected the FMLA to be fully paid leave (some people do), and her job was NOT in jeopardy. We just knew the remaining 6 weeks wouldn’t be covered by FMLA.

    When I became a manager, as soon as a team member told me they were pregnant, I always made sure to bring this up and let them know I would leave it up to them, but we can always flex some hours on days they have appointments, or do extended lunches, or whatever was necessary to preserve as much of the FMLA time as possible.

    We luckily work for great leaders that are extremely supportive of taking as much time as you need for family situations, including pregnancy and birth, and aren’t against unpaid leave if you don’t have any paid leave left (and I work for government, so it’s not like we can just give paid leave just because, unfortunately), but not every place is like that, so you just want to be prepared.

    Again, congratulations on your pregnancy!

    1. Snarky McSnarkson*

      I’m not a lawyer, but I have never worked for a company that tracks FMLA for pregnancy in this way. If you have a doctor’s appointment, you use your accrued sick time. Same for testing and morning sickness. The LEAVE part does not start until you have actually left to give birth (or complications cause bed rest). If this is how your company is doing it, I think maybe they should re-think this.

      1. Lapis Lazuli*

        Can confirm this is the case for many employers: intermittent prenatal treatment/appointments and episodes of incapacity (e.g., severe morning sickness where you miss work) can be standard components of FMLA prior to delivery. The Dept. of Labor also indicated in 2 separate opinion letters from 2019 that employers have a legal obligation to designate time as FMLA when they have sufficient information to determine it’s FMLA-qualifying. Similarly, pre-placement activities for adoption and foster can be covered as FMLA. One way to get around this is to try and schedule your treatment/appointments around your work hours, use lunch hours, flex your time, etc. But that’s all very employer/job-dependent and none of that actually gets to the root of the problem: 12 workweeks is not enough and having it automatically unpaid unless you use your PTO/your employer offers paid leave is not enough.

        As someone who works with FMLA and leave of absence in the US, I have a lot of thoughts and opinions about the state of US leave laws and its medical/healthcare industry. It is essentially a hellscape, but nobody is appointing me benevolent ruler anytime soon.

        1. Observer*

          he Dept. of Labor also indicated in 2 separate opinion letters from 2019 that employers have a legal obligation to designate time as FMLA when they have sufficient information to determine it’s FMLA-qualifying

          That’s only if the person would otherwise not be able to take the time for those activities. Like if this were a situation where a person would not be allowed to take 2 hours off for an appointment otherwise. But if the LW can do that in the normal course of work, the employer does not have to tag is as FMLA.

          1. AppleStan*

            But I think that’s the main issue…if it’s related to the event. Ultimately, your FMLA is for the pregnancy, not just for the birth. The birth is part of the event.

            If I get hit by a vehicle, and I need to be out recuperating for some time, that FMLA time is related to the vehicle hit. If it turns out that during my recuperation time, I need surgery because of something caused by the vehicle hit, then that surgery, and everything related to that surgery is part of the same FMLA qualifying event.

            However, if I had, say, two root canal extractions unrelated to the vehicle hit…that wouldn’t be part of the FMLA qualifying event.

            The birth is the part of the pregnancy process…so it’s all related to the same FMLA qualifying event.

            Again, this is why I’m sharing this info…there are ways around it if you are in the know … flexing so they don’t have to take time off for work, extended lunch periods, etc. But if you’re not aware, and your employer is tagging the leave that you take for FMLA due to the pregnancy — you don’t want to be surprised, especially if you need the full 12 weeks.

            I also think that people tend to be confused about FMLA…thinking that’s optional. And it’s not. Something either qualifies for FMLA or it doesn’t. This is not dependent upon whether you can use some other type of leave (annual leave, vacation leave, sick leave, PTO, etc.)…the event is either FMLA Qualifying or it isn’t. What sort of leave you have available to you is irrelevant for purposes of whether or not the event qualifies as FMLA.

          2. Lapis Lazuli*

            The opinion letters specifically called out the Escriba case in the footnotes. If an employer knows the time is FMLA-qualifying and it’s leave time (i.e., not being flexed/made up during the week), then FMLA applies regardless of whether the employee has PTO to cover or would prefer to use it. The opinion letters state that, just as an employer cannot induce an employee to waive their FMLA rights, the employee also does not get to waive their FMLA rights. The employer cannot delay the designation of FMLA, even if the employee would prefer them to.

        2. AppleStan*

          Oh, I agree 100%…everything about our healthcare system, and the support we give to parents with new children……….quite frankly….it ain’t great.

          1. Lapis Lazuli*

            My ideal is a world where both parents get 100% paid leave for 2 years, to be used within the first 4 years of a child’s life. That could bridge a 2-parent household to around pre-K and substantially reduce the needs/costs of childcare for all families (especially single parent households). It could be taken continuously, intermittently, or as a reduced schedule so parents don’t have to forfeit a benefit if they don’t want to be home 24/7 for 2 years.

            My idea is it could be funded as a payroll tax or as a part of the state/federal taxes. It’s not like the US doesn’t have the money for it or couldn’t raise the money for it. We just don’t tax the right people at the right amount, and the tax revenue we do have… well…

  40. urguncle*

    OP1: Nip this in the bud now by going to HR. A coworker with more internal visibility than me was saying something similar when I went on leave and then spent 3.5 months telling everyone how terrible I was for taking paid leave. Came back and even people who disagreed with him had some criticism about whatever aspect of my leave that didn’t go to plan for whatever reason.

  41. iglwif*

    OP3: I am a slightly tubby middle-aged lady who sweats a lot. This is maybe slightly exacerbated by menopause, but I have been too sweaty for prime time all my life (a lovely trait I seem to have inherited from my biological father), irrespective of age, weight, and fitness level. It’s worse in humid climates … and unfortunately I live in one. The most annoying part is that I can get almost all the way to my destination on a hot day with a reasonable amount of sweat, then walk into an air-conditioned space and suddenly be DRIPPING — wet hair, sweat rolling down my face and all the way into my cleavage, neckline damp, the whole megillah.

    So over the course of my life and career I have arrived at meetings / events / the office pink-faced, sweaty, and dishevelled-looking thousands of times, and many, many hundreds of times have been asked if I’m okay, if I’m sick, if I have a fever … Nope, this is just what my body does, for some reason. I don’t like it either, but I am completely fine, medically speaking.

    Nothing stops people asking invasive questions, but I’ve learned that I can make myself care about it less by meeting them with a breezy “Nope, I’m just a sweaty person! Now, about that [meeting topic] …”

    1. Some Words*

      It’s possible I’ve referred to myself as a “Sweaty Betty” from time to time.

      Bodies gonna body.

      1. iglwif*

        Heeeeeeeeee.

        ::sweaty high-five::

        Bodies gonna body, and it’s not like we can return them and get a new one!

    2. Hroethvitnir*

      Oh man. It actually kinda makes sense to me your body might be even more like YES TIME TO COOL directly after the heat or exertion, but as someone who also gets this it suuucks. I actually need to air dry for a bit after a shower because my body wants that heat *out* and when I have to get dressed immediately I will be sweaty.

      I started sweating more easily and more profusely when I was very, very fit, which is normal… it did not stop when I stopped doing as much exercise. Sigh.

      1. iglwif*

        Sigh, indeed.

        I also need to air-dry after a shower. And I’ve started showering in cooler and cooler water, too.

  42. HSE Compliance*

    Oh, #3 – I feel you. I also have rosacea that does what it wants, usually at the worst of times. I’m in a manufacturing environment, so YMMV. I’ve had decent results with “nope, that’s just my face”. I actually have that sticker on my water bottle. But the “no, just a condition” or “no, it’s just rosacea” have worked as well – a surprising amount of people in my workplaces have immediately understood and commiserated.

    1. hottomato*

      I work in an office setting an have used the following successfully: ‘that’s just my skin’, ‘that’s just my face’, ‘this is just what I look like’. I try to use a nonchalant unconcerned tone to keep from being rude, and it has worked so far.

    2. londonedit*

      I agree, just be matter-of-fact about it. I’m extremely sun sensitive and even with SPF50 on at all times I’m still likely to go pink/develop a heat rash if it’s hot and sunny. And then I get the inevitable ‘Whooooa, someone’s caught the sun!!’ ‘Oooh, been sunbathing have we??’ ‘Ooooh you’ve gone a bit pink!!!!!’ comments. It’s annoying, but the best way to shut it down is just to say ‘Nope, this is just what my skin does’ or ‘Nope, I just react to the sun’ or something equally nondescript. The tone is definitely also important – just make it a flat statement.

      1. LateRiser*

        Unsolicited advice: if you get an itchy rash, it may be worth trying a sunblock that also blocks infrared. That completely nullified my inherited “sun allergy”.

        1. Peanut Hamper*

          I didn’t even know that was a thing, but it makes sense, since infrared is on the opposite end of the visible spectrum from the ultraviolet that causes sunburns. I think this is why lifeguards used to wear zinc oxide. Thanks! I’m going to look for this.

  43. Lady Danbury*

    OP#3, is it possible that management is sending mixed signals about the importance of checking email or that key information not being communicated in an effective way? It’s not uncommon for tasks that are viewed as ancillary to be deprioritized in practice even when management says they’re important. For example, you mention employees having downtime to check email, but is it sufficient time to thoroughly review and comprehend new requests? Are those new tasks being communicated effectively within the email or is they lost in a list of announcements that range from important to completely irrelevant to the employee’s role? Are they being reinforced in any way outside of email?

  44. Somehow I Manage*

    OP2 – I feel like the email part is a red herring of sorts. Maybe staff isn’t reading email. Or maybe they are and they’re just not following through. Depending on the importance of the instructions, it may be that they need to have these announcements/reminders posted in a different fashion. Ask staff what will work better. You can state that instructions are not being followed, and you’re left wondering whether emails are not being read or if there’s something else preventing staff from doing whatever they’re being instructed to do. Maybe it is email AND an announcement book. Maybe it is those plus a bulletin board with important announcements near the time clock. Maybe there’s a reminder you can set up if you have an electronic time clock. The issue isn’t the email, though. The issue is that something isn’t being done. Following a change in delivery, you also need to change your management. If someone isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, have a conversation with them. Why did it not happen. Remind them in person that it is part of their job. And then escalate from there, as needed.

  45. Garblesnark*

    LW3: I use this script for nearly all comments about my many disabilities at work:

    It’s [compliment] of you to ask, but I like to focus on work while I’m here. [Work question]?

    So: “It’s thoughtful of you to ask, but I’m at work right now and want to focus on that. Do you want a bag for your bananas?”

    “I know you’re asking because you care, but I like to focus on work while I’m here. Did you get my email about the runaway teapots?”

    Or if I’m feeling less generous I might say:
    “I’m here to focus on work, can you do that with me? The mega snails have chewed through 14 buildings in the last hour.”

    I don’t lead with a compliment because they deserve a compliment. I do it because most people are too distracted by the compliment to notice that I have changed the subject while they weren’t looking, and then they’re too embarrassed to change it back.

    1. Nightengale*

      OK I sometimes deal with disability related questions at work and now I am just but hoping I can find a way to deflect one with an answer about mega snails.

      (the closest I come to snails in my current work is a wonderful rainbow fidget slug that my patients and I enjoy. Their parents do not enjoy that it doubles as a maraca. In a previous life as a teacher I was once tasked for de-snailing a fish tank.)

  46. CommanderBanana*

    LW #1 – also, document document document! I’d start a Word doc and note every time your boss brings up your mat leave, when it happened, what they said, and I’d back this up on either your phone or a personal computer. Also keep a written record of any interactions with HR (don’t fall for the HR bullshit “oh I’ll stop by your office” or “oh I’ll call you.” They do that because they don’t want a written record of what they said or did.).

    1. Constance Lloyd*

      I agree, but instead of a word document I would email my personal address from my work address to have an automatic timestamp and personal backup.

  47. Forest Hag*

    #3 – I have rosacea, and my typical response is “It’s just my face” or “Yep” and then shift to something else. Very few people have tried to press further after that, and if they do, I will say something else uninformative like “It’s just how my face is, so let’s talk about [whatever else]”. I have found that if I specify it’s a medical condition, or say anything at all related to makeup (I’m a woman), then it invites a deluge of comments on “have you tried this medicine” or “have you tried this foundation”, etc etc. I don’t wear makeup at all – in addition to foundation irritating my rosacea, I am also allergic to a lot of things found in makeup, plus I just never enjoyed it! But like many things in life, people want to share their opinions and solutions, so the less I give out, the less I get back.

    I totally understand where you are coming from, and it sucks to deal with. The bright side is that, over the years, it has helped me weed out people who truly care about me as I am, and what I can do, and aren’t focused on my face.

  48. Apex Mountain*

    I would never comment on someone’s looks, and I’m not familiar with rosacea , but I can understand somebody being concerned if all of a sudden they see a colleague with a really red face out of nowhere.

    1. Sylvia*

      I have rosacea, and a red face can be the sign of a bad allergic reaction, so I get it. I would probably mention it too. But I’ve had people argue with me about it which I feel crosses the line.

      “Your face is red.”
      “Yes, I have a skin condition called roseacea and it makes my skin red.”
      “No, it’s really red!”
      “Yep, I know.”
      “But, it’s not usually that red.”
      “It is, but I’m not wearing makeup today.”
      Usually by this time, the rest of me is turning red because I’m very uncomfortable with the conversation.
      And then they continue to stare at my face and say something along the lines of “Wow”.

      Sadly, no one has ever asked me if it hurts (it does sometimes), which makes me wonder if they’re actually concerned about me or if it’s just curiosity.

      1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        I hear you. I have roseacea too and I sometimes get comments. I think people don’t ask if it hurts because people don’t think it does or they don’t know enough about it and so don’t think to ask.

      2. Little My*

        “crosses the line” <–exactly!! I have skin issues and someone at work once said "what's wrong with your face? it looks like you got hit with a stick!" I pulled out a mirror, looked, and said "Nope that's just my skin!" Then later I got mad.

      3. bookshelves*

        Eczema-haver here, and you typed out the exact conversation I’ve had with coworkers. One lady said the “wow” and then just… regarded my face for like a full 30 seconds. Like she was assessing whether I’d been lying to her about why I was ugly.

      4. No Cute Name*

        I had mild rosacea for the majority of my adult life, but experienced a major and dramatic flare a couple of years ago and my goodness it hurt so much! Totally surprised me with how uncomfortable it was – tight and burning and I swear I could feel my heart beat in my cheeks. But nope – it was how I looked that got everyone’s comments.

  49. Tom R*

    My non-American brain cannot comprehend the situation LW1 is in. The boos giving her grief over 12 weeks? I am taking 35 weeks when my adoption is finalized in a month or so (I live in Canada) and my boss is over the moon for me. We have plans in place to ensure that coverage is met as there is no way I am missing out on this important part of my (and my future son’s) lives.

    1. londonedit*

      I know, but it’s not helpful to American readers for those of us in other countries to comment about how much better our leave policies are (I could respond to yours with ’35 weeks? In the UK we can take up to 52!!!’) Everyone here knows the policies in the US could be better, and it’s annoying if everyone else keeps pointing it out when there’s actually nothing that can immediately be done about it. The OP has to work within what she’s legally allowed to take, and that’s 12 weeks, so it’s about how to get her boss to accept that. It’s not about whether X or Y country offers more leave.

      1. Apex Mountain*

        I think it can be helpful to contextualize how awful it is. I’m an American and I don’t really get why if we all think it’s terrible we shouldn’t comment on it. There are plenty of things on this site that we are powerless to affect but can still be mentioned.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Americans can and are welcome to comment on how much it sucks. What londonedit is referring to, is something Alison often posts herself, which is that it’s unhelpful for non-Americans be all “OMG! How horrible is your parental leave! Gadzooks we get 5x-10x that here! How barbaric!” Which isn’t quite what Tom R was doing, but the point is WE KNOW. We know it sucks here. Someone not from here being surprised that it sucks here accomplishes nothing. And happens every.single.time the topic comes up.

    2. I should really pick a name*

      I’m Canadian and I can easily comprehend this situation.

      Just because we’re legally entitled to more leave in Canada doesn’t mean there aren’t managers who complain about it.

    3. Tesuji*

      The problem here is the way maternity leave is structured in the US. Maternity leave is a mandate by the government whose cost is completely borne by whatever company happens to have a pregnant employee.

      In turn, the company shifts the cost further downward, so that the cost for maternity leave is essentially paid by whatever team that worker is on, because what that leave really means is “Well, I guess the rest of you are going to have to do the work of 3 people with only 2 of you now. Gotta be a team player!”

      If the US really wanted to support pregnant woman, they’d put their money where their mouth is, and have it be funded by society as a whole instead of treating it as a tax on companies that don’t discriminate against pregnant women.

      Maternity leave is effectively coded as an act of charity and goodwill, with workers being volunteered by their company to support a co-worker’s ability to take leave by taking on their job for free. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s completely understandable for workers to have opinions about the societal burden rolling downhill to them personally.

      The manager shouldn’t be saying the quiet part aloud, but the problem is bigger than one AH manager.

      1. I should really pick a name*

        I’m not sure how a government mandate could dictate how a company handles the change in workload due to parental leave.

        Yes, some countries require parental leave to be paid (in Canada, it’s effectively employment insurance which is contributed to by the company and the employees), but specific guidelines around covering workload sound like a major overreach to me. How would society fund work coverage? Can you name a country that actually does something like that?

        1. Dancing Otter*

          The fact that it’s an *unfunded* mandate means the department is still being charged for the paid leave. So they would need to increase their staffing budget to hire a temporary replacement.
          Even with unpaid leave, temporary workers are frequently more expensive because the temp agency takes a cut.
          Companies would rather come in under budget than over; it’s why so many are under-staffed even before anyone needs FMLA.

        2. fhqwhgads*

          In other places where the time off is both mandated and funded, it means the companies know what to expect. Which makes it easier to plan the staffing to account for it. If the paid leave comes out of an insurance-like bucket not paid for directly by the company, then the company still has the budget they had for whoever’s in that position to spend on a temporary replacement – be that an actual temp or a short term hire. I realize the budget for those types of employees may not be a dollar for dollar match, but the point is when the structure becomes standard, it’s easier to plan for it.
          When it’s unfunded A) not everyone takes the whole thing since they can’t necessarily afford to go unpaid, B) even the unpaid leave we have now doesn’t cover everyone. So it’s a lot easier for lots and lots of employers to have no plan whatsoever and basically wing it every time someone takes leave. A unique plan for each person also leans more towards blaming that one person for however it shakes out.
          Sure the company could potentially stick try to create budget savings by not replacing the person on leave (and this is in part facilitated by how short US leave is already). So it’s also a bit that the many many many other countries with paid leave also have much longer leave. So the infrastructure is already in place for handling it. Right now what happens so much is “we can push through for 6 – 8 -10 -12 weeks whatever”. It’s a lot more ridiculous (though not impossible) to say “eh we can push through for a year”. So it’s not that policy dictates HOW employers deal with coverage. It’s that policy makes it much easier to handle the coverage in a not-asshole way. Now, assholes will still exist, but in general if the policy makes it easier to be one than not, that’s the way things go. So you want a policy that makes it easier to not be an asshole.

    4. iglwif*

      While I (also in Canada) agree that the parental leave situation in the US is bananapants, it is worth noting that hiring someone to cover 12 weeks is in fact significantly more difficult than covering 12 months. (Source: I am old enough to have lived through the 4-month, 8-month, 12-month, and 18-month phases of mat/par leave in Canada. The longer the leave is, the easier it is to find someone good to cover it.)

      Of course, THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR LW1’S BOSS’S BEHAVIOUR. His inability to imagine the workplace functioning without LW1 for a measly 3 months is a him problem! He has plenty of notice, which would not be the case if she were (G-d forbid) hit by a bus or got very sick suddenly, nor would she be likely to give a long notice period if she suddenly won the lottery and decided she never wanted to see him again, and he would have to cope! If this company has structured itself (as many do) such that one person leaving throws everything into chaos, that is the company’s problem!

      Just noting that there is one sense in which short leaves are trickier than long ones.

      1. urguncle*

        I mean, somehow when there are layoffs, companies manage to find coverage for important tasks that the laid off people had. It’s not impossible, it’s just a pain for a manager for a short amount of time.

        1. iglwif*

          Yes, they do. (Or they don’t, and balls get dropped and broken — but if you blame the person you laid off, you’re a jerk.)

          One of the structural reasons that brief absences are so hard to cover is that we have collectively decided to have as little overlap and redundancy as possible, to give everyone as many tasks as they can possibly handle so we can pay fewer salaries, etc. Like, most workplaces simply are not set up to handle ANY loss of capacity gracefully.

      2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        The trouble is, the “hit by a bus” or “won the lottery” scenario are in some ways easier to deal with, because you know the person won’t be coming back. So as soon as you get that information, you spring into action right away to hire a replacement, contact clients that their project will be delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, etc. 12 weeks is actually quite an awkward amount of time to be out, because it’s long enough that “just get Soo to cover” isn’t sustainable, but also not so long that you could hire someone on a temporary contract and have it be worthwhile in most cases (12 weeks is probably how long it takes to ramp up for most jobs!) – So although the boss is being a jerk, it is also the case that OP’s absence is a legitimate business problem that needs arrangements made to handle it. This would be the case whatever the cause of the absence, if you knew in advance how long it was going to be. It may not have been handled sensitively, but the business reality is that the boss now needs to start contingency planning for those 12 weeks, and the solution can’t be “hire a replacement”.

        1. iglwif*

          Well, this is why I note that a longer leave is easier to cover than a short one.

          But even if you’re replacing a suddenly absent employee, that takes time! An organization I volunteer with recently had to hire a new exec director; the old one resigned effective April 1, and we didn’t have a new one in place until the beginning of July, even though we had 30 days’ notice and moved as fast as we could manage. That’s right about 12 weeks. Of course sometimes it goes a lot faster than that, but either way there is going to be a period of weeks when the manager has to cope somehow.

          Whereas, with 4 months’ notice of an approaching mat leave, you could pay for a few weeks’ overlap to get a temp or contractor in to train with LW on the most important projects, or you could tee up a freelancer or vendor to cover them, or …

          It’s really hard to imagine a scenario where knowing about an absence 4 months in advance isn’t better than being hit with it suddenly.

  50. Alan*

    Re #2, I was intrigued to read at some point that speed limits (at least here in CA) are presumed valid only if obeyed by 85 % of drivers. If everyone on a road is going 10 mph over the limit, the limit is presumed to be the problem, and tickets can be thrown out. If none of your employees are obeying a policy, it’s the policy that’s the problem.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      I’m curious how one would prove after the fact that everyone was going over the limit.

      1. Alan*

        Cities/counties do speed surveys every few years, at least on roads where they use radar. In court the cops (or prosecution) have to show that a speed survey was done in the past few years and that the speed study supports the limit.

        1. Lady_Lessa*

          Even today, on the Ohio Turnpike, I passed two troopers who were just monitoring traffic. (and I have passed them going over the limit without them moving.)

          Of course, if I were going near the speed limit when it was pouring down rain too hard for double speed wipers, they might have. (In that case I was keeping a safe distance from the semi in front of me. we were going about 35 mph)

    2. sparkle emoji*

      I’m not sure if IA law would reflect this, but in my drivers ed class in IA (which was taught by retired cops) we were told that it was safer/preferable to follow the speed of traffic than the speed limit even if the speed of traffic was faster.

      1. Alan*

        My father once got pulled over for driving too slowly on the freeway here in CA. The cop didn’t cite him, just told him to speed up or get off the freeway.

      2. Hroethvitnir*

        Yes. Everyone being within ~10% of each other’s speed (I don’t know the actual number but that’s what I vibe), along with good following distance and hazard awareness is ideal for safety.

        Actually enforcing less quantitative measures when it comes to driving safely is very hard though. I do wish we had cops ticketing cars that accelerate massively when being overtaken instead of/as well as the people attempting to overtake safely! (I moved a few years ago and it’s waaay more common here than my last city, it’s bizarre and infuriating. We’re talking speeding up by up to 130% of their original speed on the motorway, it’s wild.)

      3. Peanut Hamper*

        I know a couple of cops here in my state and they have definitely given out tickets for going slower than the traffic, which creates a safety issue. They have also given out tickets to people driving slow in the left lane. Again, it’s a safety issue.

    3. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      Some drivers think “It’s OK if I go five or ten miles/hour above the limit,” regardless of what that limit is. If the speed limit is raised from (say) 55 mph to 65 mph, pretty soon some of the people who were driving at 60 mph are now going 70mph.

      If absolutely nobody is obeying the speed limit, that’s probably a systemic issue. If the same three people always speed, it probably isn’t.

      I don’t think LW would have written the same letter if the situation had been “I have a dozen employees, and one person never reads their email, and two more usually don’t, how do I get through to those three people?” What we have here is the flipside of “don’t criticize the whole team for what one person is doing.”

  51. Cat Admin*

    #4. I think after being rejected I wouldn’t like to know that I was the first choice. For me, it would make the loss harder knowing I was so close and I couldn’t say to myself “well I guess someone else just had more experience, etc.”.

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      Maybe this is semantics, but the person getting rejected was not first choice or else they would have gotten the job, they were OPs first choice but not the hiring committees first choice. But I do agree with you that being told that would make it harder. Others have suggested letting the person know OP thought highly of them and they would like to keep them in mind for future roles or even to pass on to their network is a good idea.

  52. Tesuji*

    LW#2:

    In a situation like this, I’d be wondering how much of the email these employees are receiving is actually relevant to them.

    If you’re in a role where email is a key part of your job, it might not register that there’s 10 emails a day of various company-wide announcements that have zero relevance to almost everyone, but that’s going to matter to someone who’s only logging in once a day (or maybe even just once every few days, for part-timers), in terms of them catching the one email that’s relevant to them amidst a sea of what’s essentially spam.

    Now, sure, more technologically-inclined people would set up filters and flags so that your emails aren’t lost in that sea, but if the employees were that kind of people, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  53. Spacewoman Spiff*

    LW2: I think the announcements binder is probably your best approach. That said, I had a job similar to this in the past, where I was on the floor and even if there was a minute of downtime, checking email isn’t something I’d think to do–there was always something more pressing even if a customer wasn’t around. The managers at that job scheduled “email” as a 15-minute block on everyone’s schedule, so we had time to see those announcements. If you can adjust people’s schedules in that way, might help out…I always looked forward to my email time because it felt like a mini-break, in that I was able to sit down in the staff area while I read my emails. This was a set part of the culture there so probably wouldn’t be so easy for you, but whether it’s an announcements binder or scheduled email time, it sounds like there needs to be a little culture shift around this.

  54. Ginger Cat Lady*

    OP2, I wonder if the problem isn’t so much email as it is everyone assumes someone else will do it. Your example of putting X out at the beginning of the day and bringing it back in. If no one person is assigned to do it, everyone will just expect that it’s someone else’s job.
    If they’re getting lots of emails that don’t apply to them, they will also be more likely to dismiss emails.
    What if you tried “The team lead for the morning shift will put out X. The team lead for the evening shift will return X to (storage location).” and also just send the email to the people who are team leads.
    Lots of people here are saying that you should just fire people for not doing the job, but if you send an email to 15 people saying “someone needs to do task A.” and it doesn’t get done, who do you fire? If you say “Bob, you need to do task A” or “The assistant manager for the night shift needs to do task A.” then there can realistically be more accountability.

  55. Ziggy*

    #2 – In addition to the binder, checklists may also be beneficial. I managed a similarly structured team, and we used an intranet/knowledgebase for information, and checklists for process. With a checklist, anyone can look and see what still needs to be done.

    1. sparkle emoji*

      Yes yes yes. Give things a deadline on the checklist. Make it obvious that the person who’s working at 10 am is responsible for x, instead of just saying it should be done at some point.

  56. Observer*

    #2 – People not reading your emails.

    Alison gave you some good advice. But I think that you also need to reframe your thinking a bit here.

    There are two things that jump out at me. One is that you have repeatedly *asked* people to “PLEASE” read their email. You have to stop *asking* and start telling. Now, it sounds like in this particular case, email is not really the best medium for your announcements, so it’s probably a good idea to move to a different medium. But it’s a real problem that you never even thought of simply *mandating* that people check their email on a regular basis.

    The point here is not that you should stick to email. Because it’s quite possible that it’s a mandate that will legitimately slip to the bottom of everyone’s pile. What is important here is that you actually stand ready to mandate whatever format you find reasonable.

    This ties to the second thing I noticed. You’ve tried asking for them to read emails, and then came up with nothing else to try. Because you didn’t think through the possibilities – paper notices don’t have to take up that much space if you do it right – as Alison suggests. But also because you decided that people are going to ignore it anyway.

    And that’s a real problem. As a manager, how can you ever expect to manage if you (and the chain of command above) is not willing to *require* stuff. Not “PLEASE read and sign this”, which reads a frustrated request to do something that is actually optional. But “Please check the notice book each day. Read and sign any new notices. Thank you.” (Implies a politely worded mandate.) If that doesn’t work “This is a requirement.” And, from there you treat it like any other performance issue.

    But I would be willing to bet that if these are reasonable and competent people you won’t need to get to performance management. Because reasonable people to react very differently to annoying *requests* than they do to *requirements* even when they are annoying.

  57. Cacofonix*

    On #4, I think the OP has a bigger concern about the potential (in)ability of the weakest hire to ease workload for the OP. Sounds like it could be a trying learning curve even if they eventually contribute as hoped.

  58. M*

    #2 – I’ve worked at a public library where our solution to this was having an internal announcements page set as the homepage on every computer. We used a free wordpress blog set to private with a shared login; sharepoint would work too if you have access to that.

  59. TootsNYC*

    4. Telling a rejected candidate I wish they had been hired

    When I was a manager, I often interviewed people that I wish I could have hired. I did hire my favorite candidates, but sometimes you get so many good candidates.

    I would make a point to email them and say, “I wanted to encourage you in your job search. You have X Y Z strengths, and were impressive because of LMN reasons. I know it’s discouraging to interview and not be chosen, but you should feel confident and strong going into future interviews elsewhere. I will definitely keep your resume on the top of my pile, and with your permission, I’ll pass it along should I hear of anything suitable.”

    And then I did pass them along, or contact them to reapply.

  61. Link*

    2. They’re on computers for most of their shift you say, while still customer facing. You also said there is downtime. I’m assuming they’re logging in with credentials to your intranet system since they’re dealing with customers, and if you’re using the microsoft office suite of programs (so outlook), make sure those login credentials are tied to their outlook, so notifications can be forced to the notification sidebar. That said, I am of the opinion that your workers don’t care since they’re all part time and/or with this being their second job. You need to start rolling in consequences for failing to do their job, which checking their email is now a part of their job since you and several other managers have told them it is. Start physically talking to your employees one on one, have them sign something that shows that checking email/announcements/memos at the start/end of every shift is now required, and that failing to do so is grounds for discipline, and start handing out warnings and write ups if you need to. In fact, I would probably start doing both the binder Alison suggested, and continue with the emails anyways. That binder can take the form of printed out emails you’re sending that need to be acknowledged, either/both with a reply to the email and an initial in the binder. BUT YOU NEED to start rolling out consequences out for failing to check email and announcements/memos. They’ve shown they’re going to be blasé about acknowledging announcements via email, and it’ll likely continue the pattern with the binder.

  62. Ellis Bell*

    Just in case this applies, I’m wondering if OP2 is asking “everyone” to do tasks which actually only need to be done by one person and therefore falling foul of the law of “what is everyone’s responsibility is no one’s responsibility”. When OP says “put out X in the morning and bring it in at night” it makes a difference as to whether x is singular or plural. If it’s actually a job for one person, people assume other people are more free than they are, or that someone else will do it. If someone cracks and decides to do it because they see it going undone: congratulations, it’s now their job permanently and no one else has to bother. The other upside of allocating it to a person (even if it’s allocated to different people in rotation as part of shift allocation) is that you can follow up with that one person when it doesn’t get done. Your alternative is to follow up with “everyone” which is less than ideal.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      It sounds like its shift work that maybe people work at different days like maybe on Monday and Tuesday its x, Y employees and on Wednesday its A, and B employees. etc. So they all have to know to do the task and if their schedule changes it might be hard to say employee A you do task.

  63. Tempest*

    LW#3 – I have the same issue, I usually answer with “Nope, that’s just my face,” followed by silence.. they are usually pretty embarrassed and never bring it up again.

  64. Lapis Lazuli*

    OP #1. Oh, HELL NO. When you talk to your HR about this, please use the terms “FMLA interference”, “chilling effect”, and “retaliation”. Used in a sentence, that might look like:

    “I’m worried that [MANAGER] is sharing my personal medical/leave information with others who do not need to know, and is making comments about how my leave will negatively impact the office. I know we wouldn’t want this to become FMLA interference or have a chilling effect on myself or others who might need FMLA in the future. Based on these comments, I’m also concerned about retaliation. Can you ensure [MANAGER] is aware that he cannot retaliate against me for requesting and taking leave, or for reporting this issue to you?”

  65. Myrin*

    #2, you make no mention of this but I feel like when you’re hitting a wall like this, it’s really important to find out why people are (not) doing the things they’re (not) doing.

    There’s a big difference between how you should react to employees who don’t read emails because reading takes time and they have to concentrate and they hate having to concentrate
    versus because they don’t care about their job with you and prefer just doing the bare minimum to get by versus because the act of opening their emails alone freezes up the whole computer for ten minutes versus because the process to actually access the emails is cumbersome and inefficient.

    I really think you need to start getting clear on this first and foremost before you can come up with a likely solution.

  66. Unkempt Flatware*

    For #1, when bosses are behaving not like bosses but like peers (an authority figure complaining to you about having to be an authority figure is how you speak to a peer, not a direct report under you), I’d give it back to him like I would a peer: “It is wildly inappropriate for you to bring this up at all, let alone with me or other direct reports of yours. I expect to hear nothing else of it except to say Good Luck. If I continue to hear you complaining about this to me or others, I’m going to escalate it. If you have concerns about coverage, we can talk about it professionally but I will not help you with your emotions about it.”

  67. Statler von Waldorf*

    For #3, I don’t have Rosacea. I do have some very striking facial scars though, which does get me attention from the general public, so I feel for LW#3.

    My advice, and it’s hard, is to just ignore it as much as you can. Anything you do will feed the idea that it’s a topic that’s open to discussion. Acknowledge it once in a bored, matter of fact tone. After that, simply don’t respond to people who insist on bringing it up. Become the grey rock.

    Look at it this way. Your polite co-workers will respect that you don’t want to talk about it. A bored and dismissive “are you still going on about that,” will do more to shut up the impolite co-workers while maintaining the moral high ground than anything else I’ve tried.

  68. Nat20*

    I just want to chime in on #2 from the perspective of an employee, because people missing announcements can have even more adverse effects than just the missed info. I was in a similar situation at an old job and it ended up terribly for me.

    It was a small-town retail job, so there was no work email or communal front desk email, only a register. Announcements from the boss sometimes came through calls/texts, but his usual approach was to simply tell each person individually whenever he saw them. Not exactly organized.

    At one point, apparently he went around to everyone else to let them know that instead of the evening shift starting right at the end of morning shift (3pm), he wanted 15 minutes of overlap to make shift change smoother. Basically, he was asking us to come in at 2:45 for night shifts and still have morning shift work till 3.

    I did not get that memo. I saw him plenty often, but I guess he just forgot to tell me. Everyone else started coming in earlier, while I continued to arrive right at 3:00 or only a couple minutes ahead. And of course, everyone started to resent me for being lazy/always late/inconveniencing them. And I was none the wiser, thinking I was doing my job just fine. I did, however, notice how every other employee seemed to hate me. They actively iced me out, ignored me, and not-so-subtly made fun of me behind my back during shifts. It made me so anxious and sad! I always work hard to do my job right and be a dependable, amiable coworker, so I felt like such a loser and a failure even though I couldn’t figure out what on earth I was doing wrong. I should’ve gone to the boss myself, but I was young (just out of college) and didn’t want to be seen as a whiner. I did finally ask one coworker outright what everyone’s problem with me was, that I genuinely didn’t know and wanted to fix it if I could. He smiled, said nothing, and walked away.

    Eventually my manager finally pulled me aside to talk about “what’s wrong” and if I was ok. I started confessing that I was super stressed and upset because everyone seemed to hate me and I couldn’t figure out why. So he asked if there was something keeping me from being on time every day. Cue the blank stare from me.

    So, yeah, we finally cleared that up. And once it all sunk in, I was (internally) PISSED. When he realized his mistake he backed off and seemed to be a little bit like, “oh, oops”, but he wasn’t nearly as mortified or worried about me than I have since realized he should’ve been. ESPECIALLY since I learned that coworkers had been complaining to him about me for MONTHS, and he just indulged their gossip because he favored them, and never thought to actually talk to me about it! SO much animosity and stress could’ve been avoided by my boss actually being good at communicating and not having favorites. Also, no, I never got an apology from any coworkers, nor did they treat me any differently after I told them that I had literally never gotten that memo.

    Anyway. I realize that a large part of my story’s problem was cliquey, gossipy, mean coworkers and a biased boss, but I also know that it could’ve been entirely avoided by having a better system for announcements and communication. Personally, I’d advocate for regular (probably monthly), paid, all-staff meetings. If there’s never a normal time when everyone’s around at once, make a time.

  69. LW2*

    Hi, just wanted to respond to some things I’ve been seeing in the comments!

    -Things aren’t literally being phrased as “can you PLEASE read your email,” I agree that would be really passive aggressive and I’m sorry I phrased it that way in the letter! What I meant to convey was that we’ve reiterated “this is a necessity” several times.
    -For some context, of my team of about 12, only 2 are on the floor at once; I see a maximum of 4 per day. So that complicates the all staff meeting etc.
    -When I say downtime, I don’t mean like 5 minutes to sit and take a breather in the midst of an otherwise busy shift, I agree that would be really unreasonable! I mean enough downtime that people are regularly doing (easily put-down-able if someone requires help, and often *on* the same service computers where email would be) non-work-related things during their shift. I’m OK with that as long as everything still gets done, which it does (except of course for email). I am definitely not an “if you have time to lean, if you have time to clean” person. At least I try my hardest not to be.
    -Perhaps most importantly: Some commenters made me realize I do have reflection to do on making sure I’m giving communication the time it deserves. If something really is important, then yes, I really should be taking the time to go to each person individually throughout the week, and check off who I have talked to. I’m sorry it took me so long to get there, or to the binder solution for that matter. I’m still learning how to manage effectively; I think I could use some professional development, so I’m going to make that a priority when I have time.

    1. Nat20*

      Appreciate the context! Just to clarify my own suggestion for an all-staff meeting, I mean for those you would call in everyone to come in on a certain day, even if it’s not normally the day they would work. You’d make sure those people are still paid for coming in for an hour or so on what’s otherwise a day off. Someone could still be covering the actual job during that time and you can catch up with just those 2 afterward; or you could do something like keep the business closed for an extra hour in the morning (with a sign on the door), or something.

      Now of course, actually scheduling a meeting like that is itself an announcement that needs to get around somehow, but after the first one it can just be a regular thing people know to plan for, like the first Monday of every month or something.

      I used to work at hotel front desks, and those have a similar situation where there’s several front desk staff but only one or two working at a time. So usually staff meetings would happen in the lobby sometime between check-out and check-in time when guest traffic was low, so that the person actually working that day could still attend the meeting but easily step away to help someone at the desk or answer the phone. Everyone else would just come in even if it was a day off, but get paid for that time.

  70. Hedgehug*

    LW1
    What a colossal asshole.
    Slip him an insert about mat leave here in Canada and he’ll shut up about your 12 weeks.

  71. I'm so old I'm historic*

    I work at a business of 75 people that is open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. If our schedules don’t line up, I could go weeks without seeing some of the part-timers that only work 1-2 days a week. I send information out through email, a team Facebook page, and a bulletin board. Even with all that I still get “I didn’t know!” So now during onboarding I let people know that they are responsible for the information out there, whether they read it or not. This year I started a game where I will put “code words” in the memos and if someone catches them they can see me for a prize (candy, stress balls, bubbles-dollar tree type stuff that goes with our playful culture). Once it caught on, it’s been fun to sit in the break room watching the staff read memos word for word trying to find the code. :)

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