last year’s Christmas party was a disaster, what does “parking is provided” really mean, and more

by Alison Green on November 20, 2024

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

1. Do I have to go to more company social events when last year’s Christmas party went badly?

Last year, I started a new job the week of Thanksgiving. Three weeks later, my office had a Christmas sweater day (we normally wear jeans and hoodies) and a company Christmas party that night. For the party, I got the Outlook invite with the time and address, and nothing else included.

I showed up to the party still in jeans and my Christmas sweater, and it ended up being a cocktail party with everyone in suits and dresses. My new boss saw me immediately and called me over with my new director. They were both like, “Oh yeah, I guess the dress code wasn’t communicated, huh?” and told me not to worry about being so underdressed since I was clearly uncomfortable. I figured I would stick to the few people I already met, and then leave.

Well, unfortunately for me, the company director decided to assign random seats at tables so we would talk to people we wouldn’t normally sit with. So I was going to meet my new coworkers for the first time in jeans at a cocktail party. I went over to my table and it was already full. I was put as the ninth person at an eight-person table. So I was just standing around lost in jeans, and my new director came over and said, “You can have my seat.” So I ended up sitting at a table meeting all the directors and top level people while still in jeans. I made it through dinner, barely, and just ran out while my boss and the director were distracted.

The worst part? This happened in previous years to other people, and no one has figured out how to advertise the dress code!

I realize a lot of this was my own nerves, but it was a terrible way to meet my new coworkers and I doubt I made a good first impression. My dad said I should tell them, “I want to be a team player and attend events, but I can’t when expectations aren’t communicated.” My friends said I just should not have shown up the next Monday and ghosted the job. I continued to show up and haven’t mentioned it. No one else did either.

Our company has had several more social events, and I didn’t go to the majority. I went to a baseball game, but there were three other events that I made excuses to avoid.

Now the Christmas party is coming again. We were acquired, so it’s supposedly more casual this year. However, I still have no interest in going, now or ever again. Am I obligated to go to these when they are so poorly planned and communicated? Should I mention something about clearly stating the dress code and making sure everyone has a seat to save other new hires from my fate?

This is not the big deal it’s become to you, and everyone advising you is overreacting! Yes, it’s uncomfortable to be underdressed (especially as the new person who doesn’t know anyone) and yes, it was thoughtless of your manager not to ensure you knew the dress code and had seating, but it was your manager who should have been embarrassed about that, not you! You didn’t do anything wrong. (And the fact that it has happened to other people, while ridiculous, makes it all the more likely everyone else completely understood why you were in jeans.) This was a mildly awkward thing, but it’s not something that should make you swear off company events forever.

Your dad’s advice treated this as far weightier than it needs to be. Your friends’ advice to ghost the job because of this was preposterous; don’t listen to those friends on anything work-related for at least five years.

You’re not obligated to go to this year’s party, but I think your reasons for wanting to skip it aren’t well-founded. (Plus, making an appearance at an annual work event, even if just an hour or two, can be good for your career, and going might help override the last one in your mind, where it’s currently taking up too much space.) And yes, remind the organizers to make sure everyone knows the dress code and has a seat this year; you can cite your experience last year as a reason for that if you want, but don’t make it a bigger deal than that.

2. What does “parking is provided” really mean?

I know this is very low-stakes, but this is something that drove me bonkers at a previous job, so I want to understand if I was being oversensitive. I got a job at a company where “parking is provided” was one of the benefits they touted. What that meant, however, was that they’d give you a permit that allows you to park on the street in this particular busy, urban neighborhood. However, everything beyond that was up to you. You had to find a spot, which in this case meant you could easily be driving around for 20+ minutes, looking. And you still had to follow the posted signs, which meant moving your car every 2-4 hours.

After one infuriating bout of circling in a multiblock radius with no spots available, I laughingly said to a colleague, “Yeah, parking is provided. The same way they’ve also provided oxygen for us to breathe.” She looked at me like I was nuts, and reiterated, “Parking is provided.”

So what say you? Was parking provided?

“Parking is provided” means parking will be available to you, and this was not that. They should have said, “Street parking passes are provided.”

In fact, your oxygen analogy was too generous, unless the oxygen was within an underground mine where you had to compete with other people to access it.

3. What to do with stuff from a previous job in my personal Google Drive

I was in an internship a while back and (stupidly) used my personal Google Docs for all the copywriting for blog posts that my previous employer used. They were shared to a group file (and as far as I know, published to the company blog). I would like to clean out my old documents and delete things because I am running out of space on my Google Drive, but I’m curious what I should do regarding these.

Put them all in a Google Drive folder and share it with your contact at the old internship. Say something like, “I’m not sure if you have copies of these or if you need them. I’m planning to remove them from my Google Drive on (date) so wanted to make sure you can download them before then if you do need copies.” Make the date a month from now so they have time to deal with it.

4. Companies that let you buy and sell PTO

It’s open enrollment season and one of the great benefits my employer offers is a program to buy or sell a portion of your PTO (buy being take a pay reduction in return for more PTO and sell being get paid more for having fewer days of PTO). I think this is a great idea! I’m in a season of my life where I’d like more PTO available (doesn’t rise to FMLA stuff, just general life stuff) and I know some folks don’t want as much time (there’s a limit to what you can sell back so no one is working with no time off all year). It gives people flexibility while keeping a standard (and not veering into the nebulous world of “unlimited” PTO) and not costing the company. Why don’t more companies do this? I have occasionally looked at other jobs, but this particular benefit seems rare (or at least not widely advertised).

My guess is that more companies don’t do it because typically when you design the workload for a full-time job, you need to be able to assume that someone will be working in it X weeks of the year; in a lot of jobs, having someone decide to add additional weeks off can cause real workflow issues. Conversely, good managers really do want people to disconnect and go away for a certain amount of time every year, so that they can recharge and not burn out, and also so that your team can spot holes that are sometimes only seen when someone is away. I know you said you’re required to keep a minimum amount of time, but the bare minimum doesn’t serve that purpose as well.

You’re not wrong that this set-up can be great for individual people in certain situations — and there are some companies where the nature of the work allows them to offer it across the board — but it can be tricky when you’re dealing with the broad variety of roles that many companies have.

5. Can employer pay me less because my health insurance costs more?

Landed a new job after a layoff (woo hoo!). My now boss made a comment that got me thinking.

During negotiations, two things came up. First, I wanted immediate access to the 401K and more PTO. The CEO was okay with that, but mentioned they’d have to offer it to the other employee (there’s a total of three of us on staff, including the CEO). That was fine by me, and since I got it, I’m assuming the other employee will get the same, though I don’t actually know — we’re totally remote and mostly async.

The second was health insurance. He mentioned that the cost to insure me is about $10,000 but closer to $6,000 total for him and the other employee. I’m assuming that’s because I’m over 50 and they … aren’t.

The CEO said he didn’t want to “discriminate,” but since my health insurance costs more, he couldn’t come up on salary. However, between the health insurance costs and salary, total compensation is X, which is about the total dollar figure I was looking for in salary.

What I’m wondering is can an employer pay someone less salary if their total compensation is equal to other employees’ total compensation? To be clear, he was transparent about the salary throughout the process, so I don’t feel like this was a bait and switch and I did get the posted max.

Yes, health insurance premiums are based on age, so what he’s saying is that your health insurance costs more because you’re older and therefore he can’t offer the salary bump he’d otherwise be open to … which is a really legally iffy thing to say! You noted that the overall compensation costs even out, but while you’d need an employment lawyer to tell you for sure if that changes anything, as a general rule you can’t base salary on age.

That said, because this is a three-person company, it might be moot. The federal law that prohibits age discrimination in employment only applies to employers with 20 employees or more. Some states have a lower threshold, though, so you’d need to check if your state is among them to know for sure.

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{ 465 comments }

{ 465 comments… read them below }

  1. Daria grace*

    #2 the absolute minimum I’d expect from parking provided is an all day permit either on company property or somewhere the company reserves spaces. The amount of work time that would be wasted moving the cars several times a day is ridiculous.

    #4 in addition to all the things Alison mentioned, wide discrepancies in the amount of leave taken risks creating performance evaluation issues. Someone taking only 1 week of leave every year is going to get more done than someone who takes 5 but might not actually be better at the job. This is not always going to be avoidable (extended sick leave, people who bank up lots of leave for an international trip ect) but it’s reasonable companies would unnecessarily not create situations where people who are on paper full time are working very different numbers of weeks a year.

    1. ran away*

      Most competent managers are going to be able to account for these types of differences. For example, you would see similar differences in output between full-time and part-time employees and managers would be expected to know and account for that.

      I’m an American in a European country where this type of system is common. It works really well at most medium and large companies. You still need to get time off approved, so you don’t get to take off when your presence is crucial. And there is a limit to the amount you can accrue, so planning can still be done.

      But having this system encourages employers to cross-train for jobs. And it encourages workers to take the time off they need. Most people seem to buy extra time, so it encourages them to take at least one longer break each year to really disconnect. It works.

      1. KateM*

        What kind of European country are you in that you need to buy extra time in order to have at least one longer break? Or maybe I should ask how long is what you consider a “longer break”?

        1. ran away*

          Netherlands. 20 days is the legal minimum, I believe. Two or three week vacations are pretty common here.

          1. KateM*

            In my previous job, I had those minimal 20 working days, too – that’s 4 weeks so it was no problem for me to have a 3-week vacation each summer.

            1. AnotherOne*

              I’m in the US and that’s what we get at my current job. It’s really common for us to not use many of our days for various reasons. And our job has a policy that only one year’s worth of vacation days can roll over from FY1 to FY2 and that FY1’s vacation days are use it or lose it in FY2.

              People still don’t use all of them, resulting in our department having an unofficial policy that you can use FY1 vacation days for the first 2 months of FY3.

              I explained this to a friend once and she was just like wtf. To the whole thing.

              But yeah, it results in 2-3 week long vacations periodically. Plus now that we can WFH? People have been mixing working and vacationing to elongate trips.

    2. Cinn*

      It probably depends a lot on size of company, job type and the normal amount of leave offered. I’ve seen this before at an OldJob. I’m based in the UK and on average we probably had about 25 days PTO (not including bank hols or sick) there, and were allowed to buy/sell up to 5 days a year. Meaning no one could go above 30 or below 20. Personally, like LW4, I thought that worked quite well. But I can see it being difficult to work with lower PTO, small teams/companies or on call requirements (to name but a few).

      1. RW*

        yeah my sister in NZ had base 4 weeks PTO and could choose to buy up to an extra 2 weeks, so similarly no one could be above 30 or below 20 – it worked well for them, but I’ve always worked coverage-based jobs so haven’t been offered this :(

        1. Jake Purralta*

          Every company I’ve worked for in the UK you could buy or sell 2 weeks holiday. You always started with 4 weeks or more depending on length of time at the company.

          1. Michigander*

            I work at a UK university and we can’t buy or sell any annual leave, but I know there are plenty of people who would probably like it if we could. We get 36 days (including the week off for Christmas/New Year’s) and every manager I know has to spend the last few months of the year reminding their staff to take annual leave before they lose what can’t be rolled over.

            1. Chas*

              I also work at a UK university, but we can buy (not sell) up to 10 days extra leave by giving up some of our salary. I suspect this is because our University is always looking for way to save money on staff costs.

              I’ve never bothered because we already get 30 days that we can allocate as we want + the 8 UK bank holidays + at least 3 closure days between Christmas and New Year. (I say at least 3 because they’ve decided to give us the whole of the 23rd and 24th off this year because of Christmas being on an awkward day of the week and also to save money on running the buildings, so we’re getting 5 closure days this year).

      2. KateM*

        I have never heard of buying or selling leave in my European country, but I know that employers may offer unpaid vacation time in addition to the usual paid one. A couple of freidns have had half a year to year unpaid leave to extend their maternity leaves, for example; I myself took one when I was writing my master’s thesis.

        1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          Same here. There are various types of leave you can take such as gap years and time off to care for a relative (these are unpaid) and you accrue all days not taken off. I hadn’t even realised that I’d accrued a whole lot, then it was all paid out when I left, making for a nice lump sum!

    3. Green great dragon*

      It really doesn’t make that much difference. A good worker will get a lot more done in 46 weeks than a mediocre one in 50, and the main difference is quality anyway.

    4. Magpie*

      Varying PTO amounts is already a pretty common thing managers deal with. Every place I’ve ever worked has provided different amounts of PTO depending on tenure, so a new employee might get as little as 2 weeks and someone who’s been there for 10+ years might get 6.

    5. Smurfette*

      > Someone taking only 1 week of leave every year is going to get more done than someone who takes 5 but might not actually be better at the job

      This could be an issue if you’re measured on something like “reach £10 000 in sales per month” but most jobs are not measured only on volumes.

      Even jobs that have metrics like “make X outbound calls” or “dispatch all orders within 2 working days” have a time frame linked to that (i.e. X calls per day).

      I’ve worked in one company that gave 4 weeks of leave and allowed you to buy up to 4 more weeks. I bought 3 weeks and managed to negotiate 7 weeks of paid leave at my next job as well. It never created issues with performance reviews.

          1. Thegreatprevaricator*

            Umm, I was intrigued and did a google. There seem to be plenty of countries from Europe high on the list. Indeed Ireland and Norway appear to outperform United States.. perhaps there are some other more influential factors on gdp per capita?

            1. Andrew*

              Not to derail, but Ireland’s GDP per capita is heavily skewed by multinational companies’ presence there. Many multinational companies (including all the big American tech giants) have their EU headquarters in Ireland, primarily for corporate tax reasons, which skews the data.

              For example, Ireland posted a +26% increase in GDP per capita in 2015 (https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinationals-misleading/) which would be absolutely astounding if real.

      2. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

        I don’t think there is a one to one reduction in the amount of work done, though. The amount of time people take to do things tends to shrink or expand in part depending on the amount of time they have to do it. Someone who takes 5 weeks off may be super efficient the rest of the time in a way the 1-weeker isn’t. And that’s before you get to the fact that some people work a lot faster than others.

        1. Rex Libris*

          If I’m remembering correctly, a study in Iceland comparing 32 hour work weeks to 40 hour work weeks showed that those working 32 hour weeks were actually more productive. People worked faster and more efficiently in anticipation of being able to enjoy more time off.

          1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

            yup. When I worked part-time, I was consistently more productive across the board than my full-time colleagues who often stayed late to finish stuff.

    6. Gray Lady*

      But wide discrepancies in amount of leave already exist in the form of seniority-based leave. I think that accounting for this is just part of what evaluation entails.

    7. Samwise*

      Or, people who use a lot of leave take it into consideration and get their work done around their leave time. They will not necessarily get less done. Speaking from personal experience. The only time I’ve gotten less done when on leave was when I was out for continuous FMLA (maternity leave, care for sick family members, in the hospital and then recuperating/rehab for myself).

      1. londonedit*

        Yep, exactly. If everyone has 20+ days’ leave a year, that’s how everything works, and you get your work done around your leave.

      2. rebelwithmouseyhair*

        Yeah there’s a law for it. If you have an hour to write a letter, you take an hour to write that letter. But if you have 25 minutes to write it, you take 25 minutes to write it.

    8. stripey giraffe*

      I expect that anywhere that has differences in leave also is used to people managing that. I work in a union position, where your leave is strictly done by the number of years you work there. So, I’ve been hired into the same position that people who have two week more leave than I have (because they’ve worked there longer). I expect that evaluations go like: how is this person performing compared to previous years/colleagues. On the other hand, our projects are *so long* that you can’t really compare based on how many projects you do/widgets made/reports written. It’s much more complex than that.

    9. LL*

      Yeah, I’d expect some sort of parking lot that I can park in all day. Also, unless they specify a cost, I’d assume it’s free.

    10. MassMatt*

      Someone having 5 weeks vacation time vs 1 week is an awfully extreme hypothetical, IMO, at least for the same level of seniority. I’ve never seen an option to “sell” vacation time, only “buy” it, and it was always limited to one extra week. I would generally buy a week, so I would have say 20 days vacation vs: the ordinary 15.

      And keep in mind I am paying for the time, essentially it’s like unpaid time off. The difference in compensation is kind of already baked in, though the sort of work we did the “productivity” of the person working 5 fewer vacation days was not measurable anyway.

      If productivity were really this granular, the more senior employees would get less and less productive each year, because everywhere I’ve worked you start of with 1-2 weeks PTO and earn more as you work longer–1 more week at 2 years, another at 10 years, etc. And yes, 1 week PTO is stingy, generally that was for first (partial) year only.

    11. Mutually supportive*

      I’m in the UK and we get 35 days standard (27+8 bank holidays) but you can sell down to 28 (I think) any buy up to 45.

      I always start the year with 45. And I almost always use them all (if not they roll over, but you can never go over 45. If you buy too many the extra ones just vanish).
      It works fine. When I’m not there my team slide around to cover, as they would when I’m sick. And I slide to cover others when they’re off – that’s part of the job!
      It’s a good opportunity for junior staff to have a go at stepping up, but knowing they are only doing it for a week or so at a time. We manage the workload in the team to balance it all out and we’re sensible about taking leave. There aren’t any rules about how much notice you need to give (we’re all grown ups) so we all understand that the longer we want to be off, the more notice we give so that we can make sure cover is in place and that we don’t have too many people covering similar tasks off at the same time.

      In terms of performance, we’re not really measured on numerical metrics so it doesn’t cause any problems that way either.

    12. fhqwhgads*

      I’m sort of two minds here. I’ve had a job with all day permits on company property provided, but there was still the possibility of running out of spots in the nearest lot, which could mean parking a 10-15 minute walk away to find a spot in a different building’s lot, or street parking closer but having to respect hour limits.
      So to me, the situation described in the letter feels very familiar. The hour-limit on their permitted street parking does make it a bit different… but if there is no lot at all, and the only parking present is street-with-permit, they should’ve explained it better up front rather than just saying “parking provided”. But I don’t think claiming to provide parking is a total lie or anything.

  2. James*

    OP1, if I invited a guest to a party and forgot to mention the dress code, resulting in the guest being underdressed, I would absolutely be the one to be embarrassed. I would certainly not think less of the guest! Nobody thinks you showed up in jeans to diss you new coworkers. You are overreacting.

    1. allathian*

      Yes, I agree. And the best way to get over the embarrassment is to attend this year’s party.

      Sure, the company messed up by not communicating the dress code for the party, but given that it’s happened to other people before it’s not the end of the world.

      1. Allonge*

        And the best way to get over the embarrassment is to attend this year’s party.

        This x100. This is a low-key thing where others messed up that will be funny when you look back in 10 years. Unless, like, you are working at an Academy for Proper Dressing for All Occasions or something similar (but even then, it was not just your fault, OP).

        Go to the party, check with trusted colleagues what they are wearing. Have fun!

        1. Jennifer @unchartedworlds*

          This is all true, and so is Alison’s advice, but I do also want to give LW1 a big instalment of sympathy. I can imagine the combination of “being the new person”, “sticking out as the odd-one-out in wrong clothes” and “suddenly being put on the spot to talk with directors I’d never met” feeling horribly awkward and stressful in the moment, even if no-one held it against you in the long run. I wouldn’t have liked it either!

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Absolutely. What an awful way to welcome new people to the company! I’d be anxious enough meeting all the directors at my workplace, much less being plopped down among them for an entire meal just after I’d joined while underdressed. It doesn’t reflect on you at all, OP, but it’s a horribly awkward situation that your manager and that director put you in, and I’m astonished this has happened multiple times without anyone fixing it.

            I completely understand not wanting to be reminded of the experience, but I promise no one else remembers this as vividly as you do or think it reflects on you at all.

            (Also, Alison is right, don’t take work advice from those friends. Quitting a job over the experience would have been a serious overreaction. Ghosting a job over it would have been so far over the top it would have affected your reputation.)

          2. Just Another Cog*

            I want to give the OP sympathy as well. A former company was acquired by a larger one and hosted a manager’s budget planning retreat over a long weekend. The new company’s organizers failed to mention that it was very, very casual (think cutoffs and tshirts) and that there were going to be athletic competitions interspersed with the planning sessions. All of the other managers in my old org were told about what to expect. I was not. I ended up wearing business casual attire and having to play a round of frisbee golf, dodge ball, pogo stick competition, etc. in that. There were only very high end shops at the hotel, so buying appropriate clothes wasn’t even an option. I was so uncomfortable, but I just mentioned that “I guess I didn’t get the memo”, and moved on. The company sucked in many other ways, so I just left after a while. OP seems to be over reacting, but I do get how terrible it feels to be the odd man out. Especially if you’re new.

          3. MassMatt*

            And on top of that, not having a seat at the table with assigned seats! Whomever organized this dropped the ball badly. What should have been a nice occasion to get to know your coworkers better on an informal basis instead turned into something making LW feel like an out-of-place afterthought. And it sounds as though this is a recurring issue. How festive.

          4. Allonge*

            I do feel for OP, it must have been very-not-awesome! And then enlarged via all the weird father and friend reactions…

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        Yes! The message the other employees received was “The person in the jeans must be new this year; they never remember to communicate the cocktail dresses and suits thing.” (And these people didn’t tell OP because they didn’t know OP to warn her.)

        1. ferrina*

          Yeah, that’s almost certainly how everyone else interpreted it. “Oh look, it’s the new person that no one told the dress code to.”

            1. Pinta Bean*

              On the other hand, I would be thinking “boy, I wish I was wearing jeans and sweater, I’d be tons more comfortable.”

        2. duinath*

          And let’s be very clear here, there’s nothing to figure out.

          You can google appropriate ways to put the dresscode on the invitation, you can be lazy and just put (dress code: cocktail) on the bottom, or you can just say, with your actual human words “We have it on christmas sweater day, but it’s actually a cocktail party for christmas”.

          This is not hard. *Someone* should be mortified, but it sure ain’t LW1. The fact this has happened more than once speaks very loudly on that matter.

        3. Wayward Sun*

          To me it almost feels like a mild form of hazing. “We won’t tell new people the dress code, then they’ll have to deal with breaking it the first time before they’re in on the secret.”

      3. Antilles*

        given that it’s happened to other people before it’s not the end of the world.
        It’s clearly not an issue if it’s happened to other people before.
        That said, it also seems wild that the company has had this happen several times and not figured it out. If you’re already sending out an Outlook invite, all you need to do is add two sentences describing the dress code. Or even just include a photo of last year’s holiday party with people in suits and dresses and let that convey the “this is the attire people wear” message. We’re talking literally 30 seconds of effort, max.

        1. But what to call me?*

          A photo would be so helpful! It would save me a lot of frantic ‘what should I wear to a cocktail party and how many of the results I’m finding are wrong’ googling.

      4. AngryOctopus*

        And really, since it’s not the first time, in your head you need to frame it as “Jeez I can’t believe they still haven’t managed to communicate the dress code after all these years” and then just go.

      5. Artistic Impulses*

        LW1, you have built this event up in your mind into a Thing. Most of your coworkers and supervisors probably don’t even remember that you were dressed in jeans, and it seems like no one judged you.

        While I can understand some temporary discomfort on your part, please don’t let it continue to make you feel bad, and make you stay away from company events. Try to look at this as just a tiny blip in your career. It could have happened to anybody, and indeed it has happened to other people. No need to continue to feel bad about this.

        1. Gumby*

          Most of your coworkers and supervisors probably don’t even remember that you were dressed in jeans

          I want to lean in to this a lot. Thinking back on former company parties I remember what exactly 1 co-worker was wearing at one party. Mainly because it was a well-advertised and costume-rental-funds-provided 20s themed party held in a former speakeasy. Said co-worker decided he would go with a different 20s – namely the 1720s. Wig included. That’s it. Hundreds of co-workers at dozens of parties and I remember one – and he went out of his way to be really memorable.

            1. Gumby*

              I’m sure they exist somewhere, but I do not have any. This party took place in the Dark Ages by which I mean pre-smart phones.

          2. Artistic Impulses*

            This makes perfect sense that you would only remember the man who wore a costume from the 1720s when everyone else was wearing costumes from the 1920s.

            I feel for LW1, but I hope they will be able to put this behind them and into proper perspective. This should not haunt them and make them avoid social events at their company..

            Even if they have anxiety or are an introvert, this year should be different, since they know coworkers now. I seriously doubt that any of them recalls the sweater and jeans, or judges LW1. They deserve to give themselves some grace over an incident that was in no way their fault. They can also confirm the dress code ahead of time this year.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      Yup, that and the seating issue were a failure on the part of whoever planned this event, not the OP. It takes one additional line in an invitation to say the dress code!

      There may be different party planners this year due to the company being acquired, so if I was the OP, I’d check the dress code first and show up for an hour or two. If, after a year or two, you find that the holiday parties are awful, feel free to skip them, while showing up occasionally to other events.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        New planners is the perfect excuse to email the planner and ask about the dress code. Not in an I was underdressed last year because no one told me and that was a horrible thing to have happen but more Just checking because I want to be clear, you might want to let everyone else know too.

        Honestly, the first time it happened, the company should have realized they need to include the dress code in the party invite. Or at least not have the christmas party the same day as sweater day.

    3. Artemesia*

      And to make a tendentious speech about ‘being a team player if expectations are communicated’ is a great way to be remembered as a doink forever. This is something to laugh at and move on, not to build your whole persona at work around. (And as Alison noted — a friend who suggests walking off a job over this is so out of touch that I wouldn’t take advice on anything especially work from them.

      Anyone would have felt awkward. But sometimes you just have to roll with what life dishes up, laugh and not make a fuss.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        Completely agree on the speech being the wrong note for what happened here. At the end of the day, it was just a party! I completely understand some slight awkwardness about feeling underdressed, and not having anywhere to sit, but it’s not the big forever deal OP is turning it into. I would understand if OP had been treated snootily, or there was a hard expectation on the dress code, but there wasn’t. I’ve done this myself when I lived a long commute away from the office and I was too busy to really chat to colleagues about the Christmas party. We’d had a dress down day to coincide with the Christmas party and I ended up in a nicer restaurant than I expected in a jumper dress and Uggs. I felt totally grungy, but I had some great conversations with colleagues before I begged off. The reason dress code expectations weren’t communicated? Because there weren’t any; I was absolutely welcome in my Uggs. Other people had wanted to dress up. This stuff happens, and no one is judging.

        1. Chocolate Teapot*

          I would be feeling embarrassed too. Even if the dress code hadn’t been included on the invitation, how come nobody mentioned that it was usual to wear something more formal?

          1. Falling Diphthong*

            The large mass of people attending had never met OP. (But probably did know “the person in jeans will be the new person whose manager didn’t warn them.”)
            OP’s manager dropped the ball.
            The immediate coworkers assumed that the manager had not dropped the ball, or that it was communicated to OP via the same method it was once communicated to them and gave it no further thought.

          2. Allonge*

            Eh, look, it’s also on people to ask about that. I understand how a same-day Xmas sweater event messed with this, and I don’t think OP did anything bad, and the whole thing is way less important than it seems to be in OP’s mind.

            But it’s very, very normal to ask ‘hey, what do people usually wear’ and not just wait to be told.

            1. Broadway Duchess*

              It sounds like OP didn’t really have much of a rapport with the team, so I can see why they might not have gone this route.

            2. Yadah*

              Yea I was kind of surprised no one else is mentioning that. Especially since OP started only 3 weeks before the party so they would have still been getting the lay of the land anyway.
              Heck even if there is a dress code stated I usually ask my colleagues what they’re wearing to any sort of work party to get a sense of the vibe because even the specifics of ‘cocktail attire’ can vary SO wildly depending on the specific event and the crowd, so it’s always a good idea to check with someone else. Either they’ll have a sense of the right vibe or you can both commit to the same vibe so no one is alone.

            3. But what to call me?*

              Never having worked anywhere that had parties like that, I don’t think it would have occurred to me that people might wear something different than what they wore to work that day. I wouldn’t have thought to ask.

              1. Allonge*

                This is totally fascinating to me – “what are you gonna wear” has been part of my life since about early high school years, I never considered that it’s a cultural thing! TIL.

                I know it’s more of a thing for women in my circles, but it’s definitely not exclusive to gender either. And I am not a super-party person.

        2. UKDancer*

          Yes, some people like a chance to dress up and will do so even without a dress code. I go to one conference most years and some people really like to dress up for the conference dinner. There’s not a dress code and some people show up in jeans and a t-shirt but there are some people who really like a chance to rock a cocktail dress and stilettos so they do. So you have an odd mix of clothes and everyone seems cool with that.

          If you asked the organisers they’d say there was no dress code or something like “smart casual” but that won’t stop a dozen people showing up in a lot of sequins because it’s fun to them to have a chance to dress up.

          1. bamcheeks*

            This is every work Christmas party or conference dinner I’ve ever been to. IT Mike is in the same jeans and t shirt as ever; the guys range from the usual shirt and tie to Slightly Nicer shirt and trousers, except the one dandy who broke out a bow tie; the women range from normal workwear to work trousers +sparkly jumper and earrings, up to cocktail dresses / masc formalwear for the ones who like dressing up.

          2. Alicent*

            You should see the fights that break out about industry’s medical conference dress codes. None of them have official requirements and you’ll see people show up in anything from strict business attire (which most of us don’t even wear to work because it’s so impractical) to jeans to scrubs. The people who dress up seem personally offended at the casual dressers and to top it off some niche conferences tend to be a lot more formal without communicating that to anyone.

            I wore business clothes to my first conference based on some people insisting it was necessary to find 95% of the attendees in jeans or scrubs or yoga pants. The next one I wore jeans and 70%+ were in business or “cowboy business” (crisp button down, starched jeans, immaculate cowboy hat) and I felt out of place again. Dress codes really need to be communicated.

            1. The Prettiest Curse*

              Yeah, I used to work medical conferences that primarily attracted nurses and the outfits ranged from ultra smart to extremely casual. I always state the dress code for our annual conference in the pre-event information. And I’m always happy for people to ask clarifying questions too – as a planner, it’s really useful when people do that because it shows you where you can improve your pre-event information.

            2. Baldrick*

              I’m thankful that the military is very clear on this! All conferences and bigger meetings have the dress code listed, for example ACU, PCSCU, or DEU3A, and they mention the civilian equivalent (business casual, formal, etc). Civilians can dress up or down from that but the military are guaranteed to dress the same way (even senior military will dress to what is expected and won’t show up in anything more formal). In smaller communities I have seen added comments about civilians being encouraged to wear whatever makes them comfortable, including jeans and t-shirts.

        3. Maglev to Crazytown*

          Unless anyone communicates dress expectations ahead of time to me, Christmas Party automatically means garish pink flamingo ugly Christmas sweater paired with shiny silver glitter Doc Martens.

          I am the person at our local Holiday High Tea also wearing that attire (there is no dress code… some parties choose to go all out fancy, some casual… and I have also seen the occasional deer hunter who has just emerged from the woods to get warmed up and sugared up).

        4. metadata minion*

          For me, this would be mortifying and something that would definitely go on my internal slide deck of Embarassing Moments to suddenly remember at 3am. Am I really that unusual? I’d probably intellectually realize it wasn’t that big a deal, but I’m surprised so many people seem confused as to why it was so upsetting to the LW.

          1. Allonge*

            For me the unusual part is the combination of this level of mortification and not asking people about the dress code / customary dressing style / what they are planning to wear in advance.

            If it’s so important not to over- or underdress, I don’t guess, I ask. Frankly, I would also ask if there is a dress code indicated – some of them cover quite a lot of options.

            1. metadata minion*

              I wouldn’t have assumed there *was* a dress code for a social function and so wouldn’t have thought to ask, but I work in a very casual field and this letter is reminding me that I should probably ask about this sort of thing.

              1. Allonge*

                I see – and yes, even if there is no official dress code, asking ‘hey, so what do people usually wear for this thing’ is something that is definitely useful.

                It would not occur to me not to ask, to be honest, so good to know that is not universal!

            2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

              In this case, there was a communicated dress for the workday – Christmas sweaters. As a newbie, I also probably would have assumed that if we’re having a special sweater day at work, the party would be the same.

              1. Allonge*

                I totally agree that the sweater thing messed with the situation!

                That said, protip (not just for you, in general): being a newbie somewhere means you get to ask all the questions. What better time than in your first weeks, when you genuinely don’t know the place?

                1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

                  Oh, definitely. It’s the perfect “excuse.” (“” because you shouldn’t need an excuse to ask entirely reasonable questions).

                  Though I’m also comfortable using my position as Someone Who’s Been Here a While to ask the questions (or raise the concerns) that someone new might not feel comfortable doing.

            3. Smith Masterson*

              I don’t get the “too precious to ask about dress code” and “so precious mortification at wearing the wrong thing.”

          2. bamcheeks*

            I don’t think I belong to a section of society where dress codes are ever that big a deal? I have been to events where I felt over- or under-dressed, but that’s usually more, “aw, would’ve been a good opportunity to wear that nice dress if I’d known” rather than significant humiliation. I don’t think I’ve been to any party, and certainly not a work party, where there wasn’t a wide variety of dress styles– even if some people wanted to style it up in super fancy stuff, there’d be someone in an ordinary shirt and trousers or whatever, and it just wouldn’t be that big a deal.

            I could definitely understand feeling humiliated if it seemed to be a party where the dress code was a big deal– where the music stopped playing and people’s jaws dropped when LW came in in a jumper instead of a sequinned frock, and then there was a gradual horrified murmur going around the room. But it sounds like everyone else’s attitude was about what I would expect at the work parties I’ve been to — “oh gosh, you didn’t know people would be dressing up? Whoops, our bad! Never mind, anyway, this is Andy from Accounts, and this is Jill who does our IT–” I can’t really fathom feeling this humiliated about it when nobody else thought it was that big a deal.

          3. MsM*

            I get why LW still feels awkward about it, but I do think that says more about LW’s social anxieties than anything else, and they really need to find a way to put it in perspective instead of letting it get in the way of forming bonds with their colleagues.

          4. JB (not in Houston)*

            Yes, same. It wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. I would know it wasn’t my fault and yet still feel embarrassed by it! Just thinking about the awkwardness of the situation is making me cringe.

            I know Alison is right that the OP shouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand why they felt so upset.

          5. Zoe Karvounopsina*

            I have learnt a trick to help with the lying awake in the middle of the night: the statute of limitations for arson is ten years. If it happened ten years ago, was it worse than arson?

            Obviously this will only help OP in about nine years.

          6. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

            Maybe I haven’t read the comments you’re referencing, but I’m not generally seeing people not understanding why the LW was upset. It’s super awkward. I think what people are commenting on is that those feelings appear to not have dissipated much over the course of a year and has led her to avoid other social gatherings at work. There’s a difference between my jerkbrain occasionally being like “hey, remember this uncomfortable thing that happened!” in the middle of the night, and what’s happening here.

          7. Lenora Rose*

            I don’t think anyone is surprised she was feeling embarrassed so much as surprised how much internal rental space it’s occupying. Remember it at 3 Am at random during a replay of “moments I felt hideously embarrassed”, sure… but consider making a big speech about it the next day? Avoid almost all other company functions? Refuse to go the next year when there’s a different committee and different standards?

            Some people are that sensitive, yes; those feelings are valid. Yet, it’s not denying their feelings to say, “Oh, that’s not on you, your manager and/or the party planners should have been the ones to be embarrassed. ” It’s reassuring them that the thing which they built up so big in their heads came across very differently on the other side. Which is often true.

            1. Ellis Bell*

              Oh, I completely understand the feelings; it’s harder to understand why OP doesn’t want to attend another party… instant do-over!

          8. I don't work in this van*

            I think the confusion isn’t the internal mortification, but the external manifestation of it. Not going to company events because of this? Considering advice including ghosting the job? That seems pretty extreme. Even if you can’t move on, definitely pretend that you have to your co-workers, who certainly do not remember/care.

          9. pocket microscope*

            I’d be internally dying, but I wouldn’t act out my mortification in the way LW seems to be considering, precisely because I intellectually realise it wasn’t a big deal. It sounds excruciating but the way to deal with it is to keep telling yourself it’s not as bad as it feels. Not to make pointed comments about communication, or to skip as many subsequent work events as possible. LW really needs to keep it for those 3 am moments and otherwise move on.

          10. fhqwhgads*

            I’d be very embarrassed UNTIL I found out they’d done this multiple times to new people. Then it shifts from “embarrassed I was underdressed” to “dang they don’t have their shit together with telling people the dress code”.

            If it made them not ever want to go to another work event, I’m kinda OK with that? But for me, it’d be more of a “screw that” situation, than a stress-anxiety-worry thing by now, because of the info that the company did this repeatedly.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        I agree that Dad’s advice made this far too big a thing. But will posit that he sees a history for OP of being unhappy about something and withdrawing to polish the grievance for a year, complaining to others but never breathing a word to the people with the power to change the thing she’s unhappy about.

        1. Antilles*

          Even if that’s the case, the dad’s advice should still be to just chill out, accept this isn’t a big deal, and move on. Especially because it’s not like there’s any real way for them to ‘change the thing she’s unhappy about’ after the fact.
          If OP had breathed a word about it or complained, the response OP would have gotten is almost exactly what she already got at the party: A mild apology, a mention that it’s not a big deal, and that’s about it. “Yeah, sorry about the chaos, we should have communicated the dress code better. Not sure what happened with the seating, whether someone sat at the wrong table or ignored the seating plan. You shouldn’t worry about it though, it happens occasionally.”

      3. Smurfette*

        > not to build your whole persona at work around

        Could not have said it better. Don’t let this be the thing that defines how your coworkers see you.

    4. Zoeeeeee*

      Considering how her dad and friends advised her though, it’s not a surprise it’s turned into a bigger thing than it needs be in her head!

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Yeah, the advice from their friends has an “I get all my workplace advice from viral TikTok videos and LinkedIn influencers” vibe.

        1. MsM*

          A five year moratorium on career advice from them seems generous, honestly. I guess the hope is they’ll grow up a bit in the interim?

      2. Rex Libris*

        It does explain a lot about OP’s perception of this being a big deal. OP’s dad sounds like my mom, who is convinced that the only unforgivable sin is not wearing a tie if someone else in the room is.

      3. aebhel*

        Yeah, exactly. If LW is already anxious, it’s definitely not helping to be surrounded by a bunch of people blaring klaxons about how this is worth blowing up her career over. It was embarrassing, and as someone who is also inclined to be anxious and avoidant, I can see why LW might feel leery about work events now, but it ultimately wasn’t a big deal. Clarify the dress code in the future and make an appearance at this year’s holiday party, if for no other reason than to overwrite last year’s embarrassing experience.

      4. Yorick*

        We might be judging the friends too harshly. I can definitely see joking “I’d just never show up to work again” and would be mortified if my friend thought that was actual advice!

    5. Thinking*

      Sweetie, the director had your back. This wasn’t your fault and they knew it. The best thing to do was to be happy to meet the upper management and get to know them. Your temptation to see this as your failing comes from someplace else in your life. Work on your confidence. And Reply All to this year’s email invite with “for new people, please announce the dress code”.

      1. Maglev to Crazytown*

        Yeah, if I had done this, I would have totally owned it and rocked on. Confidence is everything.

        Also, if I had seen someone new do this, I would do absolutely everything in my power to make them feel welcome and at ease about it.

      2. Lizzo*

        This is a good summary of what was in my head, Thinking.

        OP, the prolonged anxiety about this entire situation is not good for you personally or professionally. Please take some time to explore what might be driving this so that it doesn’t cripple you in the future and limit your opportunities in life. Ideally, seek out some professional help that can also offer you unbiased opinions when situations like this crop up in the future, as your father and your friend are absolutely not good sources of advice.

      3. Yorick*

        I agree with this advice except to reply all with a question. Just figure out who the best person to share the dress code is and remind them to do so.

    6. I didn't say banana*

      Agreed. I suggest that OP googles “how avoidance causes anxiety” to see why avoiding company events is making them feel worse, and I’d suggest asking a few colleagues what they’re planning to wear.

      Besides, if no one has taken you aside and mentioned the dress code for this year (trying to be kind after your manager’s mistake), it means that what you wore last year did not register with anyone. You can do this and you’ll feel better if you do!

    7. El l*

      While awkward, wasn’t a huge deal and everyone else at party was graceful.

      OP is halfway right now to a Cheap Ass Rolls level overreaction.

      1. Wage slave*

        I was coming here to also refer to “Cheap Ass Rolls.”
        I get the social anxiety as a newbie but indeed the reaction is a bit over the top, isn’t it?

      2. FricketyFrack*

        The friends saying to ghost the job (??!!) are full cheap ass rolls. LW needs to take precisely zero career advice from those people. I’m an incredibly anxious person re: social interactions, so I get being super awkward and stressed by the whole thing, but I also guarantee that pretty much no one else thought anything negative about it or probably even remembers that it happened.

    8. LaminarFlow*

      Definitely overreacting, and I’m quite positive that nobody cared or remembers LW’s outfit.

      But! LW, you have a bit of an opportunity here. I’m not sure how social functions are planned at your company, but why not offer to assist with the task? Specifically, take a lighthearted approach to explaining why you want to help – “Welp. I showed up in jeans & a hoodie, while everyone was in suits and dresses, and it was kinda weird as a newbie, so I’m offering to help to ensure that everyone (especially new hires!) knows that this event is a fancy dress party.” If they take you up on it, cool. Remain lighthearted in your messaging. If Angela, Phyllis & Pam decline your Party Planning assistance, at least you have raised the topic, and hopefully they will add that bit to future invites.

      1. MsM*

        Also, speaking as someone who feels chronically awkward at parties, I like having a job to a) make sure I actually show up, b) give me an excuse to talk to people, and c) give me an excuse to dip out of a conversation that isn’t going well.

      2. pocket microscope*

        Oh god, don’t tell anyone it’s a ‘fancy dress party’ in those words or you’ll have some poor soul turn up in costume.

        1. But what to call me?*

          Once, when trying to ask about the dress code for a friend’s bridal shower, “fancy dress” was exactly the phrase I came out with to ask if I should dress nicer than jeans. Fortunately the friend I was asking understood what I meant.

    9. RIP Pillowfort*

      Yeah I think OP is really focused on the wrong thing. This was not some huge personal moral failing- the company didn’t tell you and apparently are very bad at party planning!

      Your bosses were on your side and acted appropriately. They found you a seat! They told you not to worry! They never brought it up again!

      Like for real, what is up with people in your telling you that you’ve been irreversibly wronged and behaving like it’s a huge wrong that’s been done to you? That is some messed up escalation for something that is just mildly embarrassing, and people probably don’t remember. It doesn’t do your reputation or mental health any good to subscribe really negative intent to this. Because people notice more when you never participate in any event.

    10. Smithy*

      I agree with everything here – but also want to add that it might be worth it for the OP to step back around where their discomfort may have actually been.

      Because in the scenario, the part of the situation that sounds super awkward to me is being at an office holiday party a month or so into a job and being sat at a table with more senior people I’ve never met for a whole dinner. Years into my job, if I was at a seated meal with only C-Suite people from my employer – especially those I don’t interact with regularly or at all – it would feel like work to behave a certain way.

      I say this, because I once had a job that made a big deal about me starting on X week, so that I would be able to join them for their annual off-site retreat. No dress code issues, but honestly, it was an incredibly awkward 2.5 days where everyone else knew each other and also had other work to do. Getting all of the team overviews was helpful, but it ended up being a firehose of both technical information as well as colleague socialization. I get that ideally, they would have had me start a month or at least a few weeks before this retreat – and having me start after the retreat would have felt silly. But it was 2.5 days of really feeling like the new kid at school with no friends and also not yet understanding the schoolwork.

      I say this because as much as it all made feel uncomfortable, it’s also a dynamic that made zero impression on anyone else at that job long term. It was easy for me to look back on that negatively, but big picture lingering on that only hurt myself.

    11. Not on board*

      I really think the reaction speaks to the youth of OP1, the feeling of embarassment living rent-free in their head. Ghosting a job? Their friends are ridiculous and really immature.
      Also, the lack of communication about the dress code and ensuring a seat for OP1 is absolutely their manager’s fault – however, I’ve also never gone to an event without asking what the dress code/vibe of the event would be. Again, not the fault of OP1, but really, when invited to any event, particularly for the first time, it would make sense to inquire about what people will be wearing. It would save OP1 a lot of angst and make them feel much more confident going forward. Even this year, I would confirm the dress code.

    12. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      And I absolutely guarantee that nobody reasonable is thinking about this event even 10% as much as you are. A pretty well established principle of social psychology is that basically nobody is paying us as much attention or thinking about us as much as we fear they are. This event looms large in your mind because it was upsetting and awkward for you (reasonable!). It just wouldn’t have the same emotional resonance to anyone else. And emotional salience is one factor that affects what we remember and what we forget. Like, some people may not even remember that it was you who turned up underdressed, just that someone did.

      So I’d advise that you plan to go to the party and ask whatever questions you have to the organizers if things are unclear. Then try to have a good time with the colleagues you like and network a bit.

    13. JMC*

      I really wish we could just stop putting so much emphasis on what people are wearing. It doesn’t affect anything.

    14. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

      I would doubt if anyone remembered, and if they did it probably wasn’t specifically you — it was more “why don’t they tell new people the damn dress code? This happens every year!”

    15. iglwif*

      Yes this is 1000% on the people who didn’t clarify the dress code! Especially because there were 2 events on the same day and there was a specified dress code for one but not the other?? Entirely reasonable to presume that meant dress code 1 extended to event 2!

    16. Bitte Meddler*

      OP1 – This has a very simple solution.

      The next time you get an invite to a company outing, including the upcoming holiday party post-merger, email the organizer and ask what the dress code is.

      Also, showing up in casual clothing when everyone else is dressed up — when no one told you to that you needed to change clothes for the party — is so, so minor.

      We all can tell you how minor it is, but just flip the situation: What if, at this upcoming holiday party, you are dressed to fit the dress code (fancy, business attire, dressy casual, whatever), and a new hire showed up in the same thing they had worn to the office that day. Would you ridicule them (even internally)? Would you look down on them as a hapless rube? Would you avoid them forever because no one had bothered to tell them there was a different dress code for the party?

      Of course not! Most likely, you’d make your way over to them and offer empathy, then tell them that you’ll work with your colleagues to find a way to get this to stop.

      So ask what the dress code is. You can even use self-effacing humor to your advantage: “What’s the dress code for the baseball game? I’d hate to show up in my Christmas sweater and jeans again. LOL!”

    17. rebelwithmouseyhair*

      yeah I was mortified for OP there. I would have taken her aside and suggested something, anything, to help, like, here’s £500 nip out and get something from the shop over the road. Or, if you’d like to take a taxi home and back to be able to change and put some pretty jewellery on, please charge to the firm. Or even, if I lived much closer, I’d offer to lend her a dress.

      I totally think OP should go to the organisers and tell them to make sure everyone knows the dress code and that seats have been assigned to all.

  3. PTO*

    Ugh, what happens if you sell back time then wind up needing it later? Seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

    1. Holly Day*

      This is such a weird take to me. Is this really so unusual in the States? I’m in the UK and every company I’ve worked for in the last thirty years has had this system. It’s just – not a problem? You might end up WANTING more time off but you planned for this, you made decisions, and you don’t NEED it (since this system does not impact sick leave etc.) If people did genuinely “need” more time off for something, they can work with their manager and HR to sort it out. This system just allows people to plan their time off more effectively and allows them to have some control. I can’t see why anyone would be opposed to that. No one HAS to change their allocation – it’s an optional flexibility offered, and most people love it.

      1. Michigander*

        I think it’s because in the US a lot of people are used to very small amounts of vacation time. I live in the UK now and get 36 days of annual leave a year, so I can definitely see selling some back and still having plenty of time off. But when I lived and worked in the US I got two weeks of vacation time a year and two personal days, so I could see selling some off and then realising belatedly that I actually do need that time.

        The LW doesn’t mention how much time off her company gives but I have to hope that they make everyone keep a minimum of one or two weeks.

        1. A Girl Named Fred*

          I’d add that in a lot of places in the US, vacation leave and sick leave ARE actually in the same bucket, so if someone sold off part of their leave and then ended up having an especially bad illness at some point it could come back to bite them. I see someone saying below that in that case you could just talk to HR and get the leave back, but overall I personally just wouldn’t want to fuss with it (and I do have separate leave buckets.) I’ve never worked anywhere with a system like this, but I’ve only been in the workforce for 10-15 years at this point.

          1. Anne of Green Gables*

            And even if your vacation and sick are 2 different buckets, if you go on FMLA, you typically have to drain paid time off from both buckets for the leave to be paid. So if you give up VAC thinking you won’t need and then you or your spouce, child, or parent has a medical emergency and you need FMLA, you now can’t cover as many days off as paid.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              Exactly. FMLA is an unpaid benefit that basically just means your job can’t fire you. If your workplace is large enough to offer FMLA. If you have worked there long enough to qualify for FMLA and haven’t used it up on another health issue for yourself or a spouse/child/parent.

              I had a public-sector unionized job with very good benefits (by US standards), the workplace offered FMLA and I qualified for FMLA, when I found out I needed surgery with a 6-week recovery time. It wiped out all of my collected sick leave and half of my vacation for the coming year.

              If it seems like we in the US haggle over every hour of PTO like it’s precious and we may desperately need it in the future, that’s why.

          2. Paint N Drip*

            ^this
            PTO as a shared bucket of vacation/sick is nearly universal in non-union workplaces in the USA

            1. Quinalla*

              Eh, I would not say nearly universal, but definitely something you see. I’ve had two workplaces that had separate sick leave and one that combined them.

              But yeah, the fact that PTO in the US is generally so dismal (2-3 weeks is common for white collar until you have a lot of years in the field and less to none for non-white collar workers) is why the concern of I sold my PTO and now I need it back could easily be a thing.

            2. Prairie*

              I don’t think this is true. I’ve had four workplaces in my career. They all had separate sick and vacation time. Only one had a union.

            3. Rex Libris*

              This just isn’t true across the board. I’ve been in the workforce for 35 years and have never worked anywhere they were combined.

            4. fhqwhgads*

              Not in states that consider vacation earned income but sick time not. ;) If an employer makes that one bucket, then you either get paid out for all of it, or get to roll over all of it. Usually employers like the not-having-to-pay-out sick leave part, so they keep it two buckets.
              And btw this is true in California which is a pretty decent chunk of the USA.

      2. UKDancer*

        Yeah my company does it and so did the last 2 companies I worked for. It’s a thing some people take up and others don’t. I’ve never bothered because the amount of leave I have works for me. We can only sell up to 5 days I think (from an allocation of 25 days).

        I know I have one friend who always buys more leave and another colleague who sells it. They both seem happy.

        I’ve never known it be problematic.

          1. Media Monkey*

            in the uk there’s a legal minimum of 20 days (which can include the 8 bank holidays – but i’d say for most employers those are additional)

          2. bmorepm*

            based on folks commenting here, that’s always the case-that you’re required to retain a minimum of x days but you can buy or sell y days.

      3. Constance Lloyd*

        The only job I’ve had that allowed you to sell back time combined sick, vacation, and holiday (!!!) in the same PTO bucket. If you don’t have enough PTO on a “paid” holiday (like if you happened to start in December and hadn’t accrued enough PTO) the holiday went unpaid.

        I often sold back PTO because my team was so understaffed I could barely manage to work under 50 hours, much less take a vacation, and they of course capped how much PTO I could accrue. So if I don’t take the time off or sell it back, I lost out on a benefit.

      4. metadata minion*

        It is quite unusual, and you have to remember when looking at US reactions that we typically get *significantly* less leave overall than you do and that it’s extremely common to combine vacation and sick time into one general “paid time off” bucket. In plenty of US workplaces this type of program would incentivize people in a tight financial situation giving up needed sick leave so that they could have a bit of extra cash.

      5. JMC*

        Yes anything that actually benefits people in the US is not a thing. We do everything wrong in this country I swear.

      6. Rex Libris*

        I’ve worked a lot of jobs in a lot of different environments, and have never encountered this in the U.S. Of course I’ve also never encountered anyone in the U.S. who gets enough vacation time to make this a worthwhile option.

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

        I think partly because most places in the US don’t have much or any sick time. And in most cases if you need to go on extended time off for medical you have to use up all of your PTO (sick time and vacation) before using any short term disability. I think that’s where it can get tricky if you have given up portion of your PTO.

      8. iglwif*

        I discovered while working for a multinational company based in the US that it’s very common there for sick days, vacation days, and personal days to be rolled up into one bucket called “PTO” (paid time off) such that it is possible to be short of days for an illness late in the year because you took “too many” days for vacation earlier in the year.

        This seems like a bananapants system to me and is illegal where I live (Canada) but my US colleagues thought it was totally normal.

    2. Audrey Puffins*

      When I’ve worked for a company that offers this, people generally get to within spitting distance of the end of the year, realise they’ve got 3 days that they haven’t used yet, and either book them or sell them. And in the event that they say on 12th December that they’d like to sell their days then realise they’d like to take the 18th December as holiday, they can just let payroll and HR know and get it adjusted as necessary. It would be very weird to march into January saying “I already know I’m not going to use these days as holiday, I’d like to sell them”, and indeed, I don’t think our payroll team would have paid out unused holiday until December anyway so it’s not like you can give yourself a little financial boost early in the year that you would then later regret

    4. Annony*

      I personally like how my last company handled it. We were able to cash in unused PTO during benefits enrollment instead of rolling it over (or cash in anything over the amount we were allowed to roll over).

    5. doreen*

      It really depends a lot on specifics – the one opportunity I had to sell back leave was at an employer with a lot of different types of leave. Sick leave was separate and accumulated up to 200 days worth, everyone got 5 days of personal leave each year , there were 2 floating holidays each year and everyone got between 2-5 weeks vacation which accumulated up to 40 days. We could only sell back 5 days and we didn’t decide whether or not to do so until September. It would have been really unusual for me to think I had plenty of leave in September, sell a week back , and then suddenly need that week. But the situation would have been very different if I got 2 weeks of vacation and a week of sick leave that didn’t roll over.

    6. Beth**

      The way ours works, you sell the leave back at the end of the year if you haven’t used it.

      We get 26 days as core annual leave. We can buy up to 13 additional days and/or roll over 5 days with a maximum of 38 days.

      Towards the end of the leave year, you can sell back 2 days (some years more depending on union negotiations). If you haven’t used some/all of your purchased leave, it’s automatically reimbursed the month following the end of the leave year.

      So everyone is taking a minimum of 19 days (if they roll over 5 and sell back 2) and a maximum of 38. As others have said, you still need permission to take leave, so coverage levels can be maintained and managers can prioritise staff taking core leave over those using purchased leave if necessary. (The online HR system makes it clear how much of each type of leave someone has left.)

      I often struggle to use my leave, but I always buy the maximum, knowing I can cash it in if I don’t wind up using it.

      1. J Jonah Jameson*

        My organization is similar. Vacation and sick leave are separate. If you don’t use all your vacation this year, you can roll some of it over to next year, and if you have up to a week more than what you can roll over, it’s cashed in. So I usually cash in a few days because I’ve been rolling the same ten days over for years now.

    7. lizzay*

      Unpaid time off!

      In my experience this was never a problem. Probably b/c we were so understaffed & working so much we lost vacation every year.

  4. Coverage Assoicate*

    Can we please end professional cocktail parties on work days before…6pm? 7pm? Maybe I should read more “day to evening” tips in the fashion magazines, but I have very little clothing that makes sense for both my work day at the office and then the kind of cocktail party where most men are in suits. (Maybe that’s on me because I hate wearing black and don’t own flashy jewelry.)

    Not to mention that it feels unfair to have these professional events where men can wear office clothes but women can’t.

    A professional organization has organized a “gala” for 5:30pm on a Tuesday in the business district, and I don’t think anything would be lost if they had said “reception” or “party,” except that I’m fine wearing a suit to a professional reception or party, but not to a professional gala.

    Maybe it’s regional, and this relatively new organization doesn’t get it. This is San Francisco, and I don’t remember this combination of weekday and immediately after the work day “gala” happening before in the more than 15 years I have been attending professional events in San Francisco, not even with fairly conversative organizations.

    1. Roeslein*

      Women can totally wear office clothes to these events too. My usual go to is a black knee-length dress or a black skirt with a nice blouse. I just wear a blazer over it during the work day and maybe change into heels before the party if I feel fancy.

      1. amoeba*

        Yeah, I’d just wear slacks and a nice blouse/top. Like, business casual. Which would be slightly more dressed up compared to a normal day at the office, but nothing close to inappropriate! If they expect cocktail dresses, I’d be… well, surprised mostly, because that would be super strange and unusual in my industry, haha.

      2. Allonge*

        Or you wear a dress for the office with nice shoes and bring a fancier dress to change into. I would not want to do it every day but once or twice a year it should be doable.

        1. UKDancer*

          That’s what I did when I worked in a company where I had an event to attend after work that was dressy (which happens about 2x per year). If I had to be in the office then I brought a small bag with a change of clothes, changed at work and left the bag with my work clothes in at the office to be taken home the next day.

          My current office doesn’t go in for that type of thing. I have one event run by one of our suppliers that I attend each year which is black tie and I usually try and work from home so I can go straight there if it’s nearby or stay in a hotel if it’s another city (it moves around).

        2. londonedit*

          Yep, that’s what I’ve always done – my industry doesn’t go in for really posh events, but people like to dress up a bit for the Christmas party, and usually what we do if it’s a work day is wear something you don’t mind leaving in the office, and bring a posher dress/shoes to change into. It’s quite fun with everyone getting changed and doing their make-up in the loos, usually with a glass of fizz! Or I’ve also done it by wearing my posher dress with a jumper over the top for the working day, and then taking the jumper off and putting nicer shoes and jewellery on for the evening. It’s only once a year so it’s a novelty and it’s not really difficult to do.

          1. Joielle*

            Jumper over a nice cocktail dress is my go-to move! I have a few cocktail dresses that are basically a black pencil skirt on the bottom half so very easy to just pop something on over the glitzier top part and then take it off later. Add big earrings, switch from flats to heels, and voila, totally different outfit in less than 5 minutes.

        3. Zoeeeeee*

          At NewJob, our Christmas party is always lunchtime onwards and dressy. I love it because in the morning everyone is sat at their desks in glitzy party clothes, typing away

      3. Nola*

        I have a couple dresses that easily go from work to cocktail party. I just switch shoes (I usually wear Skechers/Bob’s type flats to the office but will switch to a dressier pair of flats or a small heel) and add a necklace or bracelet (I don’t wear jewelry at work).

        These dresses were from Pact, Land’s End, DressBarn, and Talbot’s.

    2. doreen*

      I’m not sure the time really matters – even if the event starts at 7 pm , a lot of people I know wouldn’t have time to go home and change clothes in -between. When I dressed up a bit for work, I wore the suit or dress I wore to work to the event (whatever it was called) just like my male counterparts wore the same suit. Maybe I wore a fancier blouse than usual. When I was in the “jeans and sneakers” job, I brought clothes to the office to change because even though the events didn’t start until 7 or so, there wasn’t enough time to travel home, change and then travel back to the party. I definitely wouldn’t decide what to wear based on whether it was called a “reception” , a “gala” or a “party”. The one time I wore a cocktail dress, the party was a few blocks from my house, so I had time to go home.

      1. JustaTech*

        When my work has done fancy holiday parties on Friday afternoons/evenings it’s been a hilarious scrum in the bathroom of people getting changed and doing their hair/makeup. I don’t think there are more than 2 or 3 people at the whole company who could manage “cocktail” attire out of their normal work clothes.

    3. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

      In this case, nobody can keep wearing their work clothes, because the men are wearing jeans to work just like the women. I would actually guess it’s a larger burden to have a suit than a party dress.

    4. Frankie Mermaids*

      My first corporate job had a big fancy Christmas party that started at 6pm sharp on a Friday. And I mean you needed to be in your seat for the Big Boss’s speech at promptly 6. We were also a butts-in-seats from 8 to 5 office. AND the party was more or less mandatory. AND you were expected to bring spouses/kids. Funnily enough, almost the entire office took half days of PTO the day of the Christmas party.

    5. A Simple Narwhal*

      Seriously yes to the earlier end time, or can we please end most post-work events in general? It’s a work event, it should primarily happen during work hours. We all have outside lives, why should we have to give up what little time we have outside of that for events that are not even that fun?

      Maybe I’m just a grumpy grinch but I really value my free time. When I was younger, the promise of free food and drink (and possibly fancy free food and drink!), especially at a cool location, was quite the allure. Now, it’s not nearly as enticing. I spend all day at work, I don’t really have the desire to spend even more time away from home. This is even more true after having kids. (I want to emphasize that it’s not only having kids, just that after having kids it adds an extra layer of coordination for me.)

      On top of that, I take the train to work each day, and the trains home really spread out after 5pm. My options for getting home after work hours are essentially 6:30, 9:00, or 11:30, and it’s an hour ride. Events that start after 5 have me stressed wondering if I can make the first train, which means I’m not fully enjoying myself, or I’m stuck getting home after 10, meaning not only will I be exhausted, but I’ll miss all the evening time with my child, which also leaves all evening child care to my husband (who I also like spending time with).

      I know it’s only a couple times a year, and it’s not like I’ve never had an after work event that required getting home late. But it’s hard signing up for 12+ hour day of work, which is what most work parties feel like (to me).

      1. amoeba*

        Eh, personally, for me it’s kind of the opposite – we used to have really nice and fun Christmas parties, that actually felt like parties and not like work at all. Recently, due to cost-saving, it’s more of a “two hours during work time” thing and… naaah. It’s not the same. You show up, make a bit of small talk, have some kind of crappy appetizers, leave/go back to work. Very underwhelming for me, mostly!

        I do like it when the even starts early though, so you get an hour or so paid time off and then it continues into the evening.

      2. Tea Monk*

        Oh yes. Work is time hungry. If I have an evening event, the real work I would get done at that time doesn’t disappear. Of course for people with kids there’s the ” I’m missing my kids entire life” thing, but I do have things to do.

    6. CTT*

      Over the years I have learned that the ideal time for a work party is like 4:30-7:30. That way, the people who have strong feelings about attending something outside work hours can leave at 5:30/6, and the people who aren’t able to feasibly get away during work hours can attend after they’re done for the day. (This POV brought to you by all the years I missed my BigLaw holiday party when it ended at 5:30 because I do transactional law and December is a crunch time and my colleagues and I could never attend until just as it was ending and the food was being put away)

    7. ItDepends*

      Well for those of us who can’t easily travel home then back making it later makes it less accessible and harder to attend. You’re never going to make everyone happy.

  5. RCB*

    Piggybacking off of something Alison mentions in #5 about employers needing to have a certain number of employees to be subject to certain workplace discrimination laws….I get that the point of this is to not burden small employees with complex HR issues (I assume that’s the rationale, right?), but it’s REALLY frustrating working at a small employer and getting illegally terminated and not having the Federal protections. I’m just as much a worker as someone working at a big company and I deserve the same rights. Fortunately I’m in a liberal area so my state laws were able to bridge the gap just enough to make the case able to litigate, I’d have been completely out of luck if I were in a red state.

    1. Mid*

      It’s one of those things I’ve never really understood. Healthcare can be a huge expense for a small business but I can’t understand how not discriminating would impede small businesses, and the justification for the different laws for small businesses has always been that the laws are costly to them.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          That always seems weird to me, because the point of fines, etc is that they are meant to be a burden. They are meant to be something so negative that you won’t do the bad thing because it would harm you if you did.

          1. Karl Havoc*

            I think it’s not about the cost of damages awards/fines but the cost of defending bogus suits. When I advise clients on legal risk associated with something that might piss someone off, I always make sure to give the caveat that being legally in the right doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t get sued – people file bad lawsuits every day. And the U.S. is generally not a loser-pays system, so defending even a ridiculous claim can be expensive.

            All that said, I *don’t* agree that’s a sufficient reason to exempt small companies from anti-discrimination laws! The possibility of getting sued is part of the cost of doing business. And it’s not like small companies get blanket immunity from being sued for anything – so why exempt them from something as important as anti-discrimination laws?

        2. Learn ALL the things*

          From what I understand, it’s more that the cost of not discriminating itself would be a burden. For example, small businesses are exempt from the Family Medical Leave Act, which is the law that guarantees that an employer can’t fire you for taking up to 12 weeks of unpaid medical leave. The rationale is that if you only have three employees and one of them is out sick for three months, you don’t have enough people to do all the work so you have to be able to open up the position and hire someone else.

          I think that’s nonsense and if you can’t make a business plan that accounts for your moral and ethical responsibilities to your staff, you shouldn’t be in business, but I’m not in charge of laws. If I was, labor laws would apply equally to every worker regardless of the size of their company, how long they’ve been employed, or what work their organization does (I work for a legislative agency, and the legislative branch of government is also exempt from a lot of worker protections).

          1. Kitry*

            The impact of that would be that small businesses just can’t exist. Do you really want to be dependent on large corporations for everything?

            1. fhqwhgads*

              Businesses don’t have a right to exist. They should succeed or fail on their merits. I don’t want to depend on large corporations for everything but if the only way a small business can function is by being allowed to mistreat workers, that business doesn’t deserve to exist.

          2. fhqwhgads*

            Not firing someone for taking 12 weeks unpaid does not preclude them from hiring someone temporarily for those 12 weeks. I know it’s not always possible to actually hire that quickly, but the whole “we can’t fire you ergo we can’t hire someone else” was never a logical reason, to me.

          3. Disappointed Australien*

            A lot of small businesses literally can’t do that, though. Planning on the basis that staff costs might go up 30% or 50% unpredictably is really hard, and doing that while funding a startup from savings is generally impossible. I venture that even very large companies would struggle with that magnitude of change.

            Small companies also commonly don’t have written policies or procedures, and often tasks are divided as much by who *can* do them as by the formal org chart that someone will write out in a few years when the company is bigger. So a temporary replacement might not be practical. “wanted: admin, receptionist, goods in and out person, must have basic accounting skills and be good friends with someone nearby who owns a forklift that we can borrow every month or so”.

            I’ve worked in those places and either they can work around a pregnancy, disability, whatever, or they can’t. Suing them for not being able to cope puts them out of business, it doesn’t magically make them able to. Back to “a company that can’t handle an unpredictable 50% staff cost increase shouldn’t exist” territory.

      2. Snow Globe*

        It’s because to prove a pattern discrimination, you’d need a large enough sample to draw conclusions. If there are three employees and all are under 40, is that discrimination, or just random? Statistics don’t really work for a small sample size. Overt discrimination, like in this example, doesn’t rely on establishing a pattern, but most cases do, and that’s why the law was written that way.

      3. Beany*

        In the case of pregnancy or other reasons for planned extended leave, I imagine it’s because company size brings stability. The smaller the company, the harder and more expensive it is to cover for weeks of employee absence. A 30-person company can probably shift people around and hire a temp for less involved tasks, but in a 5-person company, there’s a smaller budget, and a higher chance that everyone’s job is unique.

        1. doreen*

          That’s one exemption that makes sense – sometimes, it seems like people think that any business can hire a temp for any position but that isn’t always the case. If the corner store has two employees and one needs to be on medical leave for 10 weeks , it’s really unlikely that they will be able to hire a temp for the 10 weeks. If the store has to keep the job available until that person can return , the store’s options will probably be to push all the work to the one remaining employee or to hire someone without telling them it’s only for 10 weeks.

          1. Gumby*

            Also, if you were a staff of two and one is on any sort of paid leave and you also have to pay the replacement – that is a huge hit to your budget. Let’s say everyone makes $1000/week (making these number up!). If you plan your budget around paying $2000/week in salary and now it costs $3000? That’s a 50% increase. If you have 100 employees and you budget and plan around paying $100,000/week in salary – having to pay $101,000/week is a 1% increase. It’s massively easier to absorb that same exact $1000/week into the existing budget if the budget is bigger. If that large 100-person company had to all of a sudden pay for 50 temps? They probably couldn’t absorb the 50% increase in costs either.

    2. Emmy Noether*

      I think this is entirely about what a law has to look like to get a chance to pass. One can sometimes get a majority behind protecting workers from large, anonymous corporations, but a small business owner is a sympathetic figure in the public imagination, and small businesses are something most people also want to protect. So in order to counter the argument of “but it will kill small businesses!” (whether that’s true or not!), they just get an exception.

      It’s not about logic, it’s about politics.

      1. Lee*

        yeah, as someone who works for a small business, I never understand why there is all this focus on creating them and them surviving as a symbol of economic strength. Far as I can tell, small business often act like Walmart and McDonald’s in how they rely on the government, because their employees don’t make enough to not do so.

        It nay not be true of all small business, but as far as I can tell, a lot survive by doing the absolute minimum for employees, while maximizing income for the owner (which is hidden from taxes, because it isn’t taken as income, while everything they pay for in their lives is a business expense of one sort or another).

        Never having worked in a big business, I can’t say this isn’t true there too, but at least in theory there are some protections.

        though more and more I doubt any company is really run well and treats people well.

        1. bamcheeks*

          I always think this when someone from a small business pops up in the media to talk about how simply impossible it will be for them to implement the new minimum wage increase or offer a bare minimum of employment rights or something. OK, you’re out here telling me that your business is NOT in fact creating real sustainable jobs that people can live on, but for some reason I’m supposed to think it’s a good thing and should be saved? Nah, let the business fail and you can find another hobby that doesn’t undercut real jobs by providing goods or services that depend on people working poverty wages.

          I know there are tons of amazing, sustainable small businesses who work incredibly hard to make sure they are providing real employment, and I just don’t understand why they’re not more up in arms as to why they’re not more angry about being portrayed like this!

          1. Paint N Drip*

            Ugh your first paragraph nails it for me. ‘But they’re a small business’ is NOT an excuse – if a small business can’t afford to ACTUALLY support anyone but the owner, then the owner can take the hits until the business grows or they can work alone.
            You can find another hobby is exactly right

          3. JonBob*

            But the point of a business isn’t to provide real sustainable jobs. The point of a business is to provide a good or service. Yes there are ethical considerations in employment, but ultimately the good or service will determine how much the people will work for.

            1. bamcheeks*

              If you are going on TV opposing employment rights because they’ll harm your business, and you expect me as a voter to care about that, then you’ve got to be able to make some sort of case for why I should think your business existing is a good thing. Why should I or my elected representative care otherwise?

        2. Learn ALL the things*

          though more and more I doubt any company is really run well and treats people well.

          This is going to be down to the individual people who are running the company. The top people in my agency are committed to treating staff well, but since I work for the state legislature which is exempt from most labor laws, I’m really at the mercy of those people. If they weren’t so committed to going above and beyond what’s required by law to do right by their staff, it could get really bad really quickly. If they were to retire and be replaced by people with different priorities, I don’t think I could stay at this job.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        It’s where the idea that it will “kill small businesses” comes from that’s the mystery. For FMLA or parental leave I can see where they get it, but how they convinced Congress they absolutely had to be able to discriminate to stay open just doesn’t make sense.

        1. Nightengale*

          They make the argument about disability that accommodations are just too expensive. That was a major compromise in order to get the ADA passed.

          There are some accommodations that would be a financial hardship for a small business and not a larger one, but most accommodations cost less than $500. . .

        2. bamcheeks*

          There’s a reasonable argument that vexatious or unsubstantiated claims could be a much bigger burden on small businesses than on larger ones: a larger businesses with an established professional HR team can absorb those kind of costs in ways that a smaller one can’t. But you could mitigate that on the labour board side by eg. having lighter touch requirements for investigations and a better-resourced team to ensure any claims relating to small businesses are dealt with speedily, or on the employer side by requiring small businesses to carry insurance to offset the cost of claims.

          But I think Emmy Noether is right that this is about what can get passed politically– excluding small businesses is a sop to get the bill passed.

        3. Disappointed Australien*

          There’s a lot of small businesses that have accommodations, sometimes very tricky ones, but they have those specific ones because they are able to. As soon as you say every small business must have all accommodations you’re imposing huge costs.

          One cafe finding a wheelchair accessible site and setting things up so a wheelchair user can run the front counter is probably doable. Mandating that every single cafe in a city must be wheelchair accessible including to wheelchair using staff means a lot of building renovations or no cafes.

          Same with parental leave – one small business deciding that with a bit of work from home, some ‘can we ring you if we have to’ and they can make it work is all very well. But again, saying “every small business must demonstrate that they can fund parental leave for all staff as soon as they hire their first employee”… that massively increases the cost of starting a small business.

          There are a lot of possible accommodations, and even large companies struggle to deal with all of them. among other things this is why disabled people are less employed than abled ones.

    3. Alicent*

      It’s absolutely ridiculous, especially for things like COBRA and pregnancy protections. At my last job my coworker was almost legally fired for being pregnant and having morning sickness despite a clear history of making the same accommodations for other pregnant employees in the same position. We just didn’t have enough employees for it to matter. (I’m pretty certain boss had a crush on this particular employee who is stunningly gorgeous and got jealous that someone else impregnated her because he was a bit psycho and narcissistic).

      I’ve also lost health insurance coverage after leaving a job because COBRA doesn’t apply to small businesses despite the employee having to pay the premium. One time I wasn’t even told our state had a mini version for small businesses by my employer and they were shocked it existed when I asked for it. They’re legally obligated to tell employees, but who exactly is enforcing that?

      1. Anonys*

        Not a lawyer, but the accommodations made for other pregnant employees should work in favor of the company, and not your pregnant coworker, even if it was big enough for the federal laws to apply.

        It is perfectly legal to fire a pregnant employee in any company, as long as the termination is not motivated by the pregnancy. Assuming your boss wasn’t stupid enough to say “I can’t stand that you are pregnant, so you’re fired”, the fact that other pregnant employees were treated well and received accommodations (ie there being no pattern of pregnancy discrimination) makes it a lot easier for the company to argue that they fired your colleague for performance, or wearing too much blue, or any other perfectly legal reason to fire someone in an at-will state.

        1. Learn ALL the things*

          Alicent says that the reason for the pregnant employee’s near firing was missing work due to morning sickness, wouldn’t that make it easier for the employee to claim pregnancy discrimination?

    4. Nicosloanica*

      Yeah, my company doesn’t have mat leave, FMLA or any legal prohibition against all sorts of discrimination because they are very careful to always stay under the number of employees that would require it. They do offer health insurance.

    5. Coverage Associate*

      My observation is that many small businesses give employees first chances that larger businesses can’t or don’t. A small business owner, as the hiring manager and CEO and often HR, is more likely to take a chance on someone they know personally with no experience, whereas a larger company might not get such a hire past those different layers. In fact, I know small business owners who don’t see the kid they know with no experience as even needing a chance compared to an experienced stranger. They would rather hire someone they know.

      The other perspective on the same phenomenon calls it nepotism, I admit.

    6. Strive to Excel*

      There’s several reasons.

      1 – yes, complex HR and payroll is a reason. Health insurance rules are notoriously complex to the point where even large Mega-corporations often hire someone else to make sure they’re in legal compliance or buy a pre-packaged plan.
      2 – a lot of benefits become cheaper to the employer per-employee, so a 50-person workforce is going to be paying less per employee than a 3-person workforce. Sometimes those benefits are prohibitively expensive.
      3 – legally it’s very hard to differentiate “little etsy store run by three friends on weekends” from “3-person software startup planning to sell out for millions” without requiring a level of paperwork that is prohibitive for the tiny mom and pop.

    7. MigraineMonth*

      It’s absolutely wild that in the US we say “Discrimination in the workplace is illegal! Unless it’s a small workplace. Or a religious one. Or you work in the federal judiciary…”

      I still remember as a child learning that vehicle safety regulations had explicit exceptions for transporting farm workers and realizing (even without the “Mexican immigrant” part stated clearly) that there was something deeply wrong with our laws.

    8. Agnes*

      If you hire the neighbor’s kid to babysit, should you be required to follow workplace discrimination laws? (Disparate impact, because your neighborhood probably has more people of your race.) Where do you draw the line?

  6. TheBunny*

    LW#1

    First I have to thank Alison for saying what I was thinking. The advice received has been *checks notes* to ghost the job or to make a VERY BIG DEAL out of it.

    Egads. Go or don’t go…but do it because you want to go or don’t. The fact that everyone was in cocktail attire tells me it was communicated to most, and oopsing on details for a new hire isn’t the best look, but all it takes is one person to not know someone is new (or new-ish) and things like this happen.

    1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Referring back too much to this as a reason for not attending other events also risks looking like OP is sulking, even though I don’t think that is the intent. The acquisition is also a factor here, harping on things that happened under the “old” management risks looking like OP hasn’t moved on or doesn’t see that things will be different with the acquisition, and at a time when reputations are still being established with the new parent company.

    2. bamcheeks*

      The advice to ghost the job is so over the top that I’m kind of wondering whether LW was in such a tizzy about it that her friend was trying to snap her out of it by being obviously hyperbolic.

      1. OmNom*

        I actually read it more as the friend sympathizing with OP, as in, “Omggggg, so embarrassing! I would just not show up to work anymore if that happened!” Not seriously but a sort of exaggeration to show sympathy, I guess.

        1. bamcheeks*

          Yeah, I can see that too. Both of these sound more likely than it being offered as a serious suggestion!

        3. Leaving academia*

          This was actually my reading, and I’m really surprised how many people are jumping on “kids these days.”

        2. Eldritch Office Worker*

          Yes, I really appreciated “don’t take advice on anything work related for five years” – I think that captures that this is immature advice and signals that this friend group has growing and learning to do.

          1. KateM*

            But at the same time it captured also the belief that they *will* grow and learn! So, yes, I appreciated it, too.

    3. amoeba*

      Eh, I assume they never actually communicated the dresscode to anybody, but people who were there the previous years knew what to expect. And then they never realised that probably you shouldn’t rely on word of mouth/telepathy for the new joiners to find out. (I’d also assume that there was never an “official” dress code, it’s just how that event evolved in the past, and then people adapted to that!)

      2. Nicosloanica*

        I would say, perhaps OP can “be the change” and proactively reach out to the new people. “I know this year’s party may be a bit more casual in the past, but last year I showed up in our regular work uniform and was really out of synch – just wanted to let you know so you can avoid my embarrassment! I’m going to … (bring a blazer and change of shoes in my car this time just in case, wear something intermediate, whatever you think sounds best).” Allow correcting this past injustice to be the thing that sets you free from ever thinking about this again.

        1. The gourmet cupcake*

          Yeah, that’s what I would do. Just pull aside the new coworkers and tell them it’s actually a fancy dinner, a suit and tie thing.

    4. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Agreed. Also, can we comment on OP’s dad’s advice to say “I want to be a team player and attend events, but I can’t when expectations aren’t communicated.” OP, do NOT say this, wow. That’s terribly harsh and far too critical, especially for a new employee. It’s much simpler and far more polite to just *ask* what the expectations are, not accuse the company of bad communication (even though that sure does appear to be true in this case). If you could go back in time, I’d recommend that you ask ahead of time what people tend to wear to the party, although I certainly can’t criticize you at all for thinking it’d be your usual business attire at the event – why would anyone assume otherwise? Totally side-eyeing your company for not putting the dress code out there in the invite.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I agree that the suggested language is too adversarial, but I wouldn’t have been able let what happened go completely if it had happened to me. I’d probably lean into collaborative problem-solving with my manager, so something like, “To be honest, it was pretty awkward to be the only person in jeans and to not have a seat. I’ve heard this happens pretty commonly with new hires. What can we do to avoid it going forward?”

    5. Khatul Madame*

      Yes, it’s concerning that the LW is so focused on that one party, but does not even mention if she likes the job otherwise.

  7. Jillian with a J dammit*

    Maybe it’s just me (probably), but I would have asked ever single person I came across what they were wearing to the party. I absolutely hate to be underdressed or overdressed, almost to the point of panic.

    3. amoeba*

      Yeah, certainly not everybody, but I’d probably have asked one of my direct coworkers about the kind of event to expect, including what people are wearing! Not because I’d be so worried about being dressed wrong, but also honestly just out if curiosity.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        I would have done that too. I have done that for just about every event at every job I’ve had. There’s a big meeting for us in February and I guarantee my team will have extensive discussions about clothing.

        At a former job, I used to pull new-ish people aside before our giant holiday party and give them tips. Don’t wear uncomfortable shoes. Don’t wear your best shoes. Don’t wear anything too hot. This was at a job I had for over 8 years, our holiday party was REALLY fun, but too many people showed up overdressed and got uncomfortable really quickly. I can’t imagine a world in which it’s a big misstep to ask coworkers about these things, so I encourage most people to discuss it.

        1. bamcheeks*

          In most teams I’ve worked in, 30% of the office thinks pre-gaming outfits is, if not more fun than the actual party, certainly a large part of it.

      2. Paint N Drip*

        I’d be curious too! Being able to dress outside of office norms IS fun, I love to see other sides of my coworkers and management

    4. Not That Kind of Doctor*

      My last office holiday party, in the Before Times, my manager and I showed up in different colors of the same dress and agreed to coordinate in the future!

    5. Mostly Managing*

      I’m nine months into my current role, and for every single event I have asked what the dress code is. To the point that my manager now anticipates it and volunteers the information!

      This is so helpful, because we have events that are “dress a bit nicer than you would for work” and events that are “dress to impress” and events that are “jeans and a department branded t-shirt” and I have not been able to figure out how this is decided!!

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        I loathe dress codes but I especially loathe vague dress codes. “Dress to impress”? What does that even mean!? What would that look like for a man? Bow tie? Hawaiian shirt? Sparkly trousers? I have no idea!

    6. Damn it, Hardison!*

      That’s exactly what I did the first year at my corporate job. I asked a colleague who was always dressed well and she told me it was cocktail attire. My embarrassment was showing up in the same dress as someone else (not really embarrassing as we only crossed paths once.)

    7. Anonys*

      I normally would ask around too and so far, I have either changed before going to a holiday party, or worn a slightly more “dressed up” office outfit. However, in OP’s case, the company had already issued a specific “different than usual” dresscode for the day of the party: wearing a christmas sweater. It makes sense to assume the christmas sweater directive would continue to apply to the holiday party later that day and was implemented to bring festive cheer to the party.

      1. Butterfly Counter*

        This would have been my assumption, too. I definitely have shown up to events and not realized the dress code. I once showed up to my cousin’s wedding in business casual when everyone else went formal. It was my first wedding and I had no idea. (I did much better at the next one.)

        But really, it wasn’t a big deal. I used my manners and didn’t belch at the table or get drunk or say anything embarrassing, so my clothes were a non-issue. And years later, at my wedding, an uncle (not my cousin’s dad) showed up in a t-shirt. Who cares? I was just glad family was there on the day!

        Someone mentioned this above, but OP, your reaction is a LOT. I’m not armchair diagnosing, and the pandemic sure did screw up a lot of people being able to experience more formal get togethers where they could make these silly mistakes earlier, but the amount of anxiety and avoidance you’re experiencing from a relatively tiny “oopsie moment” might be something to look into. I doubt 90% of your coworkers couldn’t tell you what they wore last year, let alone what their new coworker was wearing. This was a nothing event and you’ve built it into almost a character flaw. That’s sounds miserable to me to be thinking about this for this long.

    8. Armchair Analyst*

      “Hey, cool that the office party is the same day as the sweater party in the office. Does that mean that everyone wears the Christmas sweaters to the evening party? I would love that!”

      “Oh no, sorry mate. It’s more of a dress up thing. Folks go home and change or bring their suits and shoes. Don’t wear the sweater to the party.”

      That’s all. I’m not even Australian but I just imagine people saying “mate” in this situation.

    9. T.N.H*

      I can’t believe I had to scroll this far to get to this comment. I get that the manager screwed up, but OP did too. I can’t even imagine showing up to a party without asking about dress code and the default should almost never be jeans!

      1. Joielle*

        Yeah, if I wasn’t going to ask, I would definitely default to at least black pants and a nice top – something where you wouldn’t be too out of place either way. Or at LEAST black jeans and bring a dressier sweater in case you need to change out of the ugly Christmas sweater!

      2. Persephone Mulberry*

        I don’t think it’s outlandish to assume when the holiday party is scheduled on the same day as Silly Holiday Sweater day at the office, that the day dress code would carry over to the party!

        2. fhqwhgads*

          Yeah, this is where I land. OP was already told to wear a specific thing the day of the party. That they took that instruction to apply not only to that single work day but also the party makes total sense to me. I wouldn’t have thought to ask what to wear to the party either in this context. It’s weird to have a “wear something other than normal work clothes” day on the same day as the party and not expect those clothes to also be for the party.

    10. Smithy*

      I used to have a job in a country that already has a more casual dress code than most of the US, but then a sector within that country with an ultra casual style on top of that. To the point where one of our most senior staff members would occasionally show up for international news interviews dressed so informally they’d offer him other clothes to wear.

      That being said, my job included external meetings with far more business formal sectors and doing things like going to embassy parties. It was a genuine crash course in being able to keep both styles of dress in my head, and looking back on it – I’m kind of impressed that our CEO only told me to go home and change twice before events where she decided my read on the formality was wrong.

      At the time it was super embarrassing to literally be sent home to change. But in retrospect, it gave me a far more empathy for myself in what it meant to hit those dress codes and what “absolutely no, that’s wrong” actually meant. T

    11. iglwif*

      I don’t worry about this topic that much, but as a new employee I would absolutely seek this kind of info from co-workers!

    12. Miss Pickles the cat*

      Based on the letter, the jean/Christmas sweater day and the party day were the same day. I can understand someone thinking that the dress codes were related since they are for the same holiday, and appeared to be linked together. I probably would’ve made the same assumption.

    13. Nosy*

      At a past job I was new and asked my boss what attire was appropriate for an upcoming office event. He told me, “Black business casual and no open toed shoes”. Every other woman there was wearing a colorful dress and open toed sandals. Now I’ve learned to ask more than one person lol.

    14. Hyaline*

      Honestly, wondered if part of the problem for LW is that they know they probably could have/should have asked, or there were other clues that this was a dressy event (location, wording of invite, whatever), and they feel stupid. Instead of owning “I feel a little stupid” they’ve blown this up into a waaaaay bigger deal than it should be. Lesson learned, if you don’t know dress code or norms, just ask! And if you make a mistake…big whoop! You make a mistake! Acknowledge “eh I felt silly, oh well” and move on with life.

  8. Elsa*

    OP #2, that definitely didn’t qualify as “parking is provided”, and you had every right to be angry that having to spend so much time on parking and re-parking your car. It sounds absolutely exhausting.

    Having said that, I do think it’s a good idea to find out details of the parking situation when you are checking out a job, and not just take employers’ word for it when they say “parking is provided”. If there is an employee parking lot, does it have enough spots for everyone? If not then what is the backup option? How far is the available parking from the workplace?

    If the job is in a busy urban area, then you need to be extra careful to ask those questions and get clear answers.

    1. Artemesia*

      Having to repark means not only that parking is not provided but that you are being asked to do something borderline illegal in parking all day on public streets where parking time is limited.. What else did they lie to you about? Better check to make sure your retirement matching doesn’t kick in after 10 years or for similar ways to not deliver on benefits promised.

      1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        I can’t see how “move your car ever 2-4 hours” even works in practice. I mean I understand why it is, but how does any work ever get done? What if you get stuck in a long meeting, do you excuse yourself part way through to go and move the car? Are occasional parking fines just part of the cost of doing business and submitted for reimbursement? I think it could easily add up to an hour per day of moving cars around.

        1. WS*

          I worked at a place with this stupid policy, though I didn’t have a car at the time and got there via bus. There was one parking space but it was only for the boss and it was under a tree full of birds so it was not a desirable spot anyway. Some people parked further away in a public space near a shopping centre and caught the bus a few stops. Some people really did go and move their car every 2-4 hours (depending which side of the road they were on), ducking out of meetings. Just before I left, the business across the road, which was in a three-storey building, had someone posted to see if the parking inspector was coming down the street and people would only rush out and move cars if they got the alert!

        2. KateM*

          I have known this to be “move the hands of your parking clock that you have set on your window every 3-4 hours”. More doable than moving the whole car but still something that should not be expected as a routine part of your working day.

          1. Antilles*

            That may not be possible here.
            In my experience, city street parking permits with a 2 or 4 hour limit are typically enforced by Parking Enforcement walking/driving around the block every so often to physically check which cars are parked in each of the spots (e.g., with chalk marks across your tires or a more modern camera scan/recording system). If a car is there beyond the allotted time, they write up a ticket immediately. So you do indeed need to physically move the whole car to a different spot in order to avoid a ticket.

            1. KateM*

              It’s something that looks like a toy clock where you can set the hands. You set the time and put it on your window to show when you started parking.

              1. Antilles*

                Interesting. That’s definitely not a thing in any US city I’ve ever been in; here it’s tracked by Parking Enforcement themselves. And they generally apply “2 hour limit” to individual parking spots, so even if they did see the clock and realize you’d visited the car prior to it expiring, they’d still ticket you for exceeding the 2 hour allowance.

        3. PhyllisB*

          I can answer that. When I worked at the phone company we had to park wherever and if we got tickets that was your problem. When I first started there were parking meters so you could guess when you had to go feed the meters. After they got rid of the meters they would mark your tires and give you a ticket if you were there too long. One woman got arrested when she was caught erasing the mark on her tire and our supervisor had to go and bail her out. I never did hear what happened later if she had to reimburse or if the company covered it.

        4. JustaTech*

          I went to a high school in a downtown area where everyone took public transit. Occasionally one of the art teachers would drive in, and he would have run run out (down the stairs 5 floors) to feed the meter or move his car. This only worked because he was the art teacher, and so didn’t need to be actively instructing students at every moment.
          But for a normal job I could see it being a huge issue.

      2. doreen*

        I disagree about the “borderline illegal” – it might be borderline illegal in some places, but where I live it’s only illegal if both spots are in the same zone ( and the zone is one side of the street for one block, so across the street or the next block is a different zone.) And that’s only if there’s actually a limit on parking time, rather than “no parking 8-11 am” on one street and “no parking 11am-1pm” around the corner.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I don’t think it’s illegal at all, but it’s definitely against the spirit of the regulation. They’re forcing people to move their cars that often because the city doesn’t want anyone to park on the street all day, and the business is telling their employees to do so anyway.

        2. Not Jane*

          Even if it’s not actually illegal, the point of time-limited parking is typically to provide spaces for customers, not workers who will be using spaces all day.

    2. MK*

      Eh, I think anger is a bit of an overreaction here. Yes, the wording is not accurate, but I doubt it was a deliberate attempt to lure candidates with false promises of free parking. I assume it was explained while onboarding.

      That being said, the remark thing is crazy. Wherever I agave seen the system of streets where both by-the-hour-parking and permanent permits were allowed, the “don’t stay parked for more than x hours” rule didn’t apply to those with permits; changing spots every few hours kinf of cancels out the benefit of a permit.

      1. Jackalope*

        I mean, I’d be angry if I found out that one of my job responsibilities was “move my car around several times a day”, especially if it was implied that that wouldn’t be an issue. If you’re reparking your car every 2-4 hours and it takes 20-30 min to do so, then on average you’re spending 1-2 hrs/day if your work time just driving your car around looking for a parking space and then parking it. That’s an activity that most people find frustrating, and it would be especially so if you had, say, an urgent deadline that day, or if it was one of the days where you literally spent 1/4 of your work time parking your car.

      2. ferrina*

        Nah, anger is fine. They said “parking is provided”, and it definitely is not. Misleading job candidates is not okay, and it’s fine to get angry about it.

        I’m also confused about the permits. Everywhere I’ve seen has been 2/3 hour parking unless you have Permit XX. Not sure what the point of a permit is otherwise- maybe just to waive the hourly fee?

      3. MigraineMonth*

        I disagree; I think it was beyond a deliberate attempt to mislead and was a straight-up lie for attracting candidates that would have passed over the job if they knew the truth. (Coming clean during onboarding doesn’t excuse the lie.)

        If you say “lunch is provided” and then make your employees break into a nearby school’s cafeteria to make their own, it’s a lie.

      4. Ama*

        Yeah the city where I live is like this, it’s an older city and there are not enough parking lots in most of it but public transit is only an option in some areas (and then there’s the problem of neighborhoods with a good transit option dealing with people further out driving to their neighborhood to then take public transit). There are some neighborhoods where parking is only allowed with a permit ever and some where parking is only allowed with a permit during certain hours. But I’ve never heard of people with permits having to move their car still! That’s the whole point of the permits! The only time you should have to move is on street cleaning day and that’s only once a month around here.

    3. Grith*

      Yeah, when I read the title of this letter, I assumed it would be issues with a too-small car park or similar. The situation describe is just simply not provided parking.

    5. Perfectly Cromulent Name*

      This type of “parking is provided” set up would be enough for me to be looking for a new job. MOVING YOUR CAR? That is NOT ‘provided.’ WOW. That seems like a tremendous waste of employee time too. Would they pay your tickets or tow fees if you were stuck in a client meeting and could not get out in the two our threshold to move your car? I am AGOG.

    6. Random Bystander*

      Yes–there is no reasonable way to say that parking is provided if you *must* move the vehicle at any time in between parking to start your day and returning to the vehicle at the end of the day (leaving for lunch and re-parking is an optional thing).

      Reminds me of when the facility moved (I since started working from home). My department was one of the first to move (patients still in old facility), and there were two other departments that moved and we filled up the employee parking intended for *all* hospital employees. We were there several weeks before move date and they did allow an extra area for employee parking (just enough to accommodate those of us pre “move day”). We warned them and warned them that this would not be adequate. Well, of course they didn’t listen …. move day was on a Sunday, and all went well.

      Monday … complete and total chaos. Every spot in the lot (including patient parking) was full … most of it by employees. Admin *still* thought there was no problem because they had a gated access lot and assigned spots. I mean … patients unable to get parking for their appointments, parking in every possible spot (including not legal and dangerous to be parked–I don’t know if employee or non-employee). Until a hero doctor used his ability to open the gated access (he had the appropriate credentials) and admin’s assigned spots were filled. *now* they realized there was a problem. The next day, they had earth moving equipment flattening a field to become a gravel lot.

      I’m just glad that I only have to commute from my bedroom to the office room these days.

  9. Not Australian*

    IMHO any function that takes place on a work day should take place immediately after work and have the same dress code as the workplace itself. If they want folks to dress up in something special, it should be held on another day to allow people plenty of time to prepare at home. The only exception I can think of would be a multi-day conference where people have hotel rooms to return to and presumably advance warning of the dress requirement. If I’m expected to go home, change my clothes, and then return to meet the same people I’ve been working with all day, I’m going home and staying there – full stop!

    1. A Simple Narwhal*

      I’d go a step further and say work functions should take place primarily during work hours!

      Maybe it’s just because I don’t find work functions fun (my coworkers are great but we’re work friends, not friend friends), but I really dislike giving up my free time for a work function, it just feels like a really long work day!

      2. ItDepends*

        only if they’re onsite or the company provides transportation. otherwise people who don’t drive to work will have significantly more limited options to get there/participate.

    3. Resentful Oreos*

      I agree. For one thing, I’m a bit past the “stay out late and party” stage, and for another, I do not want to haul a dressy change of clothing, let alone shoes, with me to work. I’m happy to run a brush through my hair or touch up my lipstick, but a whole new outfit, no, not going to pack one just for one work event.

    4. Not Always*

      My current employer is doing a lunch in a place that only works if you can drive and I would have so many more options to attend if it were at night. So many more.

  10. GammaGirl1908*

    This is about a 2.5 out of 10. LW called this a “disaster” and seriously considered abandoning the job over it? Yes, the event was a little awkward for LW, and yes, the office event planner is clearly full crappe at the job, but avoiding every other extracurricular and planning a lecture for the boss and freaking out about this year’s event is Way Too Much. LW should have laughed it off in the moment (“I guess this is how you all haze the new guy?”), showed up appropriately attired for the next event, and gotten over it.

    LW, I started a new job last month, and I have stumbled and bumbled through a few moments of not knowing the culture or not having the right information or not knowing who to ask, or other unknown unknowns (and even a few known unknowns, where I ask for something and they scramble to find something they should have gotten me a week ago). Everyone says, “Oh gosh, we should have told you!” and that’s the end of it.

    2. TheBunny*

      I’m 6 months into a job and fully bungled something recently (in my defense I thought it was handled BUT going off past behavior of the person who told me that I should have asked more questions) and no one has pitchforks out for me. I think OP can, in the immortal words of Elsa, let it go.

      1. GammaGirl1908*

        Especially because, as discussed, the mistake was not LW’s. LW does not need to wear this forever.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          And because it has happened in other years too. If the LW was the only person it ever happened to, it still wouldn’t be a big deal but people might at least think the LW made a mistake whereas in this case, LW, I can promise you that if people thought about it at all, they were thinking, “oh, another poor new person who wasn’t given the memo. Why can’t think company get its act together and give people the information they need?” If they were thinking less of anybody (which is unlikely), it was of management/the organisers of the event, not you. And I can assure you that most people have either long forgotten it or if they do remember it, just remember it as “there was another person who wasn’t informed of the dress code last year, so clearly the issue hasn’t been fixed.”

          1. Nola*

            I could kind of get OP’s reaction if others had made a big deal about it. If people spent the night making rude comments or kept making passive aggressive comments over the following weeks.

            But it sounds like it was noted – not as a knock against OP – more in a “geez, we always forget to tell the newbie this, our bad!” way and then everyone moved on.

            This looms so much larger in OP’s mind than anyone else’s.

            Go to the party. Give any new folks a heads up if you can.

            1. Miss Pickles the cat*

              Yes, it sounds like the assumption most people have – you think people think about you way more than they actually do. Everyone else is just like you – worrying about how they appear to others, not the other way around.

    3. sparkle emoji*

      I can see myself having this type of thought pattern, but I have anxiety issues. Usually I can snap out of it using the reactions of friends and family as a gut check. It sounds like LW’s friends and family are encouraging the unhelpful thought patterns. Good to know going forward to take their judgement with a grain of salt.

    4. Cadillac*

      A “disaster” would be on the scale of everyone was sent to the wrong location / showed up on the wrong day / got food poisoning / got trapped on a boat and lost at sea / was left outside without food or drink for hours / was forced to watch an erotic revue / was forced to perform an erotic revue / etc.

    5. Education Mike*

      Their father’s suggested response was also weirdly aggressive. And their friends saying they should quit is next level weird.

    1. Ralph the Wonder Llama*

      I think the 5 years is too short and the limiting it to work advice is too narrow. OP needs to take advice from these friend on absolutely nothing on a “never ever” timeline. Ghosting over this is the most idiotic thing I read on the internet this week.

      1. iglwif*

        Someone upthread suggested that this might have been not so much work advice as an “OMG D: if that happened to me I would simply never show my face there again” sympathy reaction. Obviously OP knows their friends better than we do, but as someone whose extremely competent and professional early 20s child routinely says things like that and is absolutely not offering serious advice when she does so, I wouldn’t rule it out!

  12. Nice cup of tea*

    LW1 please look carefully at your friends and consider seeing someone for your anxiety.

    It sounds like you may need help with dealing with awkward situations.

    I’m autistic and I fully understand your concerns about the organisation skills of whoever invited you to the party, but you shouldn’t let it ruin your career.

    As another poster already said, ask others what they are wearing, and maybe question the organiser directly about the dress code.

  13. MJ*

    #3 – another thing you can do is to change the ownership of the Google docs. It has been awhile since I did it, but from memory you can go into the Share option and select Transfer Ownership to another person that the doc has been shared with. (You can select multiple files and do them all at once.)

    The only issue could be that they have to accept the ownership transfer. But if you transfer it then send them an email advising that they have until xx date to assume ownership or the files will be permanently deleted, it’s on them. If they assume ownership you can just remove the sharing for yourself and the files will disappear from your storage. If they don’t, you can delete the files entirely.

  14. I still bought my week of PTO*

    #4 – I realized something about the ability to buy vacation this year, because it’s the first year I’ve done it, and that’s that it really is a bit classist.

    I went to sign up for buying my week of vacation because I have old parents who don’t live by me and a sibling who moved a 10 hour flight and 4 hour train ride from me. So I thought I’d buy ann extra week. And I now I’m paying for that week for a year out of my checks.

    I am in a Senior leadership role. I get that the week costs me a lot more because a week of my paycheck is more, but if you live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford anything extra to come out you can’t buy the extra week.

    Also my health insurance went up by a stupid amount for 2025. So that’s hundreds of dollars more per check I have to fork over.

    My company allows buying an extra week of vacation because we were bought out by a company who cut our vacation time you could earn. So they are placating people. I am positive Corporate America is not thinking of pay inequity when making any of these decisions, so I think it’s good that they offer the option and that companies that don’t aren’t doing it based on any workers rights or benefit equality platform. But it seems worth noting.

    That being said, I think it’s a good benefit and I appreciate it.

    1. bamcheeks*

      Isn’t this true of literally everything? If you have more money, you can buy more stuff. Different societies disagree about which stuff should only be available to people who can afford it and what should be available to everyone, but the basic principle is pretty consistent!

      1. Emmy Noether*

        Of course the rich can already effectively buy more leisure time anyway (by outsourcing household stuff, by being able to work part time or take unpaid leave,…), even without buying vacation.

        There’s a balance between preventing exploitation (for example, one shouldn’t be able to sell one’s bathroom breaks), and letting people make their own decisions about their time and money.

        I think in a system where people can work more than one full time job, and thus sell large amounts of their free time that way, selling vacation time is small potatoes anyway. Making sure everyone has a living wage is probably the better approach to prevent exploitation.

        1. I still bought the week of PTO*

          Agreed. To be clear, my company pays around $25 an hour for an entry level manufacturing role. And if you work for me (supply chain) you are making a six figure income.

          But it costs a lot to breathe air right now.

      2. Allonge*

        I agree. This is of course a problem in general, but if the company does offer a reasonable amount of PT to everyone, the possibility to buy more is just making things official – the ability to take unpaid leave is also dependent on being able to afford it, as is, presumably, getting a better insurance package or not having to save PTO for a payout when you leave and so on.

    2. amoeba*

      I’ve seen companies who offer an extra bonus or extra vacation days, and you can chose which one you want (for each year). That probably comes up to something like an extra 5 days or a 5% bonus, but both are offered as a perk on top of you usual compensation.

      I like that model a lot – it’s not as “extreme” as being able to buy and sell freely and give up compensation for that, but it still lets you chose what’s more important for you in any given stage of life. So yeah, I’d love to have that (we don’t though, at least for now! I have hopes they might eventually offer something like that…)

      1. Crocus*

        I realize your numbers were placeholders, but 5% of your salary works out to being paid the equivalent of 13 extra days. If leave without pay is an option it would be a better deal take the bonus and some leave!

    3. Khatul Madame*

      Totally agree. My employer offers PTO purchase and it is EXPENSIVE. Even if the cost is calculated based on the employee’s hourly rate, it would not be affordable at lower levels of pay.

    4. Wes*

      I hate it when workplaces allow people to buy extra leave – coming at it from a different angle than you. As one of the lower-paid employees I simply cannot afford to buy extra leave. So I not only get resentful about people higher up than me getting a perk I can’t access, but I then have to cover the extra work while they are away! It blows!

      1. I still bought the week of PTO*

        Hi Wes, I 100% agree. And that’s really my point, for what it’s worth! People get resentful because there are perks that are supposedly for everyone but are actually really aren’t.

        I haven’t really taken a full vacation day in forever. I still go to my meetings if necessary and reply to email. And the only person I’m going to put on the spot for backing me is my boss.

        To be fair my company does not pay exploitative wages.

        I 100% agree with you. Which is why I made the comment in the first place. To the barricades!

      2. I still bought the week of PTO*

        Also I will add that yes, of course people who make more money can buy more things (as pointed out above), but I don’t think those things should necessarily be perks provided by your employer. there is so much wrong (as pointed out by Wes) in that system.

        Yes, I understand I am criticizing a system I’ve literally bought into. This is the first year I have. My parents are not doing well and seeing them as often as I can is important

  15. Kisa*

    #1 since this has happened before, is it possible ITS some sort of an ”initiation rite”? Mean and unneccesary, but somebody’s idea of ”fun”.

    Youre not to blame, your company sucks AY throwing christmas parties. Making sure that guests feel welcome is kind of the step zero.

    1. VP of Monitoring Employees' LinkedIn Profiles*

      I came here to say this. It sounds like a mild form of HAZING.

    2. Smurfette*

      I don’t think that’s likely, compared with “someone forgot to put it on the invite”. Especially since nobody laughed and pointed.

      And the seating issue is more than likely because OP started 3 weeks before the event when the seating plans were probably already done

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, no need to jump to malice when mild incompetence is more likely. Whoever organized the event probably isn’t a full-time event organizer and didn’t follow up with every department to find out if any new people had been added recently.

    3. Education Mike*

      Seems way more likely to someone who was not good at making an invite last year is still not good at making an invite this year.

  16. Ganymede II*

    LW1, if you’re worried specifically about standing out at this year’s party, either over- or under-dressed, there are some options that magically blend in most dress codes (you haven’t mentioned gender, so I’m offering options all along the spectrum):
    – black dress (below the knees), with a nice necklace – there’s a reason LBDs are a category of their own. Keeping it below the knees means you can match casual and cocktail. A black jumpsuit will also do if you don’t like dresses;
    – navy pants with a white shirt. Add a necklace if you’re feminine presenting, a bowtie if you’re more masculine – both can be quickly taken off if you feel over dressed;
    – nice red sweater with black pants will be a bit more casual, but still fit with a festive vibe.

    If you really don’t want to go, don’t. But if you’re just hoping to avoid a clothes mismatch, there are ways.

    1. amoeba*

      Yup. Or for me, any kind of nice-ish slacks with a nice top/blouse. Possibly a (non-formal) blazer on top. You could even wear the christmas sweater on top of that and just take it off for the dinner!

      Basically, a lot of things from the “business casual” spectrum would work, imho. Maybe add some jewelry etc. to make it more festive/evening wear, but not necessary to not stand out, I’d say!

  17. andy*

    #1

    > The worst part? This happened in previous years to other people, and no one has figured out how to advertise the dress code!

    I would say this is a good news. This already happened, you are not the only one, people know what the reason is. This does not reflects badly on you as a result. Your dads advice will make you look petty and your friends advice is just pure bad.

    This should not be a big deal a year later at all.

  18. Help Me Understand*

    LW 1, you mention your nerves, and this reaction makes me think they might be hurting you at your job more than you think. If the situation happened as you’re describing you extremely overreacted, especially if it’s impacted your behaviors after that night.

    “but there were three other events that I made excuses to avoid”? Why?

  19. J*

    @LW4

    I’m in the Netherlands and our PTO and benefits system is totally different than yours in the US, but we are able to buy and sell (some) vacation days. You cannot sell the legally required days, but you can sell the ones that your company gives you in addition. You can also buy some PTO, but it’s more expensive than the wages you’d see on your bank account for a day worked. If you sell PTO, it’s taxed in a higher bracket (if I remember correctly) so I don’t know a lot of people who do it. The people who have too much PTO saved up often just take off a few hours Friday afternoon.

    We do have something called “keuzemodel arbeidsvoorwaarden” in which you can swap PTO, holiday pay and end-of-year pay (bonuses you get in May and November) for a bike, travel reimbursement, sports membership, and a couple other benefits. You don’t earn more money but you earn a different type of money which will be taxed differently. For example, travel reimbursement is taxed at 36% while end-of-year pay is taxed 49% so the win here is the difference in taxes.

    It has taken me 3 years to understand this whole “exchange benefits because of taxes” thing and I hate filling out the form for it. Recently I had an increase in travel costs, but I couldn’t get a reimbursement because end-of-year pay and holiday pay have been paid already and I don’t have enough PTO to exchange.

    In any case I would argue for making benefits systems way less complicated. I have a master’s degree and I still don’t totally get this.

    1. Nada*

      Interesting. In the UK if you’re a high earner it makes sense tax-wise to sell extra days. You don’t pay extra tax on it.

    2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      I think “keuzemodel arbeidsvoorwaarden” roughly translates in the US to “cafeteria plan” – some companies offer that in their benefits program, but by no means every one. There are a bunch of different benefits available, and you get to pick and choose them up to a certain total. Although typically that doesn’t include vacation time here.

  20. Lexi Vipond*

    I do think the friends might have been joking hyperbolically, the way it was fashionable for a while to suggest burning your house if you saw a large spider in it.

    Dad is overreacting, although I suppose it’s possible that he misunderstood and thought that someone had accused the OP of not being a team player, rather than them just worrying about being seen that way. Or maybe intense reactions run in the family

  21. Clearance Issues*

    #1: while being improperly dressed for an event like that is my personal nightmare, it really isn’t a big deal so long as your outfit wasn’t outright offensive. (I’ve worked at a few places where casual t-shirts on fridays were banned after Incidents)
    Each office in my company has different dress codes for their holiday party, and I got invited to 2 others since my team is spread out. One of them is goofy holiday sweaters, one is “formal” and one is “cocktail.” The ONLY one I ever got a dress code for is my home office. The other two, I phrased it as a lighthearted “I don’t want to stand out, what is the dress code?” Also: most holiday parties have a different dress code than other work social events. You should be fine to match your day to day dresscode for most of them.
    (If your company has a shared drive of photos, you can check there for previous years of events to see what other people were wearing.)

  22. Michigander*

    LW1: What did your friends think you’d do for money after you walked out of a job with no notice or communication because of an embarrassing incident at a holiday party? Be destitute but righteous about it?

      1. Still*

        Right? I hope they meant it in the same way one might say “I would change my name and leave the country”, not as a serious suggestion.

        It sounds like whoever was responsible was a bit thoughtless and disorganised, and should be mortified. The OP was probably feeling extra uncomfortable because they were new and didn’t know many people. But in the grand scheme of things, the situation really doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. If they keep showing up at company events and it’s like this every time, then sure, opt out. But avoiding all events forever because of one bad experience seems… well, a bit extreme.

      2. Michigander*

        I don’t want to be all “kids these days”, but I know there’s a lot more discourse with Gen Z about quitting jobs if you’re not treated right. If her friends are particularly young and in their first real jobs, I could see them thinking that any perceived slight is worth walking out over.

      3. Lexi Vipond*

        There could conceivably be some ‘this sucks and isn’t going to change’ things where it’s better to leave after 3 weeks and pretend it was all job searching time, but I REALLY don’t think this is one of them!

      4. Saturday*

        I think they were trying to be supportive of the LW. “That’s horrible that happened to you. You should just not show up on Monday…”

        I feel like that happens here in the comments sometimes. People trying to sympathize end up offering advice that is actually not helpful because they’re focused on the emotional and not the practical aspect of the situation.

  23. Nada*

    „So I was just standing around lost in jeans”

    I’m going to use this phrase in conversations from now on

  24. VP of Monitoring Employees' LinkedIn Profiles*

    They were both like, “Oh yeah, I guess the dress code wasn’t communicated, huh?”

    The worst part? This happened in previous years to other people, and no one has figured out how to advertise the dress code!

    Is this an office or a college? It sounds like they figured out how to HAZE the newbies.

      1. amoeba*

        Yup. There is probably no “official” dresscode, the even just kind of turned out like that over the years, they assumed people would figure it out by word of mouth or whatever and if somebody is underdressed, it’s not a big deal, anyway. (The fact that there was no seat would actually bug me a lot more!)

      2. londonedit*

        I agree, it’s far more likely to just be an honest mistake. Either they assumed everyone knew about the dress code, or they assumed someone would tell LW1 (that’s a classic – everyone assumes someone will have done something, so no one does it), or they sent out the info before LW1 joined the company and forgot that they wouldn’t know, or something. The idea that it would be a deliberate ‘hazing’ is incredibly far-fetched and would never happen at any even vaguely reasonable workplace. And I’m sure the fact that people were brushing off the fact that the LW was underdressed at the time was simply a case of good manners – you don’t mention things like that when there isn’t the opportunity for the person to change anything. You say ‘I love your jumper, so festive!’ and you move on and get on with enjoying the party.

        The fact that the LW was seemingly so ashamed by this incident that not only are they still thinking about it a year later, but they’ve asked for advice from several quarters and they’ve avoided going to other events (why? Out of some sort of spite?) seems really odd to me. There would have been nothing wrong in them saying after the event ‘Hey, I was a little uncomfortable to be the only person in jeans at the party – would it be possible to add a note about the dress code to the time and date info for next year?’, and there would also be nothing wrong in them saying the same now – ‘Hey, I was a little uncomfortable at last year’s Christmas party because I didn’t realise the dress code and I turned up in jeans. Could we add a note to the time and date info so everyone knows what to expect?’. It’s really not a big deal. It’s not some sort of personal slight and it’s really not worth getting worked up about. If the LW doesn’t want to go to the party, fine, but in my view it’s a shame to miss out because they’re somehow trying to punish the company for not giving them the correct info last year.

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          I think this is way more likely to be sloppy and thoughtless event planning than a deliberate tactic. Office holiday parties often aren’t planned by professional event planners. Though there are many admin staff who do a wonderful job of planning events* (and bad or mediocre event planners), this is the type of error that a professional event planner is less likely to make.

          * I used to be an admin with event duties before I became an event planner, so I know it’s a really tough job at times.

      3. Falling Diphthong*

        This.

        Apparently not communicating the dress code was an effective way to throw off OP for years, but most people would have shrugged and rolled on, and simply asked someone before the next event.

        Hazing is actively telling OP it’s a costume party and they have to all dress as fruit, when that’s not true.

        1. allathian*

          Yes, this. I mean, even if you’re new at a job, unless the org is a particularly insidious shade of toxic, a normal expectation would be for people to ask if they’re unsure.

          Most people wouldn’t be worrying about this a year later.

        2. Turquoisecow*

          And if it was hazing, I think the reaction from others would be more “haha you’re so dumb, you didn’t know the dress code,” and not “oh, oops, sorry,” and not much else.

      4. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Or Hanlon’s razor, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (Or in this case, oversight.) Someone’s razor for sure! I think to assume hazing OP would’ve had to be deliberately told a wrong dress code; trying to haze her by assuming she wouldn’t ask and would show up in the “wrong” clothes is a weird way to go about it.

  25. PX*

    Q4 is funny for me because in the UK it’s a very standard offering especially for any larger company. it’s usually limited (often to buy/sell 5 days) but it’s generally just seen as a flexibility perk and very much a non-issue. just goes to show how much some of these things are culture dependent!

    1. londonedit*

      Yeah – I can’t remember whether it’s the case at my current company (haven’t ever thought to look) but I’ve worked for several companies where you can buy or sell up to five days’ leave in a year. You obviously can’t go below the legal minimum of 20 days, but most larger companies will offer at least 25 days, so you can sell five of those if you want to/you need the money more than the time off. Of course unused leave is paid out when you leave a company, pro rated, so it makes sense that it’s your leave and you can either sell it back to the company during the year or buy more time off if you need to.

  26. Justin*

    “Your friends’ advice to ghost the job because of this was preposterous; don’t listen to those friends on anything work-related for at least five years.”

    Your friends are basically a young-people-don’t-wanna-work stereotype come to life.

    But yeah, remind the job about the dress code communication and ask if they have enough seats planned (they should over-plan). You’ll be fine.

    1. Falling Diphthong*

      I think both the friends and Dad are perhaps Blunt-Object communicating to OP that she should stand up for herself more. The specifics of the advice are too much for this actual situation. But “I perceived a slight–almost certainly an accident, but I’m still hurt–and so have decided to engage in a series of wounded behaviors that will affect my reputation at work throughout my years in the job” is an instinct that will not serve OP well.

    2. L*

      I took the problem with the seats not to mean there weren’t enough seats at the event as a whole, but not enough seats at LW’s assigned table — which just means others weren’t strictly adhering to the assigned seating, so LW probably didn’t either

    3. Dahlia*

      Or they were joking.

      You can’t declare several people don’t want to work from a single comment you heard third-hand.

      1. Justin*

        I mean OP didn’t present it that way. And anyway I was saying the comment reflected a stereotype (and stereotypes are both exaggerated and untrue) not that they themselves didn’t want to work.

  27. CorporateDrone*

    Man LW1 you had the opportunity to meet all the directors and the impression you chose to leave was someone who bailed? What a wasted opportunity! On the plus side in that scenario I doubt they really thought much of it but honestly how you respond to an uncomfortable situation such as being underdressed is usually much more important than how you got in that situation.

    I think you should go to the Christmas party, especially if there are shifting dynamics such as an acquisition.

    1. Glomarization, Esq.*

      It was definitely an opportunity to say, “Hi, I’m NewHireName, and evidently I didn’t get the memo about how to dress for success tonight,” to break any ice.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      ‘meh, I’ve been the person who’s worked there three weeks who intentionally got sat with all the directors at an event, despite being at least 4 levels below them, and unlikely to ever interact with them for real work reasons for at least a year if not more. It was less an “opportunity” and more awkward as hell. Not because of me either, because the C-suite person who decided to put me at said table was basically showing me off like a new toy. It was just weird. Half were talking shop about stuff I had no knowledge or context for. Half got very drunk very quickly but were also really tight with each other. So I was half objectified, half 5th wheel.

  28. WellRed*

    Where is the disaster in no. 1? I don’t understand all this gnashing and wailing over showing up underdressed which wasn’t even OPs fault. And good grief, don’t listen to dear old dad. Move on from this nothing burger of Christmas party past.

    1. HandicapParking*

      What every other company that doesn’t supply parking does?

      Very few jobs by me come with parking unless you’re out in the burbs, in which case they don’t work with public transportation (for the most part).

      I’ve worked at plenty of jobs where people who drove in parked at the first subway station on a line then took public transit or parked 20-30 minute walk away in lots they paid to park in. There are a very limited number of spots and most of the heavy office areas have limited paid parking lots nearby. One of the areas I worked in had a few street handicapped parking spots, but they were still blocks away from a lot of the offices and getting one was like winning the lottery. Most of the lots have a number of handicap spots, but they go really fast.

      Last time my dad drove me to the hospital it took us 15 minutes to find a spot in the hospital’s paid garage and it for certain wasn’t a handicap spot despite both of us having placards.

      Friends and relatives who drive me places drop me by the door then go try to park.

      Even in the suburbs with free parking lots, handicap spots are hard to come by and parking will usually be a distance away. And the lots are usually not owned by the company but their landlord so you can’t reserve spots.

      If this isn’t viable for you, you need to either screen for it or work remotely.

      There’s a reason why in most major Northeast cities people with handicap placards can park in metered spots/lots for free – it expands their access (please check laws where you are before trying this).

    2. Dr. Rebecca*

      Honestly, there are so few of us in the workforce due to discrimination that it’s unlikely to have come up. If/when it does, they’ll probably verbally flail around a bit and then insist there’s nothing they can do.

    3. fhqwhgads*

      Where I live if there’s permit-only street parking and you live there, the city puts a blue space close to the building because you live there (although anyone with a placard could use that spot). Only applies to residences tho, not businesses. Although some streets with a lot of businesses that don’t have lots do have public blue spots among the street parking. That’s not a permit-parking sitch though. Just a regular street that happens to have designated spots.
      However, locally, on permit-parking street you just plain don’t need a permit to park in a permit spot if you display your placard. And the time limits don’t count either, unless it’s a “no parking at all between X and Y on third tuesday for street sweeping” thing.

  30. sagewhiz*

    LW3, yes to giving them a month to download the files, with this added advice: two weeks before the deadline you set, if the files haven’t been downloaded, remind them, then do it again one week out. If they still haven’t downloaded at your announced date, delete and don’t give it another thought.

  31. Steve*

    a guide for the future is always: if you don’t know the dress code, overdress- you can always remove something to dress it down if it’s a more casual event…… but always leave the jeans at home for a work function, unless it’s a staff day at a baseball game or a day in the park (and honestly even then, just reach out to the person planning the event if you don’t know). As an events person myself, I over-communicate this type of stuff as I’m always shocked how many functioning adults don’t have a clue as to how to dress for a work event.

    1. londonedit*

      Totally agree. Out of interest, I’ve just looked up the details for our work Christmas do this year, and there’s no specific dress code listed – but do you know what? My colleague who joined the team in January has already asked us what sort of thing people usually wear, and if you look at the photos from previous years (which are all easily available on our intranet) you can also get a feel for it. It’s really easy to just ask colleagues what the usual form is – do people dress up? Do people usually get changed in the office? And so on.

      I understand that the evening do coincided with a Christmas jumper competition the same lunchtime, but personally I’d never assume the dress code would be the same for both events. If you’re not sure, just ask someone, and anyway err on the side of more formal. Wear your Christmas jumper over your little black party dress for the daytime, and take it off and add some nice shoes and jewellery for the evening. Or if you’re male-presenting, just don’t wear jeans that day and make sure you have a smart shirt to wear for the party.

      1. Nola*

        Yeah, I just checked our holiday party invite and there’s no dress code mentioned. And I don’t remember one ever being listed before. It’s during the regular work day from 11:30-3:00 in a private dining room at a nice but still casual restaurant. I’ve gone to this restaurant at other times and for lunch it usually caters to downtown office workers AND tourist so you’ll see suits and ties at one table and shorts and flip flops at the next.

        For our holiday party most folks wear cocktail attire but some of us use it as an excuse to go all out – I have a nice blue velvet party dress I really only get to wear a couple of times a year so I definitely wear that! But our IT guy just wears his regular jeans and polo shirt (with Christmas socks) and there’s usually one other person that sticks to jeans or khakis and a sweater.

        We have three new people in the office this year. After the official invite went out last week all three asked me questions about the party details that aren’t included in the invite but make sense to ask. Dress code but also things like “do people go out afterwards?” And “open bar?” and “do we get our bonuses before or at the party?” All regular and normal office chit chat.

    2. Jackalope*

      It’s one of those things that isn’t really taught anywhere. If you’re lucky you might have family who can give you guidelines, but as seen here from the OP’s dad’s advice that’s not always reliable. Some programs help people figure out what to wear day-to-day but I’ve never seen any that gave advice on things like holiday parties. And even if there’s advice sometimes it’s not helpful. See the numerous discussions on this site in the past about what exactly counts as “business casual”, for example. And I remember when I first started attending events that were “cocktail wear”. I had no clue what that meant, and in those days the internet wasn’t as robust as it is. I tried looking it up and had a really hard time understanding what made something cocktail and not something else. Was it the fabric for the outfit? The length of the dress? The type of patterns on the blouse? I just didn’t know which parts of the outfit were salient and so the scant info I found online didn’t help much.

    3. metadata minion*

      “you can always remove something to dress it down if it’s a more casual event”

      Going by your name I’m guessing you’re a guy? This doesn’t work as well for traditional women’s formalwear. If I’m wearing a nice dress and everyone else is in jeans, maybe I can manage an aura of “eh, just feeling fancy today” because femme clothing has very squishy formality boundaries, but I can’t really take anything off the way a man can go a step down in formality by removing a jacket and/or tie.

      1. L*

        My go-to to dress down a nice dress is to put something on, like a jacket or sweater that reads less formal. I have a dress that I can wear to a wedding or to my casual office depending on whether or not I put a jean jacket over it.

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          Yes! This is also my type of go-to when I have a job interview and have to leave from work or come in late: dress with denim jacket or casual cardigan, flats/nice sneakers for the office, blazer and nicer shoes in the car!

    4. Hyaline*

      I mean, I do get how there could have been confusion over “funny Christmas sweater day” coincided with “cocktail party day” and it would have been reasonable to assume the funny sweaters carried over–but I wouldn’t take it as a given. I kinda think a better guide is “just ask.” Ask your deskmate. Ask someone who’s been there a while. Email the event organizer and ask them. Asking is not hard!

  32. Mouse named Anon*

    #1- I really think you, your dad and friend are overreacting to this. Yes its embarrassing to show up under dressed. But to Ghost a job over it? Not go this year? Chances are most people don’t remember.

  33. Peanut Hamper*

    For #1 I would seriously be tempted to show up dressed as either a wizard or Catwoman, and say that I thought it was a fancy dress party based on my experience from last year.

    I bet they would start communicating the dress code after that.

    1. allathian*

      This was in the US so I assume the hiring manager figured that the LW looked older.

      I’m in Finland, and here hiring managers will know your birth year if not the exact date unless it’s anonymized hiring, and by the time you get to negotiating salary, the time for anonymity is past. Granted, we have single-payer health insurance so this particular discussion would never come up.

    2. LW#5*

      #LW 5 here.

      TBH, I’m not sure. It started as a contract role, so I was already working for him when I got the offer. I don’t recall adding any age-based info in the system when I onboarded as a contractor, but it’s a system I’ve used in the past as an employee/contractor, so I’m sure my age is floating around, all though I doubt he got it that way.

      My guess is he did the math based on my LinkedIn. I don’t have graduation dates and I’ve lopped off some old work history. But even with that, it still comes to about 20 years of verifiable work history. So, it’s easy to make an educated guess and ask the insurance broker to estimate costs.

  35. bamcheeks*

    I just want to draw everyone’s attention to the wonderful Nuns And Cookies story in the comments to “We can only bring our spouses to the holiday party if we have kids” (linked in You May Also Like.) Direct link in the next comment or go there and search for user “Quill”.

    2. Smurfette*

      Thank you! Somehow I missed that thread, way back when. What an absolutely delightful story.

      I have many fond memories of the nuns from my high school, especially the 85 yo Italian nun who also taught my aunt AND her mother.

    4. Hlao-roo*

      Thank you for this! I read that story on the day that letter was posted, and it is just as delightful four years later.

  36. Seashell*

    LW1, I’m sorry you had a bad time, but your letter reminds me of when my daughter was in 8th grade and convinced that everyone in the world was paying close attention to what she was wearing. Most people don’t care that much, and I imagine that’s especially true at a workplace where hoodies are the norm.

    The co-workers you knew had seen you in that same outfit earlier that day, so it wouldn’t have been shocking to them. The co-workers you didn’t know were still probably aware of Ugly Sweater Day. You didn’t do anything offensive – it’s not like you wore an “I hate Joe” t-shirt to a funeral for a guy named Joe.

    The odds are good that most of your co-workers don’t remember what you wore last week, let alone a year ago, so it’s not worth feeling embarrassed about it now. I would take Alison’s advice over your father or your friend and, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation in the future, just make a little joke about it. If you said, “Sorry, I must have missed the dress code memo!”, the others probably would have said “Don’t worry about it.”

    1. Saturday*

      Yes, exactly this. LW was feeling awkward, but everyone who saw her understood that she was new, and it was just a staff party, not a big televised event or something. No one was giving her clothes that much thought. I also agree that the best thing to do in a situation like this, whether you’re feeling it or not, is to make a little joke like that. It would help put everyone at ease.

      I wish the LW had just asked her boss about the dress code for the other events rather than skipping them.

      1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        > I wish the LW had just asked her boss about the dress code for the other events

        Yes, and doing this might have helped information filter out to the manager of whoever plans these events, and gotten something changed. (We really do need some squeaky wheels in the world.)

  37. L-squared*

    #1. this doesn’t seem like the disaster you are making it out to be. Ok, you were underdressed and got face time with directors. Doesn’t really sound like something worth boycotting a party in perpetuity over. And I agree with Alison, the advice you are getting is way disproportionate. Maybe everyone in your circle tends to overreact to things a bit.

    #2 As someone who lives in a city with notoriously difficult parking, I think the “parking provided” thing is fair for the most part. I know that’s unpopular. But permitted parking on streets is hard to get. Maybe the wording wasn’t best, but I also don’t think they were misleading either. It’s a semantics thing.

  38. HonorBox*

    OP1 – Most of us judge situations like this more harshly in our own minds. My hunch is that anyone who saw you underdressed last year has zero recollection of that now. Or if they do remember it, it is only in passing…not in judgement. I wouldn’t make the first year experience my governor for future attendance. Nor would I make it a major deal going forward. I understand that sometimes we don’t want to (or can’t) attend some outside functions for work – I myself am trying to figure out if I can attend a work Thanksgiving dinner later this week – and that’s totally fine. But I tend to agree that there is some capital that can be built by at least making an appearance from time to time at work functions that occur outside of the office. I think you’d be doing a kindness if you mentioned to your manager or whoever is in charge of the invite that noting an expected dress code on the invite would be helpful to those who haven’t attended before. And you can mention it to those who are new, too. Not in a big way, but just as a heads up in case they weren’t given clearer instruction.

  39. Delta Delta*

    #1 – Gently, OP should move on from the incident and attend this year’s party. Find out what people are wearing and make sure you know and that others know, so the issue doesn’t get repeated. I don’t think this is the “disaster” OP thinks it was. I was expecting something far worse.

    That said, I’ve been in this embarrassing situation before. Mr. Delta and I attended an engagement party for a law school friend who was marrying someone with the kind of family wealth no one can imagine. We didn’t know that, though. We arrived at the party in khakis and polos, and there were adult men who go by the nickname “Bink” wearing bow ties that cost more than my car. The fashionably dressed stared at us. Know what we did? Talked to them! By the end of the evening people were having fun, and I guarantee nobody remembers that I wore khakis to the engagement party. (No, they remember that the marriage imploded spectacularly about 6 years later, but that’s a different story)

  40. AndersonDarling*

    #4 I worked at a nonprofit that used the PTO buyback to give sneaky bonuses to executives so they could keep their reportable salaries low.
    Example: an exec has a salary of 120K and has 20 weeks of vacation. They are expected to only use 8 weeks of vacation and sell back 12 weeks which is the equivalent of a $27K bonus. Then the company keeps adding in more vacation weeks with the intent that they get cashed out.

  41. Nightengale*

    “Oxygen is provided” in tanks that last 2-4 hours and you have to look in 8 different storerooms each time you need a new tank.

  42. Joseph*

    #1 – Two things from this:
    i) People need to stop making teams ‘sit with people they don’t normally talk to’. When I go to work events I go to see the people I work with and am friendly with. Much more likely to enjoy the event if i can see the people I actually know.
    ii) For the OP – If it’s something you feel comfortable doing, you could help out some of the new starters and make sure things like dress code is communicated to them. I do that a bit in my current org because they’re a lot more laid back over than other companies in the same sector. Things like, it’s really tough to get anything done in August because people take time off and team meetings are much more likely to end up discussing Netflix than work policies.

    1. metadata minion*

      “i) People need to stop making teams ‘sit with people they don’t normally talk to’. When I go to work events I go to see the people I work with and am friendly with. Much more likely to enjoy the event if i can see the people I actually know.”

      Oh god this. It might make a bit more sense in a very large company where I haven’t even properly met everyone, but the people I don’t talk to much? That’s for a reason! Not even usually a mean or hostile reason, just that there are some people I click with on a social level and some people who I’m just amicable colleagues with and that’s fine and normal.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      With regard to your first point, my company’s first winter party after lockdown had this arrangement where you had to sit with people you don’t normally work with. (It was seating by a random lottery kind of thing.)

      It was a lot of fun. I met people I’ve never met before, and we had all had a great time. But the level of social anxiety we all felt was extremely high.

      But do I still hang out with those people? Nope. Half of them don’t even work at this company any more. The last party we had we got to sit where we wanted, and my team was able to sit together (which is rare, as our duties tend to take us in a lot of different directions) and we had a far better time than we did that first time. Lots more fun, lots more memories.

      Please let people sit where they want.

    3. Bast*

      Strong agree with your first point. I’ve worked mostly with smaller companies so it has been a non-issue, but in the few larger ones I have worked for, if I was forced to sit with random people or draw straws to see where I would sit at a social event that I already may be on the fence about attending, depending on the company, that may make the decision for me and I would be more likely to stay at home.

  43. Cnoocy*

    A lot of folks are saying that LW #1 overreacted, and I’m not saying that they are wrong, but _as party host_, not bothering to communicate the dress code to someone and then assigning them to a full table is an egregious failure and a clear communication that the person isn’t wanted there. I just want to acknowledge that the company fell down significantly.

    1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      LW #1 was not assigned to a full table. LW #1 just happened to be the last person who showed up to the table. If they had gotten there sooner, they would have had a seat, and someone else would have been left to stand around (but not in jeans) and probably would have wound up sitting with the directors.

      But the failure to communicate the dress code is a biggie IMHO. A friend once told two other friends and me about a benefit dinner that was going to be held at a racetrack. We all bought tickets and went there together. Before we could enter the room, we saw a sign saying that the dress code was suits and ties for men and long dresses or long skirts for women. The four of us were not dressed in accordance with the dress code, and at first, TPTB did not want to let us in. Eventually they were forced to let us in, because we had already paid for our tickets, but it was EXTREMELY awkward.

      Once I started a job on a Thursday. When I went to work the following day, I found out that it was Dress-Down Friday, and no one had told me about that. I laughed it off.

    2. Hroethvitnir*

      Yeah, people acting like they’d be chill about wearing jeans at a *cocktail event* are wearying me.

      It very much sounds like the LW is taking it as more of a problem than it is! No one was a jerk about it. But in their situation, I’d just leave. It is *very* uncomfortable, come on now.

      And never communicating the dress code? That’s just bizarre, and not something that needs “figuring out”.

      1. Hroethvitnir*

        To make it about me: I own a variety of formalities of clothing, but this made me realise it skips right over “cocktail”, haha.

        Mostly: jeans or tights with t-shirts with native animals/similar. Work: stretchy trousers that scrape by the low end of a “smart” dress code, similar tops (I don’t actually need to do that, but I do).

        Alternatively: very short dresses with prints of animals or traditional Indigenous Australian paintings or classic art. Or full on velvet gowns with plunging necklines. Or a formal suit that doesn’t fit me any more.

        Not interesting to anyone, probably, but I am amused. I think I could manage to find a dress shirt and formalish trousers if it came down to it.

  44. Brooke*

    OP2 – I’m surprised you would have to move your car with a permit. I’ve lived and worked in a few different urban areas in the US and the benefit of a parking permit was always that you didn’t need to follow the posted time limit signs. Those limits were only for people without permits.

    1. PP*

      There are different types of such permits in my urban area. One is for residents of that neighborhood, and they need not move their car except per the normal limitations (Parking without moving the car for months and months. I forget the exact state rules.) The parking permit residences can get for friends and families who visit. And then there could be a permit for a business which is located in the residential area. The writer is dealing with the third kind.

  45. Former Retail Lifer*

    #1: You are exactly like me and this would be my line of thought if I were in this situation. However, since it’s not me, I can see that you’re overthinking this. Find out the dress code, show up for a little while, and leave when you’re sick of it knowing that no one will be thinking about what you were wearing this time.

  46. Seth*

    Maybe I just don’t live in a big enough city, but I’m confused how one can have a parking pass for a street spot but still be required to move their car every 2-4 hours? In my city, at least, if you have a pass (due to living there, working there, whatever), your car can stay as long as you move it every few *days*. Having to move it every couple of hours is meant for visitors to the area in order to allow new visitors a place to park.

    1. Permits*

      I don’t believe they have a parking permit sticker, just some public spots they can use under the normal public usage rules.

      FWIW, by me you can only get permits where you live not where you work unless you’re talking abouta company permit issued for a company lot (ex: faculty parking sticker at a college).

  47. BL*

    LW1, I too would have been embarrassed but really, in some industries, opting out of events like this can do more harm than good. I happen to work in an industry where, across the board, failure to attend events like this would hurt my career. I really think if you can find humor in it (eventually), it makes a pretty good story. I’d probably even find a way to bring it up myself in a self-deprecating way. I’m sorry it happened though and I hope you can find a way to attend some of these events if possible.

  48. Parenthesis Guy*

    LW #4: It depends on what kind of job you have. If you’re a consultant then your company might bill you out at 3 * $x while paying you $x. In that case, they’ll want to limit your PTO as they want you to maximize your billable hours.

    Think law offices, accounting firms, or consultants.

  49. Crencestre*

    OP1: Here’s a heartfelt plea to ALL managers in ALL organizations:

    1. By all means have a winter holiday party (SOME kind of celebration at midwinter is almost universal!) but please DON’T identify it as a specifically religious one. Oh, and for those who STILL haven’t gotten the message, Santa Claus is NOT a secular figure and Christmas is NOT a secular holiday! There are PLENTY of actual secular winter-themed decorations to choose from – don’t pick those that are specific to Christmas.

    2. If you have a holiday party, DO convey the dress code to ALL your employees so that none of them winds up feeling like OP1. A couple of lines in the party invitation and a notice in the break room/bulletin board/beside the time clock (for onsite jobs) should clarify that for everyone.

    3. If/when you decide on a party dress code, please DO recognize that some of your employees are living paycheck-to-paycheck and/or have expenses that consume most of their “disposable” income and CANNOT buy/rent party outfits that they may only wear once or twice a year! I can’t emphasize this strongly enough; it’s infuriating to be blithely told to wear clothes that you simply. CANNOT. afford. in order to be considered acceptable at the company party.

    Better yet, managers – don’t impose a party dress code at all! “Come as you are” is just fine! That will do far more for morale than a dress code that signals that those at the top neither know nor care about the financial realities of life as a lower-paid employee.

    1. Nosy*

      Our company holiday party decor is pinecones and snowflakes, and everything is dark green and white, going for a ‘winter woods’ type of vibe. Which is funny to me because we are located in the desert and see neither pinecones nor snowflakes here, but it always turns out pretty.

    2. No Fancy Clothes Burdens on Women*

      I’d add also, (1) recognize that some people simply don’t have those kinds of clothes (for whatever reasons, such as never ever needing them or wanting them), and (2) don’t impose special dressy clothing burdens on women.

      Personally, I doubt I ever had anything like a cocktail dress, even in my 20s and 30s. I’m not going to be getting any such thing nor am I ever wearing heels.

      A nice dark colored suit or mix of coordinated dark jacket and pants is all that anyone work or professionally related will ever be getting out of me for any fancy occasion. That’s good enough for men, and it’s good enough for this professional woman.

  50. Throwaway Account*

    For #1, you got to meet all the bigwigs early after being hired AND are likely memorable to them bc of the outfit miscommunication! Go to the party and enjoy connecting with them again over last year’s party outfit!! Not many people get the chance to chat with those folks!!

    I’m an extrovert in many ways so YMMV but this is a great situation, not a bad one!!

    1. Ms. Eleanous*

      Throwaway, excellent point that I wouldn’t have thought of

      You met all the bigwigs AND you are memorable because of the dress code glitch.

      HUGE silver lining.

  51. Another Kristin*

    LW #1 – “My friends said I just should not have shown up the next Monday and ghosted the job”

    This is terrible advice and I’m really relieved that you didn’t take it!

    It sounds like you’ve been ruminating on this and letting it get to you for the last year and I’m sorry your brain is being such a jerk to you, but maybe try to remind yourself that your colleagues really tried to make you feel welcome and apologized for not making the dress code clear? Focusing on something positive might help you re-write the story you’re telling yourself and make you feel more eager to attend this year.

      1. Another Kristin*

        ha, I can’t take credit for it, I stole it from Captain Awkward!

        Anyway, as a fellow owner of a JerkBrain, I sympathize with the OP. Been there more times than I can count.

        1. Ms. Eleanous*

          I think I should put up a sign in my house . or at least a sticky:
          Brain, stop being a jerk over this.

          Priceless.

  52. Yoli*

    OP3, in Drive when you delete something shared with others, it’ll give you a little pop up message saying it’ll be retrievable from your trash for 30 days and that the folks you’ve shared with still have access. So if you can’t or don’t want to make contact before deleting, you’re in the clear from a file access perspective.

  53. Not your typical admin*

    I wonder if the situation in letter 1 happened because there’s not an “official” dress code, and the party just kind of evolved into being dressy. Not saying that the information shouldn’t have been communicated, but if it’s not someone’s specific job to do that I can easily see how it slipped through the cracks.

    1. Angstrom*

      At my first job the best guidance I could get the first year was along the lines of “Some people like to dress up for it” or “A bit nicer than what you normally wear to work.” There was a wide range of styles and it was all fine.

      There will always be people who enjoy dressing up, and they aren’t doing it to embarass anyone. They just enjoy it. “Dress how you feel comfortable” may result in everything from sweats to sequins.

  54. Ms. Elaneous*

    #1 Dress Code Glitch
    Your friends’ advice to ghost the job (over this?) isn’t just preposterous, it’s looney.
    Have any of them ever even worked an adult job?
    Think of this as a funny story you can tell on Colbert in case you get famous.

    And this need never happen again, because you can always ask – anyone in the company, preferably several people in case one is clueless – What should we wear?
    Perfectly normal question.

    Please learn to laugh about this.

  55. The Wizard Rincewind*

    LW1, you’re fine. Something similar happened at my job, where a coworker showed up to a cocktail party in jeans and a hoodie and my first thought was “oh no, [Organizer] forgot to let him know the dress code,” and that was it. Definitely not that he should never show his face at the office again, no “dishonor, dishonor on your family, dishonor on your cow.”

    I have some gnarly anxiety so I understand why it’s still haunting you, but you’re giving it more oxygen than it needs.

  56. CommanderBanana*

    Telling someone you’re lowering their salary because their insurance costs more because of their age is age discrimination.

    LW #1, as an event planner, I am very annoyed on your behalf about the lack of info about dress code and the seating screw-up, but this is really, really not as big of a deal as you and your friends are making it, and their suggestion to ghost a new job (!) because of this is bizarre, as is your decision to skip events because of it.

    If you’re new at a job, or attending a job event like a holiday party for the first time, it’s always a good idea to ask a colleague who has been there longer what the general vibe of the party is and if there are any unwritten norms you should be aware of. Reacting graciously to awkward situations is just part of interacting with people at work and being a person in the world.

  57. Lark*

    #1 Dress code – I’m wondering if you’re early career here, not because of your question but because (as an old person) I have learned over time that in the vast, vast majority of offices, people don’t remember or care about things like that, and that has helped me to let go when things go a little wrong. If this job is going well otherwise and the culture seems healthy, even the directors don’t really care. Also, a lot of latitude is extended to new people. If this were a public awards gala and you were going up on stage to receive an award and you showed up in very casual clothes, that would probably be noted, but “the new person didn’t know this was formal” really isn’t a concern.

    I’ve been a new employee who has misunderstood a variety of poorly-communicated cultural expectations, I’ve tipped people off about non-obvious cultural expectations, I’ve suggested that we communicate expectations directly, etc and because I’ve always worked in basically healthy workplaces (lucky me, so far) and its always been fine. In a healthy work culture, others’ actions are viewed in context and with some sympathy, not as an immediate opportunity to judge negatively.

  58. hack*

    #3 Don’t make them download everything. Just switch the ownership of the folder. Use the “share” function to share the folder and then make them the new owner of the folder. Then you can delete it from your Drive without it disappearing from the cloud.

  59. DVM*

    Re letter 1: I once was voluntold to dress as a mime for a circus themed fundraiser, then handed a sexy mime Halloween costume for the event. This was a last minute thing, when another mime (my boss) backed out, so I did not have full instructions. I was not aware that we mimes were only on the job for the first hour of the evening, and were allowed to change and enjoy the party, so I got to be a sexy mime, including makeup, all night long! I decided to lean into it, but being around upper management in a costume that did not leave much of my human form to the imagination wasn’t great.

    1. Butterfly Counter*

      Now, see, this would be a situation that might somewhat rise to OP1’s reaction. But I’m glad you leaned into it, especially with the miscommunication that wasn’t your fault.

    3. Aggretsuko*

      I just watched The Five Year Christmas Party on Hallmark and there’s a somewhat similar scene in which the cater-waiters are told to wear costumes, then arrive at the party and they are the only ones in costume, so they just have to roll with it…and then still have the costumes on because they can’t change for the next gig.

      I’m also reminded of Bridget Jones in the Playboy Bunny outfit reading this thread.

      For anyone ever in an inappropriate outfit and having feelings about it, look up the “court lobster” story in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, in which a guy shows up to an extremely fancy party in France in a drastically different outfit, and just rolls with it and everyone loves him.

  60. MCMonkeybean*

    LW5: It doesn’t sound like they’re paying you *less,* just that they’re not open to negotiating paying you *more.* That seems like a significant distinction if you’re being given what was listed as the top salary in the posting. If he had said “well we’d normally pay X but since your insurance is so high we can only offer you X-4k” then that would be crappy, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the situation here at all. (It seems weird he went into that much level of detail though, when he could have just said they were already at their max)

    LW2: I think this depends heavily on where your are. Where I live in a small city, this would be very absurd. My sister is moving to a much bigger city for a new job where she will have to pay for parking every day–in a city like that it doesn’t seem like it would be unusual for “parking provided” to just mean that they pay for the pass.

    LW1: That sounds like a somewhat awkward party experience but really not nearly as big a deal as you are making it out to be, and if your primary complaint is just not knowing the dress code–well now you know not to show up in jeans this year so I don’t know why you’d avoid all future parties?

  61. Pizza Rat*

    To me, “Parking is Provided” means a pass to a dedicated lot or garage. This should have said, “Pass for Street Parking provided.”

    1. Anne Shirley Blythe*

      I would absolutely assume the same. This was incredibly misleading. It brings to mind “charming” in house listings.

  62. Coffee Protein Drink*

    For LW3, I think Allison’s advice is spot on. Everything you create at work belongs to the organization unless you otherwise have permission.

  63. Anne Shirley Blythe*

    Re LW1, I do agree the ghosting advice was over the top. And I wouldn’t boycott future gatherings. *But* the more introverted and self-conscious a person is (raises hand), the more something like this stings. A lot. And it really hampers schmoozing with new coworkers and C-suite folks especially.

    Factor in a by-the-book personality, and there’s the added sting that the dress code was not communicated, and that this has happened before! Why isn’t this organization learning from its past blunders? If I were the LW, I would definitely “yellow flag” this situation.

    Yes, this is all conjecture about the LW, but it’s something to consider in a world dominated and run by extroverts primarily.

    1. Michigander*

      I agree. I obviously don’t think ghosting your job would have been the appropriate response and refusing to go the party this year (and all future parties) is too much, but I can see why she’d call the party a disaster. Honestly, it’s probably how I’d describe it too after I got home. “Ugh, that party was a disaster! No one told me about the dress code so I was the only one in jeans and so underdressed, then there was no seat for me at my assigned table, then I got moved to a table with all the big bosses and felt super awkward and didn’t know who to talk to.”

    2. Tea Monk*

      Yes, Im amused by people going ” well of course Im sure you’d be able to charm the big boss who you’ve never met before!” That’s a task even for an extrovert. Should OP go to the parties? Probably. But the assumption that everyone is charming and will be networking at these events is pretty funny.

  64. juliebulie*

    I think a bigger issue than the dress code was to stick OP as a ninth person on an eight-person table. Someone decided to do that, and it sucked. There’s nothing like telling the noob that they’re an afterthought.

      1. Angstrom*

        It sounds like someone else took OP’s seat at their assigned table, so room was made at another one. That’s a perfectly reasonable response.
        And that’s one event in the past year. If people at the workplace are normally kind and considerate it shouldn’t be “This is a terrible place to work”, it should be more like “Yeah, company events tend to be disorganized. We still end up having a good time.”

    2. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      I posted in an earlier thread that OP was not the ninth person at the table. OP just happened to be the last person at that table to show up. If OP had gotten to the table earlier, someone else would have been the ninth person to show up. I was recently at a formal dinner where there were ten seats at our table. After ten people (including me) were seated, two people showed up with place cards indicating that they were supposed to sit at our table. So we all scrunched over, and two more chairs were brought over, and two more place settings were brought out. That couple did not think that they were afterthoughts, because they knew that if they had shown up earlier, it would have been another two people that all of us would have had to make room for.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        Sorta depends on whether any other 8-person tables at the event had 9 people assigned to them, and not 9 chairs and settings. If OP was the only 9th, then yeah, getting to the table earlier they would’ve had a seat, but would still strongly suggest that they were the reason there were 9, since they started 3 weeks before the event, which means numbers probably had to be in to the venue/caterer before that. So…still seems after-thought-ey. Unless there was a similar squeeze at other tables.

  65. Stanley steamers*

    Okay I hope LW1’s friends were joking about the “just don’t show up on Monday” advice because otherwise WTF.

  66. Spicy Tuna*

    #4, I have an irrational fear of being homeless and broke, so I would absolutely sell every last hour of PTO. I’d much rather have money than time off

  67. Bonkers*

    I’m really having trouble letting go of how bad that oxygen analogy is. It doesn’t make sense. Oxygen is free and plentiful, and parking is the opposite. Perhaps the LW’s coworker gave them a strange look because the analogy was not analogous.

    1. Anne Shirley Blythe*

      Eh, I love analogies so I’m biased–

      Oxygen provided! (with no effort from us) Parking provided! (with no lot or garage from us)

      The coworker probably just bought into the company’s BS and/or wants to stay in management’s good graces.

    2. Hlao-roo*

      The point of the analogy isn’t “both these things are [freely available/restricted]” because, as you note, one thing is freely available and the other is restricted. The point of the analogy is more “the company is claiming [thing] is provided, but the company put in zero time/effort/money to provide [thing].”

      A company can offer you a salary of $X per year, Y vacation days, healthcare, and oxygen. But the company doesn’t actually spend any time/effort/money on the oxygen; the workers are just breathing the freely available oxygen in the atmosphere. Similarly, the company told OP “we will offer you parking” but that “offer” turned out to be the street parking that exists independently of the company.*

      *Except this too falls apart a little bit, because it sounds like the company provided a permit that prevented being towed/ticketed

      To be clear, I don’t think it’s a great analogy either, just that the LW wasn’t trying to equate the abundance of parking/oxygen with the analogy.

    3. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      Maybe this is a better analogy. Once, when I called to reserve a hotel room, the person I wound up talking to tried to persuade me to book a particular category of rooms, saying that I could get free coffee. I told him that all of the rooms at the hotel had a coffee maker, and that telling me about free coffee was just like telling me that if I booked a particular category of rooms, I could get a free toilet.

      Because coffee and toilets were provided in all of that hotel’s rooms, and coffee and toilets are not free and plentiful the way oxygen is.

  68. Overthinking It*

    A three person company that offers health insurance?! oh, my! (That said, $10,000 – for a person over 50 -sounds very cheap indeed! The OP must be male. if the CEO was offering a female worker lower salary, because her insurance cost would be higher – and it always is for women – would Allison’sanswer have been the same?)

    1. Just Thinkin' Here*

      Most likely it’s a high deductible health plan for single coverage. The OP should consider reviewing the coverage of the plan and decide whether getting cash to use the Marketplace is a better deal.

  69. Bast*

    I worked at one job with street parking, and never again. This is now a question I ask during interviews, and if there is no parking provided, it is a deal breaker for me. That being said, I have usually had it volunteered readily when I ask. “What is the parking situation?” vs. “Is there parking?” may be the difference. I typically receive something along the lines of, “Our company provides parking at the ABC Parking Garage across the street” “Our company is fortunate to provide its employees with a designated employee parking lot” “There is ample street parking available” etc are all some of the responses I have heard. Parking is quite dodgy where I work, and it isn’t a “nice” area that you want to walk around in after dark to get to a parking space far away. This, obviously, becomes more of an issue in the winter months as December-February ish we are often walking out in the dark.

  70. Definitely not me*

    #3 – you say the files, or the product of those files, were shared to a group file when you were an intern, so it sounds to me like you already did what Alison suggested. If somehow the employer had given an intern the only available copies of important datasets or something and hadn’t bothered to ask where the intern had stored them, that would be strangely sloppy and irresponsible of them. If I were you and my former employer hasn’t realized they need my working files back, I’d assume they don’t need them and would gleefully delete them to free up drive space.

  71. MJ*

    #3 – Google docs can be transferred to a new “owner” if that company still needs them.

    It’s been awhile since I did it, but I don’t think you can do it for a folder and have to do the individual files. However, you can select multiple files at once to re-assign. Select the files, click on the Share option, and in the pop up window select “Transfer ownership”.

    The new owner has to accept the transfer and will receive an email from Google letting them know. You can send them an email advising that they have until xx date to accept the transfer and after that you will be deleting the files. Then after the deadline you either remove the shared files from your account (if they have accepted the transfer) or delete them (if the transfer wasn’t accepted).

  72. my code is compiling*

    #1: I have anxiety and OCD and other issues, so I am right with you on Absolutely Not.

    But I want to push back gently on that feeling, because you are not going to be in that situation ever again. You know the dress code. You’ve met the people. You’ve worked there for a year.

    While you’re in that situation, it can feel like everyone is staring at you. But people allow more understanding than you’re thinking they do. Most of them probably felt bad for you, because you were a new hire who the management hadn’t adequately prepared for. They didn’t have a space for you, they forgot to tell you the dress code, they’re the ones who fecked up, not you.

    I bet if you ask your coworkers about their impression of last year’s party, they will not remember that you were underdressed and that the situation was awkward. They won’t.

    It can be so hard for the person in the situation, but just remember, everyone else was living their lives and weren’t paying that much attention to you. You should go to the party. You should make sure that you know the dress code and that it’s communicated to everyone, not just the new folks. And then I want you to ask yourself “how many embarrassing things do my coworkers do every single day that I just have never noticed, but they feel self conscious about?” because that answer is very high, but you don’t notice, and you all move on from it.

    1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

      Yes, I have anxiety as well and this situation definitely caused a vicarious cringe for me, more so than it would for the average person. But, I don’t think they were hazing you; it sounds like people were accommodating and friendly that night (even if you were inwardly climbing the walls with cringe); and I seriously doubt anyone remembers. Don’t take your dad’s or your friends’ advice, which you seem to know is ridiculous, and just go and try to put it out of your mind. Definitely ask about the dress code this year in case it’s different, give any new folks a heads-up, and try to find your seat a little early so someone doesn’t plunk down in it because they want to be near their friends or avoid folks at their assigned table.

  73. Cranjis McBasketball*

    LW1 (Holiday party with poor communication) – can you get yourself on the planning committee? That way, not only would you see exactly what’s expected, you’d be in a position to make sure everyone else knows.

  74. Just Thinkin' Here*

    OP #2 – “Parking provided” could mean two things to me when looking at jobs and it depends on location:
    1. Free parking provided in a parking lot or garage that is on-site or a close walk. This is for suburban and rural areas.
    2. Parking lot or garage parking provided either free or at a subsidized monthly cost either on-site or a close walk. A cost element should only be for urban areas where parking could otherwise be cost prohibitive (NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, etc).

    In no way would “parking provided” mean the employee needs to walk outside the building and move their car during the work day or potentially arrive and there is no parking available at all. This is a waste of paid time (and this should be considered paid time since it’s a “benefit”). The employer is gaslighting their employees so they don’t have to pay for the benefit but still claim to provide it. I would call it lying, quite frankly.

  75. H.Regalis*

    LW1, you’re making a way bigger deal of this than it should be. Are you okay? Do you tend to have a lot of anxiety in general?

  76. Just Thinkin' Here*

    OP #1 – this is where having the grace of hindsight, you can always think of more options than when you’re surprised in the moment. Twenty years ago, I probably would have been mortified and felt shunned. Having worked in more places, I’d laugh it off, tell my boss he’s on the hook for not telling me, and then send an email afterwards to the coordinator that they need to update their guest lists to include new employees.

    You did nothing wrong – and you have no reason to feel shame. Don’t let guilt yourself into feeling badly. And find someone else to give you career advice. Your friends are going to leave you broke and homeless.

  77. Fluff*

    LW 1 – I so understand The Awkward from that party experience. Just reading your letter brought up my own emotions and stories my head tells about anything remotely similar (do not invite me to a work Halloween Fall Work Party and not expect a fully cosplayed vulcan in robes).
    1. Your brain will over emphasize the awkward. Thank your brain and remind it of what many folks here have said. Your boss had your back and everyone has long since forgotten it.
    2. Next, help the next group. Advise the social marketer person to be clear about it. With a light email or request. Again, thank your brain for the awkward feelings and “thanks brain, I will let them know ahead of the next party.”
    It is totally ok that your felt like ghosting. It is vital that you did not ghost – you showed up and worked and are doing well.

  78. CubeFarmer*

    LW#1, what’s surprising to me is that you would make an assumption (supposedly) without confirming for the second year in a row. Is there an opportunity in a staff meeting to say, “Hey, I just want to confirm the dress code of the holiday party this year.”

    Ultimately, this is on your direct manager for not prepping you accordingly. As a manager, I would feel terrible if I skipped doing that. In fact, I’m off to prepare my new report for her first board meeting.

  80. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    #4 The only thing I have had come close was a company that offered all benefits up on the cafeteria plan. During the election period, you got $1K a month to “spend”. If you didn’t need health insurance you got more money to spend on other benefits, any extra was contributed to your 401K

    The core PTO was not up for discussion (2 weeks vacation, 2 weeks sick), but they were a company that had up to 5 weeks vacation if you were there long enough. They briefly discussed putting an option on the cafeteria plan to buy up to the 5 weeks if you were not there, but decided that was too risky that people would skimp on health insurance. Instead they offered anyone who was not getting the 5 weeks vacation, up to 3 weeks of unpaid vacation. So everyone had the 5 weeks vacation available, just how much was paid was dependent on how long you had been there.

    They also had a pretty active donation bucket for extended sick leave, this was before FMLA. Most of the people at 5 weeks couldn’t use it all and instead of losing it they put it into a hardship fund and had a team evaluating and doling it out. Kind of a private internal FMLA plan.

    They

  81. ThisIsNotASuplicateComment*

    For letter #1 I’ll bet good money the invite for the Christmas party is copy/pasted from last year’s and that’s why the dress code has never been mentioned.

  82. lizzay*

    My last job (US-based) had a system where you could buy or sell PTO during open enrollment. I think they realized a lot of people were selling back the max (40 hours) and were still losing vacation b/c god forbid you try to take a week off without needing to put out some fire at least once. You could still purchase extra days. I don’t know if any ever did b/c … well, the US way of working yourself to death. So yeah, I can understand why companies don’t let you sell your vacation back! Why not just have them lose those days for free instead!

  83. Seven If You Count Bad John*

    For the Christmas party OP: I would let the actual glitch go, especially since it has happened before and they apparently do this habitually, but I would also take it as a data point for how other types of communications might go in this company. I’ve worked at plenty of places where something like this was an early indicator of how they roll and if I’d picked up on it sooner, would have saved me a lot of headaches (because I’d have spent my energy figuring out the *real* information pathways rather than relying on “official” ones).

  84. EvilQueenRegina*

    If I didn’t know better, I’d be wondering if #1 worked for my uncle. He once failed to tell the family that the dress code for his wife’s 50th birthday party was white and gold (well, apart from one cousin who came right out and asked. That cousin decided he couldn’t be bothered, and his wife initially thought she couldn’t go. By the time circumstances changed and she was free after all, she didn’t have time to shop for a white and gold outfit). The rest of us found out two days before the party, with no time to do anything about it.

    We did all stand out among the crowds in white and gold who had been told, and my aunt made it clear that she did mind because she made a big show of only posting photos on Facebook of the people in white and gold and cut the family out of them. But to me, it’s become a funny story now. For all aunt’s sulking, the people at fault were her and my uncle, because they should have just put “Dress code: white and gold” on the invitations to make sure everyone got the same message in plenty of time and no one got missed off.

    Laugh about it. Make like Elsa and let it go.

  85. LabITRodent*

    LW1: Dress codes certainly have been a bugbear of mine too, but I think you’re blowing this out of proportion. It was other people’s job to tell you about it (if it even existed). The only thing I find dress codes useful for is to tell me which events not to go to at all – why should I subject myself to people who are so superficial that they form opinions about me from appearance?

    LW2: As someone who can’t drive, I’ve certainly been bit by people who say “there’s public transit options”, which can be anything from “the place is on top of a metro station” to “there’s a bus that runs a few times a day a few miles away requiring a walk on a highway without sidewalks”. I would certainly never trust what someone recommends for transportation options, so it would behoove you to do your own research. You do say that the job is in an urban area, so I would take the opportunity to look for other options beyond driving that don’t require parking (walking, taking transit) or a huge parking footprint (biking, scooter). Maybe it’s not possible, but I would be surprised if you couldn’t use one of those alternatives to driving in an urban area.

  86. Elio*

    For #1, I wouldn’t trust advice from friends who think ghosting your employer for a badly communicated Christmas party dress code is a good idea. That’s way dramatic and over the top.

  87. Can't spell 'Who Cares' without HR*

    #4: In my home country, labor law says all employees are entitled to 30 calendar days of PTO per year, but each year people can opt to either take the full 30 days off or take only 20 days, and be paid for the difference

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