when you’re accepting a job offer, should you get any extra promises in writing?

by Alison Green on August 26, 2024

A reader writes:

I currently have an offer for an internal transfer to a different division in my company — same level but new team and scope of work. I’m planning on negotiating the salary offered (using some of your advice from prior letters!) which I would obviously want in writing, but I’m wondering if some of my other asks (number of days in the office, specific hours in the office) should also be in writing?

Ultimately, with an at-will job in which case the employer can always change the scope/requirements whenever they want, is there even a point to getting certain flexibilities in writing? For an exempt, salaried position, I’ve never seen work arrangements specified, so would it be reasonable to ask for it to be written as part of the offer?

You should get it in writing.

That’s not because putting it in writing will make it legally binding. In most cases in the U.S., it won’t. As you noted, employers can still change the terms of your employment at any time (unless you have a contract, which most U.S. workers don’t).

But putting it in writing still significantly increases the likelihood that the terms of your employment will be what you agreed to.

First and foremost, it protects you against misunderstandings and miscommunications (like you think you’re agreeing to two WFH days a week, but they think it’s up to two WFH days per week, subject to manager approval) or even people just forgetting details down the road. It’s also useful to have a record of the agreement if there are personnel changes — like if a decision-maker promises you a salary review in six months but leaves the company after three months and no one else knows anything about that conversation. They still might not ultimately abide by it, but having documentation of what was agreed to makes it more likely.

Second, the act of writing this stuff down can bring misunderstandings to the surface before anything is finalized. For example, if you said X but they understood it as Y, putting it in writing is likely to make everyone realize that you’re not on the same page, thus giving you the opportunity to iron it out before it’s too late.

Third, getting it written down can sometimes signal to an employer, “Oh wait, we had better really think this through.” People shouldn’t make promises off the cuff without fully thinking them through, but sometimes they do — which is how you end up starting a job thinking they agreed you could bring your parrot in but then find out it’s a no-go once after they actually check with someone. Just the act of asking to put something in writing can nudge people to make sure they really have all the sign-off’s they’ll need.

Some companies are very rigid about what they will and won’t put in an offer letter and won’t budge from their normal boilerplate to add in additional details, even when they’re sincere about whatever they’re agreeing to. If you’re dealing with an employer like that, try simply summarizing the agreement in an email yourself — framing it as, “I wanted to summarize the details we’ve discussed. Would you look this over and confirm this looks right to you?” (And if they won’t even do that much, take that as a sign that the agreement may not be as firm as you thought.)

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{ 94 comments }

{ 94 comments… read them below }

  1. juliebulie*

    I want to work in a place where you can bring a parrot. Other than on a pirate ship or pet shot.

    I have never actually gotten things in writing at a new job before, but it would have saved me some trouble on several occasions. Because sometimes they’ve plomised things (not promised) and I had to remind them and they either legit didn’t remember it or pretended not to.

    I’d like to think I’ve learned my lesson by now, but we’ll see how bold I am next time I get offered a job.

    3. Christmas Carol*

      When I worked in distribution sales, we had a customer who also did outside fabrication of custom parts for us. When Jeff came over to conduct business with us in person, his parrot would often come along for the ride, perched on Jeff’s shoulder.

      2. Mirve*

        It is in urban dictionary:
        verb. The act of pretending to promise something, while wholly intending to break that promise in spectacular fashion.

    5. Cmdrshprd*

      Bird sanctuary, vets office, mobile petting zoo, those are the jobs/place I can imagine you can bring a parrot too.

    6. wanda*

      Issue with parrots (and penguins, incidentally*) is that they can’t easily be toilet-trained. There are bird diapers out there, but people caution against them.

    7. Animal worker*

      As the owner of three parrots, be careful what you wish for. I love my birds dearly but only one of them might, might be work-appropriate. One would LOVE coming to work, but I’d soon be ostracized or fired if I brought her. She is loud and wants to be the center of attention at every moment. The third is in the middle, would either be an angel or fly around and chew everything up. I did actually get to bring my parrots to work decades ago when I managed a wildlife education program – in fact two of my current ones are ones I ‘inherited’ when the program shut down. That was actually fun, but it helped that the whole place was built around animals so worked well.

  2. Tired Amoeba*

    Makes me think of the LW who quit a few days in because they negotiated an office and the company took it away saying employees at that level didn’t get offices. Getting it in writing would have saved a lot of heartburn on both sides. because it would have (hopefully ) been addressed earlier.

    1. Tradd*

      Yes, exactly!

      Given the way things are changing around WFH/RTO, anything about WFH/hybrid, absolutely should be gotten in writting.

    2. KHB*

      With that one, the problem was that the internal recruiter was the one who promised the office, but then HR took it away. So the takeaway lesson there would be to confirm all details of the offer (in writing!) not just with the recruiter, but also with HR and the hiring manager. Because sometimes they can be working at cross purposes.

      1. TiredAmoeba*

        If they had gotten it in writing, that would have hopefully addressed the issue early on and management and HR would either have told OP that it wasn’t going to happen or they would have told the assistant manager who complained to pound sand because OP got it approved.

      2. M2*

        Yes and things can change. I was promised in writing an office with windows that opened. Then the building was being renovated one year after I got the role, so moved buildings and was literally put in a closet with no windows. When the new building was built my boss decided she didn’t need a window and neither did the deputy (me) so made the windowed area a giant conference room (they allowed input from each department) and ours internal offices. My boss left, I ended up with her job and HATED the windowless office, especially considering the role is executive leadership. People at lower grades have offices with windows, it made no sense. It really impacted my mood. I asked if we could turn the conference room into offices and the two internal offices into conference room and was told no, so I started actively looking. They did eventually offer me an office with a window, but in a different part of the building and floor from my entire team. I made the point that when I eventually left, no one at this level would ever accept a windowless office and they started to realize they were in trouble.

        So yes important to get things in writing, but offices, buildings, etc, can change. OR the hiring manager agrees and they leave soon after hiring and the new manager does not agree to those terms. That happened to me before as well.

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, no. My claustrophobia’s bad enough as it is, working in a windowless space all day would give me so much anxiety. Meetings are tolerable.

          I’m in Finland, and our collective agreements, which apply to all employees of unionized employers whether or not they’re unionized themselves, require office employees to have access to daylight in their workspace. No, it doesn’t mean that everyone gets a window seat or an office, but you can’t require employees to work all day in a supply closet (some ultra high security jobs are exempt). This doesn’t apply to meeting rooms, though, so nearly all meeting rooms are windowless in my office building.

        2. Llama mama*

          The hiring manager leaving soon after the hiring happened to me once. I showed up on the first day, and he was gone and someone else had been promoted to the position. it happened so quickly, no one had even warned me. The new person had no copy of my offer letter, and asked me to produce it so they could insure I got the things agreed to.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        I think the letter Tired Amaeba is referring to is “I quit a new job after they took away my office, and my friend says I’m being petty” from March 9, 2021. Link in reply.

    5. DEJ*

      Another example is ‘my new company won’t honor the extra week of vacation I negotiated’ from Nov. 15, 2015. HR said that the internal recruiter had no right to do so.

    6. Rex Libris*

      I had a supervisor once who would remember everything however they wanted, ten minutes after the conversation. I honestly think that because they so wanted things to go a certain way, they were actually remembering them that way. I learned really quickly to get things like projects and deadlines settled in writing via email because in their mind “I’d really rather have that in two weeks, not a month” would turn into “We agreed on two weeks!” with alarming regularity.

      1. CommanderBanana*

        My former boss just lied constantly – including inventing entire conversations he’d have with you on days you weren’t actually in the office, which he’d then report to HR as evidence that some issue had been resolved, when it emphatically hadn’t been.

      2. Reluctant Mezzo*

        I had a supervisor who forgot she told me to do something. Once I started confirming things by email, her memory became ever so much better.

    7. Reluctant Mezzo*

      Definitely. When purchasing a real estate contract, the salesman made loads of promises. I made sure I got a memo of understanding. When the company somehow forgot those promises, I sent them a copy of the memo, on their letterhead, and they shut up and delivered.

  3. Artemesia*

    A common occurrence is that the hiring manager moves on and you have a new boss who was not privy to the agreement; having it in writing won’t guarantee it won’t change but if you get someone who is generally positive and competent, reviewing the document with them early on may help you maintain the agreement you had.

    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      This is an excellent point. Having a document to show that you negotiated a certain schedule or extra vacation as terms of taking the job usually results in the new boss agreeing to the maintain your status quo, or at least agreeing to discuss it with you.

      1. Sloanicoa*

        Yes, also TBH a new incoming boss may reasonably doubt the word of an employee who claims they have a unique, undocumented, unusual privilege not granted to other employees, so you’ll be glad to at least have an email chain you can forward that attests to it!

    2. Whatever....*

      Yes, I am learning not the let the fact hiring managers often move on affect my evaluation of the jobs being offered.

    3. Schrodinger's Cat*

      Yes this happened to me. I had an agreement when I took a previous job that I would work from one office (an hour away) three days a week and a closer office (25 minutes away) two days a week. That boss retired and the new boss told me after a few months that because I didn’t have the agreement in writing, that I was required to go to the farther office every day. I had been unhappy for other reasons but that started me looking for a new job that day.

    4. Coverage Associate*

      This happened to a coworker of mine, but she had it in writing that she could work from a foreign country for 2 weeks very shortly after our manager left, so she went, and all was mostly well. She actually joined the departed manager very soon after she got back, but that wasn’t because of the vacation.

  4. Adagio*

    Allison’s example about work from home is a great example. At the company I work for, my department went remote in 2020 and became a fully remote department with HR’s and executive leadership’s approval to stay fully remote indefinitely. People moved, we hired new people with the job advertisements saying we were permanently remote, etc. Then there was leadership turnover last year and we were all told to come into the office, even those who had been hired in other states after we became fully remote. I had been told by a colleague (I’m not sure if it’s accurate) that the company does not need to hold to any agreements unless they are included in the offer letter (and possibly not even then). In any case, having it in writing in your offer letter is always a good idea.

    1. M2*

      This happens all the time. Situations change. My organization went to hybrid (3/2) years ago and now is 4 days in office 1 day WFH basically because so many people were abusing the system. It was shocking. The organization gave people 6 months notice about being back and living in X states by X date. They said there would be no exception and if you would not be coming back to start looking because it was a requirement of all roles. Organizations can see or get data about what is happening while you are meant to be working! I am always shocked people dont understand this. I have been in meetings and seen data. My team was not like this, so I was given more leeway, but I have seen certain people on my team “WFH” but not really working. I had to pull someones ability to WFH 3 days a week because they just were not getting the work done and I had 3 conversations with them about it.

      Some people are really productive at home, many are not, but I do think it is a shame that organizations are RTO, but people really need to think hard about why that is happening.

      1. TheBunny*

        I’m always stunned by all the TikToks that show people out shopping or doing whatever while WFH. How do they have time? How do they not get found out?

        When I was WFH I couldn’t go to the bathroom or to get ice in the kitchen without getting a Teams call…much less go to the salon!

        I’m in office at my current job (similar can’t trust people to WFH reasons that occurred before I started) and I’m a little bitter about the people who abused it previously and got it taken away from all.

        1. londonedit*

          People WFH still have lunch breaks. I mean, I haven’t seen these TikToks and I’m sure people posting on TikTok are always at the extreme end of whatever ‘trend’ is apparently doing the rounds, but when I’m WFH I’m certainly not chained to my desk for 8 hours. Personally I wouldn’t film myself going on a shopping trip, but it’s not a problem for me to say to my boss that I’m nipping out for half an hour to go to the post office or the supermarket, and they do the same. It also wouldn’t be a problem for me to, say, go and have my hair cut at lunchtime (which is my own time, after all!) and it wouldn’t be a problem for me to take a slightly longer lunch for something like that if I needed to.

          1. Wolf*

            My schedule on WFH days is pretty flexible, too – but I’d be expected to set a blocker in my Outlook calendar. A simple “I’m not here between 2pm and 3pm”. Nobody needs to know if I’m at a medical appointment or at the hairdressers, they just need to know I’m not available for that time slot.

  5. Pay no attention...*

    Maybe a tangent conversation here, but just how much do you think an employer can change the terms of the job before an employee (or the unemployment office) would be justified in deciding it was a job termination/layoff? Could they decide an accountant should now drive a forklift as part of their job?

    1. Adam*

      This is what’s known as “constructive dismissal”, basically making the job so intolerable that the person is compelled to resign. It’s been litigated in lots of different ways over the years, so an employment lawyer would be the person to talk to you if you had a serious question about it, but the basic principle in most places is that you’ve constructively dismissed someone if you change the job so much that a reasonable person would feel compelled to quit rather than continue in the job.

      1. Pay no attention...*

        yeah, so I would think that if I was hired as a remote employee and they decide I should now be in office…that’s unreasonable to me, but I doubt that would actually count as constructive dismissal. C.D. would usually be something like I was hired as the forklift driver, but they refuse to give me the keys…or I work shifts but they refuse to put me on the schedule.

        1. Funko Pops Day*

          IANAL but I would think it might depend on specifics, like “I live 2+ hours away, which they knew when they hired me and assured me the job was fully remote” could count?

          1. Banana Pyjamas*

            2 hours is commutable. People do it from Michigan City to Chicago via the South Shore everyday, and from the south suburbs to O’Hare. I think in some places that commute would be too normal to bat an eye at.

            1. No Longer Looking*

              Just because people CAN do it and choose to do so, doesn’t mean it’s a reasonable change to impose on someone who didn’t choose it.

              When my office moved from 14mi away to 30mi away it doubled my one-way commute from 25min to 55min, but all still suburban highway driving so I stayed. Five years later when they moved again to the downtown of a major metro that raised the distance to 40ish miles and the one-way commute to somewhere between 90mmin and 140min (variable). That was entirely untenable and I started looking for work.

              1. Banana Pyjamas*

                That’s reasonable. My point was there may be geographic norms around this to consider.

            2. Mutually supportive*

              I shudder at the thought of 2+ hours each way being commutable. If that’s on top of an 8 hour day then you’re looking at 12 hours out of the house minimum, how can you ever get any sort of work life balance if that is a normal day!?

        2. Adam*

          Yeah, that’s the kind of thing you’d want to talk to an employment lawyer in your actual jurisdiction about. Maybe in some places it is and in others it isn’t, it’s close enough to the line that I wouldn’t be willing to hazard a guess about it.

      2. Sloanicoa*

        Or, even if you don’t quit, if they add forklifting and you can’t do it so they fire you. You may be able to negotiate with them not to dispute your unemployment or the unemployment office may accept that the job changed so completely that they can’t claim they fired you for cause.

        1. PABJ*

          Probably depends on where you are located as a remote employee relative to where they want you to report to as to whether or not it would qualify as constructive dismissal.

          1. Freya*

            And also the reason for the relocation – there was a case in Australia in 2022 ( Bourke & Clifford V OS MCAP [2022] FWCFB 178 ) where the choice of “relocate or work elsewhere” was held to NOT be constructive dismissal because the mine site where the workers were previously working was being shut down, and if they stayed there their employer had no work for them – by offering redeployment to another state, the employer was held to be attempting to continue employing them, and the employees were held to have constructively abandoned their employment.

            In contrast, in 2017 there was a case ( Parkes v Fat Prophets Pty Ltd [2017] FWC 6121 ) where it WAS held to be unfair dismissal when an employee relocated to join their spouse (who had a new job) ahead of a projected new office opening in the area to which they were relocating (770ish km away from head office), and when the plan to open the new office was abandoned, the employer required immediate relocation back to where they were before and summarily dismissed the employee when they didn’t jump to and abandon their spouse.

  7. Lauren*

    I so appreciate you using the salary review example, Alison! I just had my annual review with my boss where we discussed that she would be initiating the process for a promotion for me at the next meeting where our managers do that, in about a month. Now I’m realizing that an email follow-up to our conversation summarizing what we discussed and asking if I have captured everything accurately is a good idea.

  8. Kevin Sours*

    I had an awkward situation where I started a job a week before a week long vacation (I offered to start after but they really wanted me in ASAP). Unfortunately that did not get communicated beyond the HR rep I was talking to and I didn’t get it in writing. It got sorted and they honored it but some people were less than thrilled about it.

    So yeah, things happen and having it in writing can be useful.

    1. Paint N Drip*

      Oof yes that’s a GREAT reason to get it in writing! Especially when that looks bad on you (not in a reasonable way, but the optics of the newbie dipping out on vacation immediately.. yikes)

    2. Lady Danbury*

      I recently started a new job where I had a week and a half vacation planned about 2 months after my start date. I made sure to get written approval of the vacation from my manager before I signed the offer letter!

  9. Sloanicoa*

    The most common one I find is “we’ll review your salary at six months” (with the implication that they’ll bump you up to that higher amount you asked for, which they’re declining on). This is a painless way (for them) to say no to you without you feeling put out. When the six months comes up, I find it very rare that the discussion even comes up, or that they remember discussing this when you raise it, and even rarer that your salary is actually changed. Putting it in writing will help when the time comes and particularly if you can put in writing the number you discussed, as “evaluate your salary” doesn’t mean anything.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      “we’ll review your salary at six months” is 99.9% of the time in bad faith. So is “eligible for promotion.” “Review your salary” and “eligible for promotion” means nothing.

      1. Pay no attention...*

        Even if it was said in good faith it still really amounts to nothing… “we reviewed it and decided your current salary is what we are willing to pay for your position,” “you ARE eligible for promotion, it’s just that we don’t have any positions available to promote you into.”

  10. learnedthehardway*

    Having been burned on this myself, I insist that any unusual things negotiated be documented in the offer letter.

    Personally, what I wanted would have been difficult to put in an offer letter – I wanted to move to another area of the business after 2 years, but that was an understanding between me and my original manager, and not something that I expected the organization to commit to. Still, it was a bit of a surprise when the manager who hired me left the company 4 months later, and the new manager wasn’t at all interested in honouring handshake agreements.

    Since then, I have advocated for my candidates to have everything documented. It also saves untold confusion and misinterpretations for the hiring manager and the company. If a candidate wants to work 3 days per week from home, take holidays in a 3-week block every summer to visit family, or have his benefits waiting period waived so that his ill relative’s medical care isn’t interupted, it all gets written into the offer letter. That way, the company has definitely been informed and signed off on it, and the candidate knows and can rely on that.

  11. Former Retail Lifer*

    Definitely get it in writing! Before I accepted a position at a store with many locations in the area, I let the recruiter know that I took public transportation so I could not get to every location. The recruiter assured me if that was the case, after training (which took place at a suburban location), they would only assign me to stores in the downtown area. I had to suck it up and pay for a cab and beg for rides for a month, but I could manage for that time period. Wouldn’t you know it, the first store they wanted to assign me to after training was a 40 minute drive and an impossibly expensive cab ride. It was deep into the suburbs with no public transportation even remotely near it. The district manager told me that the recruiter could not have possibly promised me that I could stay near downtown (despite there being 6 stores in the downtown area). There was a LOT of back and forth before the recruiter finally admitted she told me that and they placed me at a location that was transit-accessible. If she never admitted it, I would have lost that job.

  12. Chirpy*

    Yeah, my current job promised me a small raise from my previous job (same job, different location) and then, after I had moved to a much higher cost of living city and started at the new job, they told me I wasn’t getting any raise at all.

    They eventually gave me a big ($3/hr, most raises are like 50 cents a year) raise two years later but I was obviously pissed and to broke to quit, having just signed a new lease and all.

  13. Coverage Associate*

    I have a job where the offer documents from last fall have WFH policies that have changed since I took the job. If the changes were important to me, I probably could have gotten an exception to the new policy, but it probably wouldn’t have made me friends with my peers to be the newest person and exempt from a less flexible policy.

  14. Jules*

    “unless you have a contract, which most U.S. workers don’t”

    I’m not from the U.S. (and English isn’t my native language), so please forgive my ignorance, but I have a question: Employees in the U.S. don’t sign a written contract when they start a new job? Or is there a difference in this case between employee and worker?

    1. Just Thinkin' Here*

      Most US employees don’t have a written contract. We sometimes get offer letters which shows the intent to hire with a given salary range, but even those aren’t legally binding in all situations.

      Normally contracts are limited to independent contractors (not employees of the company) who work on specific, time-limited projects. Or senior executives who have a contract that spells out the requirements of their job and their salary/bonus/share grant programs.

      1. Jules*

        Thanks for the explanation!

        Where I’m from, written down contracts aren’t a must, but they tend to be the norm. I don’t think that anyone I know would work without one. So not having a “real” (as in: written down and signed by both parties) contract is quite foreign to me.

        1. allathian*

          The US is the exception here. Contracts are standard in most parts of Europe, at least for relatively stable jobs in offices, retail, and manufacturing. I’m less certain about some other parts of the CS sector. I’m afraid I don’t know how it works in Asia, Latin America, or Africa.

          I’m in Finland, and employment contracts are generally strictly regulated by the pertinent collective agreement. Contracts are signed between the employee and the employer, not the hiring manager. So a new manager can’t unilaterally change your working conditions outside of agreed-upon parameters.

          1. Jules*

            Yeah, I’m also in Europe and I get an addendum to my contract (in writing) whenever the tiniest bit changes.

            We can work with technically just a verbal agreement, but most don’t. My current working contract has been signed by head of HR, our CEO, and myself.

            I remember once, years ago, starting a job with just a verbal agreement, because “we’ll sign the contract later this week”. It was a shit show. The boss yelled at clients in front of employees and clients, he micromanaged everything when he wasn’t sleeping on the sofa in his office. I was to do things on day three that they had said “could maybe be a possibility somewhere down the line, but definitely not in the first months”.

            When I handed in my notice (after a week), I got a scathing letter back from the boss, denying me payment, because I hadn’t signed a contract. On the plus side: I didn’t have to sit out the notice period, because I hadn’t signed a contract.

            1. No Longer Looking*

              Side note: Notice periods are also not required in the US, which you’ve likely seen in other letters. Giving a 2-week notice to your employer when leaving has become standard practice, but it is entirely a culture thing as opposed to a legal requirement, and it is considered entirely normal for companies to do layoffs with zero notice and often zero severance pay.

        2. Lady Danbury*

          Written employment contracts are a legal requirement in my country. It’s very common for companies to use the offer letter as the contract, which is then signed by the parties. They are legally binding on the company and just like any other contract, there are strict parameters on how they can be changed.

      2. Wolf*

        Thanks for explaining. This situation blows my mind – in Germany, you have to have a contract, because that’s needed to set up contributions to our universal healthcare, file for income tax and retirement funds, set up direct deposit, etc…

        The US approach to employment feels oddly casual for something that is such a major factor of adult life. It would honestly scare me to have no written contract.

        1. No Longer Looking*

          It absolutely is scary, but mostly because our healthcare benefits options are provided by our employers, so losing your job also means losing your healthcare.

    2. Kevin Sours*

      You’ll get an employment agreement laying out the terms of your employment that you are expected to sign and abide by but it’s not not an employment contract because reasons. If that sounds like a pile of used hay it’s because it is.

  15. Disappointed Australien*

    I have been saved major hassle by getting it in writing before. Most obviously I agreed to a trial period at a lower salary, but at the end of the period someone decided to negotiate the salary again, starting from the position of “no-one gets a pay rise after only 3 months”.

    I replied with a copy of my contract and CC’d the company owner, asking which of the options in the contract they intended. It was explicitly “if we continue your employment we will pay the higher rate”.

    Owner and manager weren’t thrilled but paid up, because there’s a difference between being a not great employer and being explicitly lying liars from Lyreland.

  16. Zeus*

    I’ve seen Alison mention before that contracts for workers are uncommon in the US – does anybody know why this is? I had a quick Google and just found articles saying “yep this is the case” rather than an explanation.

    I ask because I my country (Aotearoa New Zealand) it’s required, and employers who don’t give them to their staff can get some hefty fines. It also just seems logical to me as a way to protect both employer and employee – like Alison said in this response, without them an employer can alter the terms of employment whenever they like. How do you know who you’re working for, and how, without a contract?

    1. Katie Impact*

      I feel like you kind of answered your own question: employers want to be able to alter the terms of employment whenever they like, and in the US, they’re legally allowed to do so. People who want to present this as a good thing generally describe it in terms of giving employers “flexibility”.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      Rather than a contract specifying the terms, generally, employment law does. Anything not explicitly defined in employment law can and does change.

      1. Freya*

        For us in Australia, employment law is the bare minimum. We don’t HAVE to have a contract, but it’s considered good practice. And as a general rule, the majority of employment law here deals with obligations on the employer, not the employee, so if the employer wants to have evidence that the employee agreed to something, then there’s got to be an employment contract.

        One clause that I consider to be a reason employers should have an employment contract is that unless it’s included in the relevant Award or there’s a written agreement otherwise, then the employer can’t legally claw back or deduct from the employee’s final pay the value of any leave taken in advance of its accrual when an employee is terminated. As a result, many places won’t allow you to take paid leave in advance of you accruing that leave. But it’s perfectly legal to deduct that value if the employee has agreed to it (if it’s in the employment contract or there’s any other written agreement to that effect with that employee). Every employment contract I’ve ever signed has had that clause in, which gives me a bit of reassurance that in the unlikely event that I need to take more paid leave than I’ve accrued, my employer will have more confidence in agreeing to it.

        1. Not Another Username*

          This is the most accurate description. There are plenty of American employers who issue employment contracts. However, it’s not a requirement. Unfortunately, the onus is on the employee to document employment violations according to the latest federal, state, and city employment laws. Employees are expected to self-advocate or pay for legal representation.

          1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

            So, in the US, anyone who works in a union job is covered by an actual contract, but that’s only about 10% of all workers. (I am curious to know what the percentage of employers is, but that wasn’t addressed by my source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf)

            Outside of that, most American employers do not offer signed contracts. They often ask you to sign things, but the things aren’t contracts.

    3. CommanderBanana*

      It’s because America is a capitalist hellscape that allows employers to do, more or less, whatever they want.

  17. Clownshoes Nonsense*

    Argh, my husband left a company he’d been with for 20 years in 2020, because that company was on the verge of making us move cities as part of a “core location” strategy. He moved to another company in the same sector, with the promise that he’d never be asked to move. He didn’t get it in writing, and oh guess what, they’re now asking him to move. When I (lawyer!) asked if he’d gotten it in writing when he was hired that he wouldn’t be asked to move, he looked at me like I had 2 heads. All I could do was shake my head.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      I’m not a lawyer, but I work for lawyers, and honestly, we’d all be happier if we could just stamp GET IT IN WRITING upside down on the backs of people’s hands so they could always see it.

      I totally understand wanting to trust people. I understand thinking that because you’d never lie, and you honor your promises, that everyone else would too.

      It does not work that way. And even getting something in writing with an employer doesn’t always protect you from them breaking their contracts with you, but at least it does give you standing to try to negotiate, or, worse case scenario, sue them.

      1. Wolf*

        In my opinion, everything that is connected to significant amounts of money should be in writing. Employment, renting a space or a vehicle or any equipment, lending a sum that you wouldn’t give as a gift. Writing things down is a small effort that can save you from bigger issues.

  18. Lily*

    Always get it in writing and make sure what is in writing is exactly what has been agreed. Not just new offers but anything a manager has agreed to.
    My husband’s workplace agreed to him taking a period of “leave without pay” so that he could accompany me on an overseas posting, but then be guaranteed a return to his previous role when we got back. (He was a long time employee for this organisation with specialist skills and networks, so his workplace was happy to agree to this – lots of advantages for them). His manager gave him a letter with a specific end date at which he had to be back in the office, but repeatedly assured him that it was very flexible, open to discussion and negotiation, and HR just needed to put a date in the system. We made a bunch of decisions based on this flexibility…
    Yeah…his manager left while my husband was overseas, and the new manager basically said ‘back in your office seat on this date or I’ll fire you’
    He did end up going back but the trust he has in the organisation has been damaged forever.

  19. Blanked on my AAM posting name*

    I wish I had done this when accepting my most recent job. I agreed a few disability-related adjustments with the job’s line manager then, when I started, found that the company wouldn’t grant them. The job was also not at all as described, and my health was getting worse, so I quit after two months.

    Having something in writing, or advance notice that they couldn’t / wouldn’t do what had been agreed, would have saved us all a lot of hassle!

    1. noname today*

      I don’t think they would have put the refusal of disability-related accommodations in writing…or rather, I should say I’d be shocked if they did.

  20. Long time lurker*

    Years ago I accepted a new job four months before my wedding, and negotiated the time off for the wedding and honeymoon as part of my acceptance (I would not have been eligable for that amount of vacation time at that point). Both my supervisor and his boss agreed, in our conversations. A month before my wedding, the grandboss got fired and my supervisor quit in protest. I didn’t have anything in writing and the person who took over my department temporarily said it would be “really hard to have you out so long, I don’t see how I can honor this request since so and so was fired.” Meanwhile, we had nonrefundable tickets to Italy. The only thing that saved my honeymoon was a calendar entry that I had added to my boss’s calendar at his request that he accepted. Always get it in writing!

  21. IAmUnanimousInThat*

    Regarding #26, unless the “shusher” outranks you or likely outranks you? Tell him to kiss off. If you’re high-enough ranking (Director or above)? Maybe a different word that “kiss”. :)

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