employee struggling to identify accommodations to do her job, cold-calling for internships, and more

by Alison Green on March 13, 2025

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

1. Employee can’t figure out what accommodations would help her do her job

I work at a small organization where I wear many hats, including HR-related items. We have an employee, Nicole, who shared with us about a year ago that she was diagnosed with some conditions that make executive functioning difficult. We immediately approved her requests for an ADHD coach, project management software, and additional weekly meetings with her manager. In this last year, Nicole continues to not meet expectations in areas such as meeting deadlines, communicating effectively, and decision-making/prioritizing. When her manager discussed this with her, she frames the issue as “my work isn’t organized for me, therefore I find it difficult” and when asked to identify additional accommodations, she says she doesn’t know what she needs because it’s still a new diagnosis for her — and has implied that because of her disability, we need to accept that she may not meet expectations in these areas.

My concern is that this is not an entry-level position, so it is not feasible for Nicole’s manager to organize every task on her behalf or to identify what other accommodations or resources may be helpful. I think we are at the point where Nicole may need a more formal PIP or PIP-like intervention and a discussion about her responsibilities with identifying tools, resources, and accommodations needed for her to organize and execute her duties. Am I off-base? If not, do you have any suggestions of how we can talk with her to help her re-frame her accountability?

You are not off-base. You’ve provided the accommodations she asked for, you’re willing to provide more if she can identify something that would help, and she’s still not meeting the requirements of the job. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not exempt employees from meeting core job requirements; it requires employers to work with the employee to attempt to find accommodations if they exist, but doesn’t protect the person’s job if they can’t perform its essential functions with accommodations.

It does sound like it’s time to move to something more formal like a PIP. But before you do that, have a conversation with Nicole where you explain that the problems are significant enough that that will be the next step unless she can suggest additional, specific accommodations to try, and ask her to work with the coach to figure out what might help.

2. My boss wants my employee to report to him

I’ve been employed for 12 years at the same company in product development. I have been a manager of product developers for seven of those years, with four people under me. Over time, people have left and we’ve not rehired, so I only have one direct report remaining, Sarah, who I’ve supervised officially for seven years.

My boss is proposing that we change Sarah’s supervisory structure — I would handle the “day to day” of her work but my boss would be her supervisor of record and meet with her periodically, and we would jointly handle performance reviews. The reason to make this change would be that we’re a small team, and I’m the only person who reports to my boss who supervises someone.

I’m feeling angered by this as things are going very well with Sarah. She is sensitive to hierarchy and I feel like she may look at this as a promotion and that I’m no longer her boss. The other thing is that my supervisor doesn’t know anything about product development, and Sarah is a product developer. My supervisor is an operations specialist. That’s why he would still need me to do the day-to-day. This bothers me especially because in the beginning of my employment, there was a lack of structure and direction for newcomers, with official supervisors not providing direction. I often would end up mentoring and even serving as a direct supervisor to new people, including Sarah, even though I did not have a place in the official management structure nor any compensation and I was doing it on top of my own job. I was young and eager to prove myself, and I didn’t realize I was letting the manager slide by and walk all over me. Seven years ago, the manager left and I was given the formal manager role. This worked well for me because everything finally aligned — my role, my title, and my compensation. I feel this change would be a step backward functionally instead of forward. What advice would you give me?

You have a lot of good reasons to push back on the change. Talk to your manager and share them, as calmly and objectively as you can. In particular, emphasize that you’re concerned that you’ll still be responsible for a significant portion of Sarah’s management but without the title, and that the change feels like a demotion even though you’ll still be doing much of the same work.

It would be one thing if your actual function were changing, but it sounds like your responsibilities aren’t significantly changing, and it’s fair to ask that your title continue to reflect the work you’re doing.

3. Men are gross in our non-gendered bathrooms

My organization has slowly been moving towards non-gendered toilets. When building or upgrading facilities, toilets are now individual rooms and marked as all-gender. This is great! It’s progressive, inclusive, and by and large we’re all here for it.

Except … the men are gross! The biggest change my female colleagues and I have noticed is that non-gendered toilets are far more likely to be dirty, broken, and seats are constantly left up. We want the toilets to be welcoming to everyone, not just yet another place where we have to put up with how feral men can be.

One of our admin staff tried to combat this in a recently refurbished block of half a dozen toilets by attempting to label two of them as “women only.” This was swiftly shut down since it comes across as exclusionary and not what we’re about, although her intent was just for women to not have to visit somewhere a dude has just liberally shaken himself around like a sprinkler.

I don’t know who raised these grommets, but do you have any advice for combatting this? I don’t like the idea of attempting to remind everyone of what amounts to basic bathroom etiquette (and embedding mothering stereotypes in the process).

Consider a mix of single-sex and non-gendered bathrooms. That’s all I’ve got, given this particular set of facts, although it still leaves the non-gross men stuck with gross bathrooms.

If only it were practical to have full-time bathroom attendants like at a fancy restaurant.

4. How do I tell interviewers I was fired from my last job but it was because my dad was sick?

I was at a job I truly loved for about 18 months and was ultimately fired for “performance issues: not meeting job standards.” This was because six months prior to my termination, I had found out my father was dying and only had a few months to live. I thought I could handle working full-time and handling my dad three hours away, but ultimately, he died and my job performance did suffer and 30 days after he died, I was fired. (Hindsight being 20/20 here, I wish I had just taken FMLA but let’s not debate that now. I also really don’t want to get into whether my company should have fired someone 30 days after their dad died. I think what they did was total crap, but I also admit I wasn’t performing at 100% either. I’ve accepted the termination and have moved on.)

I am now searching for a job. I actually got an amazing offer, but when I filled out the initial application, I selected “no” for the “Have you ever been terminated from a job before?” question. Once the company found out that wasn’t true, the offer was rescinded. So now I am being honest and telling people the truth. But here is the issue — I’ll be in the middle of a phone interview and will be asked if I’ve ever been terminated from a job. I’ll say yes and explain it was performance-related (because I don’t want them to think I did something illegal) and it was because I had a dying parent I was struggling to take care of, who ultimately passed away. Inevitably, there is an awkward silence, an apology for the loss of my dad, and then a few days later I’ll get a “thanks but we’re moving in another direction” email.

How do I stay honest about my job history without making it awkward but also ensuring hiring managers understand that had there not been this horrible life event happening, I probably wouldn’t have lost my job?

I think where you’re going wrong is saying that the firing was performance-related. It was performance-related, but it’s not that you couldn’t do the job — it’s that you were juggling a horrible situation outside of work. The performance framing is making it sound like you couldn’t cut it, when that’s not really what happened. You said you’re worried that they’d otherwise think you did something illegal — but that wouldn’t be a typical leap for them to make!

Instead, you should say, “In my last job, I was doing well until there was a very serious health situation in my family. It was very difficult to juggle that at the same time as my job, and ultimately I couldn’t do both and they let me go. That situation has since been resolved, and I don’t expect it to come up as an issue again.” (I want to be clear that I’m not referring to your dad’s death as a “situation being resolved” but rather to your focus at work being so divided.) If your old manager would be willing to attest that you were doing well until your dad got sick, you could add, “My manager at that job would confirm I was performing well until that happened.”

I’m sorry about your dad.

5. Cold-calling for internships

Someone cold-called me today and asked if we do internships. I said yes, but you have to be a student of a particular college that we have a relationship with. They then asked, “So what do I do to apply?” Um … be a student at the college I mentioned? I am not management so can’t interview potential interns, so I told them to please email my boss. They proceeded to push for his email and I calmly said, “It’s on our website.”

When I was looking for jobs in my field (media), I was told Absolutely Do Not Cold Call. “No phone calls” was included in every job listing. You sent your application in and crossed your fingers. Have things changed or are the rules for internships different? In 2025, it seems weird and pushy that a young person would call rather than emailing. I’d love to read your thoughts on this.

Things haven’t changed. Some people have always called even when they shouldn’t — because they see it as attractive gumption, or they think it’s the only way to stand out, or they figure the rules don’t apply to them, or they just got bad advice somewhere along the line. It has always been so, and so it shall remain.

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

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  2. ZucchiniBikini*

    For OP#3, I don’t have helpful suggestions but just wanted to state that we have also come up against this issue in a (non-work, club-like) facility with which I am associated. Making all the stalled bathrooms All Gender sounds like a great solution, but it has definitely resulted in them being much dirtier, and especially, with more … ahem … visible sprinklage, than the Women’s used to be when it was gender-separated. So much so that a good proportion of women will leave the facility and walk 10 minutes to use a shopping mall bathroom rather than put up with the grossness. We haven’t found a good solution yet.

    1. AcademiaNut*

      Would it be possible to designate some stalls “sitting only” but not specifying gender? That would hopefully reduce the amount of stray urine festooning the area.

      Also – I’m guessing the converted washrooms don’t have urinals. A lot of single washrooms where I live, like in small restaurants, have a toilet, urinal and sink. Would it be possible in future renovations to provide a urinal as well, so that men are less likely to pee on the seat.

      1. ZucchiniBikini*

        You’re right, no urinals. We could certainly try the “sitting only stalls” designation – I’ll suggest that! Thanks for the idea :-)

      2. HailRobonia*

        “Sitting only” might also help with the squatters/hoverers (people who don’t want to make contact with the seat so instead squat on the rim or just hover over the bowl).

        1. just tired*

          I always hated that, they end up peeing on the seat MORE and make it grosser. I can’t hover like that so I wish others would knock it off.

          1. Lisa K*

            I am a hover-er in public restrooms, but I always wipe the seat if there’s anything on it, because ew. Both before and after, because if I slip and bump the seat I don’t want to get that on my bum.

            The next person to use the facilities should not be able to tell what you did in there.

            1. Always Tired*

              I’ve always wanted to ask someone, so here goes: if you’re going to hover and not sit on the seat anyway, why not just leave the seat up? Then you can’t get pee on it in the first place.

          2. Jess*

            Yeah this letter was infuriating for me bc the worst offender for spraying all over the seat and leaving it was and is women. If you are going to hover, why not raise the seat? It makes no sense.

            also, if anyone out there reads this who hovers with the seat down and leaves the mess in an ADA stall, 1) people with physical disabilities can’t hover and 2) I hope you get a hangnail on your big toe that wont go away and keeps getting infected.

            1. irritable vowel*

              Yes – if the LW hasn’t visited women’s public bathrooms and encountered pee all over the seats from crouchers, they’re very fortunate. It’s almost always women who are doing this in all-gender bathrooms, not men. Any man who has ever lived with a woman knows to put the seat up. They may not always put it down, but they’re not peeing on the seat.

              1. Cis men are messy*

                I’m a trans man who used women’s bathrooms until my late 20s. Yes, some women hover and make a mess on the seat, but men’s bathrooms are so much worse about this. I have no idea why so many men don’t want to use a urinal AND don’t bother to lift up the toilet seat, but it absolutely happens. I was traveling last week and easily 2/3 to 3/4 of the toilet seats had pee all over them, not to mention unflushed bowls. Honestly, I miss women’s bathrooms.

            2. Miss Woodhouse*

              If women were causing the issues, then the issues would have been there before the bathroom remodels. Because this is a new issue, logic suggests that the LW is correct and the problem resides with the people she wasn’t sharing a bathroom with before. AKA, men are making the mess, not women hovering.

        2. Tai*

          This is what annoyed me about this post: we have “squatters” at my job, clearly. There are specific women that I won’t use the restroom after (I am a cishet woman, btw) because I know they pee all over the seat. This isn’t a gendered or orientation issue, some people are just gross. Single stalls and signage are the way to go.

    2. BadMitten*

      My workplace has men’s restrooms, women’s restrooms, and then a single stall all gender restroom. It works pretty well, but even our gender nonconforming folks tend to use the women’s restroom tbh.

      I wonder if signs might help—like “please leave the seat down” or “please clean up after yourselves, the janitors work hard” or if that would be too patronizing.

          1. Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk*

            My wife put a sign up in our downstairs bathroom that says “If you pee on the seat, I’m using your toothbrush to clean it.”

            Directed at our sons, not me, for the record. I have the social graces.

        3. tes vitrines infinies, tes horizons dorés, je veux m'en passer*

          I saw a sign at a urinal in a GA airport once, said “Pilots with low manifold pressures or short pitot tubes, please taxi forward – the next pilot may not be float rated!”

      2. AcademiaNut*

        Probably just as well as signs telling people to clean up after themselves in the shared kitchen.

        1. Lacey*

          That’s what I was thinking.

          I worked for a while in a place with all manner of bathroom signs (also w/single use gender neutral restrooms) and the only change was that people put in joke signs in response.

      3. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        I recently was in an elementary school bathroom and they had a very polite, very succinct sign about how to behave in a bathroom. I took a picture so I could duplicate it for the manufacturing plant where I work. We have had…issues…with the bathroom.

        1. Notmorningperson*

          Oooh can you share the wording? It’s been a constant issue at my kid’s school and likely every other one around ….

          1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

            Sure! Credit is definitely not mine. Imagine in dye cut cardboard colorful letters and cutesy pictures of bathroom accessories around it.

            Bathroom Rules

            Floors Stay Dry
            Leave It Clean
            Use It Quietly
            Soft Voices
            Hands Washed

            1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

              Also, this was the Girls/Women’s room. I don’t know what goes on in the Boys/Men’s room. I could check, I guess. Considering it was a Catholic school, I suspect it was similarly police.

      4. Dinwar*

        We had some folks in our office not cleaning up after themselves in the breakroom. Someone put up a sign saying, in essence, “Clean up after yourself, your mom doesn’t work here!” It was absolutely patronizing–but we’re a bunch of educated professionals, if you need to be told to not let your food get so moldy it can operate simple machinery you deserve to be talked to like a child. And it was effective.

        The other thing I’ve seen work is a small decal or waterproof sticker of a fly in the bowl of the toilet. Not to put too fine a point on it, if you give men something to aim at, they’ll aim at it. I remember someone doing this (I think it was in Japan) and they had a huge reduction in these sorts of complaints.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          At an office I worked in, the “Clean up after yourself, your mom doesn’t work here!” signs came down when they hired the mother of a current employee.

        2. Pescadero*

          They literally sell urinals with various targets painted right into the porcelain for this exact reason.

        3. Ann O'Nemity*

          Chiming in that the aim spot is absolutely effective. Ask some guys to test out the best location to minimize mess, and then cue enthusiastic compliance.

      5. Don’t know what to call myself*

        Honestly? I think this would warrant an extremely uncomfortable all staff meeting. Lay out the bathroom expectations, state that these concerns are serious and that the organization expects that the expectations will be followed by all staff, and that if conditions do not improve, we will continue to meet to address these issues. Honestly, I kind of want an HR person or VP or CEO to point blank ask a room full of gross dudes what is preventing them from keeping the bathrooms hygienic.

        1. Lucy P*

          A few years ago we had to have that meeting for the men. The bathroom had gotten so bad that…It more than just an issue of aim while standing. One of the department heads gave the speech. It actually helped more than just putting up signs or sending out a memo.

        2. Atalanta0jess*

          I thought this too. With an explicit call out that the folks who formerly used the womens room have noticed a significant decline in cleanliness since they became all gender, and that they support all gender bathrooms, but shame on those who are making it too gross!!!!!

      6. Mockingjay*

        This is a case where managers need to have the difficult reminder conversation with employees: “Team, the facilities are shared. All of us have a personal responsibility to be courteous to our coworkers. We all need to clean up after ourselves. It’s not an option. Supplies are stocked in the cabinet if you need them.”

        Note: janitorial services are to provide sanitation. Those staff are not paid to clean up after lazy or sloppy adults.

        1. Yuck!!*

          I agree! Just like any other thing that needs managing, the most effective way to manage it is to *manage* it! Signs will tend to work about as well as the signs telling people to do their dishes — in other words, not. But specifically gathering the employees to lay out how unacceptable it is that the bathrooms are in this state might! Most of the jobs I have ever had had all gender bathrooms, and as a trans guy, I’ve used all the genders of bathrooms. This is not a universal men’s room issue, and designating some of the bathrooms as women’s only is functionally an admission that “boys will be boys” and can’t be trained to control themselves. This is addressable.

      7. just tired*

        It can never be too patronizing, they’re acting like children. But I can promise it probably won’t work because they had signs up in the bathroom where I used to work saying don’t flush paper towels and garbage down the toilet. These were grown ass adults who had to be told that. And it didn’t work.

      8. Hiding from my boss*

        patronizing or not, some so-and-so’s need to be reminded. Also see this in my neighborhood coffee place since they went “all gender.” Yuck.

    3. AL*

      The restrooms where I work are gender-neutral (single-stall, and if there is a single-gender sign on the door, it’s frequently ignored). I’ve started to notice a pattern – the restrooms where a basket of menstrual products is provided seem to stay a little bit cleaner.
      Not sure of any cause/effect with that – maybe men get a visual reminder that other genders share the space, maybe it’s a perception of the workplace caring about its employees that make people clean up after themselves, or one of many other reasons.

      But for $25 in supplies, it might be an experiment worth running!

    4. Saw Palmetto*

      In all seriousness, I think that sometime in the next ten years or so, there’ll be a bathroom cleaning robot on market. Which has the advantage of not requiring that you try and change human behaviour…

      1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        yeah, I think if women ran AI companies we would have a lot more AI focused on dishes, laundry, and housecleaning.

        1. amoeba*

          There are also (probably slightly cheaper and more comfortable ones) that just clean the seat – basically, once you’re done, it rotates once and is wiped down/disinfected in the process.

          However, that should *not* be necessary for a bathroom at a typical office! It’s great for places like train stations or malls though.

          1. tes vitrines infinies, tes horizons dorés, je veux m'en passer*

            I had one of these go off while I was still sitting on it at ORD T5 once

            1. Elizabeth West*

              That’s my nightmare!
              Also right at the bottom of that Wikipedia entry is a link to a BBC article about a kid who got trapped in one of them when the door didn’t open (he was okay).

    5. Heck, darn, and other salty expressions*

      I think a meeting addressing everyone with a reminder they are not at home and that shared spaces especially bathrooms are expected to be kept clean. Keep a large supply of anti-bacteria wipes and tell every one that the expectation is that the seat be wiped down after flushing and the wipes deposited in the trash. Used sanitary hygiene products should be wrapped in tp and deposited in the trash.
      That covers all messes that could be made by any gender. You can keep air freshener in all but 1 or 2 bathrooms and designate those “perfume free” for those who are sensitive to air freshener and other scented products.

      1. just tired*

        If they put sanitary wipes in there I guarantee everyone will be dumb and flush those things.

    6. Down on it*

      “We haven’t found a good solution yet”

      If the men aren’t potty trained after 250,000 years, they never will be.

      1. Frankie*

        Preach
        I don’t think I know any men who are this uncivilized! Where are they coming from???

        1. But what to call me?*

          Sadly, I know at least two! (And have lived in the homes of both of them, much to my disgust.)

    7. The Starsong Princess*

      If your washrooms, non gendered or not, are consistently gross, you need to get them cleaned more often. That may mean intraday cleans.

      1. Don’t know what to call myself*

        Most companies would not be willing to pay for extra cleaning services. The solution is to inform all staff that they are responsible for cleaning up after themselves in the bathroom and that these uncomfortable and embarrassing conversations will continue to happen until bathroom users are able to keep things clean.

        1. Observer*

          Most companies would not be willing to pay for extra cleaning services.

          And honestly, they should not need to. Not with actual and functional adults.

          1. Also-ADHD*

            Yeah, this depends on size/volume and plumbing issues. If there’s a 30-person office space / block using the bathrooms and a single bathroom messer peeing on the floor in various ones, that’s a human-clean-up-after-yourself problem. If you’re dealing with a high volume facility, it should be cleaned throughout the day (public restrooms in many cases and sometimes even office ones, if it’s a high traffic location in a large company — even more so if customers or clients might use the same one).

            Do I think companies cheap out sometimes? Yes.

            But do I think they should plan for the 5-10% (or less) of the population that will pee on the floor? Not really. They should have some plan available if a toilet gets legitimately “out of use” of course, though – employees shouldn’t have to go be the plumber or whatever.

          2. Dust Bunny*

            Seriously, this. We have all-use, single-occupancy bathrooms at my office and have only ever had one employee (a man) who had issues keeping them clean. They actually ended up suspending him for three days, which finally got the message across. He doesn’t work here any more (not because of this) and since then we’ve had zero issues, because the rest of us are housebroken adults. We have a custodian once a week and clean up after ourselves in between.

      2. Observer*

        If your washrooms, non gendered or not, are consistently gross, you need to get them cleaned more often. That may mean intraday cleans.

        Unless you are dealing with literal children, or adults with significant issues, that should absolutely not be necessary. Because if people take care of the *basics* – ie trash in the trash, and body waste in the toilet, even with heavy use, there should be no problem with the place being “gross”.

      3. Leenie*

        So, instead of expecting these guys to conduct themselves with any level of consideration or basic hygiene, they’re supposed to hire an on-call janitor to run into the bathroom after each use? This does not seem like a reasonable solution. And that is what would be needed here. It’s not like the trash needs to be emptied more often. It’s that some individuals are making the restroom really unpleasant for others every time they use it. That’s not a maintenance issue.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          Yeah, it’s like the people who have lunch in the break room and get up and walk back to their workstation …leaving their used napkins, take out bags, half empty soda bottles, coffee cups on the table they were just sitting at.

          You don’t need to hire a PT lunchroom attendant, you need the grown a** adults to take 4 seconds to put away their own trash when they are finished eating lunch.

    8. Another Kristin*

      I have no evidence of this but I think public/shared washroom nastiness is a real 80/20 problem – i.e., 20% (or some other small percentage of the users) cause 80% of the problems (or more). Everyone forgets to flush every now and then or accidentally leaves a mess, but a handful of people seem to have been raised by bears and just leave disgustingness behind them. These people are probably also the the reason why every public washroom has a sign begging you not to put non-toilet paper objects in the toilet, a thing which I don’t think I’ve ever done, but is apparently such a universal problem that these signs are everywhere.

      I don’t have helpful suggestions either, just ranting. Set up a hidden camera and see if you can identify the culprit, then publicly shame them? (KIDDING, DON’T DO THIS, IT WOULD BE MUCH WORSE THAN BEING GROSS IN THE BATHROOM)

      1. Jackalope*

        I don’t know that they’d really want to do this, but apparently people behave better if there is a pair of eyes on them even if they’re fake eyes (an image, a sticker, whatever). From what I understand there’s been actual research done on this and people act better when that’s the case. So maybe a small sign about not making a mess (worded however they want, but short, sweet, and to the point) along with a large pair of googly eyes glued to the bottom?

      3. PegS*

        I think the 80/20 problem applies to pretty much everything! The people who steal food from the refrigerator, the people who take the last cup of coffee and never make a new pot, the ones who use conference rooms without bothering to see if someone else has booked them. The list goes on, and on, and on.

    9. Polaris*

      Its certainly why I dread this idea in my office – not that it’ll come up any time soon as The Men in this Office ™ are not the most enlightened bunch. Normally I’d be all for All-Gender restrooms, but here? No.

      Surely it can’t be that bad? Please. Our office is easily 90%+ men. I see what the cafeteria kitchen looks like. I see what the kitchenettes on each floor look like. I do NOT want to see what the men’s bathroom looks like but they complain a lot about it, and I do not want to share our non-messy bathroom with them. (To clarify that this is NOT some sort of TERFy crap out of my mouth: if you wish to use the women’s room, I do not care, we all use it to do our business and wash our hands. Clean up after yourself and we’re all good.)

    10. toolegittoresign*

      I do not see how this is any different than having to tell someone they have body odor issues. You’re making the workplace gross for other people. I can and should be addressed.

      You tell people if you have to start paying to have the bathrooms cleaned more often, it will impact raises and bonuses. Have someone literally demonstrate how to make sure you leave the bathroom clean. Explain how this would be the same conversation if it were desks or other shared equipment being left in an unsanitary state.

      It is absolutely outrageous that everyone pretends grown adults can’t learn to have better bathroom habits.

      1. amoeba*

        I mean, I guess the difference is mainly that it’s much harder to identify the culprit? With body odour, you can talk to the person causing the issue, but with multiple people using the bathroom, the best you can usually do is reminders to everybody, and unfortunately, those don’t tend to work so well.

    11. BestBet*

      It might be worth checking if some of the issue could be spray from the toilet flushing? Especially if it seems super common, and you got new toilets, and especially if they are auto/self-flushing.

      I’ve been in a number of public bathrooms where I thought there was pee on the seat, but after finding a clean stall and using it, I find flecks of water after I’m done because the flush is too powerful and results in some splash back. If people aren’t expecting that they probably aren’t looking to see if there’s anything to wipe up after they’re done.

    12. Festively Dressed Earl*

      Unfortunately, the best solution is probably to be direct – posting bathroom etiquette signs and sending an email about bathroom etiquette to everyone who uses the bathroom. This is a problem that’s affecting the whole office; I’d lay money that there are employees of all genders who are grossed out by this. Treat it like any other widespread problem that affects the whole office.

    13. Dave*

      In my opinion we would all be happier if the seats were always left up.

      Messy people are never going to take the time to lift the seat, if the seat is left down the standers and hoverers are going to make a mess of it.

      1. Dinwar*

        I’ve honestly never understood this whole debate. In a home, where you have a solid lid you can put down, yeah, it makes sense to put the seat down. But in a public bathroom, where there’s never a solid seat to put down (just the rings), it doesn’t really matter. I get that it means that folks have to occasionally put the seat down, but “Seats down” means other folks occasionally have to lift it.

        At the end of the day, how hard is it to look first?

    14. Momma Bear*

      Someone took it upon herself to put up laminated signs in our bathrooms. I don’t know if there’s similar in the men’s, but in the women’s there’s reminders about what not to flush and where to dispose of trash. It’s a little passive-aggressive, but our bathrooms are clean so it helps? Can HR or building management put out a reminder about bathroom etiquette? You shouldn’t *have to* with grown adults but apparently some of them never learned to respect others.

      In college we had a janitor threaten to either quit or not clean our floor because some of the women were disgusting. Sometimes it is women, but if the problem arose after they went unisex I think it’s more likely to be men who are not being as courteous as they should be.

  3. Clean seats please*

    The all-gender bathrooms in my college dorm had a habitual seat sprinkler one year. We eventually figured out who the culprit was – and then we called his mom. It’s amazing how fast the problem stopped, though tragically you probably can’t get away with that in the workplace

    2. nnn*

      The all-gender bathroom in my college dorm had designated “seat down” stalls and designated “seat up” stalls. The stated rule was when you exit the stall the seat has to be in the designated position, and what you do in there is your business.

      I don’t know the specifics of what anyone else did in their stalls, but I don’t remember any seat sprinkler issues.

      1. wittyrepartee*

        That’s totally impractical, and also a fantastic college style solution. Like- yeah, you could get a dorm of people to do that, and it makes for an amazing story later on!

      2. Lisa Simpson*

        My husband’s freshman floor tried this in the men’s room and got in trouble with the RAs!
        Although they designated them “urine/vomit” and “poop” so perhaps that was the issue.

    3. BadMitten*

      Someone on social media (tumblr I think) mentioned how as a kid, after they had messed up the bathroom their teachers had them meet with the janitors who explained how they cleaned and how the kids made things harder for them (throwing tp everywhere, etc). Anyway it was very impactful, and I think we should have every school and business do something similar.

      1. allathian*

        Every school, yes. Every business? Not really. The vast majority of people regardless of gender don’t leave a mess in public restrooms.

        That said, lots of signs in public restrooms here about people being expected to sit on the toilet seat rather than squat over it. Some immigrant groups and tourists come from areas where squat toilets (holes in the floor) are common.

        My son’s fastidious for a teen, and he prefers to sit down to pee (my dad’s the same way, I wonder if it runs in the family?). So sprinkles have never been an issue at our house.

        1. Bunch Harmon*

          I think many more people hover over public toilets because they are concerned about germs on the seat.

            1. doreen*

              which amazes me because how do they think the pee gets on the seats to begin with? Someone hovered over a clean, dry seat.

                1. Bast*

                  I was always taught to put toilet paper on the seat of a public bathroom if they did not have the toilet seat covers. I was never taught to hover, pee all over the seat, and then leave. Toilet paper on the seat or no, it should be common decency that if you leave any sort of bodily fluid or secretion of any kind on the seat, floor, etc., you clean it up before you leave.

                2. shaw of dorset*

                  Man, I don’t get people like that. Do they have open wounds on their ass? No? Then they need to plant it.

                3. anonny*

                  @shaw of dorset

                  I dunno about anyone else, but from a very young age, my mother impressed on me that I would get a horrible disease and die if I sat on a public toilet seat, and now I can only pee on a public loo if I hover. I do wipe it with a bit of bog roll afterwards though.

            2. Festively Dressed Earl*

              Or crabs. I know a couple of people who insist they got them from a public toilet seat even though it’s impossible.

          2. Lenora Rose*

            Which is weird because unless someone visibly soils the seat (eg by trying to avoid sitting on it), the seat isn’t in contact with the bits that cause the germs… a toilet seat that’s been sat on but *not* peed on is probably cleaner than your phone.

            1. amoeba*

              Hah, yeah, indeed. I really don’t get the fear of toilet seats – I mean, we basically touch them with the backs of our legs Everything else hangs in the air! It’s not that different from sitting on a chair at the beach where everybody’s in their bathing suits…

              1. Elizabeth West*

                Unless you have open wounds, your skin is a pretty effective germ barrier. And I assume you’d be washing that area in the shower later anyway, right?

          3. Pescadero*

            The problem there being that toilet seats are intentionally made not to harbor germs/bacteria – and as such, the average public bathroom seat is significantly less germ ridden than the average door knob, or desk.

        2. just tired*

          I like that! I wish more men would do that and not worry about whether it’s masculine enough or not. It’s silly.

      2. metadata minion*

        I guess it might help, but young kids can genuinely not realize how much work cleaning is, or even that there *is* someone who comes and cleans the bathroom. Most adults either have figured out that they shouldn’t leave a mess for other people to deal with, or don’t care.

        1. Texan in Exile*

          I think it was the “don’t care” people using the airplane toilets. Pee on the seat and on the floor in front of the toilet. So gross and so inconsiderate.

    4. Nebula*

      I also had this problem at uni. This was a set up where there were maybe eight of us sharing bathroom facilities, and I suspected I knew who it was. I just left a note up to the effect of ‘If you don’t have the ability to pee in the toilet like everyone else, at least clean up after yourself’ and that actually worked. I guess it was the shame aspect and the confirmation that yes, other people have noticed this (funnily enough).

    6. Bunch Harmon*

      We thought we had a sprinkler in the women’s bathroom at my dorm. There were a small group of students who were up in arms about it, and tried for weeks to figure out who it was. Turned out that one of the toilets flushed so forcefully that small drops of water landed on the seat.

      1. Mockingjay*

        This is far more common than people realize. Modern toilets flush harder and quicker to remove the contents to minimize water usage. That hard flush creates a lot of spray. (Highway rest stops, for example.)

      2. Lisa K*

        One of the toilets where I work does this, and it’s so gross. I’m trying to figure out how to complain to Facilities.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          We had one that did it, and it turns out it was actually coming from the pipe connector behind it. One call the facilities to replace the faulty part and it was fixed. And they were glad I called because the next thing that happens when that joint starts failing is a lot more of a hassle to clean up than a little water spray (ie the connection lets go and water goes everywhere)

          Yours may have an over spray / force issue, but if you plead ignorance and just say “the toilet seems to be spraying water out every time it flushes, maybe that will get someone to come check it out.

      3. Dust Bunny*

        Yeah, this is actually pretty common.

        If I see droplets, I just wipe the seat down, maybe with soap or hand sanitizer if there’s a dispenser in the bathroom. And of course I wash my hands, and bathe, and it’s not like I’m constantly touching the backs of my bare thighs–I’m not worried about getting germs from the toilet seat.

    7. Don’t know what to call myself*

      I have a friend whose kid’s school was having issues with vandalism in the bathrooms, so they changed the school policy so that all bathrooms were locked at all times and a security guard had to unlock them for one student to use at a time. That way, the guard could check the bathroom after the student left and ensure nothing had been vandalized, and if it had, they immediately know who the culprit was.

      They probably don’t have enough staff to do this at LW’s job, but it’s probably the only 100% method of catching the culprits and making them clean up after themselves.

      1. Editrix*

        How horrible that must’ve been for the non-vandalizing students — I hope it was resolved quickly! Brings back memories of my middle school days, when the “solution” to smoking in the bathrooms was to remove all the stall doors. Parents fought back on that one and it was reversed after a couple of harrowing weeks.

      2. Texan in Exile*

        We tried that when I was a lifeguard one year at a city pool. There were some boys who thought it was really funny to poop on the floor, so we started locking the men’s room and making users get the key from the lifeguards.

        Unfortunately, the city told us we could not keep the bathroom locked, which was the same as telling us that we had to keep cleaning the poop ourselves. (Yes, lifeguard duties included cleaning the bathrooms and no, we had no hazardous waste training.)

    8. Cat and dog fosterer*

      I fostered a kitten who loved water so much that he would jump in the shower with me.

      He was adopted into a home where his owner would often rent two rooms to students, and at one point it came out that they were each upset with the other for splashing on the toilet seat. It hadn’t occurred to them that their landlord’s warning about the cat was very honest and accurate…

      The cat was skilled in standing braced across the toilet seat with three paws while swinging one paw into the toilet bowl to play and splash. As soon as they kept the lid down between uses the problem disappeared! And Felix lost his toilet playtime.

      2. Recently Promoted Cog*

        This is the real justification for the only right answer to “seat up or down” which is “Everyone puts the seat AND lid down every time.” Because that way you always know that the wet pawprints on your duvet cover are NOT toilet water.

      3. GammaGirl1908*

        I am a both-lids-down-unless-in-use person, and this is making me feel a little smug. Although poor Felix.

        Also, kudos to the letter writer for using “grommets” as a term of disdain, LOL.

        1. I Have RBF*

          Yeah, we went from a “whatever” on toilet lids to “seat and lid down because cats” when we first got kittens.

        2. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out*

          What does it even mean? I could only find it as a surfing term for newbies.

    9. 2 Cents*

      I was just thinking the same thing — if only you could get their moms involved :D (As the mom of a potential sprinkler, I’m doing my darndest to ensure the bathroom is left as clean or cleaner than when he went in!)

  4. Have I used this name before?*

    #2. It sounds like Sarah might not be the only person sensitive to hierarchy. Would it be terrible if Sarah viewed this restructuring as a promotion? Would it be terrible if, after 7 years, she got a promotion or an opportunity to report to a higher up?

    Also it sound like your position title isn’t changing, nor is your pay, just the official responsibility of supervising Sarah. Or am I misunderstanding?

    I would try to get a stronger sense of why your boss thinks this is important move and what would be, in their eyes, the operational benefits of new reporting structure. You’re obviously welcome to (and well positioned to) push back on this, but depending on your boss’s motivations, you may need a stronger argument than “it would hurt my feelings and another boss took advantage of me in the past”

    1. Arrietty*

      For Sarah, it would feel like a promotion. For LW, it would feel like a demotion. LW would still be responsible for managing Sarah, but without any of the power or the positive parts. There’s no way this wouldn’t go badly.

      1. Malarkey01*

        It’s a group of 2 and Sarah has been there at least 7 years, I’m wondering how much day to day management Sarah needs. This may be an attempt to flatten things out and give Sarah some upward momentum. It stinks for LW, but with only one long term report I’d be looking to reorganize this structure too.

        1. LaminarFlow*

          I also don’t understand why Sarah needs 2 managers, especially in what seems like a small org/company. If I have been working successfully under Manager A for 7 years, I would find the sudden change of reporting to Manager B in addition to Manager A confusing, and possibly overkill. I also would not consider it a promotion if I am not getting a salary increase/higher level duties.

        2. Lenora Rose*

          I want to know what happened to the work that was previously done by 3 other people as well as Sarah. Is she doing all of it? Did it get spread around, and if so, how? Sarah is the only remaining employee in this subset of this reporting structure, so was it taken by another group entirely, or spread out among LW’s tier? Or is Sarah doing most of the work of 4 people?

          I know it’s not the core of the question, but it’s ringing alarm bells for me, and I think answering that will tell us if this weird reshuffling of supervisors is a logical step even if it looks weird in the moment, or a sign that this job is going sour for both Sarah and LW. (Sarah, because if this *isn’t* a sideways way to give her the beginnings of some upward mobility after 7 years, it’s probably making her job more tiresome, and LW because taking supervisory duties away without replacing them with anything is at best an indicator her role is stagnating.)

          1. Kevin Sours*

            Now that you mention it, I would worry on LW’s behalf that this is a prelude to deciding that they only need one product manager and no supervisor.

        3. Hannah Lee*

          I also wonder if there’s something else in play.

          e.g. LW’s manager is trying to placate Sarah over her desire to have upward momentum, without actually doing anything more than shuffling things around, and figured LW would just roll with it, take one for the team … even though it does nothing to help LW and may actually make their job harder. In which case, LW is right to push back on it, as the one who will be caught in the middle.

          If manager wants to flatten things out, restructure and actually simplify things and flatten them out. Don’t create a matrix reporting structure among THREE! people where LW is responsible for things they don’t have authority over.

          As someone who wound up in a similar position to LW because a direct report was antsy/a squeaky wheel about advancement and the department head didn’t want to do any pay raises or actually rethink roles and responsibilities, IME this will not end well.

      2. AlsoADHD*

        I get flattening small teams. I would say LW should consider moving on when the market improves if not now because the company not backfilling so many roles and now boss moving to flatten suggests to me that this isn’t going anywhere but demotion / stagnation longer term for them both. I agree it’s a problem both in the current structure and in flattening in a way that feels like a demotion to LW or gives Sarah multiple managers. But I think there is a big issue here no matter what, and I sort of get giving Sarah some hope even at the expense of LW (who wouldn’t have a title issue and wouldn’t be hindered in their overall career by this-but if they’re not backfilling what happens if or when Sarah jumps?)

        1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          This. Boss wants to have more than one person report to them. Rather than fill open roles they are just changing the reporting structure. This is not a company you should consider sticking around to see what comes next.

          1. Czhorat*

            I read that the boss does have multiple people reporting to them, but those people do not in turn have reports. That the boss is, for all intents and purposes, a first-level supervisor with the exception of OP who only has one report.

            That’s a really odd reporting structure and, in most companies, wouldn’t really be considered sustainable.

          2. Also-ADHD*

            It sounds like boss has multiple people, but LW is their only report with 1 report. Still, product dev isn’t an uncommon function to flatten, especially if it’s shrinking OR becoming fairly matrixed, and this is a greater sign of LW’s function being marginalized at the company than really “about them” per se.

        2. ferrina*

          Absolutely.

          It’s pretty common to try to flatten structure when you have just one person reporting to one person reporting to one person. Management takes time, and it’s usually inefficient to have a manager only managing one person (not always, but usually). OP raises a valid point about the boss not being able to fully manage Sarah, but if the flattening is coming from higher than the boss (and it probably is), then it’s unlikely to change.

          Agree that the history of not backfilling the roles and flattening the structure seems to indicate that this function in the company isn’t a priority. It doesn’t seem to be growing. OP might want to look at moving on, and think about whether this role is still fulfilling for them.

          1. Hiding from my boss*

            patronizing or not, some so-and-so’s need to be reminded. Also see this in my neighborhood coffee place since they went “all gender.” Yuck.

          2. Different Name This Time*

            I’d agree with this too, but something to keep in mind is that flattening the structure is sometimes a consequence of a function becoming more mature. I’ve seen a few teams become flatter as part of a push to focus on filling positions with more experienced and autonomous ICs.

            1. Banana Pyjamas*

              Agreed. A previous job was a mostly flat structure, as flat as possible with an elected and an appointee. They specifically flattened the structure to recognize the higher level responsibilities of each role. The elected was then able to justify paying the team at management level.

          3. Kevin Sours*

            Except it doesn’t seem like it really flattening out the structure, just muddling it.

      3. juliebulie*

        It sounds like Sarah might not be the only person sensitive to hierarchy.

        That jumped out at me too.

        Would it be terrible if Sarah viewed this restructuring as a promotion?

        I was in exactly Sarah’s position a few years ago – about seven years in, and I knew it wasn’t a promotion. If it had been a promotion, there would have been a new title and a pay bump. I don’t know how I would have thought it was a promotion – my duties didn’t change.

        But even if I had seen it as a promotion, I still didn’t outrank my boss, and Sarah won’t outrank OP. And if I had been confused on that point, it would have been easy to set the record straight.

    2. Myrin*

      Would it be terrible if Sarah viewed this restructuring as a promotion?

      I mean, “terrible” is probably too strong a word but it wouldn’t be good because it is, in fact, not a promotion.
      Also, OP doesn’t just mention Sarah’s feeling like this might be a promotion but also “that [OP is] no longer her boss” when, de facto if not on paper, OP would still be at least a quasi-boss to Sarah (even still handling her performance reviews, albeit together with her own boss).

      This sounds like the beginning of those situations we hear about here regularly regarding “team leads”, where someone has to manage someone else but doesn’t have hiring/firing power or even just the power to discipline, enforce expectations, etc.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, I do feel for Sarah wanting more upward movement/visibility, but I would *not* want to be a manager responsible for overseeing someone’s “day to day work” but not their actual management, particularly if their actual manager wouldn’t have much job knowledge.

        1. AlsoADHD*

          I have been in that situation and don’t find it that big a deal (common in matrixed functions including product dev, though I get why it feels messed up to flatten an existing hierarchy) and I’ve also been the “boss” without job knowledge of an area that relied on team leads. I feel like both of those org structures can work, but the small team here and existing structure makes it sound weird here.

          When I was a lead, I managed projects and the day to day deliverables for 8 people— half the team— and another lead did the other 7, but manager did all 15 performance reviews and had an overview and meeting with us 2 leads weekly. She was not involved in day to day work and didn’t have much project interaction and had more SME knowledge than IC knowledge of our work. That structure was great! We escalated any performance issues to her but managed day to day, it was like being a program manager.

          I also manage stuff now that includes functions I have never done IC work in and I rely on Seniors and Leads to onboard, support, train, and manage the day to day. Many of them do not want to be managers, frankly, and they’re awesome higher level IC leads. They don’t deal with the emotional labor of management tasks they don’t like though, so it sounds different than the mixed up situations. I handle (in consulting with them for day to day impact) accommodations, hiring, performance, act as a shield, get them resources, deal with escalation, etc. They have total control on their projects, but they come to me if someone isn’t performing or they don’t have the resources for a project etc. I don’t have to understand their function fully to listen to them and manage the department—if you get high enough up or work in certain areas, it’s unlikely you’ll really “know” the day to day of all work or have IC skills in all areas, and having a layer of middle management is one way to deal with that but has its own downsides. Intentional structure is important though, and flattening can feel hard on current middle management for sure!

          1. Sloanicota*

            At least in this case, presumably OP retains their salary, so they are being paid to manage. I’m most familiar with “peer management” when one person becomes team lead and is thus responsible for the performance of individuals on their team without any supervisory authority. It *can* work if the “real” manager is responsive to the team lead and everybody knows it, but not if the real manager is checked out. Sometimes the team lead makes no more money than anyone else, sometimes it’s a “small bump” but not manager level salary, when they’re doing 80-90% of what the manager would do. I feel that’s a cost-saving measure on the company’s end and generally puts that employee in a bad spot.

            1. Also-ADHD*

              When I was a team lead (Sr. and later Principal), I absolutely got paid more. It was more equivalent to what I got paid as a program manager and higher than some management positions I applied for – higher level IC work can pay more than some management positions (mine did, and some of my Sr. IC reports make more than managers in other functions or even managers in our function – not more than me in my company, but I’ve seen that too!). More companies are developing their IC tracks appropriately and realizing they don’t need a middle manager for everything and that management is its own skill, not a “reward” for good IC work.

              You’re right, of course that if the manager in charge of those leadership functions (performance management etc.) is checked out or not working with leads, it’s a nightmare. Some of that depends on industry, as does some of what it means each person does, and how matrixed vs. hierarchical the function is. (Product, for the record, is usually more matrixed these days, in my experience. I’m not in product, but I have worked closely with it and my function is not dissimilar.)

              BUT middle management has the same issue as team leads if THEIR higher ups/manager is checked out or not aligned with them to be honest (managers of frontline workers often run into this barrier). The greater issue to me is if someone is not given an appropriate title/pay and if scopes are not clarified, which can also be an issue on small teams, though the scope in LW’s case sounds more clear than some disasters I’ve seen even WITH middle management levels.

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

      I get the impession that there is more going on with Sarah and that OP is afraid that if she is no longer Sarah’s manager that she wont take direction from her. We don’t have the full story here, but I’m wondering if Sarah has been problematic in the past and is one of those people who thinks unless the boss directly says to do X and I don’t take orders from anyone else. So OP might be afraid if that happens work will not get done and/or they will have to do more work because sarah refuses to take direction. Especially being that the boss doesn’t understand sarahs role.

    4. Middle Aged Lady*

      In this case, then, there ahould only be one boss, in my opinion. Managing someone day to day while someone else is their actual boss bas never worked well for me. If I am their boss, I am their boss. If I am a ‘shift lead’ with no real managerial authority, then I don’t want that position.

    5. Sara without an H*

      I was advised by an early job mentor (back in the Pleistocene) to never, never accept responsibility without authority. Based on my reading of the letter, that’s what LW2 is being asked to do.

      Now, if the organization is small, and the boss wants to flatten it out so that they are the first-level manager for everybody in the organization, well, ok, although that may be more work than they anticipate. But if so, they need to take on 100% management of Sarah and her work, not the half-and-half arrangement LW2 is describing.

      Full disclosure, I once had a split position with two supervisors. It worked, because we all sat within 20 feet of each other in an open office, but I really don’t recommend it.

    6. Yankees fans are awesome!*

      “it would hurt my feelings and another boss took advantage of me in the past”
      —–

      That’s a pretty harsh and unkind reading of the LW’s assessment of things.

  5. RCB*

    #4, I am going to stray from Alison just slightly, and stray from conventional wisdom a bit, and preface this with the caveat of IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH IT, but: I think you should say specifically what the family health issue was, I really think it changes the calculus in the interviewer’s head, and it’s not too personal for an interview. “A serious health situation in my family that has since been resolved” is SO open-ended that I am naturally going to wonder if it can happen again? It’s resolved, but can it recur? And who is the family member, was it a spouse or child that absolutely requires your full attention if it recurs, or is it an aunt or grandparent that will upset you but not require your full attention? I have lots of questions.

    If I know “I was doing great in my position until my father got sick and I was not able to handle everything that went along with dealing with taking care of him and my job, nor the mourning process after he passed to keep my performance up, so I was let go.” (even if this isn’t exactly true (maybe you weren’t his caretaker but they won’t know, and it doesn’t matter). Now as the interviewer I have some concrete information, and I know that the situation really is resolved, and I’m human, I totally understand what it’s like to go through that, with me personally you’ll absolutely not need to say anything more about why you left your job, it’s now a non-issue. (I lost my dad 22 years ago and it’s still tough, I give anyone a pass). It’s also vague enough that you aren’t oversharing, which is where people get uncomfortable bringing this kind of stuff into the workplace and especially interviews. Everyone has a dad (whether you know them or have a relationship with them), and everyone dies, so you didn’t share anything shocking to anyone.

    I interviewed someone a few years ago and he said that this job would allow him to be home more and spend time with his wife because she’s been going through some mental health struggles and she had been in and out of hospitals, and and he just gave us WAY too much detail about his wife’s medical condition. We absolutely felt sympathy for him, and felt horrible thinking less of him for it (of his professionalism for bringing it up, not less of him for his wife’s issues), but it was the reality, and it wasn’t quite the deciding factor between him and another candidate but it certainly did him no favors. This is an overshare. Keeping it simply “Dad was sick, then he died”, is fine, and I think it only helps you.

    1. Artemesia*

      I agree. This is so straightforward — a Dad who is terminally ill and seeing him through. No reason to be vague here at all.

      1. linger*

        Except that OP 4 is already suggesting that mentioning the death is possibly a factor in being dropped from an interview process. So, addressing that directly:
        (i) Candidates get dropped for many different reasons, and it’s not always healthy to speculate about the specific reason(s) in a specific case; and
        (ii) As Alison notes, introducing the termination as performance-related might be a more likely factor; and
        (iii) A company that would drop a candidate purely for mentioning the death of a parent is revealing something unpleasant about what they’d be like to work for.

      2. Not that other person you didn't like*

        It’s a sentence to explain and if someone won’t hire you because your performance faltered after your father’s passing, trust me, you do not want to work with them anyway. Your interviewer should come away with the impression that your previous employers were horrible humans (because they were).

        And no need to give a bunch of background or go into the performance issues. OF COURSE you had a hard time – your father was dying.

        I say this because I once had a half hour interview with a candidate who had a long resume gap. When I asked, he spend the entire rest of our time together giving me the blow by blow of his father’s death and aftermath and mourning and so forth.

        I’m far from unsympathetic, but I didn’t get to ask him anything about his experience or share anything about the role! He could have said “I took time to care for my father during his terminal illness and then to mourn and deal with his estate after his passing.”

    2. Peregrine*

      I’m confused—why is a father dying not oversharing, but a wife with serious mental health problems is oversharing?

      1. Testing*

        In general, the health issues of living people are more of a privacy concern than the fact that someone died. Both because the dead person isn’t around anymore and because we’ll all die eventually.

      2. Asml*

        It would be on its own, with compatible levels of brevity. It sounded like the candidate went into a lot of uncomfortable details.

      3. NeedAName*

        Instinctively, two reasons. 1) Everyone dies eventually, so while devastating and life-upheaving for the LW it’s not sharing anything personal about their relative. 2) RCB specifically mentions their candidate talking about hospital visits and additional details far beyond the one sentence “my father passed” they recommend.

        1. GammaGirl1908*

          This. This explanation needs to take up 10-15 seconds of the interview, not 30 minutes.

      4. Myrin*

        It’s not, and presumably it wouldn’t have been a problem if RCB’s candidate had said just that and no more, but RCB says the candidate went into way too much detail (which is possible to do regarding your parent’s death, too, but simply saying “my dad was terminally ill and my performance suffered because of that” isn’t that).

      6. glt on wry*

        @Peregrine: Because some people still get uncomfortable if they have to talk about the idea of ‘mental health’ and associate it with a person in their sphere. It’s acceptable as an idea, but it should just be a tv movie of the week, not something real.

        I think as a society we’re getting better about it, but, unfortunately, it still resonates as ‘crazy’, and it’s not yet part of regular social conversation.

        Personally, I wouldn’t want my husband illustrating how my mental health impacted his life, just at an interview, FFS. That would be a question of integrity for me. But that’s different question.

        1. glt on wry*

          Also, forgot: The wife is still alive, a person with a life that, one would hope, is private and ongoing.

          1. Edwina*

            Also, the husband could have said he was happy that the position he applied for would give him flexibility to be home more. He doesn’t need to justify that want/need.

        2. Lenora Rose*

          note also the bit where the interviewee went into “Way too much detail”

          If I say “I was helping with my {family member} who was terminally ill, and struggled to maintain my work standards during that situation and the mourning period that came after” you’re not over sharing, but if you start talking about the hospital stays, and the lifts, and walking them to the bathroom, you are absolutely oversharing.

          Similarly, if a person is talking about their {family member} with mental health issues, that phrase isn’t oversharing, but talking about panic attacks or suicidal ideations or hiding in the closet or whatever is happening is definitely oversharing. More since the workplace might at some point meet this person, who is still alive, and it will also affect how they are perceived.

        3. Venus*

          I don’t think the type of illness is the problem. I wouldn’t want all the details if someone’s spouse has IBS or cancer or similar.

      8. Smithy*

        I do think the level of detail is the main issue.

        When I was young, my dad had a fairly complicated cancer diagnosis so my mom had to drop out of her PhD and work full time again. She was also a registered dietician, and applied only to positions at the hospital where my dad was being treated. In her interviews, I do know that she shared her reasons for returning to the industry was that her husband had a complex illness and was being treated in this hospital, so she was aware of their high quality of care as well as desiring to be physically close when he was in treatment.

        This was the 1980’s, so I’m sure there were likely some more dated issues at hand that may have helped my mom in ways that are not analogous to 2025. And also cancer is often treated differently than mental health challenges. However I do think that there are ways to include complicated life realities around family illness, provided you’re comfortable not going into too much detail – particularly when there might be a pause or expression of sympathy before the interviewer moves on.

      9. AlsoADHD*

        For a lot of not great reasons I don’t “agree” with but see as practical, like basically any of us could have a parent die. That’s going to happen to most of us at some point (we could die first but that’s considered the worse scenario) and it’s very common for it to happen during working years. It also can’t happen again (I mean other parent, but no one is worried Dad’s death will happen twice) and just saying it won’t recur doesn’t convince people necessarily but illustrating an event that literally can’t occur again is different feeling to most. Plus there’s literally nothing to judge (besides not taking FMLA which I don’t think employers would judge too heavily) because it’s truly not connected to any choice LW could make. You don’t choose your parents, you can’t control death. It’s a thing that happened to them.

        While I view mental health as health, enough people still view it as a failing that they might judge your choice of partner or be less sympathetic to a wife’s mental health issues than a dead dad. Just realistically. Not right, but LW needs a job, not to change the world.

      10. Lily Potter*

        The difference is that the candidate is explaining why they failed at their last job. Giving details about a family death strengthens a candidates’ case, while giving them details about an on-going family illness (in this case, mental illness) weakens it.

        A parents’ death is a finite event. It only happens once per parent. Even if a job candidate was fired because they fell down on the job while caring for their parent, that parent is now gone. The person doing an interview can be assured that if they hire this candidate, that parents’ on-going illness will not be a barrier to job success. The candidate doesn’t need to give a ton of details, but explaining some detail about why they were previously fired (family illness culminating in death) gives context to the issue while also telling the interviewer that the barrier to success no longer exists.

        A spouse’s mental health issues, particularly one involving hospitalizations, are not necessarily a finite thing. They have the potential to be on-going and open ended. Going into detail about a spouse’s ongoing health challenges (in this case, mental health) is going to make an interviewer think “they got fired at their last place because of their family’s members’ health issues. If we hire them, there’s a possibility that they’ll fail here due to the same reason”. In this case, giving extra details just digs the candidate further into a hole.

      11. Artemesia*

        I think you are not confused. The bias about mental illness in our society is profound and well known and in addition to that, a dead father is over and done with but a wife with. mental illness will presumably continue to affect the employees ability to show up and get the work done.

        There are times to be vague — your own or a family member’s mental illness that impacts your job is one of those times. It doesn’t matter what ‘should be’ — it is what is.

      12. Dust Bunny*

        Because the wife is still alive and has the right not to have her health discussed.

        The father is dead, and saying so doesn’t reveal anything private about him.

      13. RCB*

        Mental health is a medical condition, death is not. Death is just part of life and happens to everyone, and isn’t specific and isn’t sharing anything personal. Mental health is. Even cancer is, tonsillitis is for that matter, I just chose mental health since I had that real life example. You always run more of a risk when you get specific, and sometimes it is fine but you never know. “Death” shouldn’t be an issue except for the really strange outliers, and you can never account for everyone.

    3. Metal Gru*

      Yes, I think a straightforward brief explanation is best.

      I wonder if you could touch on “in retrospect, I should have…” (taken FMLA, spoken to management etc)? The reason I say this is if an interviewee said to me that they were fired because of this situation etc I’d be wondering if this speaks to how they handle situations in general – will they just press on trying to keep it afloat without communicating or asking for help? I wouldn’t directly probe about that in response to the death story but I would make sure to ask questions later about dealing with situations etc. Just a thought.

      1. Hyaline*

        I agree with this–I can see how in an interview, “spinning things for positive” might seem icky when you’re considering parental death, but there is a lesson that the LW learned here–that attempting to do it all is not always feasible. I think acknowledging that would be to their benefit, because as you say, maybe they only have so many parental deaths that they’ll deal with, but how do they deal with problem in general? It’s possible that the larger pattern of “I try to handle too much and don’t involve my manager until it’s too late and my do-it-myself solo attitude could cost the company money or create issues” could be there. If they head that off–“I realize in retrospect that I should have taken FMLA/should have involved my manager/whatever, and I’ve learned to be a better judge of my limits” would really reassure me. (Of course, I recognize that we’re nice people, not robots wanting to hire robots, but.)

        1. Sloanicota*

          I think “I was let go after my dad died. In retrospect, I should have taken FMLA but I thought I could push through” is a very human statement and if I were the interviewer I would get it.

          1. AlsoADHD*

            Yes, just say this! Now if there’s a check box in applications (which I’ve not seen in awhile outside regulated industries), that might be an auto reject and sucks. But if you get to an interview, saying you have been fired and saying essentially this makes it a non-issue for new employer.

      2. LaminarFlow*

        Yes – I came here to say something similar. I don’t ask people if/why they were terminated from a job, and I can’t say I have ever been asked that question in an interview (I have ticked a yes/no box during the application process tho).

        A few years ago, a candidate brought up the reason she was terminated from a job, and she gave a really good outline of how she was the primary caregiver for her son, who went through leukemia. She mentioned that she used FMLA/PTO/all resources available to her, but her performance still suffered. I am not a parent, and I have no experience with caregiving, but HELLOOOOO I can’t imagine a world in which caregiving for a child or parent with a terminal illness wouldn’t affect someone’s job performance.

        I encourage LW to tell interviewers that they were a caregiver for their dad during his terminal illness. And, while they didn’t use FMLA then, they have a different perspective now, and they would use FMLA for it.

        1. I'm Not Phyllis*

          I haven’t been asked that question before either and honestly … ick. That’s a question with answers that could have so many nuances that it seems a bit unfair to me, unless they’re willing to delve a little deeper. (If I was fired for slacking off 20 years ago, but I learned a big lesson that I haven’t repeated – I probably wouldn’t mention it, but technically that would be dishonest right?)

          LW, I was let go from a job for very similar reasons (I couldn’t do my job and look after my mom 24/7 … I got my notice just a few weeks before she passed). Unfortunately I was on contract with no FMLA to use, so I was just kind of stuck trying to do both. You handled it the best you could – and I’m sorry about the loss of your dad.

          1. SprawledOut*

            I help a lot of folks prep for interviews, and this type of question so often trips people up because they think it’s best to answer honestly, and the honest answer is rarely what the hiring manager is actually looking for. But what they ARE looking for is often so context-dependent that it’s hard to give one sure phrasing that will always work.

            1. Hannah Lee*

              Plus with things that are highly charged, like going through the terminal illness and death of a parent, it is SO easy to uncork more details than you planned if you bring it up. Especially if the interviewer happens to seem sympathetic/empathetic and you haven’t really processed a lot of your big feelings around it.

              Thinking it through, planning what you’ll say and why helps you stick to what needs to be said (for the purposes of your application for the job) and even identify which words, phrases, reflections might put you at risk of getting emotional in the moment so you can avoid them.

      3. Reba*

        Another good thing about this approach is that it keeps the conversation flowing. Many people respond very awkwardly to mentions of death, so OP can keep the focus on the interview by sharing further thoughts on their professional stuff during that time, and not inadvertently leaving the interviewer feeling stumped about what to say about OP’s loss.

      4. Don’t know what to call myself*

        I’ve coached employees who were planning to interview for internal promotions, and this is exactly the advice I give. If they ask you a question about your work history and the only answer you have for them is something negative, add something about how you would probably do it differently if you were going into the situation knowing what you know now.

        For this LW, that could look something like “in retrospect, I should probably have applied for FMLA, but at the time I was so overwhelmed with my family situation and my work responsibilities that it didn’t occur to me.” It shows that you’ve done the internal work to improve your knowledge and judgment for the future, and interviewers like to see that candidates are capable of personal growth.

      5. BethDH*

        This was my thought. Focus on what would be different. You will deal with horrible life events other times in your employment, and I’d want to know that you knew how to handle that inevitable situation.
        I would never expect an employee to act as though their outside life doesn’t exist and it would raise flags for me if I thought you 1) didn’t know how to ask for help 2) didn’t communicate proactively 3) expected that the ideal was just proceeding as normal when something big happens. That third one is important for how you relate to your colleagues and direct reports.

      6. RCB*

        I really like this and agree that it’s a good addition here, saying that if you could go back in time you’d have taking FMLA but instead thought you could handle it all. It’s a very human response and shows that you messed up but you know what the problem is, it won’t recur, and you learned from it all.

    4. nnn*

      I agree with this take, and I might even nudge the wording a bit further away from “my father got sick” and more towards “my father was dying” – use a phrase like “terminally ill” or “end of life” or whatever works for you. That emphasizes both the severity of the situation and the rareness of the situation.

      I’m sorry about your Dad.

    5. basil and thyme*

      Yes, I agree. My spouse was fired about a month after my mother died. So, to answer the question about firing, he says : “Yes, a few weeks after my mother-in-law died”. It’s enough. So, to the OP, I would say answer the question with “Yes, a few weeks (months) after my dad died”. It’s short, it explains a lot. And, I’m sorry for your loss; may his memory be a blessing.

      1. londonedit*

        I think this is a great solution – you could even expand it just a tiny bit and say ‘Yes; my dad was terminally ill, and I was fired from that job a few weeks [months] after he died’. Sums up the situation very clearly without needing any further detail.

      2. metadata minion*

        This might be me being bad enough at picking up hints that management is not for me, but I wouldn’t understand what you meant by that. To me, sounds looks like someone bizarrely decided to fire your husband because his mother-in-law died, rather than that he was obviously caring for her and/or you and so his performance suffered.

        1. Hyaline*

          Yeah, I think if there isn’t enough context or connection given, it could even come off as just unrelated…sounding not like “My work suffered due to the situation and I was let go” and more like “yeah, and shoot dang, I’d already had a really bad year.”

          1. Hell in a Handbasket*

            Agreed…someone being weirdly vague like this for no reason would actually lead me to suspect that the firing had nothing to do with the dad’s death, but that they were trying to imply that it did without outright lying.

    6. Mouse named Anon*

      I agree with this take. As I have gotten older, I decided to be a bit more “human” in my interviews. Although its not the same as you LW (loosing a parent), I tend to let my interviewers know a little bit more about me. I want them to know I have kids and a family. I will be a dedicated employee at work, but after work I am a Mom. I will need time off for doc appts, school events and sick kids. I say it in a more professional tone. I judge their reaction. If I don’t like it I won’t continue the interview process. It’s worked out so far and I thankfully have worked at a few places that are very flexible.

      1. RCB*

        I am the same way. I don’t get into overshare territory but I am not as buttoned up as “experts” say you should be, because my thought is that if I am being myself and that’s a problem then it’s really not going to work out well when I work there, so better that we all find that out now.

    7. Georgina Sands*

      I’m hiring and interviewing at the moment, and from that perpective, I totally agree. This version would give me no worries at all, whereas the “performance-related” one definitely would, and the vaguer one might. Honestly, interviewers are human too and caring for a terminally ill parent and letting work slip in the circumstances is very understandable and there’s no need to hide it – if you’re comfortable telling the truth, I think that’s the best way to go.

    8. learnedthehardway*

      I agree – it’s a) true, b) completely explains the “performance” issues, and c) won’t recur.

      Being specific but very concise will give the employer assurance that the person not only had a good reason for their termination (in fact, it’s quite likely to make a reasonable person think the former employer was Scrooge personified), but also they will also note that the OP is professional about how they communicate difficult subjects.

      1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        That’s a good point. Being matter-of-fact about the firing shows that the LW is consistently professional, even when badmouthing the former employer would be totally understandable.

    9. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      I like this advice. A response that’s too vague will probably leave some questions in the interviewer’s mind, particularly around the risk that the issue will recur. And a decent interviewer won’t pressure you for more details, so they’ll be left with the questions and uncertainty.

      I’m sorry about your dad and that your job search has been so hard.

    10. ferrina*

      I think LW needs to tailor their response to the interviewer. If the interviewer has been more compassionate, go with RCB’s script. If everything has been more business-like, go with Alison’s script.

      There is no one-size-fits-all here. The interviewer wants to know that whatever happened to get you fired won’t happen again, but different interviewers will be convinced by different things. Some will be sympathetic to OP’s situation. Others might be offput (I’ve had managers who thought “I toughed it out, so everyone should be able to tough it out”). Tailor your response based on the (limited) information you have about that manager.

      No matter what you do, make your answer factual and something that you can easily move on from. You don’t want to be remembered as “the candidate who lost their father”- you want to be remembered for your skills and expertise.

    11. Baunilha*

      I agree. I had to quit my job when my mom was terminally ill, and when I started job hunting again after she died, I was very open with interviewers. Most were very understanding, and being as specific as you can (within reason, as RCB said) is kinda like clarifying that the situation is now resolved and it won’t come up again, as opposed to a illness that could flare up and cause another round of absences and low performance. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is.

      I’m sorry about your dad and everything you went through, OP.

  6. Freelance Bass*

    #5 My first job was at a company that had a lot of interns, and even the info and application were online, we got calls all. The. Time. Not to mention people who wandered in off the street. It was a mix of inexperience and cluelessness, but I think there’s a lot about entering the job market that’s not obvious until you learn better.

    I also cringe to think about my younger self applying and interviewing for internships. Young Bass had a lot to learn…

    1. a perfectly normal-sized space bird*

      I agree, about a lot that’s not obvious until you learn. When my spouse was in grad school and needed an internship, the school was very supportive and handled all the contacts and provided students with applications from a large pool of vetted internship programs.

      Twenty years later, I get in to grad school and am told “you need an internship, find one” with no other explanation. My advisor just shrugged. My classmates were equally as perplexed. Of all the relevant places I was interested in (followed by the places that were fine, then the places that would do if nothing else, etc.), maybe half had that info even on their website. I’m allergic to talking to people on the phone, so I prioritized those that had online applications/online application instructions (or email contacts when no application was available). Most of those I never heard back from and of the few that did respond all said they were full up on interns.

      I then tried calling those I hadn’t heard back from after a few months, most said to email them my request or apply. When I said yes, I emailed/applied on X date and was following up, they said someone will get back to me. The rest said they were full up. By that point, the deadline was fast approaching, so I contacted my advisor, who shrugged again, then a different professor, who actually helped me find one at the last minute. Since it’s been about eight years, I am pretty sure I’m not hearing back from any of the places who said someone would get back to me.

      So while people not following clear instructions is something that irritates me, I do sympathize with those that call despite info being on the website. They may have no support from their schools or no clue what they’re doing or were told incorrect information, like gumption.

      1. nnn*

        That’s the whole reason I never applied for a co-op program in high school or in university!

        The information I received (in my capacity as a student who was considering applying to the program but hadn’t applied yet) was that you have to find yourself a co-op placement. I received no indication that the school provided any help or guidance or support or even a list of employers who accept co-op students.

        At the time I was making these decisions, I was a teenager who had never had a job because employers were reluctant to hire teenagers who had never had a job. So I saw no chance of success in an employability program whose first step, as far as I could tell, was “find a job.”

      2. JustaTech*

        Yes about the no support! I had one class in undergrad (a half class, even) where the professor decided that we should all get internships at museums.
        Except that we all had a full course load, lived at the very edge of LA county, and many of us didn’t have cars.
        The professor didn’t have *any* suggestions beyond “have you tried LACMA?”. Yeah, I’m sure that there are a ton of internships at the most famous museum in the county that are willing to accept us for like 2 hours a week and it’s a minimum 2 hour drive each way and we don’t have cars.
        I ended up convincing my library job to let me set up some displays and call that a “museum internship”.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      It’s also why SOOOO many job/internship postings still say “no calls please”. Everyone still gets some calls anyway, but if the ads didn’t say that, they’d get even more. It may or may not have lessened a little in the age of people hating phones, but it’s still nowhere near going away entirely.

    3. Spoooz*

      Honestly, their parents may well be actively pushing for them to do this. I’m a millennial and my parents wanted me to do various totally cringe and ineffective things when I started looking for internships in a field they knew nothing about.

  7. nnn*

    In the situation described in #5, it would be useful if whoever normally interfaced with the college (maybe that’s OP’s boss?) knew what the internship application process looked like for the students of that college, so if this situation ever arises again they can say something like “Go to the Internship Coordination Office’s website and fill out the Internship Application Form” (or whatever the actual answer actually is, I don’t know how it works).

    And maybe, in parallel, they could talk to their contact at the college and sort of informally ask about it, or informally mention that someone out there is giving students bad advice.

    (I realize OP is not the person in this role, but the person who is in this role is better placed to help head this off.)

    1. Spencer Hastings*

      Yeah. And unless interns are chosen by lottery from the entire student body of Local College, “be a student at Local College” is definitely not the right answer to “how do I apply for an internship”. They seem to be asking, like, “is there an online application form” or something.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        “Are you a student at Local College?” would be a simple question.

        If yes: Contact XYZ. Good luck.

        If no: This program is only for students of Local College.

        1. Momma Bear*

          I think this is a good way to handle that going forward. Keep it simple. Most colleges will have companies visit and do internship/job fairs or have an internship office. It’s a better place to start than cold-calling random companies – UNLESS they have internships on their website like we do. If it’s a standard job application, then go for it, but via proper job applying channels.

      3. AlsoADHD*

        Yeah, since they re-asked after LW mentioned the uni, I feel like they are a student there! It doesn’t seem that hard to share the resources to go to (even boss’s email if it’s actually available and people are supposed to contact them) if they exist. If they don’t or LW isn’t supposed to share, just say that “I’m sorry in my role I am not supposed to refer to that process or get involved. I suggest looking for resources at the uni maybe but I can’t help you.” Be direct if you literally can’t help for a reason or direct them with a contact if you can.

        1. Spencer Hastings*

          Yeah, that was the implication I got too!

          (In college, I had several experiences of writing to a potential grad program or whatever, and receiving a response along the lines of “please see our website.” When I had already read the website and was asking questions about stuff that *wasn’t* on the website! So maybe I am just biased, but I tend to be sympathetic to someone who seems to be getting a response implying that their questions are stupid or illegitimate when that’s not necessarily the case.)

          1. Also-ADHD*

            Yeah – and I had bosses like this too or professors. Then, I’d follow up and clearly reference what I saw vs. didn’t and they’d think I was a fussbudget. I had one boss once, way back, who refused to say either he didn’t know or couldn’t tell me when I asked questions. He’d either act like I was dumb, try to not answer the question (never works on me) with a non-answer answer, or start to melt down. The latter is how I realized he was avoidant of something, but it was just an inability to deal with not being able to answer everything. He was happy to help anyone at any time when he knew/could share the answer, but resented anyone asking something either outside of his domain or that was ambiguous to us.

      4. fhqwhgads*

        Maybe I read the conversation wrong, but it seemed like the caller didn’t say “yes I am a student there, how do I apply?” and so possibly “be a student at Local College” said that meaning more like “if you’re not a student at That College, you can’t apply, so stop trying to get around it”. It’s possible that’s not what the student really meant, but I took the subtext as something along the lines of “you are not going through the right channels here so stop.” Not that they thought that was a real answer.

    2. Hyaline*

      I realize this is outside LW’s purview most likely, but it might also make sense to *put that information on the website*. LW references that boss’s email was on the website, but nothing about internships. I’d imagine that the magic phrasing “We have an excellent internship program with Sweet Valley Community College and accept applications only through the Sweet Valley CC Careers Office. Please see the Sweet Valley CC website at …. for more information” would help cut down on random inquiries? I guess…I don’t blame people “cold calling” if the information isn’t actually made available? How else are they supposed to find out?

      1. a perfectly normal-sized space bird*

        Yeah, I saw so many places that didn’t even have that information, despite being on the big list of employers the school handed out to everyone doing the internship path. I dislike cold calling so I generally avoided any of those. But other classmates did cold calling to whichever department seemed most relevant (usually HR, volunteer coordinators, general info lines) and got mixed results. Some got scolded for cold calling, some were directed to obscure parts of the company website that a reasonable person would only know was there if they had done the coding themselves. There were a couple of employers who were surprised the information wasn’t available and one that insisted students had to come to the office in person to pick up a paper application.

        On the plus side, if my niece or nephew ever need to do an internship and their school is lacking in assistance, I can at least offer sympathy and hopefully useful advice.

  8. Skippy*

    OP #1 I haven’t heard of an ADHD coach (or a company paying for one) before, but doesn’t this seem like the kind of thing that they would do? The coach can’t be responsible for Nicole’s performance, but I wonder what they’re taking OP’s company’s money to do if it’s not advising her on how to navigate the workplace with her diagnosis.

    1. Artemesia*

      People with serious executive function issues may not be able to ‘navigate the workplace’ or do the particular job. There may be roles they CAN do but it sounds like this isn’t one of them.

      1. Anonym*

        Perhaps, but Nicole seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of accommodations. Strong agree with Skippy – why isn’t the coach doing a better job guiding her on this? (I have ADHD as well; any decent therapist or coach should be giving her better direction here.)

        OP, if you’re willing, I’d share the Job Accommodation Network site with Nicole. It has great guidance on identifying what accommodations would help you based on your condition, and has good resources on understanding the process. I’ll add a link in response to this comment, but it’s super easy to find (you can search “askjan” and it’ll come up right away).

        1. Anon Y. Mouse*

          came here to suggest JAN too. At the very least it might give a ‘shopping list’ of ideas for for Nicole to try on

        2. Rebecca*

          The coach might very well be advising her on it, but the best coach can’t force a person to follow their advice. People ignore, disbelieve, or struggle with advice from professionals and experts all the time. I teach and coach teenagers with ADHD, and some of them just…don’t listen. Or they do, and they’re trying, but they haven’t mastered every skill I’ve advised them on yet. That doesn’t mean I’m not advising them.

      2. Anonym*

        Not sure if the previous comment I attempted is in moderation or lost in the ether, but a recommendation:
        OP, if you’re willing, I’d consider sharing the Job Accommodation Network site with Nicole. It’s a great resource to guide people through the accommodation process, and has lots of specific accommodation options organized by condition, including for ADHD. It could help her (and her coach – what is that person even doing??) select an appropriate path forward.

      3. Also-ADHD*

        Please don’t get in this mindset. I hate it. The jobs I do best are the jobs people say “This might be a job someone with ADHD can’t do” (very autonomous, higher level jobs that are desirable sometimes even). Every person’s functioning is different, and even if Sarah is struggling with this job, and even if it’s because of her ADHD, others with the same disability may thrive in it.

        Write clear job descriptions. Hold people to standards (accommodations aren’t about lowering standards for job performance as Alison says). But don’t say “Well, maybe this is a job people with ADHD can’t do” because it isn’t that kind of disorder and looks so broadly different. (So do most mental health disorders, autism, etc.) There isn’t a clear cut way to determine that – some disabilities may have that (like blind pilots) but I see it even with more clear cut disabilities and jobs that it absolutely isn’t true in (there ARE blind doctors, but I have been told “Well, we wouldn’t be able to hire blind doctors anyway – how could they become a doctor if blind”).

        1. SprawledOut*

          Agreed. I also have ADHD, and my brain thrives on complicated, detail-oriented, chaotic jobs that require you to have sixteen plates spinning at the same time. I’m not flawless, but I’ve cobbled together enough coping mechanisms to cover the parts I’m not good at, and I’m good enough at the rest that it makes up for a lot of the little things that get lost.

          There is no job that is inherently incompatible for people with X disability. With the right accommodations and supports, it’s possible. The issue is that you have to figure out the right accommodations and supports, and they need to be reasonable for the company to maintain – and right now, this employee is seems to have thrown up their hands about finding the right accommodations and just given up. Unfortunately, that’s really not something the company can figure out for her!

      4. RagingADHD*

        It might be a job Nicole can’t do, but executive function issues – even severe ones – show up extremely differently with different people, and in different contexts, and different life stages. I know a *lot* of people with executive function issues with outstanding performance at senior levels in jobs that require meeting deadlines, communicating effectively, and decision-making/prioritizing (per LW).

    2. Annie*

      It seems logical that a coach would help an employee with this. If they’re half decent, they’d run through the lists at https://askjan.org/disabilities/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder-AD-HD.cfm

      Given that the diagnosis is new to the employee, they might not have the slightest clue exactly what will actually help them perform essential work duties effectively. Ideally, the employee would have been given some variation of the “It’s okay if the first task app/focus timer/other assistive thing of a given type doesn’t work for you; we can always try a different one. Also, here’s some stuff you can do that doesn’t require permission from management” pep talk.

    3. Metal Gru*

      I have a colleague with ADHD and the company has engaged a coach like this to help them. It mainly seems to be about identifying areas they struggle with, developing and practicing strategies to assist with those things.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        Which I cannot figure out if the person doesn’t realize that having an accomodation doesn’t magically fix things, that you have to put in the work too or they are just using their need for accomodation as an excuse to not have to actually do the job while still getting paid.

        Either way this is on the person to figure out not the OP. ADA Accommodation is an interactive process involving input from both sides. If one side is unwilling to participate in the process, there’s not a lot you can do.

        1. Artemesia*

          This. The issue seems to be that the employee is not able to do the job with the assistance being provided.

    4. Tau*

      I work with an ADHD coach privately – never thought about having work pay for one before. It’s not a licensed field, at least where I am, so the quality of coaches is likely going to vary wildly. Mine is pretty much magic, but…

      * she takes her cues from me in terms of what to focus on, and I wouldn’t expect her to have a very nuanced sense of what’s realistic in terms of the workplace (she is basically a therapist in training with a strong ADHD focus). It’s possible that in OP’s case the coach, Nicole, or both have unrealistic expectations of how the boss should support how and how much work should be broken down for her and so aren’t working on how Nicole can figure that out herself.

      * no matter how good the coach is, ADHD is still a disability that no amount of targeted therapy is going to make go away (especially if Nicole is unmedicated, but medication is also not a silver bullet). It’s possible that Nicole is simply not able to meet the demands of this job.

    5. March*

      I have ADHD and my supervisor is also my official disability-accommodation guide?counselor? (struggling to find English equivalents for the words because I live in the Netherlands and my job is *unbelievably* accommodating of employees with ND or other disabilities)
      My point is: I still know I’m accountable for doing the core tasks that are in my job description and to be proactive in signaling any trouble I may encounter.
      Even in a country where things like this are comparably excellently run, it’s still hard to find a sustainable job with ADHD. However, it’s also something you have to accept: ADHD makes you need to work harder than neurotypicals for the same results.
      If I were Nicole’s ADHD coach, I would strongly recommend her looking into medication if she isn’t already on it. for me, the meds make the difference between ‘able to do the job’ and ‘failing at reality in all its forms’.

    6. Mid*

      Actually that’s exactly what an ADHD coach can do! Coaches can range in specific qualifications, from self-taught to LSW to Doctorates, but their general focus is helping people, often adults, with ADHD develop skills to support them at work and life in general. It’s not really therapy in the talk-therapy sense, it’s mostly focused on skill building and sometimes accountability (telling your coach you’ll work on XYZ this week and checking in later in the week to see if you’ve made progress on XYZ.) It’s more like brain PT, I guess. It’s about working on exercises and skills to make your ADHD manageable and to find your strengths and use those to support your weaknesses. (Personal example, I’m amazing in a crisis, and I’m terrible at remembering anything ever. So I’m great in roles with tight deadlines and lots of quick responses, and I need to make sure I take notes about everything at all times because no matter how obvious something feels in the moment, my sieve of a brain will likely not be able to recall it 2 hours later. I worked with a coach to figure out how to utilize my skills and support my deficits in a way that keeps me employed and happy.)

      So in Nicole’s case, going to the coach and saying “I’m really struggling with executive dysfunction at work, it’s showing up in my lack of ability to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines in particular, what skills and strategies can we work on to help me with this deficit?” would be the perfect use for a coach. It’s absolutely not a job for her manager to do, since many jobs have a requirement to figure out how to prioritize tasks and how to meet deadlines. The coach might have suggestions like blocking off regular chunks of time for each type of task (mornings 8-9 is Email, 9-11 is Llama grooming spreadsheet updates and data validation, 11-12 is returning customer calls, 12-1 is lunch and a walk, 1-4 is wrangling time, 4-5 is checking to do list, misc tasks, check email, prep priorities for tomorrow, for example), or making a priority ranking chart (task type A, anything related to escape llama finding, is always immediately done, task type B, food logging, is done daily, task type C, outreach and llama petting, is done as time allows and needs at least an hour a week), or figuring out if Nicole is an “eat the frog” kind of person (do the bad task first, save the fun/easy tasks for later) or a “warm up to it” kind of person (start with easy/smaller tasks first and then end with the harder tasks), or whatever other strategies she needs to implement at work.

      1. WS*

        My partner has ADHD and was fantastic at the urgent and immediate parts of her medical job (including very difficult tasks) but not great at the endless admin that went with it. This is exactly what an ADHD coach helped with. This is why being specific and documenting with Nicole may help, because she can take it to the ADHD coach and they can problem solve.

        1. Lab snep*

          I feel like I need to find an ADHD coach. My executive dysfunction mostly hits at home now, but also affects my continuing education, and having someone give me some help and not be “lol it’s easy” would be great.

          2. Tau*

            I started working with one this year and the difference has been like night and day. She actually managed to help me find something that is working for my bedtime procrastination problem when I’d pretty much resigned myself through wobbling through life in a sleep-deprived haze. Coaches will obviously vary, but I highly recommend giving it a try if you can.

          3. Mid*

            I’d strongly encourage it! If you’re at a university, you could see if they have any referral resources (not sure if your continuing ed is at a university or a different type of org), or you could see if there are local ADHD support groups that might have referrals, talk to your doctor or therapist, check out the professional directory on ADDA.org, or just a normal google search and see what’s around you! A lot of coaches are virtual, which may or may not be effective for you, you might respond better with someone in person. Coaches can also help with home life stuff as well, not just work!

            There is a wide range of training and qualifications in coaches, though some of the best coaches I’ve seen aren’t necessarily the ones with the most credentials, so also don’t be afraid to interview a few different ones and see who seems like the best fit, and to switch to a new coach if the one you work with doesn’t seem effective! It’s also okay if you don’t have a complete picture of everything you want to work on right away, a coach can and should help you figure out what areas you need support in, as well as working on strategies for improving in those areas.

      2. Tau*

        Yeah, I have a comment trapped in moderation talking about why this might not be working, but realistically this is exactly the sort of thing my coach and I would work on: OK, I want to do X (submit my expense reports on time, retain information from video-only meetings where I’m a passive attendant, avoid missing deadlines because I lost track of a task or started it too late, go to bed at a reasonable hour every day, etc.) and my ADHD is currently making it impossible. How can we work around that? And then we brainstorm and strategise. A lot of the deficits are stuff you really do need to figure out workarounds and strategies for yourself because it’s simply not reasonable to offload that work onto other people, either at work or privately.

        The role of the manager here, IMO, is more about being flexible regarding possibly unusual work organisation approaches and tools – ex, I recently started a new job and am thinking about asking my manager if she’d be OK with me knitting in the office, because that’s the single best solution I’ve found to the “I cannot focus on video calls if I’m not an active participant” issue. There’s probably some potential for having specific tasks moved off you or having extra support with them if they’re not part of your core job duties and doing so wouldn’t be an undue burden (have always wondered if having someone help me with expense reports would be a reasonable thing to ask, because I need to fill one out maybe once or twice a year at most and they’ve proven a huge problem), but the bulk of the organisation you do have to figure out a way to do yourself in most jobs.

      3. Chelle*

        Agreed with all of your points regarding Nicole! Just wanted to chime in on your “terrible at remembering things” point — I am also a person with ADHD who struggles with this and had to develop systems around it, and now I work as a project manager where I have to help *everyone* remember things :) Turns out a lot of our strategies also help neurotypical people!

      4. Anonym*

        Brain PT is such an apt description! Thank you for that, and for this incredibly helpful comment.

      5. Bebop*

        Any tips for finding a good ADHD coach? I tried once but of course the catch is that my ADHD makes the process of researching, contacting people, deciding who to go with, and following up difficult to manage.

        1. Mid*

          Try social media/your local community! Are there any ADHD support groups (even ones for kids)? Any Facebook groups for ADHD/neurodivergent people in your area? Are you near a university that has a counseling program? Do you currently have a therapist you could ask for a referral? Or a GP? (GP is less likely to have a referral, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, especially if your doctor uses a messaging app so you can just send a quick message and see what they say.)

          I’d suggest looking locally first, because then you can get a personal referral instead of just the top hit on Google, but if you aren’t on social media or don’t have access to more local searching methods, ADDA.org has a professional directory and you can search for coaches on there. There are over 400 listings currently tagged as ADHD coach, and you can narrow it down by your local area (there are 11 listed for Chicago, a less overwhelming number.) There is also the ADHD Coaches Organization that has a directory and you can filter by location and area of focus.

          And then, once you get 1-3 different options from those sources, stop there and reach out to those ones! Don’t overwhelm yourself with options. If you don’t like the first few/they don’t respond, then go and add a few more to the list.

          Also, in my experience, ADHD coaches are particularly aware of their target population’s issues with following up, and tend to be pretty proactive about reaching out to clients once you reach out once.

    7. Chelle*

      As someone with ADHD and a job that is all about vague assignments with external-facing deadlines, I would expect the coach they’re paying for to be able to suggest strategies for Nicole, and if she can’t it’s either a) an ineffective coach, b) a job that isn’t right for her, or c) both. If Nicole were the one writing in, I have things I would suggest to her, but that’s not the manager’s job to do, especially since there’s a company-paid coach involved.

      1. ferrina*

        Exactly this. I also have ADHD, though I’ve never had a company pay for an ADHD coach (that would be amazing!). Like many ADHDers, I had to make do with trying to coach myself (big shout out to How To ADHD youtube channel and their great tips). After a year, Nicole should have some clarity on strategies to help her. “Delegate a significant part of my role” is not a strategy that the company has to accept, especially when the part of her role that she’s trying to delegate is an integral part of the role!

        Accommodations are important and often companies don’t do enough with them, but in this case it sounds like the company has been more than fair. Sometimes someone is just not right for the job. Sometimes the employee has wishful thinking about their capabilities (regardless of whether they are neurotypical or neurodiverse). And sometimes people lean into excuses for why they can’t do something they don’t want to do (again, both for neurotypical or neurodiverse). No way for us or even OP to know what is happening here, but it is both fair and legal for OP to hold Nicole to the role requirements and not take on accommodations that cause undue hardship for the business (and having someone organize Nicole’s role would take significant time that the organization does not have- again, a key part of her role is being able to organize and prioritize her workload)

        1. Strive to Excel*

          I’ll add – the diagnosis is new, but the behaviors aren’t. The diagnosis shouldn’t be “Oh, I’m ADHD, so I should have X behaviors” – it should be “oooooh, all these things I’ve had trouble with now make *so much more sense*”.

          I don’t have a formal diagnosis of anything but I know for sure there are some parts of admin that I suck at and don’t enjoy doing. I could be getting coaching and accommodations coming out of my ears and I’d STILL be not great at them. So I don’t do them and I don’t look for jobs which involve them in large quantities.

          1. Dust Bunny*

            Seconding this. I’m autistic, not ADHD, but I wasn’t diagnosed until college. It didn’t really change anything, though, except slightly reassuring me that my long history of academic and social failures wasn’t just a fluke.

    8. Ellis Bell*

      This is it, really. One of the fun things about neurodivergency is you don’t always know what is a big deal, and what isn’t. Also, you struggle to put in accommodations quickly (I would love to go back and give mine to my twenty year old self) but a coach should be able to give more guidelines. First, though, people need to know the severity of the problem and delivering the news – that’s OP’s job.

    9. AlsoADHD*

      ADHD coaches are real (I had one as a kid the school system had to pay for, but there are ones for adults) and not new (I’m old and being diagnosed as a young girl was so unusual that my school lacked appropriate resources, hence paying for external support). I’ve worked with Benefits and not seen a company pay for one as a standard accommodation but it’s not impossible for a more senior role, just like any other kind of coach. Or with development funds I have seen people pay for them, but that was using their allotment.

      The issue I have with this story is the person is either not suitable for the job. It’s true not all work can be organized for you; in fact, I excel in organizing my work and do better when I organize it myself, which can be true of people with ADHD if they have enough autonomy and know how they work best—that’s something a coach or CBT might support for people with ADHD or similar disorders and is a crucial step for many folks with ADHD to be functional and well regulated. It sounds like the employee isn’t asserting how they work best and being thwarted so much as just saying they feel disorganized. (If someone else did organize my work, it would probably feel more disordered to me ironically, because my brain works differently than theirs most likely. So I’m not clear on if the work is organized or not either!)

      Now that said, I can imagine a situation where the culture actively thwarted her ability to function and organize. Not just imagine—I’ve been there for sure. Some jobs would always be torture for me (not usually higher level jobs, but like a receptionist job would be awful for my brain because it’s so reactive — though I’ve met people with ADHD who seem to prefer reactive jobs). But I’ve also had jobs I could absolutely do if people would stop hindering me needlessly! That I left because they were ableist and had a one track idea of ways of working and it didn’t pair well (luckily work has evolved and you can see that even with this blog and how it deals with situations now vs say 15 years ago). But this company is asking for solutions and not being told any that work by the employee. At that point, I’m thinking it’s less about accommodating and more about fit or the employee not stepping up to address.

      The irony is based on what the employee is communicating, she may excel on a PIP (the clear and urgent nature) and then still struggle after it’s done. This is an issue with PIPs in general, but might but heightened by situations like this. It does sound like that’s the direction to start in though.

    10. Aggretsuko*

      I’m impressed by this company actually coming up with accommodations and not denying her them. When I had to ask for accommodations at my old job, I asked for a job coach since they had determined that nothing I did was right, but they denied it.

      That said, I will note that I found it hard to even think of accommodations that would truly help me (as opposed to asking for something token like a standing desk to say I’d asked for something I knew they would do because they had those desks), and everyone is all “Use the ASK JAN website!” and frankly, I didn’t find anything really helpful there that worked for me.

    11. SpringIsForPlanting!*

      “Not have to do the thing they’re congenitally bad at” can definitely be an accommodation IF the thing is a small part of the work and there’s someone else to do it. I got great relief from leveling with my boss that I sucked at the “regular meaningless paperwork task with no precise deadline” and asking if it could be assigned to a junior coworker who was stellar at it. However, I kicked butt at the rest of my job. So I could frame it as “let me lean into my strengths.”

  9. Pumpkin cat*

    For #5, wanna bet that the “particular college” is quite an elite one? In this specific case, the person wanting the internship has no viable way to apply for it, so what else was she/he supposed to do?

    1. Looper*

      I would not bet it was “an elite one”. I would bet it is one geographically close to the employer that has an approved curriculum which the internship duties align with. Internships aren’t jobs, they are essentially classes.

    2. Indolent Libertine*

      They were supposed to do… what everyone else from this college who has previously had an internship at this company did? Which apparently didn’t include cold calling since LW sounds like they haven’t encountered this before?

      1. Science KK*

        That’s the shocking part to me, you went through the trouble to hunt down a phone number but couldn’t be bothered to Google the application requirements?

        I guess someone could have hyped them up to call & ask if they could apply without attending that school but then they lost their nerve when it happened.

    3. Dr. Rebecca*

      They weren’t supposed to do anything; these things aren’t egalitarian, they’re based on who has the ability and opportunity and is chosen for both. The options aren’t “follow the rules” or “find a way to get around them,” they’re “follow the rules” or “don’t get the internship.”

    4. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I wouldn’t take the bet. My company had an internship program with the community college 2 miles away because its technical certification programs matched the training needs for our factory.

    5. Lacey*

      There’s no reason to suppose that. I worked for a company that got interns from a very tiny, obscure local college. Because it was local and asked to partner with us. No other reason.

    6. RIP Pillowfort*

      No because academia is weird. My field only has 3 major programs in our 50+ universities in my state. When I was actually pursuing my degree, it was 2.

      Neither school was elite by anyone’s standards.

    7. Observer*

      wanna bet that the “particular college” is quite an elite one?

      I see no evidence of that. And why is it relevant?

      In this specific case, the person wanting the internship has no viable way to apply for it, so what else was she/he supposed to do?

      Find another opportunity. Regardless of whether there is an equity issue or not (and we have no reason to believe that there is), the reality is that if someone does not the required qualifications for a job then trying to bypass the application process is generally not going to work. Putting pressure on someone who really doesn’t have the power to change the policy is *definitely* not going to work.

      There are situations where it could be appropriate to go up the chain or take other measures to make a company change it’s policies or procedures. But there is no reason to think that this is one of those situations. And even if it is, the way to deal with it is to do your homework (eg find the public information yourself) and then address the people who actually can make a difference.

    8. sparkle emoji*

      Nope. I went to school in a major city with lots of universities, including an Ivy. Many companies had co-ops with one of the other universities because they had a heavy emphasis on co-ops and included an extra year to facilitate them. Nothing to do with the prestige.

  10. Looper*

    LW3- Why is putting up signs designating some stalls as ‘women only’ less of a burden than putting up signs that say ‘this restroom is shared by all coworkers- please clean up after yourself’? Unless your coworkers are true sociopaths, I think this is a case of people being too careless to pay attention to what you’re doing. Also, in my experience, women can be MUCH worse about urinating all over toilet seats because many insist on using the “hover method”.

    2. Annie*

      On one hand, putting up a sign is putting up a sign, but on the other hand, if a change preceded something undesirable happening, it makes sense to reverse whatever change preceded the undesirable thing to stop the undesirable thing.

    3. Kella*

      I don’t think the “women only” stalls is a good idea but I think the difference is there is much more social stigma around men around going into a women’s-only designated place, than there is for men to ignore requests to clean up after themselves. It’s honestly a socially expected behavior that women will complain that there’s a mess and men will ignore it. It’s also easier to socially enforce a gendered stall than leaving your stall clean.

      I don’t know if this is the best way but I think my method would be social shaming. The second I get out of the bathroom and am in earshot of people I think are contributing to the problem, I would find someone to loudly complain to. “Ew, the bathroom is so gross! It’s like someone is taking a pee sprinkler in there, it’s disgusting!” And ideally the person you’re complaining to will respond in kind. This won’t curb the worst, most shameless offenders but it might be a wake up call to some of the problem employees.

      1. Guacamole Bob*

        I was wondering about making some signs available that can be stuck on the door when the bathroom is found in unacceptable condition (“Cleaning needed” or something). That would let people avoid the worst of it, potentially lead to some social shame around the bathroom conditions, and encourage management to increase the frequency of the bathrooms being checked and cleaned.

    4. Irish Teacher.*

      I think it’s more that the men in that specific company are worse than the women in the company and that the LW knows that because there were no problems in the women only bathrooms.

      And I don’t think it’s about putting up signs saying “women only” is less of a burden, more that it’s more likely to be followed. Most people do not go into bathrooms that are designated as not being for them whereas signs like “please clean up after yourself” are vague enough that they don’t tend to have much effect. Most people aren’t thinking, “I’m a messy person who doesn’t clean up after myself.” I agree it’s more likely to be carelessness and I don’t think a sign will make people less likely to be careless.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Now I don’t really think the answer is to make some bathrooms women only because well, for one thing, it’s probably a small number of men at the company and the other men shouldn’t have to deal with gross bathrooms either and besides, it does seem to be a step back as regards inclusivity and somebody has pointed out below how things like this can become excuses as to why bathrooms should be segregated.

        I don’t really have an answer. Given the reference to toilets being broken, I’m guessing it’s a small number of people in the company, who happen to be men, who are very careless or who don’t respect workplace property and while I guess it’s worth trying a sign asking people to be more careful, I wouldn’t be too optimistic.

        1. Workerbee*

          Non pee-hose men might then step up to admonish the pee-hosers if the women-doing-the-cleaning gets removed from the equation.

    5. But Of Course*

      I’ve taken malicious delight over the years in adding a small tarnish to a respected local businesswoman’s reputation by letting people know she doesn’t wash her hands in the bathroom. (She is also a monster to her staff and encourages toxicity in the workplace; strangely, people find washing your hands more compelling! I choose not to speculate on why.)

      Basically, an awful lot of people you share bathrooms with either ARE sociopaths or so very self-absorbed they don’t care what other people witness. I would not assume for one second that signs of any kind will solve this problem.

      1. I don't work in this van*

        My company used to share a floor with a “research” organization that is considered a hate group by the SPLC. In addition to deliberately burning popcorn because the CEO preferred it, none of the women who worked there ever washed their hands in the bathroom, and the men used to take hours-long work calls from the men’s room, which we could hear through our walls. It was all very on-brand for the abhorrent work they did.

    6. Parenthesis Guy*

      They think that the bathrooms were much cleaner before the men got to them, and so they concluded that the men are the problem. As such, they feel that if the men don’t clean up on their own, a sign won’t help any. The question really is whether they’re careless or if they’re clueless (or doing it on purpose).

  11. Student*

    #3: Have you tried painting a couple of the stalls pink, while leaving the rest painted some other color?

    It works surprisingly well to deter men from stealing tools. It might also deter them from being tools.

    I suspect that the Venn diagram of “men who think the color pink will give them cooties” and “men who think they are too imprortant to aim their own piss” is probably a circle.

    1. Common sense toilet control*

      Or, hear me out, maybe it’s a visual cue that the pink is not intended for the men and they abide by that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      1. Lab snep*

        I am a man who would use the pink stall knowing it is clean.

        I support this. (I also sit, because why make a mess?).

      2. Fnordpress*

        Pink used to be associated with young boys. “Pink” doesn’t mean “for girls.”

        1. Common sense toilet control*

          Okay. But we live in the 21st century where the case is it’s associated with feminine products, and is general a visual cue for gendered differentiation. You can argue whether or not it’s “right”, or whether or not it’s “sexist”, or even if it’s a product of the “patriarchy”, but we tend to have those cues wired into us.

          Not all disabled people use a wheelchair, but the painted wheelchair sign (generally) deters abled people from parking there.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            Sure, but the context of the suggestion you’re responding to is:
            Woman has her own tools with her name on them. Man coworker takes them, despite the it being clearly labeled not his.
            Woman replaces her tools with pink ones with her name on them. Man coworker stops taking them.
            Someone else’s name being on it is a visual cue that it was not for them and it didn’t stop them. Only once it was pink did it stop.
            So, hear me out, “or they took the visual cue it wasn’t for them and abided by it” was probably not in play.

    3. bamcheeks*

      Oh I love this. I used to live in a student accommodation in Germany where we had a •schöne Bad” (the pretty bathroom) and a basic Bad. The only difference was that the schöne Bad had brightly coloured shower curtains, a fluffy toilet seat cover and a fluffy bathmat. Overwhelmingly, the women used the schöne Bad and kept it schön, and if the men did use it (which was totally fine and normal!) they tried to keep it schön.

      I wonder you could socially-engineer this just by making one of the bathroom feel more pretty— hand lotion, pot pourri, paint, whatever! Just give the sense that this is not the place you go to be gross!

      1. bamcheeks*

        Right, but they’re under 12. Hopefully they’re not going to grow up into the kind of fully grown men who don’t clean up after themselves!

      2. allathian*

        Make them clean up after themselves at least once, and it may help.

        In my son’s case, he decided that he’ll sit down to pee from then on. I don’t care, problem solved!

        1. KateM*

          Yeah, let them do whatever they do, but make it a condition that the bathroom must stay as clean as it was before.

        2. Oolie*

          One of the best things I did during COVID was to teach my then-elementary-aged kids how to thoroughly scrub the bathroom. My son, who often didn’t bother to put up the toilet seat when he peed, suddenly remembered to do so every time. Keeping a box of Clorox wipes next to the toilet also helped to encourage a quick wipe of the seat, so that might be a practical suggestion for the work situation, too

          1. londonedit*

            The problem with wipes is that some people seem incapable of realising that they shouldn’t be flushed down the loo, so then you just end up with a plumbing problem.

        3. Lacey*

          Yup. Cleaning the restroom was my job as a kid. Until my brother’s aim became an issue – my mom decided this meant cleaning the restroom was now his job and that was an extremely effective fix.

    6. But Of Course*

      Depends. I worked for Wizards of the Coast the year they figured out girls play roleplaying ganes (2008, in case any women reading this remember playing in the 90s – we don’t exist). To celebrate they created a promotional pink die … which male rpgers had no hesitation about taking because they were already not seen as super manly by their peers.

      1. juliebulie*

        I was playing in the 80s. But the only way I got to do it was to be DM (because I was the only one with the rules). I couldn’t play with the boys because their girlfriends didn’t like it!

  12. Free Meerkats*

    In a long-ago previous job, I was the nighttime dispatcher/janitor at an FBO (the place to go if you want to learn to fly, rent a plane, take a charter, or end up on an air amblulance.) The office people were mainly women, the mechanics mainly men, and a decent split for the pilots, though that leaned about 70/30 male. The womens’ restroom was always dirtier than the mens’. Always. Yeah, the men sprinkle, but the women who hover are much worse.

    I talked with some of the folks who maintained the private pilot terminal and they said it was the same over there.

    1. Cat Tree*

      Yeah, I’m a bit surprised that so many commenters are experiencing clean women’s restrooms, and that the LW had clean ones before they became gender neutral.

      I have minimal experience with men’s bathrooms so maybe they’re even worse, but in my experience women’s bathrooms are always pretty gross. I guess I’m just unlucky? But it has been this way in pretty much every place I’ve worked and definitely public bathrooms at stores or restaurants.

      1. bamcheeks*

        My experience is that women’s bathrooms can be dirty, but men’s bathrooms stink in a way I’ve never experienced in women’s bathrooms— just a solid urine stench. That’s from going into them at things like venues where they’ve either recently or temporarily been made mixed-gender, and a few times when I was in food service jobs and responsible for cleaning bathrooms (which, uh, I often managed to get out of so I didn’t do it that many times!)

        That said, I’ve only noticed it when it’s been an actual men’s bathroom with urinals, so it could be just the way that urinals work. I’ve never noticed mixed-gender bathrooms being worse than women’s, and if they are I am probably more likely to attribute it to “this needs cleaning more often” rather than “ew people are gross”.

      3. doreen*

        In my experience, women’s restrooms that are open to the general public can be pretty gross but those that are only used by a small group of people are not , whether that small group of people is people working in an office or clients at the hair salon. My guess is that it’s related to knowing who is to blame for the mess.

      4. Spacewoman Spiff*

        Ditto, I’ve been surprised by the apparent prevalence of spotless women’s rooms! I’m so confused by the women who are so sensitive to germy bathrooms that they’ll hover over a toilet instead of sitting…and then not wipe their own pee off the seat. Literally, they themselves are the reason they’re scared to sit on a public toilet!

        1. just tired*

          Yup and then you have disabled people like me who CAN’T hover and need to sit on them. Wipe that stuff off man.

      5. Qwerty*

        Public toilets seem to also have a flushing issue that causes spray, which I haven’t run into in an office. I think people behave depending on their expectation of a seat being dirty, so there’s more hovering in a public restroom vs office restroom vs visiting someone’s home.

    2. Bast*

      I’ve heard the same thing about women’s restrooms being dirtier/messier as well, but it seems to be one of those things where YMMV. The last office I worked in was an all female staff and all male attorneys (except for yours truly). The way the building was laid out, the staff used one bathroom, the attorneys used another, though technically they were both unisex. The bathroom used by the male attorneys was absolutely disgusting. These were educated, ADULT men who could not figure out how to wipe up pee, put paper towels in the bin, or change a TP roll. It looked like what I imagine an elementary school bathroom would look like. I often used the staff restroom as a result, because the cleaning company who came once a week could not keep up with the mess made by these men.

      1. Lacey*

        Yeah, I’ve heard the same from friends who were on janitorial staff or managed restaurants.

        But… my own experiences are of male coworkers being horrible in restrooms in a way that the women just aren’t.

        1. AlsoADHD*

          I think the population and use case of “public” vs “office” may matter. I’d expect in general office bathrooms to be cleaner than true public restrooms, and they always have been.

          When there’s been a messy office bathroom at my work or my husband’s work, it’s usually been traced back to either an individual or a few individuals. (Like total pee on the floor regularly messy.) I imagine a very small % of the population don’t realize or care about that and even less of them are women. But I imagine many more people don’t care about leaving a mess in a restroom they may never use again in a mall or airport or restaurant etc.

          1. AlsoADHD*

            Note: My point isn’t women are neater and more conscientious but that they are more reputation conscious and would be even more aware and embarrassed to be “caught” as the bathroom messer based on common socialization. (Many men feel this way too! My husband frequently worried someone might think he was making the bathroom messy in addition to his frustration with a coworker peeing in the floor, and one year I worked at a place with a messer in our block area and there were only 3 male colleagues using the unisex bathroom regularly — the mess was recurring and clearly regular — and one of them came to me to fret he was constantly worried people thought it was him and he even cleaned it up rather than call janitors; and based on all the data I have, I know who it was and that it wasn’t him).

            There’s a fairly small subset of the population that doesn’t care for their reputation in this way AND works in an office setting in most cases (the larger and more dispersed the office, the more this trends towards public bathroom use though) and women are socialized to be more reputation aware about cleanliness (how many in-laws think less of their son-in-law when the house is a mess vs daughter-in-law).

            Public bathrooms are a greater neutralizer because it’s unlikely to be traced to anyone!

            1. Bast*

              This is fair enough. The women in that particular environment absolutely would have called each other out as well — “Jane, can you please make sure to change the toilet paper roll if you use the last?” “Susan, can you make sure the paper towel makes it in the garbage can?” It wasn’t typically a problem because it didn’t happen often, and it didn’t happen often, I am assuming because a) the bathrooms were connected to the open office area, so EVERYONE could see who was entering and exiting the one person bathroom and as a result b) if someone left a mess, there was never (or rarely) a question as to WHO had left it. Everyone knew Jane was the last one in and now there’s no TP. Jane would be embarrassed being called out by her coworkers, so she changes the TP roll. The attorney’s area was harder to police, as many would shut their office doors and you had no clue who was going in or out of the bathroom (again, a single person bathroom) at any given time. It was pretty easy to pretend it wasn’t you causing the mess… which is what everyone did, despite there only being 3 possible suspects.

              We also had one teeny tiny public restroom out front for clients. That bathroom was hit or mess, and was also a single toilet used by all. Of course, I believe there is less accountability when it’s “not your office, not your problem” so some people truly did not care if they made a mess. We would find stolen TP rolls, soap smeared all over the mirror and floor, pee everywhere, paper towel on the floor, in the toilet! you name it. I don’t believe this was the majority of people, but all it takes is 1 to make a big mess.

  13. Name*

    LW 3 – I worked at a place where two of women’s restroom by my office started having sprinkles left on the seat or toilets not flushed. It was still gendered bathrooms so it was women doing this. My office (HR) got annoyed because we really liked the clean restrooms. We couldn’t figure out who was doing it as other restrooms were under construction. We put up very elementary school-like signs saying “if you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie & wipe the seatie”. I was skeptical but it worked.

    1. Nice cup of tea*

      I was going to say I’d seen a sign saying
      “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be sweet and wipe the seat”

      Personally I didn’t like it, but then I wouldn’t dream of leaving a shared facility covered in any kind of bodily fluids.

      1. Marion Ravenwood*

        I’ve seen it as ‘please be neat and wipe the seat’, but the sentiment still works!

    2. Cat Tree*

      Interesting that it worked. I’ve seen many signs like that and they just get ignored.

    3. HannahS*

      Yeah, I think this is it. If you want to use adult language, you can always hang a sign that says something like:
      “This bathroom is used by your coworkers. Please ensure that the toilet is flushed and that the seat is clean before leaving the bathroom.”

      There was a letter here before where someone was making a mess in the bathroom, and they eventually found the culprit by having someone who sat nearby discreetly check the bathroom after each person’s use. They discovered that it was worker with an intellectual disability, and after a quiet conversation with her parents, it stopped. Honestly, if the sign doesn’t work, I’d suggest that. Frankly, I find it to be a more adult approach–just like Alison recommends being discreet but direct if you manage someone with body odour.

      I’ve also experienced the women’s-bathroom-turns-into-a-shared-bathroom-and-is-disgusting phenomenon at a community center. I don’t really get it; home bathrooms are generally gender neutral! It’s not like shared bathrooms are new. I shared a bathroom with my brother and dad growing up, and I share one with my husband now, and it’s not gross. But I often hear men complaining about the disgusting-ness of men’s public bathrooms.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        For anyone who’s curious, the letter HannahS is referencing is 3. I think I know who the office pee-er is from the “my noisy coworker won’t mute himself on conference calls, checking references after someone’s hired, and more” post from May 17, 2018 (and the update was posted December 24, 2018).

  14. Saw Palmetto*

    For the shared bathroom issue – I would recommend leaving some cleaning wet wipes in each stall, with a sign saying “Please clean floor and seat after usage.”
    Unfortunately, about half of men have some form of prostate issue (it can start in your twenties) and that makes the problem worse. So people may THINK “oh, it’s fine, I aimed” and just walk away, when…it isn’t.

    1. rudster*

      Only problem is that those wet wipes are 100% going to straight into the toilet after use and cause more trouble for the plumbing than they are going to resolve in terms of cleanliness.

      1. Saw Palmetto*

        I see your point. Either using the water soluble ones or putting a tiny wastebasket in stall could head off the issue. I just don’t believe that toilet
        paper will actually clean things up, as opposed to drying them off.

            1. doreen*

              Should be – yes. Is there ? Not always. I remember having a very uncomfortable conversation while I was explaining to my manager ( a married man) why the women were asking for in-stall bins. ( There was a wastebasket in the sink area, but nothing in the stalls. )

        2. Branch*

          If you’re in most of the US, “flushable” is meaningless. Any product can legally say it.

          The small subset of wipes that are technically capable of dissolving don’t behave like toilet paper. They require several hours of being exposed to the right mix of bacteria and enzymes to mostly dissolve. It’s a gamble whether your plumbing is going to have those conditions (or maintain them once people start flushing wipes).

          Consumer Reports has a vivid article on it — link to follow.

    2. Beany*

      I recall seeing an article about the results of a study carried out in Germany (I think?) about men peeing into regular toilet bowls from a standing position. Even when their central aim was fine (which was most of the time), there was a natural spread of smaller droplets that was much, much wider than they’d realized. The upshot was that if you wanted to avoid the surrounding are properly, you *had* to sit to pee — no matter how good your aim.

      1. Saw Palmetto*

        Yeah, I think this is much, much more of a problem than people being careless or having no manners. Because even a few drops add up over time.

  15. Anonwithknees*

    #1 I was diagnosed with ADHD just four years ago, as an adult, and I have experience of what can and can’t be accommodated for both in school and at work.

    Two things that I wanted accommodations for and weren’t given: at work, I wanted an extra hour to review training materials and keep up with my emails. I was told that this was not feasible for a variety of reasons, including a problem with manager-union regulations. At school, I wanted my professor to work with me to create mini deadlines so that I could have more accountability and not put things off at the last minute. Of course, this would have put extra burden on her, and I was rightfully denied that request.

    When you’re new to the diagnosis of ADHD, everything looks different. Suddenly a lot of things in your life make more sense, and paradoxically the world may seem like a scarier place because you now have a label that makes you “other”. The stigmas that still exist around the diagnosis don’t help.

    In this case, a PIP might actually help the best, because you would be setting out the clear expectations and hard deadlines that those of us with ADHD need. You may think you have already given those, and perhaps you have in a way that makes sense to most people. But with ADHD, we have a lot going on in our heads and no filter to sort out the important from the chaff. Something like a pip, with written and clear guidelines (almost like a checklist) breaks through that fog and gives us direction in an explicit way.

    So you may find that ends up working really well for your employee. At the very least, you’ll be showing her the clear boundaries of what is and is not possible for her in this job, and she can decide if she wants to accommodate herself or if she needs to find another job.

    1. Mid*

      Yeah, one thing my ADHD brain REALLY needs is clear deadlines (and I also can’t see them for myself, because then I know they’re fake.) So while it isn’t on the manager to prioritize every task for Nicole, are there clear consistent deadlines for her work? Are certain things recurring weekly so those tasks must be done every week, and could longer projects have sub-deadlines? Could the PIP have very clear deadlines in it to help her create structure in the role?

      Alternatively, the urgency from being on a PIP could help her brain “lock in” and Do The Things and maybe that could help her figure out what specific areas she needs to have additional support in from her coach. ADHD brains tend to love a crisis/looming deadline/adrenaline rush.

    2. WellRed*

      I feel like a PIP would say “must meet deadlines.” Not set out multiple or specific deadlines or a detailed checklist. That’s what the employee should be identifying with the help of her ADHD coach.

      1. Anonwithknees*

        My understanding from what I’ve read on AAM is that if all the PIP said was “must meet deadlines,” then it would be a really bad PIP.

        When I say “checklist”, I mean things like: what does meeting a deadline look like, what is absolutely part of the job and can’t be accommodated for (having it in writing, especially on a performance plan, is definitely a wake-up call), what improvement looks like, and by when this improvement must be seen.

        Someone below said that this may only result in improvement during the PIP that would not be sustained, and that’s definitely possible. But as someone else said, something as serious as a PIP kind of “wakes up” the ADHD brain and forces it to find a solution. And a good solution will help the employee after the PIP as well.

    3. Jen*

      About the mini deadlines, when I was in school I got those with no extra effort for on the prof.

      The trick was to make an appointment with the tutoring center some days ahead if the real deadline.

      This way, it would be embarrassing to have nothing done until the last minute – because I’d have nothing to show the tutor. It helped me get at least a chunk of the work done ahead of time (and the actual advice from the tutor sure didn’t hurt either!)

      1. AlsoADHD*

        My ADHD accommodation in high school and college (and this is way back — think very few classes were available online and the community college still had tele classes in public TV, late 90s/early 00s) was to have electronic calendar information and all assignments and deadlines at the start of the term, things that are standard now anyway! I had many professors fight it (even though they should have that stuff on the syllabus anyway and I was the one adding it electronically, they just had to agree and view it) and even more high school teachers fight and just refuse it (if they did, they couldn’t take off for late work and I got to automatically retake any test or quiz I didn’t ace, though I tested well enough the latter never came up) because they did not actually plan the whole year/semester ahead. When I worked in higher ed later (in corporate now but I’ve worked in K12, at a uni, and in business/for profit), everything I needed was standard! I found this amusing as hell considering how impossible people claimed it was for them then.

        I make my own mini deadlines but I was diagnosed as a kid and this was something I practiced with coaches and therapists from an early age. It does help, and there are ways to seek outside accountability if that also helps (that part is irrelevant for me; my brain is way more about accountability than any outside force would ever be at this point and I’m much harder on myself than anyone else would be or than I’d imagine being on anyone else because that’s the strategy that works for me). But it’s always weird to me how many simple ways of working could be implemented and aren’t. That said, with an ADHD coach and project management software, this company has been appropriately supportive in that area!

    4. Sloanicota*

      But sadly the point of a PIP is not to prove that the worker can do it under PIP conditions – it’s a warning before firing and a last chance, with the idea that the worker needs to be able to come off the PIP and continue to perform at the higher level. This employee and her coach need to create a structure for herself (that ironically might look like the best elements of a PIP) and make it a permanent way of managing the work going forward.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        There’s definitely people, including many ADHDers, who would only sustain the improvement for the PIP, so this is a reasonable warning. However, when someone is at the very start of their diagnosis and have all these new resources and help, the very opposite could happen too. By laying out the seriousness and giving clear deadlines, the ADHD hyperfocus, which emerges in a crisis, could just as easily come up with permanent solutions instead of just band aids. The presence of an ADHD coach makes this eminently possible, but the employee’s attitude has to be on point too.

    5. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

      Yeah, I’ve had three staff members in a remarkably similar situation to what the LW describes here. In my context a PIP is a Very Big Deal – so instead I started using very serious written warnings when folks were on the brink of needing a PIP. The written warnings were basically the same as a PIP, with documentation that failing to meet the standards would result in a PIP, but didn’t require the same HR/union/etc. intervention that made it debilitatingly stressful.

      In all three cases, the formal PIP-like written warnings completely turned around their performance. And, they all sustained the improved performance – two of the three are now my two top performers on the team, and the third left for a big promotion.

      I think the reasons it worked were that it documented the seriousness, and that it gave folks a model for how to lay out expectations for themselves that they could continue using after the warning period. Like, the written warning had a chart of each expectation, what the KPI’s were to assess it, and the deadline by which they need to meet the expectation. (Like, “no more than one missed deadline over the next quarter.”) Folks have continued to use those charts to routinely manage their work. Once the written warning was over, I asked them to keep including the chart on their check-in agendas – we don’t talk about it, but the process of preparing it is a self-accountability and planning mechanism that seems to work well.

    6. Hyaline*

      (FWIW from a prof–I have no problem creating mini-deadlines with students. I imagine that a formal disabilities/accessibility office might deny this blanket request because they can’t promise that all profs will be willing to do this or that it’s feasible for all courses, and, ok, fair! But for anyone reading for whom this might apply, I encourage you to ask individual profs if they’re willing to do this–and if you’re going to office hours to talk about it, it’s not actually extra burden because part of our job is meeting with students during office hours.)

    7. Aggretsuko*

      Yeah, I think one of the issues with accommodations is that if you’re requesting more help/assistance from people, it might be more likely to be denied because you’re draining other people’s ability to do their jobs by needing them to ride you harder, as it were.

  16. March*

    I have ADHD, and most jobs I’ve had have been hard to do. My current job is unbelievably accommodating, and still there are times when I struggle (being a 40yr old cis woman doesn’t help either: turns out hormones sometimes just cancel out the medication!) and there have been many times when I despaired of ever being able to hold a “normal job” with a living wage and all that.
    Point is: for ADHDers, it’s essential to know our limits. which is HARD! but it makes the difference between being burnt out (or bored out or both) by every job and holding sustainable employment.
    Also, if Nicole isn’t already on medication, and the ADHD coach has standing to recommend it, that could be beneficial. for me, the meds make the difference between ‘able to do my job adequately to well’ and ‘failing at reality in all its forms’.

    1. Anonwithknees*

      Oh the hormones! I can relate so hard.

      I don’t think I would recommend that lw #1 suggest medication to her employee though. That sounds like a major overstep into personal health territory. I agree that medication helps to quiet the flurry, but that’s on the ADHD coach and her doctors to suggest, not her manager.

      1. Mid*

        Though maybe the workplace could check to make sure ADHD meds are covered under their health insurance for a reasonable price? Not to tell that information to Nicole, but to make sure they’re supporting all employees who might need those medications now or in the future. (A lot of ADHD meds are very expensive or not covered by US insurers. Mine, as a generic, with pretty good insurance, is around $600/month. Pre-generic, it was $900/month. Without insurance, it’s over $1200/month.)

        1. MedicationCoverage*

          Which is different from the meds needed for everything else how? This is why plans have OOP maximums….you pay $800, $1000, $1500, whatever the first few months until you hit the max then everything is free for the rest of the year.

          Without knowing the specific meds needed by a particular employee- which can change at any time, as can the related coverage rules – there’s no way to check on coverage. Plans will generally cover some meds for X no matter what X is, but may not cover the specific med any particular patient needs for X, or may not cover it at the needed dosage, or may place limits on the total amount of the meds they’ll cover even if it’s less than the patient needs. Sometimes prior auth or insurance overrides can be used to overcome this and sometimes it can’t.

          1. Mid*

            It’s not! It’s something that should be checked for all medications, but since we’re specifically talking about an ADHD employee and ADHD medications, that’s why I only focused on those. The manager shouldn’t suggest that Nicole start taking medications, but a reasonable action they could take is to make sure medications are accessible for their employees.

            That said, I can’t recall the last time I saw an OOP maximum at $1,500 much less $800. My OOP max is $5,500, and that’s the lowest I’ve had in years. In 2022, it looks like the average OOP max was over $4,000 for a single payer. And that’s not accounting for deductibles, which average around $1,700. And then even when the OOP maximum is reached, that’s only for in-network care. So, a lot more than $1,500 for the entire year. Which is why making sure employees have access to affordable medications is a great thing to do if you want to actually support your employees, which it sounds like this LW and their company wants to do!

            Sources: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/aca-maximum-out-of-pocket-limit-is-growing-faster-than-wages/

            https://www.forbes.com/advisor/health-insurance/deductible-vs-out-of-pocket-maximum/

      2. Aggretsuko*

        Medication is literally very hard to get for ADHD right now, as well. Even if you have a prescription.

    2. Sloanicota*

      It’s also possible this job is just a really bad match for Nicole. The letter that lives in my head rent-free forever is the LW who was a disorganized PM and the answer basically said, “this seems really mean to yourself?” While basically all jobs involve some kind of struggle if you struggle with organization, deadlines, motivation and communication, there are definitely some roles and workplaces that are better or worse fits with that.

  17. ElliottRook*

    LW #3–I’m AFAB nonbinary. My first job was in a fast food restaurant and I had to clean both gendered bathrooms, and framing this as a men vs. women issue is sexist, too. The people using the women’s restroom are just as gross, the women’s room had equally as much of a dribble/sprinkle problem, and additionally I had to wipe blood off the seats, too. Don’t even get me started on people who didn’t bother to wrap up their used menstrual products, changing the women’s trash was way more of a nightmare than the men’s. The problem is just gross people vs. clean people and needs to be addressed as such–probably with a company-wide memo about common courtesy and with CDC materials about handwashing.

    I’ve had people try to use the “men are gross” thing as a gotcha to resist having non-gendered toilets and I’m not here for it. The reasons gendered toilets ever became a thing in the first place absolutely reek with “fairer sex”/”delicate lady sensibilities” misogyny. Wanting to uphold that outdated custom is veering into terf/transphobe territory. This is just a thing where if you’re truly committed to inclusion, you simply cannot push back on this with a gender framework. Call out all gross people for being raised in a barn, don’t make it about men vs. women.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      In this particular case, the men are gross, at least some of them.
      I’m fine with unisex bathrooms in principle, but if changing from women-only meant I had to deal with dirty bathrooms that didn’t happen before, then I’d be agitating to either return to at least 1 women-only in any set of loos – or to employee a full-time loo attendent in each (unlikely to be financially acceptable)

      Unfortunately, just telling people to clean up after themselves doesn’t work any better for loos than it does for kitchens:
      The dirty ones either don’t realise they are the problem, or don’t care.

      1. Hyaline*

        My comment appears to have been eaten, but I said largely the same–the problem in this case is not a blanket “humans are all gross” (and I know they all have the capacity to be, I’ve cleaned public restrooms too), but that a change integrating the restrooms has revealed that some of the MEN are, in this case, gross. In another version of the story, it’s a man writing in that some of the women at his workplace are slobs and he wishes he had a clean bathroom again! If you wanted to isolate the issue, this is important info. Unfortunately, I don’t know how you isolate the issue and general “please be clean” reminders are, as you say, patently unhelpful. (And unlike other “personal personnel” issues, it’s unlikely you can figure out who the problem restroom user is! It’s not like, say, people with too-strong perfume or people who are too loud with their music or etc, when you can actually talk to the individual person causing the issue.)

      2. toolegittoresign*

        I do not understand this stance because if a few people were leaving a shared kitchen in a total state or, I don’t know, leaving used tissues all over a shared desk — it would be addressed! It wouldn’t be treated as a “oh, boys will be boys! whaddayagonnado?!” situation. No one would suggest to make the kitchen only for women! As many others have pointed out — what about what other MEN who don’t want to use dirty bathrooms??

        This is why men behave this way. Because they can do so with zero accountability or repercussions. It’s insane and it needs to stop.

        If we can address body odor and shared equipment cleanliness in the workplace, then we can address dirty bathrooms. Because that is shared equipment and there’s no excuse to leave it gross.

      3. tabloidtainted*

        +1

        I’m trying to go to the restroom without interacting directly with other people’s bodily fluids. If the easiest way for me to do that is to use “outdated” gender-segregated restrooms, so be it.

    2. Hyaline*

      As someone who has cleaned restrooms before, I agree that all humans can be gross. But here–the OP isn’t just “framing the issue” this way, their actual experience is “the bathrooms were fine, but then we combined and use the same bathroom as the guys, and some of them are cretinous slobs.” So yes, it does come down to clean people vs cretinous slobs, but in this case the issue is complicated by “we know a little more about the cretinous slobs and they are in fact men and we’d like to isolate the problem, is there any way to do that?” Generalized blanket “hold people accountable” solutions just don’t work. Company-wide “please be clean in the bathroom” memos probably work as well as “please be clean in the kitchen” memos–ie, not at all.

      I think, honestly, without major overhauls, the OP and her compatriots are stuck (just like the nonslob men always have been with the gross bathroom cretins at her workplace). Including urinals in the bathrooms and/or increasing the cleaning schedule could help–but they cost money, so it might be more of an uphill climb than what I think OP was hoping for–an easy solution like designating a block of toilets for women only. But the easy solution is exclusionary, so won’t work.

    3. huh*

      “This is just a thing where if you’re truly committed to inclusion, you simply cannot push back on this with a gender framework.”

      This is why it’s crazy to me that the LW says their coworker wasn’t TRYING to be exclusionary – it doesn’t matter what the intent was, she was being exclusionary! Like someone else said, if the cleanliness of all of these bathrooms is truly the issue, maybe switch some of them back to men/women. It seems like too big of a reaction to go, “well we tried it and changed our mind.”

    4. different seudonym*

      This is a totally random side note, but my understanding is that historically, there were public restrooms for men first, in the mid to late 19th c, and none for women, because it was assumed/ socially enforced that women were not part of public life. Ladies, a tiny class, stayed home, and working women pissed in a ditch. Women’s public restrooms came later, as middle- and working-class women began to use public space more, and enter the workforce more. They’re not originally intended as gender segregation, even if they can feel that way now.

      1. bamcheeks*

        Nearly everything gender segregated was not to protect women from men, but to protect men from having to see women as people.

      2. Spoooz*

        I read a fantastic contemporary Victorian account of the writer when he was a boy seeing his mother pause in the street, lift her skirts slightly and step delicately away – leaving a gigantic steaming turd on the pavement.

        No toilets, no underwear, but sometimes ya gotta go!

        I believe haberdashery shops were among the first places to have “public” ladies toilets for their clients. The kind of place you would buy hair ribbons, gloves and lace hankies. They were a Suitable place for ladies to be driven to in their carriages

  18. Dog momma*

    Sarah already has a COACH. as well as other accommodations. what went on while she was on probation? Meet with the coach and see what’s happening. She should not expect the coach, or other staff to organize her work for her at this point.
    Sounds like she’s making excuses. How many more accommodations will she want before she can do her job..or is she just expecting unending help? That’s how I’m interpreting this.

    2. Totally Normal Spaceship (they/them)*

      This is a pretty judgemental comment regarding someone you have no view into the internal motivations of. If she isn’t doing the work, she isn’t doing the work and no amount of accommodations may save her job, but “she’s making excuses and expects unending help” is unhelpful. It doesn’t matter if she’s trying her hardest or has given up- what OP should care most about is if the appropriate results can be achieved.

    1. bamcheeks*

      I think it’s kind of gross to jump to this? If you’ve got the kind of problems that Nicole has, you’re in a constant double-bind where you can struggle on and be seen to be failing, or be honest about what you’re failing at and ask for help and be seen as “someone who is trying to get other people to do their work for them.”

      Treat people in good faith. Nicole may not be suited to this job, but she can be honestly trying. You don’t have to assume that disabled people are lazy shysters trying to out of work.

    2. Anonwithknees*

      Based on all we know of the situation, that’s doesn’t seem like a fair assessment.

      She’s new to ADHD and currently reorienting her understanding of herself and the world around her. It sounds like right now she’s testing boundaries and feeling out what her new diagnosis really means.

      I would argue that a good manager, for any employee, would make sure those expectations are clear. Sometimes a PIP really breaks through in a way nothing else could to an ADHD brain. And it would give her that boundary she’s grasping for.

      It would also be a kindness for her going forward, whether she remains at this job or goes somewhere else.

  20. Apex Mountain*

    “you sent your application in and crossed your fingers. ”

    As we see here every day, that doesn’t always work very well. I have no problem with a student showing “gumption” or whatever as they try to navigate the world of job seeking.

    It may not work in every case but I cut people alot of slack these days

    1. Magpie*

      The problem is, sometimes it will be detrimental. A lot of people will be annoyed by someone trying to show gumption and going outside the typical application process and that annoyance will be enough to remove them from consideration for the job they’re trying so desperately to get.

    2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Let me tell my favorite intern story of gumption. Not mine, but they have publicly talked about it so it okay to share.

      Amy Trask began her long, glass ceiling breaking career with the Raiders as an intern in law school. How did she get the job? She called them up and said I would like to intern with you. They said what’s an intern? She said, I work for you and learn and you don’t have to pay me. They loved the idea. She interned there. Then went to work for a boring biglaw job after graduation. Until one day they called and said Intern Amy would you like to be Employee Amy? Amy — again, not following AAM advice — accepted immediately. She worked her way up to CEO of the Raiders. The first woman CEO of an NFL team. All because of gumption.

      But unless you are Amy Trask — stick to the rules.

      1. Apex Mountain*

        Gumption and all these other tactics CAN and DO work sometimes. Some are completely outlandish as we’ve seen in AAM over the years, but a simple cold call seems pretty mild overall

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Yeah, it’s like, anyone who uses an example of a thing one person did once and it worked is completely overlooking the hundreds of thousands of times someone did that and it did not work.

    3. Sunflower*

      Have to agree. Job hunting was so much easier back in the day when you drop of applications/resumes within your area. There was the human facture too with first impression. Nowadays, we get filtered out by keywords and competing with thousands of applicants from all over the country/world.

      I’ve never gotten a response by applying on-line (Indeed included). It’s very discouraging. I’ll probably stick to my current job until I retire so I don’t have to go though the torture of the modern job hunt again.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Job hunting was so much easier back in the day when you drop of applications/resumes within your area.

        According to who? In-person applications are often rife with immediate biases (or “first impressions”) stemming from gender, race, ability, physical appearance, etc. They can also make it more difficult for people who have disabilities to apply.

        I’ve never gotten a response by applying on-line (Indeed included). It’s very discouraging.

        I’m sorry that’s the case for you. I’ve gotten all of my professional jobs by applying online, and that is likely the case for a majority of people. given that online applications are now far more common that in-person ones. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it has no value.

      2. Glen*

        It was “easier” for me and people who look like me – white, apparently straight cis men. For visible minorities, not so much. And ultimately, the positions are still being filled! It’s not like companies are putting the ads up and then not hiring. At the end of the day, if there’s an indeed listing for a role with two open positions, the company is hiring two people.

    4. Indolent Libertine*

      Showing actual “gumption” requires some effort on the part of the seeker. Calling and asking “how do I apply” and “what’s required” and “can you just give me that email address so I don’t have to look for it myself” doesn’t constitute gumption for me.

      1. Apex Mountain*

        I’m not sure if there’s an exact definition of gumption, but my overall point was that I don’t find a cold call to be a big problem.

    5. Jennifer Strange*

      As we see here every day, that doesn’t always work very well.

      Sure, but it almost always works better than cold calling (and, even if it doesn’t work out this time, they’re more likely to leave a positive or at least neutral image on the hiring company, unlike “gumption”).

      1. Apex Mountain*

        I’m not advising anyone to do it, just saying I understand why people try all sorts of things when they are looking for work and personally I wouldn’t hold it against them

  21. Raindrops*

    #2 I’ve seen something similar happen and it was because a company review determined that people in certain positions needed a minimum and maximum number of direct reports. Min for equity across roll levels, and the max for reasonability. I wonder if it looked bad for both you and your boss to only have one direct report?

    1. Czhorat*

      This was my thought (which is stuck in moderation) – most organizations don’t see it as efficient for a supervisor to have a single supervisee. Given that OP started with a dozen it feels that that would be more the expectation.

      They don’t want their role to change away from being supervisory, but it appears that it already has via attrition. I don’t know how much capital I’d spend on trying to preserve a one-on-one reporting structure.

    1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      Or- and hear me out- we don’t let the people who are creeps in the bathroom (primarily cis men who are perverts) ruin it for everyone else and provide equity in bathrooms, actually making it better for everyone by having non-gendered bathrooms so in large public spaces, women have equal access to the same number of bathrooms that men do and we don’t have to wait in terminally long lines or have to commandeer mens’ bathrooms (though I do enjoy doing that- it’s fun to organize a bathroom brigade on the fly).

      1. AlsoADHD*

        And I know it’s not the primary focus of the question or the push to have gender neutral bathrooms, but I’m really wondering what population of men is causing the issue. I’m a woman so no idea if there’s a “reason” (someone else mentioned having both toilets + urinals helps, though do these dudes pee on the floor at home too, have home urinals, or sit at home but not want to at work—the latter I could perhaps see, I guess?) the guys miss accidentally — still should clean it up — but my husband used to work somewhere that one dude would cover the floors in piss constantly (they pretty much narrowed it down because only a few people worked in their section and the bathroom was across from my husband’s office). My husband was very bothered by it, so it’s not like all men are okay with gross bathrooms and this wasn’t a problem before. Maybe they were just resigned, But why is it too much to ask people not pee on the floor?

        1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

          This feels like a societal change that really needs to just start happening- men and women coexisting in the same bathroom, being held to the same standard of cleanliness, and the same privacy expectations*. Will it be awkward at first? Yes. Will it be hard to enforce? Apparently so? Will it change over time and people will just get used to it? Yes.

          I’m in a state that banned smoking in public buildings almost 20 years ago and there was a huge uproar, assuming that places that people hung out (restaurants, bars, etc) would go out of business or suffer greatly because people couldn’t smoke indoors anymore. It literally put no one out of business and everyone who issn’t a smoker was suddenly VERY HAPPY to not come home smelling like an ashtray after a night out. It would be a similar adjustment- we’d do it, people would freak out, we’d get over it.

          (I’m fine with a man or a woman in the next stall over. I am less okay with someone of either sex sticking their head or a camera into my stall. I suspect most men think the same thing.)

        2. Dinwar*

          “I’m a woman so no idea if there’s a “reason” … the guys miss accidentally…”

          There can be, yes. As I say below, the stream can split (there’s no delicate way to discuss this), and you never know if it’ll happen until it does. It happens in flexible tubes with fluids flowing through them, due to turbulence and the flexing of the tube; I’ve seen the same thing happen with soft hoses. It’s not really common, but the Law of Large Numbers comes into play. And if you’re not a slob it’s not a huge issue; you can adjust to account for it before it becomes a problem, and you’re supposed to clean up after yourself.

          Generally speaking, though, the VAST majority of men aren’t the problem. Most of us like having clean facilities, and most of us have a sense of personal responsibility and basic hygiene. In most situations it’s a very, very small number of men–usually just one–that’s causing the problem. I’ve spent most of my career on jobsites, including some with literally hundreds or thousands of men using the porta-johns, and while they weren’t necessarily the most pleasant places to spend time they weren’t awash in urine either!

          1. Helen Waite*

            Thank you for the explanation.

            For what it’s worth, over the last decade or so, a lot of businesses in my area have been shifting over to gender neutral restrooms or if they couldn’t do that, providing family restrooms in addition.

            I’m wondering if the LW’s issue is coming from one or two individuals. I’ve gone to numerous outdoor events where porta-johns were provided. I haven’t seen absolute disgusting as described by the LW, but there were varying levels of “this needs cleaning”. The worst problem I’ve encountered at all of these events was discovering too late that the porta-john was out of toilet paper.

          2. Also-ADHD*

            Thanks for the explanation! I think my husband’s attitude is basically: if I can’t aim, I’ll sit; if I miss, I’ll clean up. And that seems to align with what you’re saying, but also that explains why a urinal might be “easier” (harder to miss) than a seat. That was one thing I just never understood.

            I’ve never heard him discuss the urinal vs. toilet, but I know he hates when someone was messing the bathroom at work and it’s one of many reasons he’s enjoyed working remotely — which he has done even pre-Covid, as he’s a SWE/technical trainer/enablement manager and there’s roles available where he could work even hybrid or remote well before it seemed common. (My husband also HATES how messy public bathrooms are and is much more squeamish about bathroom mess – even the dog pee etc. – than me, so I absolutely understand men like clean bathrooms too!)

          3. Sparkles McFadden*

            My dad explained the split stream thing when I was moving into a house with two full bathrooms where the majority of my housemates would be men. He stated to everyone there that he would greatly prefer it if we divided into a men’s bathroom and a women’s bathroom so the men would be responsible for dealing with any guy who didn’t clean up after himself. They agreed to this, so the most constant argument in that living situation was three guys yelling at the one guy who peed on the floor. I found it entertaining because I didn’t have to clean up after the guy. (Thanks Dad.)

            Most guys are considerate, but they’re also accustomed to bathroom situations where there’s just one giant peeing trough for 45 guys to pee in at once, so they lower their bar by necessity.

    2. Lacey*

      That’s not even why a lot of places have single-user gender neutral restrooms.
      My previous employer did it bc it was more cost effective.

      This was before there was a big push for gender neutral restrooms and this was decidedly not a progressive employer.

      And yeah, the men did make the situation extremely unpleasant, but money was at the root of it. Nothing else.

      1. Jackalope*

        Yup. Most of the places with one or two gender neutral single stalls and nothing else are that way because they’re small enough that that’s the most efficient way to make sure everyone has restroom access, but they don’t have enough customers to make larger bathrooms worth it. That’s been the case for decades, long before the recent bathroom wars.

    3. Seashell*

      I would love it a lot of places had non-gendered bathrooms. I’ve stood in way too many long lines for the women’s room.

    4. Dinwar*

      Or these “men” can act like adults. I get that things happen–stream splitting isn’t always predictable, for example–but if you’re in the working world you’re supposed to be an adult, and part of that means maintaining certain minimal levels of cleanliness and hygiene, both in your person and your work environment. It’s not that hard to clean up a spill! And conveniently bathrooms come pre-equipped with basic cleaning supplies and places to wash your hands after.

      Seriously, we taught our sons this when they were five. I’d be genuinely mortified if I worked somewhere and they even suspected I was the reason a bathroom was unusable. Trying to make this a trans problem is absolutely ridiculous; the problem isn’t trans people, it’s allegedly adult men who are behaving like toddlers. And attempting to dodge personal responsibility by shifting the blame only makes you more childish; it’s the behavior of an ill-behaved brat, not a serious adult capable of handling any sort of responsibility.

      1. Baunilha*

        Right! I’m a woman, but I regularly use the same bathroom as three grown men (my husband, my dad, and my brother) and they either don’t spill, or clean up after themselves. Surly other men can do it too?

  23. I should really pick a name*

    it still leaves the non-gross men stuck with gross bathrooms.

    Thanks for including this.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Try signs “clean people only” for ½ the loos and “dirty buggers” in the others? :)

  24. I should really pick a name*

    I told them to please email my boss. They proceeded to push for his email and I calmly said, “It’s on our website.”

    This rubs me the wrong way.

    It’s fair to say “please follow the application guidelines on our website”, but if you’re going to tell them to email your boss, asking for your boss’s email is quite reasonable.

    1. huh*

      This didn’t even register for me reading the letter, but this is a good point. I get that maybe the LW was taken aback by the cold call, but this was a bad way to handle that interaction (unless maybe the boss has a long name or one that is easily misspelled, and it’s easier to simply get it directly from the website).

    2. SnowRose*

      There may be a separate email for the internship than the boss’s actual email; something like internships at company dot org. The website likely also contains other information that potential interns need to know, so to me, it makes sense to direct them there.

      1. doreen*

        It might make sense to direct them there – but surely there’s a way to say that other than “It’s on our website”. Like ” There’s a dedicated email for applicants. I’m not sure what it is , but you can find it on the website” Or better yet, just skip telling them to email the boss and direct them straight to the website. It’s like the LW was trying to be as obviously unhelpful as possible because the person called to ask for information instead of emailing- that might not be the case, but it sure seems that way.

    3. Mx. Snuffleupagus*

      Yeah, this whole letter struck me as oddly hostile, but that stuck out in particular for me. If you tell someone to email a specific person you should probably also include the email address? Like I’d be less bothered if they said “Oh, I don’t handle that — you’ll have to check the website/Handshake/LinkedIn/etc.” but you can’t be shocked when someone asks you to share the email address of the person you told them to email.

    4. Bill and Heather's Excellent Adventure*

      You do not give out a boss’s email to some random would-be intern. There’s probably a specific email they need to use and they should be using the company website to find it and follow the online application process instead of bombarding someone with phone calls.

  25. Cabbagepants*

    #3 make sure new bathrooms include urinals (in a stall, if necessary) and then have them cleaned more often. Not sure why more frequent cleaning wasn’t even presented as an option!

    1. Bunch Harmon*

      Cleaning crews are frequently contracted to come through only at the end of the day. Even if management renegotiated the contract to include a midday bathroom cleaning, there’s still a good possibility that someone will make a mess first thing in the morning, or right after the cleaner has left.

    2. Allonge*

      Because (additional) cleaning costs money the org may not have and OP most likely has no control over?

  26. Ugh*

    My part of the building at work has two single occupant gendered bathrooms, but in practice if one is occupied, you use the other. I’m female. The men’s is always gross. There is always dribbled pee on the floor around the toilet and on the seat. You can tell when a man has used the women’s one as there is pee on the floor/seat. There are signs up in the men’s bathroom to clean your messes and wipes available, but they don’t bother. Cleaning crew is in twice a week.

    And then there is the challenge from a previous job of sharing bathrooms from people outside the US who have different habits of handling TP after number two.

  27. JSPA*

    #1, two things can be true at once:
    1. a severe executive function defect can potentially make it impossible for your employee to organize a more detailed and cogent response than “organize everything for me” and
    2. without that (or even with it) they can’t handle the core functions of their job.

    It’s remotely possible that their boss and the consultant could help a short-term employee come up with a daily or weekly flow chart; but unless the employee is STELLAR at some aspect of their job, this is a beyond-reasonable expectation.

    1. Bunch Harmon*

      When I saw one, we discussed my workload, broke it into chunks, and prioritized it. We checked in on longer term projects. And then we discussed how that job was an awful fit for me, and she encouraged me to move on.

    2. Mid*

      I made a longer reply to Skippy above that explains a bit more, but basically it’s someone who works with people with ADHD to help them figure out how to accomplish specific tasks and goals, and develop skills and strategies to deal with their particular weak points. I call it brain PT—you target the weak areas and figure how to make them stronger or adapt around them. It’s not like normal talk-therapy, it’s more skill and task focused. Eg ADHD brain is having a hard time meeting deadlines for a recurring task, so you work with a coach to figure out what the roadblock is (task is boring, task is scary, task isn’t prioritized correctly) and then how to address it (do something fun after boring task, create rubric for work so it doesn’t feel so intimidating, set aside regular time for task even if other things are higher priority so task still gets done on time.)

  29. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    OP1: and has implied that because of her disability, we need to accept that she may not meet expectations in these areas

    Disabled person here to say that’s NOT how this works. Accomodations so I can perform the job to expectations is fine. Telling the employer that I can’t actually do the job and they have to put up with it is not.

    It is okay, perfectly okay, to tell someone ‘these are the standards for the job, we’ll help you reach them but if you cannot do them then this isn’t a suitable role for you’.

    1. ferrina*

      Exactly this.

      Often companies are too reluctant to meet reasonable accommodations, but it sounds like this company has been very accommodating. I love that they got a PM software, and paying for an ADHD coach is way more than any company I’ve ever worked at would do. But restructuring a job to take away a key responsibilities that are done several times a day? And the things that OP lists aren’t small things: meeting deadlines, communicating effectively, and decision-making/prioritizing. That’s baseline expectations, and those are several distinct major issues! If you take away meeting deadlines, communicating and decision-making, what is even left? I’m trying to think of a job- any job- that doesn’t require one of those three things, and I’m not coming up with much.

    2. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

      Yes and – you can totally do this in a way that’s kind and gives them a choice. Like, she’s not meeting the expectations, so if she wants to go the PIP route you can do that and will support her decision – but you could also mutually agree this isn’t working and come up with a collaborative exit plan that allows her to job search without losing her income and health insurance in the meantime. (I’ve done like, agreed-upon end date 2-3 months out or after the staff member accepts another offer, whichever comes first, with permission to job search during work hours for up to 5 hours a week and the ability to list me as a reference.) If she’s like anyone I’ve worked with in this situation, she’s frustrated/stressed/scared of losing her job, so telling her “it doesn’t have to be this hard; I’ll support you if you want to find a better fit” can be huge.

    3. Recently Promoted Cog*

      Yeah, that is not how accommodations work (and I’ve worked in the disability employment field for 20 years). You have to be able to perform the essential functions of the job with accommodations, and the accommodations cannot be “Please change the essential functions of the job.” There can be iteration around what the accommodations are after assessment of how well the proposed ones work — but she can’t just say “I can’t do that and no accommodation exists that will make it possible, but you still have to keep me on.”

      The issue that will arise is whether the job description does clearly identify what those essential functions are — a good job description will make that clear, but I’ve known a lot of super-mushy job descriptions. You cannot make the job 75% “Other duties as assigned” and expect to be able to point to that.
      So: are those specific areas essential for *her* job? That’s the case the employer will need to make.

  30. 2cents*

    Here to offer another perspective on letter #2 as something similar happened to me: there are companies (often large ones), where there’s a specific minimum span of control that managers have to have – a minimum of people that a single manager should manage. It might very well be that this is the case in OP’s company, and if so, there’s very little to be done, other than going the opposite way and adding more people to his team so that he meets the minimum.

  31. Susie and Elaine Problem*

    #1: The important thing is to make sure there is sufficient toilet paper as well. Some people are so stingy about sharing.

  32. HonorBox*

    OP1 – To start, I want to say that it seems like your business has been extremely understanding and already very accommodating. Also, I can see that it could be extraordinarily difficult to know what accommodations are necessary with a new, or newer, diagnosis. I don’t know exactly what’s happening with the coach, and what kind of support they’re providing Nicole, but it would be extremely helpful for Nicole to speak to the coach to get ideas for what could be a good accommodation request. It would also be helpful for Nicole to talk to the coach about the “organizing” issue.

    There are limited jobs in which there is a perfect one size fits all way to organize work, and executive level roles are certainly not in that realm. Having someone else organize your work may lead to some success if that style of organization works for you. But that’s something you’ll still have to pick up and do yourself at some point too. But I could also see that if someone organized my work for me, it could be extremely discombobulating because it isn’t done in a way that works with my brain.

    Be honest with Nicole. Let her know that her struggles are leading down a path toward separation. And suggest that she talk to her coach. They may not be the one who can provide the exact answers she needs, but they may be able to identify other resources so she can find that answer. But let her know she needs to do so quickly, because requesting that someone else organize her work isn’t an accommodation that is reasonable.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      Once leaving her job is on the table, it may be possible for Nicole and her coach to work together on identifying the things she IS good at, and point her in the direction of jobs that involve a lot of those things.

  33. CityMouse*

    For #1, the reality is that accommodations have to be “reasonable”, it doesn’t mean she can’tbe fired for non performance. I think a PIP is actually the kinder option here to communicate the degree of severity of the problem.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      She deserves a warning first that a PIP is coming, as I gather some job application systems in the US ask if you’ve ever been on a PIP, not just fired.

      She has been given such generous accommodations and time that she may not realise that she can be fired for not performing essential duties rather than being allowed an endless loop of accommodations. Explaining this and that a PIP will be the next step in say 2 weeks may give her a sense of urgency. Or she may just continue as before.

      Only start the PIP after you have the official OK to fire her if she fails it.

        1. ferrina*

          Me neither. I’ve never seen this question on an application, and it would be a terrible question to ask. The PIP is to 1) help the person get back on track or 2) document that they were fired for cause. There’s a lot of reasons why a good person would be on a PIP. I was put on an “unofficial” PIP so that my manager could promote my coworker instead of me (never mind that the manager kept giving me high stakes complicated projects while I was theoretically doing really badly).

          The most I’ve seen is being asked if you were fired for cause. This is a higher bar in the U.S. (getting fired without cause is something that can be done at any time for any reason in at-will states).

          1. Aggretsuko*

            I got asked in a job interview if I’d ever been written up/reprimanded and unfortunately I had to say yes. :(

            (They offered me the job anyway, clearly they were desperate.)

  34. KaboomCheese*

    #1 gave me a real scare, because for a moment it seemed as if my own boss had written it.
    I have the exact same problems as Nicole and I’m struggling severely with executive disfunction. I disclosed my ADHD with my workplace only recently, when things became so bad that they were ready to fire me. Luckily my boss has been very supportive of me after that (the work that I actually manage to do is really good!) and the company’s EAP has helped me to find a psychiatrist and a behavioral therapist. Therapy and medication is still at the very beginning but I’m hopeful that I can keep my job. It’s a job that I love a lot, but it becomes more and more difficult to handle with every year that passes. I’m afraid that I might have to give it up if I can’t get my problems under control.

    My boss has asked me what I need and what would help me but it is very hard for me to suggest accommodations. The things that would help are not feasible, like someone to organize my work for me, break it up into small tasks and tell me exactly what I have to do and when.
    We are trying to figure something out and one idea was to take some boring time-consuming stuff off my plate so I can focus on the more interesting things, which I hopefully won’t procrastinate as much.
    I’m very grateful to my employer that they give me this chance instead of just replacing me because I am aware that I’m mostly a waste of money for them right now.

    1. ferrina*

      Fellow ADHDer here. One thing that helped me was to lean into my strengths. It can be easy to see ADHD as a series of weaknesses (especially around executive dysfunction), so remember to look at your strengths as well. Use those. I’m insanely good at getting things up and running, but terrible at maintaining status quo. I do well in roles where I’m creating new things, and I have to make sure that I set up systems to run without me (because once they are running well, I lose interest and have trouble maintaining them indefinitely).

      How are you with project management in general? Can you project manage your own tasks? I’ve found that my ADHD has different modes, and when I’m in one mode I can’t easily switch to another mode. So if I’m in Project Management Mode, I can’t just sit down and switch into Individual Contributor Mode. What I do is that I use Project Management Mode to break out different parts of a project and when they need to be done by, then the next day I get myself into Individual Contributor Mode and actually do the thing (or if I’m lucky, I can switch after lunch). There’s also certain tasks I try to save when my brain goes into Power Saving Mode and refuses to do anything (the brain fog sucks).

      Good luck! Every flavor of ADHD is different, and it will get easier when you figure out what yours is. I’m rooting for you!

    2. Also-ADHD*

      For the chunking, a structure that might work and “teach you to fish” so to speak (because I promise life is better if you learn how to chunk stuff in a way that works for your brain) is to give yourself an accountability meeting with a supportive boss, like bringing tasks to chunk in your 1:1s with a general outline you spent 15 minutes on.

      May or may not work for you – When I need to chunk a new task, I set a timer, make bullets as far as I can, then let it sit and put a note on my calendar to come back to it – I keep doing this until I can visualize the task as well as anyone could. (There’s ambiguity in my work, so sometimes I have to make a “Stuff we don’t know but need to” list, which has been very valuable as I rose to leadership too because I can do this for my team!) But I spent many years intentionally learning to chunk in a way that works for MY brain and habits that work with my energy flow. And, like you suggest, there are some tasks that are always a drain, no matter what, and other ones that are energizing and interesting. (I actually came to LOVE chunking things, though I didn’t at first, though, so sometimes the best strategies help make the uninteresting more interesting because you start to get into flow–when you’re going against the grain and working with systems that feel like they are attacking your brain, as we are in many cases at work and society, it makes things much harder in ways that isn’t even about the task.)

      The problem is often NOT that you “can’t” chunk things but rather the problem is most of the strategies you hear don’t work for the ADHD brain necessarily! One mainstream book that I think works for both the ADHD brain and others is Atomic Habits (if you like reading or listening to books). I already was doing a lot of stuff in it before I ever read it, AND I had helped others with ADHD do things similarly so I think it’s not just me, but it really resonated with me a lot a few years back.

    3. Zahra*

      I was going to say she should suggest that Nicole contact the EAP. Diagnosis, accomodations and coach notwithstanding, a late diagnosis often means that the person has learned unhealthy ways to deal with their challenges.

      For example, she might be hesitant to ask for help to prioritize or be given a general “rule of thumb” for priorizing (because she feels like she shouldn’t need help so doesn’t feel allowed to ask for it or shouldn’t be a burden to others) or to admit that she’ll be missing the deadline by X days because Y (because she feels so guilty and/or disappointed in herself that it’s easier to ignore it than confront it). A therapist could help her see the unhealthy patterns, help her reframe the situation in her mind and suggest healthier ways to go about it.

      To be clear, it’s not the OP’s job to do that work with Nicole. The most she should do is mention patterns “I’ve noticed that you don’t often ask for help when you need it. You can ask me or X person if you need assistance.” Or “you seem to have a lot of trouble properly priorizing tasks, would it help to have a reference page with a list of criteria (such as this department is more important than this other one or this type of report is mandatory so should take priority over other tasks) that you need to take into account when priorizing?” The deeper work of changing one’s beliefs and coping mechanisms should be done with the appropriate professional if she’s struggling to do it by herself (and not everyone can do that work without support!).

  35. A*

    3: A few things to consider:

    (1) do not make this into a gender discussion. Do not frame this as “the men are gross and feral” Frame it as “the bathrooms are dirty and broken.” When you bring up an entire group of people, no matter how accurate it is, the debate WILL devolve into “not all of them do that” and “you can’t prove they are the problem.” Sidestep this debate no matter how right you think you are. It’s not worth it.

    (2) let go of the toilet seat in the upright position. You have legitimate, reasonable issues with cleanliness and broken items. Stick with that. Forfeit the idea that toilet seats down is standard operating procedure. If they are up when you are there, use toilet paper to lower the seat so you don’t have to touch it. Some arguments are not worth it and this is one of them.

    1. Observer*

      let go of the toilet seat in the upright position.

      I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who thought about this! I really think that this is just not relevant.

  36. Rotototo*

    For OP#2, I would consider if Sarah perhaps requested this change? You seem a bit combative and overly invested in her being “below you” on the hierarchy. Your letter doesn’t mention that this will be changing your title, so it’s much more like regular skip level meetings (which are a good thing!) as you will still be in charge of the day to day. It also always your boss to have a LOT more insight into how you’re managing if hes having frequent structured time with Sarah.

  37. Productivity Pigeon*

    #3:

    I’m Swedish.

    Almost all bathrooms in offices etc are gender neutral and have been for quite a long time. Admittedly, we don’t have stalls. Most places I’ve worked are single, lockable rooms.

    Even when I’ve worked in the public sector, lack of… ”male hygiene” has NEVER been an issue.

    And I don’t know why.
    I doubt American men are so much more unhygienic (assuming LW#3 is American) in general than Swedes.

    People with non gendered toilets: Is this an ”LW’s workplace”-problem or a more general one?

    1. Cooky Puss*

      I don’t know what mens’ rooms are like in the business world, but when I was in college, if I was visiting in a mens’ dorm, I would go to a women’s dorm to use the restroom. Not because I wasn’t allowed to use the men’s. There were stalls and everything was fairly private. But it was legit nasty. NASTY.

      The restroom in my dorm wasn’t much better, to be honest. I lived with some very diligent slobs. But there wasn’t nearly as much loose urine.

  38. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    #3: Can we put the “seat was left up” thing to a deserved death?

    The seat is going to be in the “wrong” position roughly 50% of the time, and it shouldn’t be incumbent on any one gender to accommodate-in-advance the other.

    1. Czhorat*

      First, in the case of shared bathrooms, putting the seat down is considered a simple act of courtesy to the next user. It’s an exceedingly easy thing to do and shows the tiniest amount of thought.

      Second, people with penises will sometimes need or want the seat down; “down” is the correct position more than half the time.

      Third, while the problem seems to go beyond “left the seat up”, leaving the seat up is indicative of the thoughtlessness that causes the other issues.

      1. Observer*

        First, in the case of shared bathrooms, putting the seat down is considered a simple act of courtesy to the next user.

        Yes, I hear that a lot of people think that way, but it’s far from universal – and I say this as a woman.

        leaving the seat up is indicative of the thoughtlessness that causes the other issues.

        Not at all. There are many people who leave the seat up who would never leave a mess around. And we also know that a lot of the messy folks are doing their thing with the seat down, which is why the toilet seat is such a gross mess.

    2. A*

      It would be most strategic for the LW to drop this complaint and focus on sanitary conditions and working facilities.

      Something to remember “do you want things to change or do you want to complain.” If you want things to change you have to stick to easily actionable items. Cleanliness and and working facilities are specific, objective standards.

      There is room for argument on the toilet seat up or down and it’s best to not bring that argument into it. This dilutes the rest.

      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        Yes, focus solely on cleanliness if you want positive change.

    3. Rara Avis*

      Since all people who use a toilet need to sit for some uses, I would argue that the default position should be down, since the likelihood that the next user needs to sit is greater than 50%.

      1. Observer*

        Since all people who use a toilet need to sit for some uses, I would argue that the default position should be down,

        Sure. But flipping the seat down is such a small thing that it’s just not a thing I would spend any effort on. Especially since it’s not the place of the workplace to “school” adults. Enforce stuff that affects others? Sure. But not something like this.

    4. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, seat up/down is a matter of preference, not cleanliness. Women don’t have the right to demand the seat be down just because we always use the loo with seat down.
      Also, men tend to spray less with seat up and if they do spray then at least the seat remains clean. So don’t make them remember to put the seat up first and then down afterwards.

    5. Mid*

      Sure, if people agreed to be civilized and put the seat down 100% of the time.

      Everyone *can* sit to pee, and everyone uses the toilet seated at least part of the time. Plenty of men sit to pee at least some of the time. It’s more than 50% of the time that it needs to be down, and half the users don’t have a choice in the need for it to be down. Lifting the seat up is 100% optional and leaving it up is rude.

      I shouldn’t have to touch a public toilet seat because someone chooses to stand to pee. Find a urinal if it’s so essential to stand. Or a tree.

      1. Pescadero*

        “I shouldn’t have to touch a public toilet seat because someone chooses to stand to pee.”

        Right… you should have to touch a public toilet seat because you are using a public toilet, not because of what anyone else does.

    6. I'm Not Phyllis*

      Yah this isn’t a thing that bothers me (I identify as female). I’ve let it go … at home, at work, and anywhere else I may be.

  39. Czhorat*

    In a very rare disagreement with Alison, I think OP #2’s role already has changed, just not formally. They were a supervisor of a group of a dozen people; now they’re a “supervisor” of just ONE person, which is not sustainable in most organizations. It’s frustrating because it isn’t something they did wrong, but an evolution of the business that their direct reports all left via attrition.

    It is very likely hard to organizationally justify having a supervisor with a single report. If OP really loves supervising other employees and wants this a core part of their job they might need to look for something different either internally or externally, absent some restructuring.

  40. Bill and Heather's Excellent Adventure*

    LW3, it’s up to the non-gross men (as Alison puts it) to do something about their colleagues who treat their office lavatory like a frathouse. There must be some men who are just as annoyed about this situation as you are. Get them involved. They’re the ones who need to complain and suggest women-only toilets.

    1. JTA*

      Nope. How would someone know the identity of the “gross men” unless they are monitoring the stalls?

  41. Sunny*

    I’m really interested to see letter #4, because I have been meaning to ask Alison a very similar question. The letter writer’s situation was prompted by being asked whether they had ever been fired; what if that question does not get asked? Is there a place to volunteer this information in the cover letter? It’s obviously easier to do during an interview/ conversation…

    I ended up in a similar situation where I was let go because of performance, but the performance issue stemmed from my own acute health issue. The health issue is not likely to reoccur, which means the performance issue is not likely to reoccur – but how do I make that clear to potential employers? Would love to know what the commentariat thinks.

  42. Trying to Be Anon Here*

    Not sure how workable this is, but I’ll put the suggestion out there. Lock one (or more, depending on how many you have) and put a “Reserved” sign on it. Very quietly give a key to each person who has complained about the messes. If anybody asks who gets a key, you say something like they’re for people who are concerned about the cleanliness problem in some of the other bathrooms. If they say they are also concerned, give them a key. If the bathroom ends up messed up, it is likely the last person who got a key, at which point you can revoke it from them and they can use the unlocked ones.

    1. A*

      Even if this is workable (doubtful) anybody who spends this much time thinking about the bathroom at work doesn’t have enough work to do.

  43. HannahS*

    OP4, I was involved in reviewing someone’s candidacy who had a really similar issue. I thought they addressed it well. It was sort of like this, IIRC: In 2024, my father became terminally ill; my performance at work started to slip and I was let go. In retrospect, I wish I had asked for formal accommodations earlier. This experience taught me the importance of communicating clearly with my workplace and being reflective on my performance in times of personal crisis.

    1. A*

      I agree.

      I think Alison’s script leaves too much for the interviewer to assume, likely at the LW’s detriment.

    2. Piper*

      I think this is an excellent suggestion.

      When I think of the phrase “it has since been resolved” in connection with the context of the post, my mind goes to fill in the information “resolved as in they have died?”

  44. A Poster Has No Name*

    OP #3 is there any standing to push for more frequent cleanings? I’m not sure what the custodial situation is at your office, but presumably there are people whose job it is to clean the bathrooms and it may be worth asking if adding a couple cleanings a day (or whatever makes sense) is possible.

  45. Sunflower*

    #3 It’s funny. In my workplace before WFH/hybrid and had a full office with 100+ employees, we got scolding emails about needing to keep the ladies room clean. Never got an email about the men’s room.

    1. Mid*

      Does that mean that the women’s rooms were messier, or that people complained about the women’s room and the men’s room was just as bad but ignored?

  46. Productivity Pigeon*

    LW#1:

    I unfortunately have a lot to say about Nicole’s situation because I was ultimately let go from my job as a management consultant (mainly) due to problems stemming from my ADHD. I also really, really understand the difficulties from the employer’s perspective.

    I’m going to split this comment in two, one with my backstory and one that actually addresses LW#1. (Not that I have any brilliant nuggets of wisdom to offer!)

    —–
    Backstory
    I was diagnosed late, at about 26, when I had worked as a management consultant for about a year.
    I was one of those “gifted girls” who breezed through school but struggled in college. I always assumed things would get easier when I started working and got good routines in but…

    —

    I’ve never been good at planning, structuring and prioritizing my work, which means I’m dreadful at keeping deadlines. I always got feedback that I needed to ask for help or guidance when I needed it. They thought it was about me feeling awkward asking for help when it really was about me being paralyzed with shame at having procrastinated and way too ashamed to admit it.

    It was difficult to progress in my career when I did some things AMAZINGLY yet couldn’t do the most basic of things: keep deadlines.

    I eventually told my job about my ADHD in my last year there because I was working with a team that was very focused on personal development. It was nice to finally be open about it (and to be able to joke about it when I needed to come back to the office three times after leaving for home since I kept forgetting things, ;) ).
    It meant I could ask my project manager to prioritize things without feeling I was a failure.

    —
    Unfortunately, I got burned-out due to family stuff and basically floundered a lot of amazing opportunities I had been getting.
    I was on sick-leave for six months. (I, obviously, don’t live in America.)

    I eventually started working again. Only that was in January of 2020…
    That’s when EVERYTHING went wrong.

    The office closed. I was still on a rehabilitation schedule and not working full-time. Sitting alone at home was a disaster and I stopped being able to fulfill any deadlines whatsoever, even though I was just working on non-essential internal projects.

    My employer ended up buying out all employees who were or had just been on sick leave.
    It was a very difficult time.

    End up part one.
    —

    1. Productivity Pigeon*

      Part two: Actual commentary to the letter
      (yes, yes, I’m silly, I know. :) )

      First of all: LW doesn’t say how long Nicole has been working there for. Has she ever been able to meet deadlines and all the rest?
      Basically, has she shown capacity to fulfill these pretty basic requirements at some point in her tenure?

      If she has, then it’s worth it to dig deeper and try to find what made her succeed earlier that she doesn’t have or do now.

      But… If she’s never been able to do it…
      Maybe this simply isn’t the job and role for her.

      As I see it, it isn’t discriminatory or ableist to want your employee to produce the work they’re hired for in a timely manner.
      I say this as one who, like I said, was let go because I couldn’t… do my work, in the end. Do I think things would’ve been different without COVID? Sure. Maybe.

      But if I’m being completely honest, I also understand that if I’m not able to do the work I’m being paid to do, even with supports in place, the job and role I had… probably wasn’t for me. It’s not that strange for an employer to want t0 get rid of someone like that.

      It’s time to have a completely frank and open conversation with Nicole and spell out that she needs to improve, and be (more) proactive in coming up with solutions, since “someone needs to organize my work” isn’t actionable or feasible. Perhaps Nicole’s manager, LW and the ADHD coach could sit down together and brainstorm solutions? What exactly does it mean for her to have her work organized for her? What about it causes her difficulities? There might be solutions she (or you!) haven’t considered, and perhaps the problem is something different that she hasn’t been able to articulate?

      But it’s completely fair in my view to escalate this a bit.
      It’s one thing for someone to go great work and struggle with these issues but if the work isn’t up to standards…. At some point, you’ve done all you reasonably can.
      —

      I do have to add that I truly admire Nicole for being honest and for asking for accommodations. It isn’t an easy conversation to have, and I also feel I probably can guess some of the fear and confusion that she might be feeling. It’s a dreadful thing to feel like you’re failing. And even worse when you actually ARE failing. I imagine she might have some paralysis that’s making it hard to come up with solutions.

      And I must give LW and their organization equal praise for being proactive and putting a lot of measures in place. For me, it shows that the organization actually wants Nicole to succeed.

  47. Anon for this one*

    Oh man does LW1 give me flashbacks. It made me think of an employee we used to have who really made me wonder if it’s ever acceptable to ask (whether HR or the employee) if someone has a disability. I completely understand HIPAA and employee’s privacy, but what if an undisclosed disability is severely impacting someone’s ability to do their job?

    This employee struggled to complete even the most basic tasks in a timely manner, even when their tasks for the day and the expectations for when they were completed were clearly set out for them. They asked questions about and needed reminders for things that they should have known given the length of time they’d been in their position. You really had to hold their hand and walk them through everything. They were also extremely sensitive to any perceive negative feedback on their job performance. I worked with my supervisor and we tried to encourage and accommodate this employee the best we could but eventually they left. The most likely explanation for how abysmally bad they were at their job was some sort of disability that no one knew about.

    1. Aggretsuko*

      There’s a lot of issues with disclosing a disability, both what it is and if you have one at all. In some jobs, it’s not safe to do so, in others it may very well be safe to say.

      Also, sometimes you don’t know if it’s a disability and if you’re just stupid, incompetent, bad and wrong naturally with no excuse for it. :(

    2. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

      The only thing you can do is communicate the expectations and hold them accountable. If they have a disability that’s impacting them, either they may not know (in which case the manager prying specifically around ‘disability’ isn’t going to change that – they are just as capable of googling “why can’t I meet deadlines” as anyone else is), or they are intentionally not disclosing (in which case asking about it isn’t likely to be productive). You can and should invite them to share their thoughts on the issues you’re seeing, and make sure you’re creating a very safe management relationship for them to disclose, but you can’t make someone disclose if they don’t know or don’t want to.

  48. Safely Retired*

    Regarding the gross toilet problem, perhaps getting some Bio Hazard tape and putting it across the door of a stall when it gets gross. Or perhaps a magnetic sign?

  49. LingNerd*

    For LW1, as someone with ADHD, some things you might be able to suggest/provide:

    – spell out that organization is always the first priority, even if other things feel more urgent. Suggest that her first task every day is to spend 15 minutes or so going over the things she has to do that day. And at the start of the week, have her spend a bit more time to get a broad overview of the whole week, possibly even sending that plan to her manager for accountability. Having manager review might also help with spotting when she’s dramatically overestimated the things she’s able to get done, or hasn’t left any room for new stuff that might come up over the course of a week
    – if hand writing things is more effective than digital, give her a good size whiteboard! And also a wall/desk calendar. I don’t write anything in mine, it just helps me visually see time a little easier when I’m referencing dates, since the difference between two weeks and three isn’t super tangible.
    – If digital is more effective, work with her to figure out what sort of to-do/note taking software works best for her. Some people do better with all the bells and whistles, but I personally find that a totally blank slate like onenote is far more helpful because 1) nothing has everything I want and most things have a lot of stuff I don’t want and 2) it’s flexible for when my system inevitably becomes too familiar/boring and stops being effective
    – If she has set breaktimes, allow her to have extra breaks to use as transition time. Switching tasks is hard and can result in getting absolutely nothing done. For instance, taking 10 minutes after a meeting to purposely do nothing means that I resume working after that 10 minutes, but trying to dive right back in means I don’t really resume working for about an hour
    – make sure she knows how to use your email/calendar program well. Things like how to set up rules that put emails in folders or automatically apply formatting to certain emails, how to use categories/color coding, etc. Think sort of a “tips and tricks” training
    – also related to email, have her go over her email folder structure with someone. Maybe her boss, maybe a peer. Seeing how others break things down can be helpful
    – never move deadlines out or say “no rush” unless there is a tangible reason for the deadline to move, like another project suddenly taking priority, her being out sick, etc.

    2. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

      I’ve seen changing meetings from an hour to 45 minutes make a huge difference for folks who need that transition time (and people for whom transition time isn’t crucial also appreciate it).

      1. Productivity Pigeon*

        I actually always do this!

        And if I’m holding longer meetings or workshops, we still take a short break every 45 minutes.

  50. Retail Dragon*

    Regarding the ‘men are gross’ bathroom issue – I frequently have to clean the gendered and non-gendered bathrooms at my store. The non-gendered one, which is also the baby-changing station, is the only one which is almost always easy. Women are just as feral and gross as men – in fact, the women’s bathroom is frequently worse than the men’s.

    1. I'm Not Phyllis*

      I don’t have much basis for comparison because I don’t spend much time in men’s restrooms, but I can confirm that women are far from neat and tidy.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      I agree that this isn’t really a gender divide issue, but I do understand why OP came at it from that angle. They used to have gendered bathrooms, never saw a cleanliness issue before, now seeing a cleanliness issue. So, to OP, the only thing that changed was the men are now using the same restrooms OP is, ergo, it must be the men making the never-before-seen mess. I’m not saying that’s a correct conclusion, or a reason to generalize that men-only restrooms are all gross. But I do see how OP got there.

    3. Spoooz*

      In this instance, could it be down to sheer traffic? If I have the option to use a women’s bathroom then I will because
      1. I’m more comfortable
      2. I was raised that “special” stalls (disabled, baby change, genderless, whatever makes them different) shpuld only be used as a last resort to leave them free for the people who really need them.

      Therefore perhaps the genderless one simply gets little use?

  51. Unreasonable Doubt*

    #1: OMG PLEASE TALK TO A LAWYER. Alison is correct in her understanding of the law, but the way this works out more than you can possibly imagine is that after the PIP, and the additional warnings, and finally the termination… this employee WILL send a demand letter and/or file suit. And even if you did everything exactly right, and the claim has no merit, your company WILL SPEND significant money either defending itself, or settling the claim, or (most likely) both.

    1. Sloanicota*

      I admit, I did think “ooh, document very carefully.” You CAN fire people even after reasonable requests for accommodation, but there’s an obvious case there. Ideally, you would have this employee sign some documents while they still work for you, too.

  52. Ess Ess*

    OP#1 – If the employee is using the excuse that it is a new diagnosis in order to avoid giving accommodation needs, it can be pushed back onto them by telling them to speak to their doctor about recommended accommodations. It is not the company’s place to decide what accommodations the employee should need for a medical issue. That is definitely a medical question.

    1. Productivity Pigeon*

      I’m assuming they can’t pinpoint precisely who’s doing it. I doubt it’s every single man there. Plus it’s not exactly a work-performance-problem.

    3. DOGE Forever*

      Likely because they are good at their jobs and their employer doesn’t care about their peeing habits.

    4. Hyaline*

      I sincerely hope “because no one is following people into the bathroom and observing their piddling habits” because if someone IS the organization has far larger issues.

  54. Hell in a Handbasket*

    OP5 seems both too accommodating and too unaccommodating at the same time. If you feel cold calls are an inappropriate way to get an internship, why pass them on to your boss? That’s just going to encourage them and probably annoy your boss too. On the other hand, if you ARE going to refer them to your boss, it seems totally reasonable that they would ask for the email address and very petty not to provide it.

    1. Daffy*

      That struck me too – if you say “email [my boss]”, the next question anyone’s going to ask is “OK what’s the email address?”

  55. One Duck In A Row*

    OP1 – Does your company have an EAP that includes counseling sessions, or something similar? While I have good personal tools for helping to organize myself and problem solve that kind of thing, as a person with ADHD, I ran into something similar to the employee from question 1 when my daughter was diagnosed and we were working on a 504 plan for accommodations at school. Basically, the school wanted us to list desired accommodations, but I was confused about how we were supposed to know what to ask for when we aren’t educators or psychologists and don’t have the intimate knowledge of day to day workings/logistics at the school to even know where to start asking for things. Eventually we worked it out, but it was baffling to me that that was how it worked – how were we supposed to know what kinds of things to ask for, or what was possible? Ideally an adult would have an easier time coming up with ideas of things that would work for them at their place of employment, but I can see where they might feel stuck in figuring out specifics to ask for or try out – maybe if they spoke to an expert they could get some ideas of types of accommodations that employers may be able to provide, and what might work for them. I will say that, on a meta level, it would be nice if one of the accommodations were time to work through possible accommodation ideas with an acknowledgment that some may be more effective than others. But I also understand that it is frustrating to you that this kind of thing has not been able to happen more quickly.

    1. Aggretsuko*

      This sort of thing is why everyone told me to look at Ask Jan, but it didn’t really help me with regards to what to ask a job for and especially what they’d be willing or unwilling to do. I asked everyone everywhere and doctors wouldn’t help me, nobody could or would help me, they just said “come up with something to ask!”

  56. Morgan*

    I don’t like the idea of attempting to remind everyone of what amounts to basic bathroom etiquette (and embedding mothering stereotypes in the process).

    LW3: I recommend delegating this task to some of the men. You have full standing to raise a complaint about unacceptable conditions of shared facilities without being “mothering”, and it’s completely fair for the burden of actually reminding people to follow basic etiquette – and following up on that – to fall on some of the non-gross men with authority. It’s assuredly not the case that all the men in the office are gross and only the women can school them out of it.

  57. Just wondering*

    Regarding the cold-calling: I wonder if this is industry specific? When I was in architecture school (US 1980s) it was accepted that “cold-calling” (usually via letter, but also by phone or dropping-in in person) was the ONLY way to find a job. Jobs (especially enty-level) were almost NEVER advertised or listed with the university placement office. It seemed like the firms didn’t want to admit they needed additional personnel. If a job (usually senior level) WAS advertised, it was taken as an indication that they were desperate, and had trouble holding on to talent, probably because employees were treated badly (over-worked, underpaid, and yelled at – more than usual). You didn’t want to work there.

    So, we approached firms cold. And we got interviews! Sometimes “informational,” but sometime there actually was an opening. Every well-managed firm had files of resumes – and shared the candidates with each other when someone want to fill a spot. That’s how I got my first job- resume passed from a firm that had no openings, to an agency that was looking. I got called out of the blue for someone I never heard of in a city I had never been to.

    Senior people were usually recruited based on past professional or school connections or reputation.

    1. metadata minion*

      I think it’s somewhat industry specific but also dramatically time-specific. Given the changes in technology, you really can’t assume any communication norms from the 1980s are going to apply today.

      1. DroppingIn*

        Yes. This was already out of fashion by the early 90s, and in many cases would get you blacklisted.

  58. Boof*

    OP3 – I think if possible, add urinals. Otherwise #1 starting with signs and group announcement if you don’t know who the actual offenders are ie “we’ve noticed the bathrooms are dirtier since the switch; please wipe down the toilet seat and any other mess after you use the bathroom” + signs
    Toilet seat up honestly I’d just leave that alone and/or if you really want to get into it have “Default up/down” stalls I guess (maybe as an alternative to adding urinals). If those who like to use the toilet with the seat up up can be expected to put it down the reverse is also true.
    And finally – address anyone who clearly leaves a mess. Employees should be able to say “woah, can you make sure to clean up next time??” if they enter a stall after someone and it’s clearly a mess, and if a manager hears that someone is routinely leaving a mess, address it with them directly.
    I will say where I’m at even just the toilet flushing (and they’re on automatic!) can spray water around so personally I always wipe down a seat because I don’t like finding out the hard way there’s something on there even if it’s not obvious!

  59. DramaQ*

    Wow I wish my employer was as accommodating as LW1. I don’t get anything.

    I’ve had to really step up and figure out my own game. I’m exhausted but if I want to keep my job I don’t have the option. I can’t tell them that I won’t do my work they have to deal with it.

    Since LW hired the ADHD coach I think it’s fair when Nicole pushes back to respond “We hired an ADHD coach for you and part of that is you working with them to figure out what you may need. Can you bring a list of tools they suggested and we can go through them together to see what we can do?”

    I’d be very curious what she’s saying to the. coach and is the coach actually helping or feeding into the learned helplessness? None of that you can ask but IMO if you’re paying for the service you should be able to ask about what tools they have looked into.

    Her answer may reveal a lot.

    accommodation does not mean she doesn’t have to perform the bare minimum of her job. She has to at least meet average. if she can’t nobody is doing anyone a favor by her staying.

    If she is trying to say she’ll not be an over achiever lots of people aren’t. You can tell her that’s fine but understand that things like promotions will be inhibited by that.

    If she’s okay with that you’re happy to keep her where she is and develop her in that role.

    But you need to stress that she has to be able to do her basic job description.

    Ask her if she wants a more formal documented process for improvement? She may feel better about it. Or it will send her the message she needs to leverage that coach you hired or seek other employment.

    You can’t hold her hand you have your own job to do. While many of us are wired differently and can struggle we are still adults. People can’t help us if we refuse to help ourselves.

  60. outside is so pretty but I am inside*

    #5: I listen to news radio sometimes. Literally two days ago, there was someone on there telling people that when they apply for jobs, they need to then call the hiring manager on the phone so they can stand out and get the job.

    Bad advice proliferates.

  61. Gobsmacked*

    I was a bit surprised by the cold-calling answer, because as the hiring manager for our small professional firm (~25 employees), I have always taken cold calls seriously, especially for interns, and I have hired several people off of cold calls – again especially interns.

    I am willing to admit that I am a total outlier, but I also wonder if generally speaking small employers would be more receptive to cold calling, because we have more flexibility to create positions on a whim.

  62. tango*

    #1 I don’t mean to be insensitive to her struggles, I have ADHD myself, but if I had those kind of resources at my disposal I would be running to that coach and saying “hey, I’m still falling short of my job expectations and I’m at a loss for what accommodations might help me further, HELP!!!!” I’m concerned that for whatever reason she is not comprehending the seriousness of this, so a PIP is probably the next step.

    1. Frizzlebee*

      right? I also have adult diagnosed ADHD, and I know it’s easy to get caught up in “I’m trying” or “well of course I need support, I have ADHD”, but she needs to make sure her coach is getting the full picture and make sure she’s taking full advantage of that coach. And if it’s not working out, it’s ok to ask for a different coach because you don’t feel like this one is helping enough.

  63. DJ*

    LW#1 perhaps meet with both the worker and their coach. Their coach may have some ideas, even if they need have some time to obtain further info and come up with some ideas. So it could be a series of meetings.

  64. Neddy Seagoon*

    There’s a perfectly simple solution to 3 – single-sex bathrooms.

    A bathroom for the men, a bathroom for the women, a bathroom for disabled (etc, etc) and tell anyone who babbles about this being ‘exclusive’ to put a sock in it.

    Mixed bathrooms may seem a good idea on paper, but in the real world they have problems, such as the one here. This sort of ideocracy only gives inclusivity a bad name.

    Why can’t people use some common sense?

    Ned

    1. Scentedcandlesarenice*

      Yeah, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with reverting to the old system if it worked (as long as people can chill about actually caring which bathroom other people use). It does seem silly on its face to have single-occupant restrooms like in the question be gendered, but it did work before so it’s not necessarily wrong if a switch back still maintained inclusion. At an affirming church and other places that have multi-stall bathrooms that are worried about inclusivity, I have seen a supplemental sign used that just says “please use whichever restroom most closely aligns with your gender identity” to make clear that the signs are guides not hard rules, or adding “or NB” to both signs. Addressing the overall cleanliness problem is probably best, but that’s one of those intractable issues like the office kitchen, so I really wouldn’t blame them for reverting.

  65. Frizzlebee*

    on OP#1… speaking as somebody, who has ADHD, was diagnosed in adulthood, because of problems that was causing at work… I feel like the employee here is falling into a trap that a lot of neurospicy people fall into. They start blaming everything on their disability, and expect everyone around them to just be understanding and deal with it, but that’s not actually helpful for them in the long run. Unfortunately, I don’t really feel like it’s your place as an employer to suggest therapy to help deal with the emotional aspect of getting diagnosed with ADHD.

    What I will say is that the accommodations you’ve mentioned already go above and beyond anything that any employer has offered me. I have worked for some really great people who really understood ADHD, and even in the larger companies I’ve worked for where it may have been in the budget, nobody has ever been willing to pay for my ADHD coach. they have been willing to give me a schedule that would allow me to see my ADHD coach during the work day, I’ve had meetings with my manager and my ADHD coach, Aunt accommodations identified by me, my ADHD coach, and my therapist have been put in place, including ones that cost some money like adaptive seating, a standing desk, things of that nature, which I found more than fair.

    if an employer ever offered to pay for an ADHD coach? I would be bending over backwards making sure it was taking full advantage of that ADHD coach, identifying things that would make be more able to properly perform my function, and I would be finding metrics to make sure that the things we were doing were working.

    I hate to say it, but being put on a pip is probably the wake up call that this employee needs. for sure, a warning first, and an understanding that if she comes up with accommodations that will help that they will be discussed, and if reasonable, implemented. the PIP can also provide documentation of how those accommodations are helping performance over time.

  66. Spoooz*

    #3: My husband always complains about how dirty public toilets are, and avoids using them when out and about. I’ve always thought he was being prissy and histrionic. I use public toilets all the time and they’re just not that bad.

    Then I started reading this blog and I wonder if he does in fact have a legitimate grievance about men’s public toilets!

    How are these toilet users of both genders not merely failing to clean up after themselves but creating so much mess in the first place?! How did their parents tolerate such squalour when they were growing up? Or do gross people marry gross people and beget gross children because a clean person could not stand to marry and therefore live with a gross person?

    I am not remotely a germophobe and sometimes find myself rolling my eyes at the amount of cleaning and sanitising some people feel the need to do of a perfectly clean space (you put your bottom on a yoilet seat, you dont serve your dinner off it – what do you think can possibly happen to you?), but some of the things described in this comment thread and others are physically astonishing to me.

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