boss leads terrible meetings, old manager is undermining our new manager, and more

by Alison Green on April 22, 2025

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

1. My boss leads the worst staff meetings ever

Every month my boss leads an all-staff meeting, and it is awful. Normally he is a pretty good boss, and I enjoy working with him. But this meeting is regularly 1.5-2 hours long and largely irrelevant to half the staff because it is mostly geared towards one team (out of 4). My boss also tries to make these meetings “fun” by asking people for personal pictures — at one meeting he showed pictures for 45 minutes before even getting to the business/informational part, during the height of our busy season. I manage a team of 10 people and regularly receive feedback from them that they find the meetings tedious and uninformative and my boss only gives out praise to one team (not my team).

I have tried speaking with him about this, mostly related to the personal photos part, which I feel can get off the rails towards inappropriate. That went nowhere so I dropped it since I understand that it’s impossible to make a meeting relevant to every employee.

But recently other managers came to me with similar issues, and we decided to push back together. Another manager and I asked him for a meeting and presented some of the feedback we had received from our teams. We asked him to keep the meeting to an hour, present important information first, spread praise evenly between teams, and allow employees to opt out of the “fun” parts by having picture/story-sharing at the end. These changes would make a huge difference to most of the staff.

Unfortunately, this feedback was not well received, and the fallout has been rough. My boss told me that he spoke to other employees and they “love” the meetings and get a lot out of them (I assume this is from the team who regularly gets praise). He also said he wants the meetings to be about “culture” and not information because we are fully remote and don’t see each other often. He essentially blamed me and my team for not finding the meetings relevant. He suggested that I train them to share more in the meetings. I told him I am not willing to force people to share personal pictures/stories and that while culture is important, the most we can require from an employee is to be respectful and helpful. I was dismissed until we could go over this again.

At this point I don’t hold any hope he will change the meetings, but I would like him to understand I’m not going to force my team to participate beyond attending. I’m at a loss on what to do.

The changes you asked for were very reasonable!

But he doesn’t agree with you, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to. This might just be what you’re stuck with (as it sounds like you’ve concluded, too).

However — you said “other managers,” plural, came to you with similar concerns, but it was just you and one other who met with your boss about this. If there are managers who haven’t yet addressed it with him directly, you should push them to. It’s possible that if he keeps hearing it from others, it’ll eventually get through.

But as for getting him to understand that you won’t force your team to participate beyond attending: is there any reason to assume he’s going to keep making an issue out of that? It sounds like he suggested they participate more, you said you won’t require that, and it ended there. I wouldn’t assume that part is going to keep coming up (especially since he didn’t raise it himself until you broached it).

2. Our old manager is constantly undermining our new manager

About a year ago, our manager (Veronica) moved to an adjacent department, and someone on our team was promoted to manager (Jane). Jane has a lot of very relevant experience and took the job mostly because nobody else wanted it, although she is qualified.

Veronica was an excellent manager and really helped improve our department. During the transition period, she still attended and ran all of our meetings. Well, a year later she is still doing that. If Jane says anything, Veronica immediately discredits what she says and/or speaks over her. I would say 30-50% of our meetings is Jane trying to get a word in and Veronica shutting her down or trying to make her look incompetent. At this point, the meetings are infuriating to attend and are completely unproductive.

If Jane goes on vacation, Veronica takes over even though we have a very competent assistant manager. She posts unnecessary announcements, meddles in our work, and speaks poorly about Jane during meetings. We also get emails from Veronica contradicting what Jane has told us to do. My coworker was once specifically told in writing to do something X way even if Jane tells her otherwise. The majority of the team has commiserated about how crazy this all is.

Jane is aware and is fed up. She thinks it’s ridiculous and embarrassing, but she is close to retirement so I think she’s just not up for fighting. She did recently mention that she had thought of bringing it up to their boss but isn’t sure how to approach the conversation. (They report to the same boss, who seems approachable although I have not had much one-to-one interaction with him.)

Is there anything I can do? If Veronica gives me direction contradicting what Jane says, I go to Jane, but other than that I am not sure what else can improve our crappy working environment.

Encourage Jane to bring it up with her boss! What you’re describing is ridiculous, and if her boss is at all decent, he’d want to know it’s going on so he can either intervene himself or coach Jane is how to shut it down. In fact, if he eventually does hear about it through sources other than Jane, he might be alarmed that she never told him it was happening.

You could also encourage Jane to tell Veronica that while she appreciated her help during the transition, she’s going to be running her team’s meetings herself now, thinks it’s causing confusion to have them both there, and will let her know if she ever needs to pull her in as a resource, but otherwise prefers to handle it independently from here. Ideally she’d also tell Veronica to stop trying to fill in for her when she’s out — that she has an assistant manager who will be running things, and she doesn’t want Veronica stepping on the assistant manager’s toes or undermining that person with the team.

But Jane really needs to tackle this herself; having someone else (you) alert her boss to the situation would risk reinforcing that the approach she’s taken thus far has been too passive.

3. Giving feedback as a project lead, not a manager

I am a project lead on a large team. I work on one specific project myself, and if anyone else on the team is also working on it, I’m involved and review their work. I have no managerial authority over them, and level-wise am either equal or slightly more senior. I have no problems giving feedback relating to the work itself, but I’m struggling to figure out how I should handle feedback that I think would normally come from a manager.

For example, people frequently come to me with problems without putting in any effort to fix it themselves first. If I was their direct manager, I’d have no problem pushing back on what they’ve tried first or directly setting the expectation that they should try to fix the problem before coming to me, but that seems maybe heavy-handed to do as just a project lead?

Another example is having to remind people multiple times to do tasks that I’ve already reminded them to do. Again, if I were their direct manager I’d have no issue addressing the pattern, but that feels like overstepping when I’m not their manager.

Am I off-base in thinking these are things I shouldn’t handle myself? And if not, would these types of things fall into the “not my business” bucket or the “escalate to manager” bucket?

You can definitely push back when people come to you with problems they haven’t tried to solve themselves first, even though you’re not their manager! One low-key way is to ask, every time, “What have you tried so far?” If you ask that every time, most people will figure out pretty quickly that they’re supposed to be doing that … and if they don’t, it’s okay to say, “I’m always happy to help when you get stuck but I want you to learn this stuff, so try to ____ (check the training materials/check the documentation/look at how we did it in the past/whatever makes sense here) first, and then if you’re still not sure, come to me at that point.”

But having to remind people to do things is “escalate to manager” territory; that’s a performance issue that their manager should be aware of. However, before you do that, try saying, “I’ve noticed I’ve been having to remind you of tasks, which I shouldn’t be the one tracking. Can you come up with a system to make sure you catch all that stuff on your end first?” Then if it keeps happening, talk to your boss about it (at which point you can say that you’ve specifically flagged it, but to no avail).

4. Do I have to sign a non-disparagement agreement?

I work at a nonprofit that has been taken over by an appointee of the new administration, but I am not a federal employee. Our staff is being slashed, with employees who are excellent at their jobs and vital to basic operations being let go. The new administration is completely non-transparent — I am more likely to hear about staffing changes in the news than through internal channels, and they have otherwise been dishonest in both internal and external communications, particularly in regard to finances. I think it is only a matter of time before I am also axed.

Most employees being let go been required to sign non-disparagement agreements. I plan to fully disparage the new administration if let go, even if it means not getting severance. If I am called into HR to be fired or otherwise given notice, what options do I have? What consequences should I expect if I refuse to sign? Any advice to keep my wits about me in the moment?

It’s very typical to be asked to sign a non-disparagement agreement in return for severance (along with a general release of any legal claims). The thinking is they don’t want to give you money they don’t need to give you if won’t agree not to badmouth them in the future. It’s a way for them to extract some advantage from the severance agreement for themselves.

You can decline to sign, but it will almost certainly mean you don’t get severance. There aren’t really other consequences, though! You can simply say, “I’m not comfortable agreeing not to speak publicly about what’s happening, so I won’t be signing.” (Or you can be even vaguer and say you’re not comfortable signing without specifying why, or say nothing at all and see if they even ask.) It’s unlikely to be a big deal; they’ll just make sure you understand that you won’t be receive severance if you don’t sign, you’ll confirm that you understand that, and that should be that.

It’s possible they’ll think you’re not signing because you plan to sue for something, and if they have any reason to think you have fodder for that (such as a plausible discrimination claim), they might offer you more severance to try to incentivize you to sign. Or they might not; just know that’s possible and don’t be thrown off if they do.

You can also ask for time to look over the agreement and think about it; that’s normal, and they won’t pressure you to sign on the spot.

Disparage away!

5. Is it OK to say my coworker is on maternity leave?

Many of my coworkers are currently out on maternity or paternity leave. When I follow up on outstanding/ongoing work on their behalf, I state in the email that the other person is out for a few months and I will be helping them out. This inevitably elicits the response, “I hope they are okay.” Is it okay for me to specify that they are out on maternity or paternity leave? Or is that an invasion of privacy?

Obviously, the people they work with most often and the people in our department know why they are out, but due to the nature of the job, we are in touch with many people on a semi-regular or an infrequent basis.

Generally most people are comfortable with it being known they’re on parental leave, but it’s not impossible that someone might prefer it not be shared. One way to know for sure is to check their out-of-office message. If it’s stated in there, it’s definitely okay for you to share that information too. Otherwise, if you’re unsure you can always check with their manager — “is it okay for me to share with clients and others that Jane is on maternity leave, when explaining why I’m stepping in to handle something?”

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{ 243 comments }

{ 243 comments… read them below }

  1. Glenn*

    > You can also ask for time to look over the agreement and think about it; that’s normal, and they won’t pressure you to sign on the spot.

    I would say instead “that’s normal, and it’s a red flag if they pressure you to sign on the spot”. I think it’s not unusual at all to be pressured in this way! I certainly have been.

    1. Free Meerkats*

      And have an attorney look it over. Then possibly edit it and draft another that is less restrictive that you are willing to sign and offer that in replacement. You might still get some severance without as many restrictions.

      1. Helewise*

        This was going to be my suggestion. And if the LW thinks this may be coming, talking now to a lawyer about how to handle this eventuality in a way most likely to protect/benefit them would be wise.

        1. Festively Dressed Earl*

          Seconding this, because the laws on non-disparagement agreements vary widely from state to state. For example, an NDA may only prohibit false statements, not negative but true ones. In some cases, non-management employees cannot be held to NDAs. There may be carveouts for statements about discrimination or harassment.

      2. LTR FTW*

        Yes, I had a “do not disparage” clause in a severance agreement and my lawyer advised me to advocate for myself and to update the clause to go both ways. So I did sign it, but the company had to agree they were never going to say anything bad about me, either.

        I also (at my attorney’s advice) asked for some other things like more money and got those as well. Remember, they NEED you to sign this thing, that’s why they are offering you money to do so. You are at an advantage until the minute you sign it.

        1. Bee*

          Yes, IANAL but I negotiate contracts and it’s usually pretty easy to make things like nondisparagement mutual! Definitely a good idea if you’re willing to agree to it yourself, though I wouldn’t be willing either in the OP’s shoes. In a normal layoff, though, excellent advice.

      3. MassMatt*

        Something to note: Depending on your state, severance that comes with requirements may entitle you to receive unemployment benefits while receiving severance.

        When I was laid off I was asked to sign something basically agreeing not to sue my former employer. I did have a lawyer look at it but I wasn’t planning to sue anyway so it was fine. Because of that requirement, I was able to get unemployment while getting severance, so for several months my income was higher than it was while I was working.

        Being laid off still sucked, but that extra income was a big help. Check with your state’s office of employment to see what the effects of any agreement is, and make sure you keep a copy of it.

      4. Sacred Ground*

        Negotiating with the current administration? Expecting a reasonable compromise? Expecting them to keep their end of an agreement?
        Good luck with that.

        2. Tio*

          Yeah when I saw Alison say “You can also ask for time to look over the agreement and think about it; that’s normal, and they won’t pressure you to sign on the spot.” I thought…. of course they will. That’s like, their modus operandi.

          LW, they probably WILL try and pressure you to sign on the spot, so practice saying no, I need to look at it in more depth first” and/or “No thank you, I won’t be signing this.” They may try and tell you you have to, but you don’t. They will probably threaten to take away your severance if they legally can

        3. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          I had the same thought, that Alison was giving the advice she would give to someone dealing with a normal employer under normal circumstances, which would normally be fine. The current situation is far from normal, however, and assuming there will be anything approaching a normal response to something like an attempt to negotiate the signing of an NDA seems risky, to say the least.

          It’s awful, and it sucks, but it is what it is, as the saying goes. 8-(

        4. WestsideStory*

          That’s reality. In my experience (large corporation) I wasted my time trying to negotiate severance terms – I was told it was no go. In the end I opted not to sign and they were flabbergasted that I would give up severance on principal.
          I wouldn’t waste time hiring a lawyer. Keep your integrity- and talk to the media if you need to.

      5. Princess Sparklepony*

        That was my thought as well. The NDA should cover you as well – make sure they don’t disparage you! Especially if it has to do with the current administration…

    2. Ariaflame*

      And in the current circumstances I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to pressure them to sign on the spot.

    3. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Yeah my husband was MASSIVELY screwed over by a high pressure “sign the severance agreement in 10 minutes or it’s rescinded and you get nothing”, in that it said the severance agreement was compensation for all of the company stock we had bought through their employee purchase program. Did not realize it until we went to sell a few years later to buy our house and it they said we didn’t own any.
      Severance was about $2k + 3 months of health insurance. Stock value for the amount we had owned was about $15-17k at the time we went to sell.
      Talked to a lawyer who basically said “you signed it, that was stupid”
      I’m still quite angry about it and it’s been almost a dozen years. He went from all is well to this pressure in 60 seconds flat. And I was on an airplane and didn’t find out until it was all done.

      1. Observer*

        Talked to a lawyer who basically said “you signed it, that was stupid”

        You may have talked to the wrong lawyer.

        There are absolutely some rules around the enforce-ability of contracts like this. I’m pretty sure that employers are required to provide time to review severance agreements in many cases.

        1. Statler von Waldorf*

          I love the internet, where random people who are not lawyers second guess real lawyers based on their own misconceptions of the law and a four-paragraph comment that does not even provide the jurisdiction that the alleged unlawful acts took place in.

          In my jurisdiction, I’d put good money on the lawyer being right. Consideration was offered to both sides, and it is not an inherently illegal contract based in the information provided. It was a terrible contract, but that is not illegal per se. I do not see anything contrary to statute or void at common law on grounds of public policy.

          There was an offer. The offer was accepted. There was consideration offered, which is something of value that each party gives each other. The contract was intended to be legal and bind the parties in a legally binding agreement. Finally, all the parties were all able to understand the contract and the consequences of their actions. These are all the required elements for a contract under common law. Unless the person who signed can provide evidence that they lacked mental competence, I do not see any reasons that contract would not be valid.

          That said, it still may be illegal in your jurisdiction due to specific laws and specific situations, like the protections for workers over the age of forty provided by the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) that Alison mentioned below. Canada has vastly different laws about severance agreements than the US, as severance is legally required up here unless you are fired for cause, so I am not going into the weeds on that. That’s why you pay a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction for legal advice, it is their job to know those specific details.

          TLDR: There is nothing in Ginger Cat Lady’s comment that makes me think she did not receive competent legal advice, and I believe Observer is flat out wrong for suggesting otherwise.

    4. Ask a Manager* Post author

      In case useful to anyone — if you’re age 40 or over, federal law requires employers to give you at least 21 days to consider a severance agreement and cannot legally pressure you to sign sooner than that, and you have seven days to revoke your acceptance if you change your mind. (This is assuming the document covers any potential age discrimination as part of the release from claims, and the employer has 20 or more employees.)

      1. Anon for This*

        Is this true even of the types of quasi-federal nonprofits that the new administration is taking over? News reports indicate that staff are literally being perp-walked out of such places as USIP, the Wilson Center, etc. How does that square with a requirement to provide employees 21 days to consider a severance agreement?

        1. FedToo*

          It applies for the general separation agreement but that comes after you’re removed from the office and placed on admin leave. The consideration period doesn’t mean you keep your job or keep working.

          In addition anyone taking DRP, which includes a severance agreement gets the opt in period (40 days) and the rescind days if over 40. You also get it for any VERA or VSIP. That doesn’t mean you work during that period it means that’s the time you have to change your mind or consider the contract.

          The RIFs are different. Those are not voluntary and fall under different automatic severance rules and you aren’t signing any release of claims.

        2. Magpie*

          They can still give former employees time to review a severance agreement even if they’re walked out that day. Usually they’ll be give the former employee a copy of the agreement and tell them to sign it and send it back within a certain period of time, and once it’s been received the severance will be paid out. That’s how it worked when I was laid off a few years ago.

        3. I should really pick a name*

          That’s not incompatible.

          If they offer a severance agreement, the employee can have 21 days to consider it. Whether or not they’ve been walked out of the building has nothing to do with that.

          Note that she’s not saying they have to offer a severance agreement.

        4. doreen*

          It squares with that requirement for three reasons .The first is that no severance agreement is required at all – it’s entirely possible for people to be terminated with no severance offered ( if the law required you o be paid for accrued vacation time, that’s not really “severance”). Second is that being walked out doesn’t preclude being given 21 days to review any sort of agreement. And third is that according to Alison the 21 days to review/7 days to revoke only applies to those over forty and a severance agreement that waives age discrimination claims, which it might not if all or nearly all employees are being terminated.

      2. Elizabeth West*

        Unfortunately the new regime (I refuse to call it an administration because it isn’t) has not been great about following the law. I mean, they’re flat-out ignoring a 9-0 Supreme Court order. I can’t see them giving anyone grace here.

      1. I NEED A Tea*

        You can and should always ask for more severance. They can say no but there is usually wiggle room for them to give more. They might not give you exactly what you ask for but it’s important to have your severance package reviewed by a lawyer to see if it’s fair to begin with.

        The lawyer I went to reviewed it for a nominal charge (which I was then able to claim that charge on my Canadian income tax), told me it was a generous package but to ask for more. He said they’d likely counter offer and I could accept their offer or come back to him and he’d write a letter (which would cost me more, but I didn’t go that route. I accepted their counter offer).

        He also said when I write the letter asking for more severance use the words “I require”. You don’t need to go into reasons why. Just “I require the following” and then state your demands.

    6. A Simple Narwhal*

      Agreed, it’s more that they shouldn’t pressure you to sign on the spot, but from my experience and understanding, they absolutely will.

      I still remember years ago the HR person being surprised that I wanted to read the whole multi-page document before signing. I’m glad I did, there was a line in there about me agreeing to tell anyone who asked that I was leaving of my own accord to pursue other opportunities! At the time I just wanted to be able to complain about the unfairness of being laid off to my (now former) work friends, but I realized in hindsight they may have used that to get out of paying unemployment! I’m glad I refused to sign the document with that line still in there, even if it wasn’t for the right reason.

    7. Velawciraptor*

      Absolutely ask for time and the ability to negotiate/eliminate paragraphs.

      I’m an attorney and a board member of a non-profit that got DOGEd. I think lots of organizations are getting the same template somewhere, as I’ve gone over our draft severance agreement which has similar terms. Our ED was open to being told the non-disparagement clause didn’t seem necessary or in the spirit of the organization and should be dropped.

      Good luck!

  2. Lily*

    For LW#1
    Firstly, ouch. This sounds tough.
    Secondly, one of the things that could be going on here is an attempt (albeit poorly executed) by your manager to build culture in a fully/mostly remote environment. Which *IS* a tough thing to do, and I don’t think everyone has quite worked it out yet (would love any tips from places where this is working super well!).
    In an in-person environment, Manager can share their holiday photos at length with (interested! schmoozing!) staff members B and C in the break room, while (busy! or introvered!) staff members D and E do the polite minimum smile and nod and get back to work. Everyone is getting what they need. But remote, we go for no sharing holiday photos (Manger is lonely, B and C miss out) or everyone forced to see holiday photos (D and E are MISERABLE)
    It sounds like you’ve tried, and your manager kinda sucks for ignoring you (and for not recognising that they’re only praising one team – ugh!). But perhaps you could suggest experimenting with alternatives to build culture, rather than ‘we don’t like these meetings’. For example, can we try a teams/slack thread where people share photos (shmoozers comment/acknowledge, everyone else hits mute on the notifications) can we try opt-in coffee routlette for 1:1 coffees or small groups, rather than all-in chats etc etc. Perhaps there’s a better way to meet everyone’s needs?

    1. allathian*

      Generally suggestions to do something else are more easily accepted than “we hate this,” or even the more professional “this really isn’t working for us, could we skip it?”

      I have an irrational, visceral hatred of managers who abuse their reports as captive audiences at meetings. It doesn’t really matter if it’s the C-suite that’s showing their vacation photos at a town hall meeting where they’re also announcing incipient layoffs, or a manager who’s using a department meeting to show their personal photos. Especially if the same manager’s criticizing one team and complimenting another.

      LW, is there any chance you could give your employees explicit permission to be only physically but not mentally present at these meetings, i.e. let them multitask and do other work while the manager’s pontificating? Meetings like this are a waste of time, and while multitasking isn’t a particularly effective way to work, explicitly allowing employees to work on something else while attending another useless meeting could help with the frustration at least a little bit.

      1. Emmy Noether*

        It’s very common to multitask during, let’s call it, parts of meetings that are not relevant to one’s own work. One of the blessings of remote work is that it’s much easier to do this without being obvious.

        Unfortunately, it’s not really something a supervisor can say outright (both because it undermines the person that called the meeting and because it can be seen as pressuring employees to work double during meetings). LW may be able to heavily imply that that’s what they’re doing themself, though…

      2. Disagree*

        “LW, is there any chance you could give your employees explicit permission to be only physically but not mentally present at these meetings, i.e. let them multitask and do other work while the manager’s pontificating? ”

        I guess none of LW’s employees is mentally present anymore. And I would consider it a rather risky move for a manager to recommend something like this as it could come across as “sabotaging” meetings.

      3. Allonge*

        I think it should be a combination
        – permission to ignore (certainly the photosharing part, cause, really?) and
        – proposing to share work-related info from the team in the meeting. So OP or someone from their team would present in 5 minutes an important / new / interesting project the team delivered in the last month.

        Additional tips:
        Maybe loop in another team manager who could do the same.
        This should not mean that the meeting gets longer – it needs to fit into the originally scheduled time.
        If OP’s team is ok with it, OP could present it as a result of a discussion they had on how to participate more (not the ignoring part, the presenting a project part).

        1. Other Alice*

          I disagree, this has been tedious for a while. Now I just feel embarrassed for this commenter.

      3. Seamyst*

        I’ve got news for you if you think this sort of thing doesn’t happen in-person, too.

        1. WeirdChemist*

          Left a longer comment a bit more below, but as someone who’s entire career has been in-person, yeah these sorts of things 1000% happen in fully in-person offices….

          1. JustCuz*

            I once had a boss that would force everyone in the room to be looking at him at all times. He would monologue for HOURS at a time too. And no, there was no difference between being remote and being in person. I once watched him call out a C suit executive for daring to look at their phone in a meeting – to which the rest of the C suite staff laughed and made fun of my boss the rest of his meeting. It was all so inappropriate but I did take the time to enjoy myself a bit because that guy was A LOT.

      4. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

        Which creates whole new issues and is not an ideal.

        Our department by its very nature rarely has everyone in the office together at the same time. They’re certainly not out of mind.

        People are out on calls, places with poor internet connection mean that video conferencing isn’t going to happen and yet somehow we all function as a good department.

      5. Irish Teacher.*

        No, it’s really not. While culture does develop more naturally when people are seeing each other regularly, it is not a good enough reason for companies that may not even have a physical building to take on all the costs that entails and to lose any staff who may not be willing or able to move and to add to the traffic congestion and spirralling house prices in certain areas and pollution that work from home is helping us to combat.

        Look, there are benefits to in office work and benefits to work from home and the reality is it’s always going to be a cost-benefit analysis, but it doesn’t make sense to say “well, in office has some benefits, so everybody should be in-office.” The answer is going to be that as time passes, people are going to choose their career paths based on what is right for them and those to whom culture matters are probably going to choose career paths where in-office is the norm and those who are more “get the job done; we’re not here to be friends” types are going to choose career paths where work from home is the norm.

        I think the answer is to stop trying to make remote jobs like office work. Nobody thinks “how do we minic the benefits of work from home while in the office?” and I think we need to start thinking of work from home, not as a substitute for in-office work but as a different way of working with different benefits.

        That isn’t to say we shouldn’t be working on things like how to develop people who are new to the workforce without their having the advantage of being able to see other members of staff, but we definitely shouldn’t be thinking “well, when people are in person, they talk about their holidays and so on naturally, so if we are online, we need a meeting to do that.”

        Apart from anything else, the reality is that work from home is here to stay. It was going to come anyway. It just doesn’t make sense to pay the rent on a building for a start-up if it could be done just as cheaply without one and then there are issues like traffic congestion and the need to reduce pollution. So rather than responding to every slight disadvantage with “it would be so much easier if we were in the office,” we need to start thinking of how work from home can be used best.

        Especially since it’s not like all or even most jobs are going to be done from home. There will still be plenty of in-office jobs for those who care about that kind of culture.

        It’s like jobs that take place on one site versus jobs that involve travel. The solution isn’t to stop all work travel. The solution is that people who don’t like travelling don’t take those jobs.

      7. Yankees fans are awesome!!*

        Nah, working remotely has become a paradigm shift in the workplace, for entirely valid reasons, and therefore needs to be accommodated as much as in-person work.

      8. Lenora Rose*

        I can’t help notice you never comment on the MANY MANY posts about problems that can only happen in office, like yesterday’s one about the coworker who constantly babbles, or the one about the extreme slob, or the ones about team-building exercises that are a waste of time, or the one about perfume use, or the one about the boss who screams at their employee with the door open…

        There are other work in office advocates and other commenters with specific axes to grind who pop up but at least they ALSO talk about something else and recognize there are problems with every form of workplace.

      10. MigraineMonth*

        Given that after 7+ years at the company, my most sociable coworker (who often organizes team lunches and meetups) is still fighting to get the accommodations he needs to operate the elevator, no, return-to-office isn’t going to solve all our problems.

        (He did finally win the fight to get a door-opening button installed on our department door by cleverly getting trapped inside during an unplanned fire drill.)

      11. I Have RBF*

        Only to people who think their need for “culture” is more important than getting work done.

        RTO gives rise to things like yesterday’s “Chatty Cathy” letter.

    3. niknik*

      @AAM: That sounds like a fantastical topic for an open comments day ! How to build healthy culture in our (not-so-) new remote working world ? I’ve been wondering the same, and especially some positive examples would be really interesting – plenty of negative ones around, unfortunately.

      1. Lady Lessa*

        I second the idea. I’m in a situation at work with those of us who are part of a acquisition are finally being integrated into the rest of the company, and the communication is poor to non-existent.

      2. Zombeyonce*

        I can give a positive example that has worked for our fully-remote team for years.

        We have a weekly meeting that everyone on the team (~20 people) are invited to, but it’s not mandatory so you can skip it and keep working if you’re busy. It’s 30 minutes long and consists of us going around and saying (very briefly) what we’ve been working on. You also have the opportunity to follow that up with what’s going on in your life (new bird visiting your birdfeeder, cool vacation, silly kid story, new show/movie/restaurant recommendation, etc. just no politics!). All parts are optional, there’s no pressure, and we ask each other questions when we’re interested.

        It’s been great. Some people never attend, some people always attend, some people are on camera and some not. It’s a great way to get to know people a bit better with zero pressure.

    4. JSPA*

      And as a once a month thing that is paid for, and happens during regular work hours, this would be a strange hill to die on.

      If your team is overworked, and thus resents the loss of work time, take that up separately.

      If you feel your team deserves more visibility, or you’d like a spot to brag about them–ditto.

      But, “I and others don’t want to hear you praise the team you work most closely with” is obviously going to land badly.

      Ditto, “my team wants to be known to you as individuals, but not in the way you expect to get to know them.”

      For better or worse your boss is letting you know that they remember people through knowing their non-work peripheral stuff. People’s brains work differently, and this is how his works.

      I’d work with your team to figure out what low key, non-invasive yet memorable personal information they can comfortably share. “I used to be on the nuts and seeds team on our school rose parade float.” “four generations of my family do grayhound rescue.” “I’m named after my great grand uncle who was the 7th son of a 7th son.”

      He may talk less, and include people more, once he doesn’t feel like he’s shouting into the void.

      1. Rex Libris*

        This. Given the response already gotten from the boss, the tactic OP is currently taking will likely just get them labeled as “supervisor who is a problem, with team that is a problem.” It sounds like a really low stakes thing to elicit as much pushback as the OP is describing.

      2. Zombeyonce*

        It doesn’t sound like this meeting is going away, so the LW needs to find ways to make the meeting more palatable for their employees.

        They can make their teams enjoy the meeting (slightly) more if they spend their sharing time bragging about their team and sharing their wins with everyone else. They can probably get other managers on board to do the same for their own teams, making this meeting about more than personal photos and one team getting praise. It could make a big difference for everyone, and I’d think the boss would like it; they probably don’t know details of what the other 3 teams are doing well enough to praise them. This would build up everyone and make it more a culture of celebration.

    5. Midnight Glitter Raid*

      I work in a non-profit and I dread our monthly all-staff meeting, which lasts two hours and the first hour is asking each person monologue-styled questions, such as “What attracted you to get politically active?” and so forth. Most of the staff works in person and a fourth of the staff is remote.

      They asked everyone for feedback on these meetings and most of us said they need to be more concise and to stop with the questions that encourage diarrhea of the mouth. They responded by saying, they appreciate our thoughts, but our remote team wants to share and feel the “camaraderie” and to not allow some form of sharing, we’re othering the remote team.

      Personally, I decided I am going to turn my camera off and work on other tasks while this is going on. I feel for the remote team, but they are building my annoyance, not any warm feelings they are trying to force.

      1. Rogue Slime Mold*

        They are building my annoyance, not any warm feelings.

        I think a fundamental aspect of 1’s problem is that people are trying to heap a bunch of things onto The One Standing Meeting.
        • Recognize the hard work of each team. (OP and the other neglected teams’ goal.)
        • Build a sense of camaraderie. (Manager’s goal.)
        • Share only information that is relevant to everyone on the call. (Everyone who has a full plate and doesn’t need to hear monthly how Spouts is great and we appreciate them.)

        If all the senior people can’t even get on the same page about what the meeting should accomplish, and what tasks would actually make it accomplish those things, I predict they continue on around this rut indefinitely.

        1. Mockingjay*

          I like the suggestions to redirect some of the meeting items to other avenues, such as sharing pictures in a chat.

          Another suggestion: what about breaking up the meetings by team? Each would be a smaller group, making meetings focused (and hopefully shorter) and it can be easier to redirect the boss one on one. “Thanks for sharing those pics, boss, but while we have you here, can I ask about the Thompson merger?” You can still have a quarterly all teams meeting to satisfy Boss’s need for conviviality.

          1. sparkle emoji*

            I’d guess there are already separate meetings with the individual teams, but maybe the boss isn’t attending them? If so, that does seem like a place to start.

        2. Smithy*

          Yeah – I think the larger point raised by Lily – a lot of the camaraderie that used to happen in offices was also a mix of formally and informally organized, as well as organic. Not to mention, when organizations have need to cut staff – people that work on internal communications – essentially jobs that think and practice 100% about supporting internal culture – those are often some of the first to be cut.

          All to say, a major result is the effort of trying to pack ten pounds of objectives into a 5 pound bag.

          I do think the OP would have more success trying to propose additional efforts to build culture vs changing the meeting.

        1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          That stood out to me, too! I found myself wondering just whose needs and wishes are *really* being addressed here.

      3. Trudy's Blue Summer's Dress*

        I get that, but if all is well otherwise at the company, an awkward meeting once a month doesn’t sound like the worst thing. It sounds, like the LW, you’ve tried to raise the issue and the boss doesn’t want to change it.

        1. I NEED A Tea*

          Jane should speak with her boss, but an agenda laid out like this might help:

          Jackets: 15 minutes – Jane
          Shoes: 15 minutes – Jane
          Lipsticks: 15 minutes – Lisa

          and ideally at the beginning of the meeting Jane would say please hold your questions and comments until the end of my section of the meeting. If Veronica tries to interrupt Jane can say we’ve only got 15 minutes or whatever allotted to this topic.

          Jane is the OP’s boss. If Veronica gives direction I would say thank you but I am clear on what needs to be done.

      4. Rex Libris*

        Maybe just try and enjoy the fact that the other 158 hours of the work month aren’t spent in that meeting?

    6. Maxwell Perkins*

      Can you coach your team to use personal chit-chat time at the beginning of meetings to pivot to talking about work accomplishments they’re personally proud of? Especially if they can nod to other teams (especially the favored team), they might build support. If they get push-back, I think it’s fair to say that your staff takes the success of their projects personally and wants to develop a supportive culture.

  3. Chocolate Teapot*

    5. A colleague has recently returned from a year’s maternity leave (usual here) and we handled it by adding (Maternity Leave) next to her name in the team’s email footer which appears on all our emails.

    1. iglwif*

      Everywhere I’ve ever worked (in Canada, but also briefly in the US), the person going on mat/par leave
      1) emails all their regular contacts to say “hey, I’ll be on leave from [date] to [date], here’s who you’ll be working with in my absence” and
      2) sets up an autoreply on their email with the same information for the duration of the leave.

      The person hired to cover for them may also get access to their email inbox just in case.

      It’s not been treated as super private information … although I can see a case for doing so in some industries I don’t work in.

  4. IainC*

    #5 I won’t get into the merits of the different systems – it’s been done to death – but the answer here will be very different depending on country.

    If Maternity leave is a few weeks you have more room to be vague about it. If a problem can wait a day, it can wait a week.

    If they’re not back until 2026, then people need to know the scale of absence and who to contact in the meantime.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      Yes, but the question is whether to say “so and so is out of the office until November”, or “so and so is on parental leave until November”

      1. londonedit*

        The way I’ve always seen it done (most people here take 9 months or a year as maternity leave) is that the person on leave has an OOO message saying ‘I’m currently on maternity leave until November 2025’. Usually what happens is that someone comes in to cover the maternity leave, so the OOO will say ‘Please contact Sally Jones in my absence’, or even if there isn’t someone officially brought in as maternity cover (it’s very usual here for people to take a job as a maternity cover contract, for a year or whatever, but sometimes companies just reshuffle things for a while) there will be someone on the OOO. What also often happens is that the person doing the maternity cover will have access to the other person’s email inbox, so they can monitor what’s coming in and respond if necessary.

        If for some reason the person on leave didn’t want to say ‘maternity leave’ then they could just as easily say ‘I’m currently on extended leave’ on the OOO, or whatever. But the point is that there’s always some discussion about it – people know they’re going on leave, they know who’s covering, they know who to direct questions to, and they know what the person’s OOO message says and can take their cue from that if all else fails.

      2. Sloanicota*

        Certainly I can say for myself, if someone said “so and so is out until November” with no other context, I would reply “Oh, I hope they’re okay.” That may be fine though! It’s just a very natural response in a collegial workplace.

    2. Fluffy Fish*

      Length of time of absence has nothing to do with disclosing what the absence is about.

      You can let someone know when they’re anticipated to return and who they are to contact in their absence without offering an explanation.

      1. doreen*

        That’s what the LW is doing – the question is about what the LW can /should say when the other party says “I hope they are OK”.

    3. HannahS*

      That’s true and fine, but as someone from a country with longer parental leave, it doesn’t become appropriate to tell everyone that so-and-so is on parental leave. We just say, “Jane is on leave until November, Cal is covering.” It’s not everyone’s business than Jane had a baby.

      1. Bella Ridley*

        Yes, but in the context of the letter, where if someone asks if Jane is OK, I have never worked anywhere where it would not be acceptable to say “Oh, she’s out on parental.” Especially for such a long absence.

        1. HannahS*

          Well, I have. Workplaces are diverse.

          Within our department people tend to know each other and casually discuss leaves, but when one of our directors was out, I was told, “Jane is away until November and Cal is the interim director, so direct your questions to him.” Yes, I assumed that Jane probably had a baby (because that’s really the only leave available that’s both very long and with a clear return date) but I didn’t ask and no one discussed it further. I don’t know Jane. Her reproductive plans aren’t the business of the 200 people under her. We see a lot of letters about mothers being treated badly in the workplace. If someone hasn’t put in their email signature that they’re away for a parental leave, I see no reason to volunteer that to any old phone contact who expresses concern. If someone says, “Oh, I hope they are ok” I’d just say, “I’ll pass along your good wishes–we sure miss her! But yes, you should connect with Cal. Do you have his contact information?”

          1. Bella Ridley*

            Well, I assumed we were sharing different perspectives to reassure the LW that they weren’t totally out to lunch with their question, but all right.

      2. iglwif*

        Everywhere I’ve ever worked (mostly in Canada but once, briefly, in the US), people have notified their external contacts that they’re going on mat/par leave and explained who their replacement will be, and then had an autoreply with the same info on their email during their leave. Often the person hired / seconded to cover the leave will have access to their email inbox to look things up and/or catch stray messages from people who don’t read autoreplies, or the person on leave will set up an auto-forward to the address of the person covering.

        I’ve worked in publishing for almost 30 years, and it’s a heavily female industry especially at the more junior levels, so I have pretty significant experience with this scenario. Currently at my org, we have I think 3 people out on mat leave and a 4th who just recently came back. This is not secret information, it’s just part of SOP.

        I’ve never heard of a person or organization pretending a mat/par leave was some other type of leave, but I guess there’s a first time for everything!

  5. out of office, out of mind*

    He also said he wants the meetings to be about “culture” and not information because we are fully remote and don’t see each other often.

    This here is the problem — a big surprise, to be sure. You can’t easily build culture in a virtual setting, so you’re getting contrived in-person meetings. Get your team back to the office most of the time. (Frankly, if you don’t, it’s a matter of time until the boss requires you to do so.) The need for photos and show-and-tell will disappear.

    1. RC*

      Disagree. At least in remote pointless tedious meetings I can multitask by taking care of tedious emails or something at the same time. Back in office just means they’ll have you cornered in their time-wasting “team building”.

      Some of my most solid rapports are geographically-dispersed and the most strained are local; in-office has not a lot to do with it.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

        All the personal conflicts I’ve had at work have been from in-office stuff. People making comments about my weight, my food, my appearance, being outright hostile etc.

        Remotely it doesn’t seem to happen! I think perhaps because that means the comments are via recordable medium and thus people behave a bit better. Also, no issue with food smells, BO, perfumes..

      2. Needs more cowbell*

        Yes. I recently had to shallow-breathe through 35mins of an in-person “5min getting-to-know-your-teammates-better” agenda item plus 15mins of ranting/emo b/s to find that the 5mins left to discuss the *actual* main point of the meeting was inadequate and no-one got the info they needed to move their work forward.

        You want to destroy culture? Make meetings about you as the lead getting your emotional needs met over giving people the information they need to actually do their jobs. Ineffective, toxic meetings are not magically solved by being in office – it’s an irrelevant side point.

      3. Zombeyonce*

        I’ve been on a fully remote team for many years and we all get along and our team is very successful. It’s so much better than it was back when we were all in the office together and had to deal with the engineer with a temper who muttered curses and banged on his desk all day, the burned microwave popcorn in the breakroom, and the coworker who always wanted to talk about their diet if they saw you eating. Remote work made us more productive and happy, and the company saves money on real estate.

        1. iglwif*

          At my last job (at a massive company), for a while I was on a very lovely, very functional, fully distributed team with people in 3 countries and (within one of those) 4 US states. We got along great, we did good work, we helped each other out and supported each other through some quite bad things that happened in some people’s personal lives during the time we worked together.

          This lovely state of affairs fell victim to company-wide layoffs, but it was great while it lasted!

    2. Emmy Noether*

      Nah, that type of manager will still do those meetings, and now everyone will be stuck in a conference room where it’s much harder to knit or doodle or do other work during that time, and also one has control one’s face all the time and can’t turn the camera off for a yawn/scream/curse break.

    3. Allonge*

      OP says they are fully remote – what makes you think there is an office to ‘return’ to?

      1. jane's nemesis*

        yeah, I read it as virtual all-staff meetings. Boss is trying to build virtual culture but doing it badly.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Yeah, to me this is a major misconception from some (bad) bosses and usually (bad) teammates: that you build culture by quizzing people in meetings, or forced photo sharing or whatever other random thing.
          I’ve worked in multiple distributed companies for decades. Some had great culture. Some had crappy culture. Some had good culture that turned bad with turnover.
          I’ve also worked in-person with good and bad culture.
          People build good working relationships by working together. Good processes? People who do good work and respect each other? That’s a good working culture.
          Me knowing who has a dog and who doesn’t, or who went to Aruba or skiing or I don’t know what, has absolutely no bearing on work culture. Sometimes I know those things. Sometimes I don’t. None of it matters.

    4. Neptunesmoon*

      What about international teams? Remote doesn’t always mean working from home within reasonable distance of the same office. My team is in Europe, the east coast and the west coast US. And with the current US situation, even an annual face to face isn’t going to happen.

      1. A. Lab Rabbit*

        Yep. I used to do open-source software development (WordPress) and I worked with people in Malaysia, Australia, United States, Spain, India, New Zealand, France, and Greece. We communicated mostly through our support forum and email, and had a very strong team.

        It’s not about in-person proximity; it’s about how you treat people.

        1. A*

          Not WordPress, but same! We used IRC a lot too, and I came in when the culture was already set but also helped as new people came in. We had a strong culture of review and working together, and nobody had set hours.

          We had a strong team and I made friends. Fifteen years later, lots of us still go on vacations together (2-6 people at a time, not the whole group). Some of that is that it’s a nice excuse to visit a different part of the world, but some of it is just that we had space to like each other and stay in touch.

      2. Helewise*

        This is something that I think is often missing from the conversation. I have a very in-person role, but my husband works on a distributed team that’s on both sides of our state and with customers or other team members in three to four other countries – one of his direct reports is in another country. This was the nature of his work well before Covid; the acceptability of remote work after Covid now just means that he travels less for meetings that people used to think needed to be in-person.

    5. WeirdChemist*

      As someone whose work requires the vast majority of my office to be in-person everyday, I am still stuck in far too many time-wasting meetings in the same vein as the LW described. Difference is, I can’t be working on other actually productive things while they’re going on, and I have to spend emotional energy looking engaged-and-happy-to-be-here that I wouldn’t otherwise be doing if I wasn’t in-person!

      Some highlights:
      -Most of these meetings are centered around the work/progress of a single team, whose work is quite poor and extremely behind schedule always. This doesn’t stop most of the time being spent praising them, giving them awards, and long technical back-and-fourths with them that are irrelevant to everyone else
      -There’s typically some sort of “team bonding”/“icebreaker” stuff that takes at least 30-60 minutes. If participation in this is lukewarm or politely distant, then we get some passive-aggressive comments about it and made to repeat/expand on stuff. Most people in my office frequently engage in warm/friendly small talk in-person, but this hasn’t stopped this from taking over meetings!
      -These meetings are scheduled for 30 mins but can frequently last 1-2 hours and disrupt people’s lunch times, so the hangry-ness isn’t helping
      -Every meeting ends with management reminding us that they know how busy we all are and to come talk to them if we’re struggling with time management or to take some things off our plate. Except for getting out of these meetings apparently….

      1. Tea Monk*

        Yes! In person adds energy and time costs and it’s not like something is going to be taken off your plate because you spent 2 hours juggling balloons or something

      2. Zombeyonce*

        I’ve also found that neurodivergent workers like me can be more successful in many remote setups. I’m able to crochet in meetings, which helps me stay focused on the topic while giving my hands something to do. I never would have been able to do that during in-person meetings without people thinking I wasn’t paying attention. I also don’t have to worry about the “right” amount of eye contact when people can’t tell if I’m looking at them or not, which is also a big help with focusing on the meeting agenda. Being able to manage IM program notifications helps me not getting interrupted throughout the workday by people and focus when I need to; I had a horrible time staying on track when people used to stop by my cubicle all day long.

        I’ve heard similar stories from ND friends who are more productive when working remotely.

        1. iglwif*

          Yeeeeesssss.

          I’ve said many times that I can maintain eye contact with whoever’s speaking OR I can process what they’re saying — you have to pick one.

          Want me to focus on what you’re saying, process it, and remember it? You’re gonna need to let me look elsewhere and do something with my hands, whether that’s taking notes, doodling, or knitting.

          1. allathian*

            Yeah, it’s usually easiest to get away with taking notes, or at least appearing to take notes. By hand, in a notebook. If you use the phone or your computer, some people will figure you’re multitasking even if you aren’t.

            1. iglwif*

              You would think that! But I have also been spoken to for being too focused on taking notes and not appearing to be engaged enough, so you never know.

              Knitting works best for me in terms of both paying attention and appearing to do so, because if I choose the right project I can knit without looking at my knitting but I can’t realistically take notes without looking at what I’m writing. Many people are fine with this, but some find it intolerable for some reason.

              That said, I am also a huge fan of taking notes in longhand in my notebook — whether the meeting is in person or online — because (a) that’s a better way for me to remember stuff than typing notes and (b) the notebook keeps everything together where I can find it.

    7. Whoops*

      I feel sorry for you, that you’ve only learned how to gauge performance or metrics by butts in seats. It’s such narrow thinking and doesn’t speak well towards your flexibility as a manager.

      Protip: if the three largest American Healthcare companies – companies that obsess over every dollar spent – can manage a 90% remote workforce, so can you.

    8. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Pfft….I am on a remote team and we have built a very strong culture and don’t have long pointless rambling meetings.

      Your basic premise is false. Getting back to the office just means even more opportunities for endless stupid meetings.

      1. Opaline*

        Agreed. I work fully remote and onboarded during the pandemic. Closest and most professional team I’ve ever worked on. We do have weekly team meetings scheduled, but our boss frequently cancels them if he doesn’t have anything substantial to talk about. Which does a lot more for morale than being forced to sit through other people’s photos for the sake of it!

    9. Happy Remote*

      Disagree Out Of Office commenter. Honestly, what works for you doesn’t work for everyone. I’ve worked in many different settings, mostly in-person—Fortune 500 corporates, small nonprofits , large nonprofits, schools, etc. I’ve thrived working remotely and have been promoted three times in less than three years. Your constant refrain that working from home is bad is tiresome.

    10. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      Culture is about how people treat each other. Encouraging people to take their earned PTO and readily approving it is culture-building whether inside or outside of the office. Working from the office does have some benefits, but having the flexibility to WFH and not have 45 mins-hr commute every day does way more for my attachment to my workplace than working in office 5 days a week. That is precisely WHY my ultimate grandboss (hint: a would-be king) ordered everyone to RTO 5 days a week, not flexibility, no exceptions except disability accommodations.

    11. Dasein9 (he/him)*

      Nah. Culture isn’t easy to build. That’s just as true of in-person work as it is of remote work. If management really wants to build culture, they’ll invest in it. The manager described in the letter is simply not investing in building a culture relevant to most of his workforce.

    12. 653-CXK*

      Hard no.

      That kind of “butts in seats” thinking is simplistic. Most of that attitude comes from controlling employees, not improving collaboration, culture, or anything else. I would suspect that the useless, shallow fluff from these meetings will continue, now that there’s a bigger captive audience.

      Thus, for many of us, the call for RTO is phony. It’s a call that managers miss control of employees, who have discovered not being in a cube farm or dealing with office politics actually improves productivity.

      We’

      1. 653-CXK*

        Arrgh – forgot to finish my thought!

        We’ve managed to do WFH well without someone else telling us we need to come back.

    14. Mango Freak*

      The “matter of time” has…timed. Some companies are just fully remote now.

      What a strange reason to suggest changing that. Office culture is something you need BECAUSE you’re in an office. The problem is people trying to retrofit it to remote orgs.

    15. DramaQ*

      Bwahahaha ha ha ha ha.

      ::takes deep breath::

      Bwahahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha

      Okay now that that is over. I’ve been in person since day one of the pandemic because I’ve been an “essential worker”. If anything in person is WORSE nowadays because they are so desperate to keep people from leaving and be excited about working in office every single day until we die.

      I have to attend every year a weekly “culture” meeting that is an endless parade of “getting to know” the higher ups and ice breakers. It is incredibly painful, cult like and I get nothing else done for that entire week. Then I get my butt handed to me by management for being behind and not prioritizing work like I should.

      In person doesn’t do anything to solve this problem. This is a management/personality problem. As it shows in our endless employee surveys these in person culture bonding meetings DO NOT work. What we want is acknowledgement of all the work we do, better pay and more opportunities for professional growth that don’t involve taking on 3 other people’s jobs for the same pay.

      Instead we get potlucks, secret santas, bring in a photo of yourself as a baby! type things because management is in a self feedback loop. Throwing pizza at us and making us do awkward ice breakers is much easier than actually doing the work to change and improve the culture.

      1. 653-CXK*

        We had one of those in-office culture bonding meetings in January (due to our employee survey) and they were horrible. We’re now doing virtual meetings again because they work the best and we’re more relaxed when we have them.

    16. Jennifer Strange*

      Lol, no. The most tedious meetings I’ve ever had were for in-person positions. I now work in a position that’s 100% remote (and has been since before the pandemic) and we have a great culture (that doesn’t include pointless meetings or forced fun).

    17. iglwif*

      Bud, I worked in an office for almost 25 years, and I promise you this did not lead to fewer meetings, less tedious meetings, less show-and-tell, less multitasking during meetings, better workplace culture, or fewer complaints about the number / content / tediousness of meetings.

      In a remote workplace, it’s less easy to tell when people are doing their work during the boring parts of a meeting you’re leading. But in any large in-person meeting I’ve ever been in (and even some of the smaller ones), some people are doing work while the meeting is happening; some people are checking their personal email, reading AO3, sarcastically live-texting the meeting to their spouse, etc.; and some people are outwardly attentive but inwardly zoned out. As the person leading the meeting you might not notice this, but it’s happening.

      That aside — LW1 said their company is fully remote. What makes you think there is an office to “get back to”? Even if there were, what makes you think the employees are all local enough to go and work there?

    18. pamela voorhees*

      Saying that a boss who wants to show photos over Zoom will no longer want to show photos in person has literally never been my experience. Bosses who are like this are always like this no matter the format.

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Ha, I thought I was busted doing other work in a team meeting when a Teams chat popped up from a senior leader on the other side of the room. But no, he was asking about a project we were working on together that had no connection to the meeting! Everyone multitasks, apparently.

    20. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

      I assure you this is not always the case. My org went back to the office hybrid in May 2020 and full time in early 2022, and we still have to do silly getting to know you crap at every (in person) team meeting. And ours are weekly.

    21. MigraineMonth*

      Lol, no, I worked for a company that did exactly this sort of thing, except it was mandatory in-person and 3 hours long.

      We were a large enough company that we had to move the start time because of the amount of traffic congestion we caused. Then we’d sit there while the sales team presented all their accomplishments, and then one software team was selected for kudos, and then the CEO gave a speech. Which wasn’t so much a “speech” as a kind of… random association game with slides with frequent interruptions to tell her PA to “write that down, I want to come back to that later”. At least there were free snacks?

      It definitely “built culture”, in that we employees were all on an anonymous reddit-esque platform making memes about what leadership was saying and complaining about how much work we had to do during the entire thing.

    22. I Have RBF*

      No.

      That’s a waste of resources. In-office work for a group of people who do their jobs just fine remotely is a waste of commute time, increase in pollution, waste of real estate spending, and waste of office infra costs.

      Requiring people to commute to some open plan noise pit so the boss doesn’t feel lonely and gets to have his “culture” is stupid and wasteful.

      Culture in fully remote companies is very possible. This boss just doesn’t know how.

    23. JustaTech*

      Even setting aside that this LW’s entire company is fully remote – “remote” does not necessarily mean “work from home”.
      I have had regular meeting with teams at other sites for more than a decade – they are in the office, I am in the office. We are not in the *same* office, but we are all at *our* offices. There are very simple business reasons why our company has multiple locations.

      Everyone being on-site does not inherently prevent silos (there are people upstairs from me who have worked here as long as I have who I see maybe once a quarter – we work in different departments and don’t have a business reason to interact), nor does it prevent too many ice breakers, photo show and tell or oblivious over-praise of one team.

    24. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

      “Get your team back to the office most of the time. (Frankly, if you don’t, it’s a matter of time until the boss requires you to do so.)”

      It’s cute how you assume you know for a fact that THIS particular boss absolutely, positively IS going to require everyone to “come back to the office,” when you have no idea whether there even IS an office to “come back to,” or whether any of these people ever worked in an office together in the first place! *insert laughing emoji*

      Any number of people have already pointed out all the reasons why you are basing your prediction on a set of false assumptions, so I won’t belabor that point. However, I will say that I think your attitude toward remote work is unrealistically rigid and anachronistic given the world we all live in now and gently suggest that you consider working on developing a more flexible and reality based outlook.

      Have a nice day.

  6. Upside down Question Mark*

    #1 I had a manager fix the meeting problem completely by displaying an online calculator either during the meeting or at the end of the emailed notes that showed the cost of that meeting to the company. Included: total staff pay for that period, utilities use, and time spent not with customers/finding new clients, extra for anyone who was on OT, and running costs for that time of projects not getting done. those numbers scared the shit out of everyone and useless meetings stopped instantly

    4. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      Ugh, I want to do that for issues that some of the other departments who spend the same amount of time on every issue whether it’s worth $20,000 or $20 million (and that is a legit spread in my office).

      1. linger*

        I refer you to Parkinson’s “Law of Triviality” (also known as the “bike shed rule” after one of his examples in which a committee quickly approves spending millions on a reactor they don’t understand the details of, but spends hours arguing over spending a few thousand on a bike shed they can all visualise):

        the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

    5. Needs more cowbell*

      Genius. I want this calculator – or details of how to get/create one! (Please?)

  7. Emmy Noether*

    #2 are you sure that Veronica was a good manager when she was in charge of your team?

    In my experience someone who inserts themself in matters outside their responsibility, speaks over people and tries to make them look incompetent (!!) does not become like that overnight, and also cannot be a good manager. Did she do this before to people she felt threatened her authority, but it was normalized because she was officially the boss? Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate how you see Veronica in general.

    1. LW 2*

      She was good at our work and made improvements but you are correct, she has always been very insecure.

    2. Artemesia*

      I am shocked that the manager above Veronica has allowed this to continue. It is unfortunate that Jane has not pushed back more firmly but Veronica should not be in meetings of her old team, and should not be ‘stepping in’ when Jane is not there. This is utterly outrageous behavior that should have been stopped the first time it happened.

    3. Festively Dressed Earl*

      I wonder if Veronica is the reason the job was hard to fill, either because of this kind of behavior or because she’s a tough act to follow. I feel sorry for Jane but even sorrier for the assistant manager; when Jane retires, the AM is likely to end up doing the job without the pay or title and having to deal with Veronica.

  8. Earlk*

    For LW1 you probably have the power to make the meeting a bit more relevant to your team by hijacking 15 minutes or so to give each of your team members positive feedback for something they’ve done this week? It won’t mean that you get the time back but will mean that their works being highlighted and maybe that will prompt your boss to praise them as well.

    You possibly already have a team meeting where you do this but it couldn’t hurt to cut that one down a bit and show off your team infront of everyone else in a meeting you can’t get out of.

    1. niknik*

      Would that not risk making the meeting for everyone not on OPs team even more tedious ? Now they have to not only listen to one team being praised, but two ?

      1. Earlk*

        Those teams also have managers who could praise them in the meeting. They’ve been told the meeting’s going nowhere, so they can only do their best to keep their own team engaged.

        1. amoeba*

          Sure, but if each of the managers adds on 15 minutes, that would easily make it an hour longer than it is now – not sure that would actually make the employees any happier!

          1. Rogue Slime Mold*

            Maybe they need someone on the verge of retirement who is willing to take the hit and just flat out commandeer the meetings to talk about squash varietals until they break the system?

            1. MigraineMonth*

              I nominate my old boss, who would probably come out of retirement just for this. I know details about his efforts to install insulation in his cabin on the lake that no man should know.

    2. TPS reporter*

      I was thinking each of the team managers should have time to talk. at least that would cut into the bonding activity time and give more recognition to each team

    3. Malarkey*

      Yeah I think the answer is learn how to contribute more and engage more with the meetings and hopefully change the format to be more relevant to your team.

      I get the pointless meetings are a waste and this one sounds to be done badly BUT building culture in remote teams often does need time and attention (done badly here). Understanding that the goal he has is to build virtual culture (a really important task), can you improve the meetings? Spotlight a different groups work?, have some fluff pieces on hobbies, holiday traditions, family or academic news (honestly asking employees to share a few bland personal things is not the outrage commenters think in the normal social contact we live in) that changes so it’s not always the same or as long, talk about company advancements or upcoming opportunities.

      It’s hard to get this right but if we want to continue with remote work this is critical- and companies that struggle with this being everyone back so it’s a price to pay for WFH or remote work.

    4. Dasein9 (he/him)*

      This. During the time you give your report, LW, take the time to compliment specific members of your own team and also acknowledge and praise other teams your team has had positive interactions with. Get the other managers to do that, too. It might make for longer meetings at first, but that’s when the tedious parts can be pared down.

  9. Dark Knight in White Satin*

    For #1….

    Is attendance absolutely mandatory during the “fun” non-work part of the meeting? Can OP and other managers simply excuse their teams from the meeting in favor of Doing Actual Work? (“We’re in the middle of Busy Season and this meeting is interfering with multiple deadlines.”)

    1. Maude the Engineer*

      They do the “fun” part first and OP was turned down to moving the not work related crap yo the end.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Ok, but this could still work if OP and their reports join the meeting late. “Oh, I was in the middle of something vital in the Orangeade project and couldn’t stop what I was doing, sorry I was late.” And in a large company-wide mtg, is the boss actually keeping track of everyone who’s joined the mtg? That is, would he even notice if a couple of people aren’t there when the mtg starts? (It does sound like he is the kind of boss who would notice, but maybe he’s not.)

        And of course it’s still possible for OP and their team to work during a remote mtg, as others have suggested. I don’t know that OP needs to say that outright, but OP could make it obvious they’re doing so and that it’d be ok for the rest of the team to do so by simply doing it…chat with your team on Teams, send them emails, etc., and they’ll realize that they could be working then too. Dollars to donuts many of them already are, or they’re playing Candy Crush or something during this time anyway.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Another thought: OP’s team could mysteriously all have other unavoidable mtgs during the staff mtg. “Oh, sorry, boss, but Client X really needed to meet during that time and had no other availability for the rest of the month” or “I had a doctor’s appt that I really needed to schedule asap and this was the only time they had available.” For the doctor’s appt, it has the benefit of not even needing to be true, but the disadvantage that you might have to take PTO for it. I wouldn’t lie about a client mtg, though, that could come back to bite you.

  10. Myrin*

    #2, I find it really interesting that per OP, Veronica was actually an “excellent” manager while this was still her actual role. I would generally assume that a manager’s excellence would translate to being graceful and encouraging towards their successor but apparently there really are bosses who are great in every way as long as they’re in power but as soon as they’re supposed to leave that behind them, they start behaving ridiculously.

    (Also, how does Veronica have the time to do all of that? OP doesn’t mention that the move to the adjacent department was a step back in responsibilities so I’d assume Veronica is now a manager over there, too. Why on earth does she cling to her old position like that when she probably has enough on her plate in her new role and department?)

    1. MassMatt*

      I found that odd also. And why is she so stuck on the old team/new manager? I am wondering if she regrets her move to the new team, or resents having been forced out, or had her own idea of who should succeed her ignored.

      I must say, the fact that the new manager has put up with this for months and doesn’t seem inclined to do much about it doesn’t speak well for her either.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, I took an online quiz and my conflict style is “passive” (not even passive-aggressive, just passive), and even I can’t imagine not taking this level of overstep to my boss for two months, much less a year. What is she *doing*?

    2. LW 2*

      In hindsight she wasn’t great in every way when she was a manager. She has always been insecure. She did make improvements to our work flow and was good at our actual job. Her new role is also management but I suspect her workload is far less and she’s struggling with that as well. She was always someone working late, weekends etc.

  11. Catwhisperer*

    #3, you can also sign the severance agreement and then continue to disparage the current administration. It’s not likely that they’ll do anything about it unless you provide quotes to the media. Obviously this is dependent on your risk tolerance, but these things are usually just a scare tactic.

    2. Isabel Archer*

      I don’t think it’s safe or wise to apply “usually just a scare tactic” with the current administration. OP, if you can afford to forgo the severance and intend to disparage, *don’t* sign.

      1. Alice*

        I don’t think that Trump-adjacent social media users are criticizing their perceived enemies *for breaking a non-disparagement agreement,* or refraining from criticizing them based on them *not being subject to a non-disparagement agreement*. Is OP worried about lawsuits or is she worried about being the target of stochastic terrorism?

      2. Observer*

        I don’t think it’s safe or wise to apply “usually just a scare tactic” with the current administration.

        True. But it’s also unwise in general. Even if “usually” is accurate (which is not necessarily the case), that’s a really big risk to take.

        Do not ever sign something enforceable that you don’t intend to honor.

    3. Christmas Carol*

      Is it really disparagement if you just are just telling the truth? IANAL, but I always thought the truth was a defense against slander and libel. Mirriam Webster says: “The meaning of DISPARAGE is to belittle the importance or value of (someone or something) : to speak slightingly about (someone or something).” I would say they really don’t understand the meaning of the word, but that might be disparaging them too.

      1. Reba*

        Not so. Disparagement is a lower standard than defamation and libel. It’s about negative speech regardless of true or false content of the speech.

      2. Lady Danbury*

        Truth is a defense against slander and libel, but contractual disparagement is usually phrased in a way that any negative comments are prohibited, regardless of the truth. The whole point of adding this language is usually to prohibit both parties from making negative statements about each other, regardless of the truth (and often especially if they’re true).

      3. doreen*

        Truth is a defense against slander and libel but “disparagement” doesn’t necessarily involve either of those. “Disparagement” can include statements that are true but also damaging. It probably depends a lot on the exact wording of the agreement – I’ve seen some where the agreement specifically says the employee can make true statements that are required by law such as court testimony.

    4. Wednesday wishes*

      I wouldn’t trust that this administration won’t go after just about everyone- you know, because its the most efficient use of their time to use the political office as a revenge posse.

    5. TGIF*

      Disparage away! If not as an employer per se then just in general! He is trying to suppress free speech, and that’s unconstitutional. You are allowed to say anything you want about politicians and the administration under free speech, period.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Uh, please run this take past a lawyer before implementing it. Pretty sure breaking a contract is prosecutable in civil court if not criminal.

        1. TM*

          See, this is where your Bill of Rights is very confusing to me – where I am, no contract can supersede the equivalent legislation here. Can your “freedom of speech” re *the govt* really be extinguished via a dinky contract?
          I won’t get started on the whole “severance conditional on non-disparagement” thing – that’s just wild to me, full stop.

  12. Bob2*

    I had a manager such as in #1. Every other ward got through the main meeting in 20 minutes and the shift swap meetings were quick 5 minute hand overs (assuming no major incidents). Her meetings were an hour long each time as every tiny detail was rehashed at every one in completely unnecessary detail. It was amazing seeing medication runs being delayed and housekeeping tasks skipped because, for the third time, the coordinator detailed a patients casual conversation held 8 hours earlier.

    1. MassMatt*

      Where was this person’s manager? Missing medication runs should be treated seriously. Was no one else noticing her meetings were basically triple the length of everyone else’s?

      1. Bob2*

        She was the ward coordinator and we were pretty much self contained as a specialist ward. the others working under her permanently were also pretty bad but she was the worst. It seemed to be only staff not permanently in that ward that even noticed what a massive problem it was. Naturally it wasn’t the only issue.

  13. Cinn*

    LW1, I’ve had department heads like this in two different workplaces. In both cases they always prioritised/praised the team they’re came up through/managed first and often ignored or completely forgot about the rest. And this was back in the days pre covid where everyone was still on site by default.

    Unfortunately I don’t have any advice on how to deal with either, just joint commiseration. The first was so bad that he forgot a whole team from the strategy and then didn’t understand why we were losing so many people from it when they got no support. The second simply struggled to understand why no one outside his preferred team didn’t want to engage with someone who didn’t respect them – and he encouraged an us and them division amongst the people who went on optional team outings.

    Maybe try and push back a bit more, as Alison said get the other managers who haven’t yet said anything to. Or try and find some alternate meeting plans. Like could you try and get a small slot per manager to quickly give a run down of their team’s successes that month? It sounds like your manager wants that forced social interaction, so is there something you could suggest that would take less time than the photos but still kind of social? (Ideally there would be no forced socialisation, that would be separate optional coffee morning type meetings, but when you can’t remove you can try to minimise.)

  14. Trudy's Blue Summer's Dress*

    Not that this really helps, but i wonder if since Jane is close to retirement (and maybe didn’t really want the job in the first place) Veronica has been told she’ll be retaking the team shortly anyway?

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Veronica transferred to another department.

      Which raises the question – doesn’t she have her own work to do?

      If Veronica is not letting go, explicitly contradicting Jane, etc., I question whether she really was a good manager.

      1. LW 2*

        I think her new role is a lot less demanding and she’s struggling with that. She was a good manager in a lot of ways but did struggle with delegating and was not always great to her assistant managers.

    2. LW 2*

      I have considered that she might be taking over again but there is nothing to support that and she would have to have someone replace her in her current role which wouldn’t really make sense.

      1. EvilQueenRegina*

        Could she end up being a caretaker manager while the role was advertised, if Jane did go, with the idea that she’d step back into her current role once someone else was in post? Would she be likely to apply for the job again permanently when the advert goes out?

  15. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    1. Outside of a microbiology lab you don’t force cultures to grow, which is something far too many managers fail to grasp.

    Knowledge sharing is far more use than family photos and whatnot anyway. We’ve got a rotating ‘something you may not know about our work in department X’ thing which can be anything as simple as a thing you finally got Excel to do right up to ‘how I had to fix a router that fell in a toilet yesterday’. It’s hard to give those kind of talks without your personality coming through anyway!

    Maybe that might work as an alternative suggestion?

    2. huh*

      “Outside of a microbiology lab you don’t force cultures to grow, which is something far too many managers fail to grasp.” Having snarky one liners is fun and all, but building “culture” and camaraderie in a fully remote team IS something important for a manager to figure out. This one is just doing a bad job of it since he’s refusing to listen to any feedback about it.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

        I did say ‘forcing’ not ‘building’. You cannot force culture, or trust, or camaraderie, or openness – you can however provide the growth medium for it.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Oh god, please stop trying to force trust. People are comfortable being their “full selves*” at work when trust is there. Forcing people to talk about childhood trauma, deeply personal beliefs or out themselves does not *create* that trust.

          *full work-appropriate self, meaning using pronouns when referring to their partner, not asking the office to refer to their partner as their master

          1. New Jack Karyn*

            For a hot second, I thought you were telling Keymaster to stop trying to force trust. Like, I misread you and thought that you had misread her–when you are actually agreeing with and supporting her.

            I was about to rush in and defend Keymaster’s honor (which she does not need me to do), but then I re-read and understood you properly.

      2. iglwif*

        I think Keymaster’s point is that culture is important and does grow, but does so organically. A team builds its culture collaboratively (in conscious and unconscious ways); the manager can’t just say “this is what our culture’s going to be” and make it happen.

      4. JustaTech*

        To build upon Keymaster’s analogy – I can grow cells in the lab. And some of those cells can grow together to do *amazing* things – like spontaneously form heart muscle cells and start beating.
        But if I try too hard to force them, or if I apply too much physical pressure, they’ll all just turn into skin cells and be a great big mess.
        You can foster growth, and you can nip out bad parts, but it really works best when it happens organically.

  16. Roscoe da Cat*

    #4 – I assume the non-disparagement agreement covers the organization you are working for. As far as I know, yelling about politicians is protected by the Constitution and can’t be restricted by an agreement. Even federal employees are allowed to disparage politicians although not in the office and not in their role as federal employees.

    1. MassMatt*

      That’s nice in theory. In reality the administration is talking about deporting US citizens to foreign gulags. We can’t rely on common sense, conventional interpretations of the constitution, or any general sense of normalcy or rule of law.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      That same constitutional freedom of speech is guaranteed to foreign residents… such as the ones having their visas and green cards revoked based on published op-eds in the paper or gathering for protest.

      If you’re going to speak out–and I encourage everyone who can to do so *now* before it gets harder–probably best you don’t give the government a legal excuse to hassle you for breach of contract.

  17. DJ Abbott*

    LW4- I don’t watch a lot of news but from what I have seen, you should be prepared for them to come after you legally if you disparage. Depending on the scope and type of disparagement, of course.
    From me and all my friends, go for it and good luck!

  18. Trudy's Blue Summer's Dress*

    For #1, those meeting sound terrible. But, if as you say he’s a good boss overall, and you’ve already raised the issue and nothing will change, I think you can probably put up with it once a month

    1. Beans*

      +1 and surprised I had to scroll so far to see it

      Yes, it sounds annoying, but two hours once a month is not a big deal. And I’m not just saying that because I have a similar meeting…weekly.

      This is one of those “your boss sucks and isn’t going to change” situations – figure out how to make peace with it or leave. It’s probably not worth leaving over.

  19. SunnyShine*

    LW2: We had this happen at my work. Only everyone was so sick of our old boss being a micromanager that we all complained to our grand boss about it. It stopped after a few months.

    It’ll keep happening until Jane speaks up or the entire group.

    1. LW 2*

      I didn’t realize when I submitted the question but we have our yearly employee feedback survey coming up this summer so a group of us might mention what is happening. Open to any feedback on that idea!

      1. MsM*

        That’s definitely an option, but I think all of you banding together and going to the boss and/or HR in person would have more impact.

        Also, while this ultimately Jane and management’s problem to, well, manage, I also wonder if there’s more room for you to push back when this happens. Say that you want to hear Jane’s contributions. Say that you think she’s doing a good job when Veronica tries to badmouth her behind her back, or just employ a “wow.” I do think the flag there’s a chance Veronica wants to come back and that could make things unpleasant is worth considering, but if the company’s going to let her get away with this, you probably want to have some escape plans sketched out anyway.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        This is tricky, because Jane should not have let this go on for a month, let alone a *year*, before bringing it to her boss’ attention. So it’s probably not going to look good for Jane to have someone else loop her manager in… but at this point she’s been sitting on it and doing nothing for so long it doesn’t look great even if Jane does bring it up herself.

        Have you explicitly *asked* Jane to tell her manager? Explained all the problems it’s causing? Said that you (or preferably a group of you) will back her up about Veronica’s overreach? I’d give that one chance.

        And yes, whatever comes of that, I think you (or preferably a group of you) should escalate the issues with Veronica above your manager. I don’t know if the survey is the right place (anonymous surveys can be double-edged), but somehow. Otherwise, it looks like you’re going to have two managers fighting over you for the foreseeable future (even after Jane retires and is replaced).

  20. Keep pushing back*

    #1: Your request were absolutely reasonable. I would keep pushing back, maybe not about the praise, but about general feedback from the team. If the majority of employees feel forced, the meetings are not working towards the desired outcome and should be made optional.
    We had similar meetings at one point. The parameters were okay-ish. It was optional, it was about 30 min, it was on a Friday so everybody could share their weekend plans. But it still did not work out. People who talk more than others – talked more than others and the more introverted people felt left out. And the topics of those talkative people dominated the meetings, frustrating others with different interests. As it was a meeting about culture, boss would not interfere too much as a moderator. It is really difficult to make somebody socialize and it has a real risk of alienating people if they feel too much pressure to do so.

    I have seen different managers who either register engagement coming only from a few persons or who don’t. This needs a certain awareness and I would not waste time and energy in making my boss realize they are playing favourites (emphasis on “making them realize”). It fair game to request praise where appropriate. If boss praises finished projects for one particular team, finished projects for other teams should be praised too.

  21. Sibyl98*

    LW5 – If you can’t or don’t want to specify parental leave, maybe saying she is “on leave” for a few months will bring it to a more neutral connotation. It’s still ambiguous and could still get comments hoping she’s okay, but I would assume any of the longer leave reasons could be happening, whether it’s parental/sabbatical/etc.

    1. TetleyAbednego*

      Similarly, I wonder if “family leave” would solve the “are they ok” issue while also being less invasive then “maternity leave” (which also, please just say “parental”!) They could have had a kid, they could be helping a relative, but it does get across that they themself are probably fine.

      1. iglwif*

        “Family leave” would also make me ask “are they OK?” because it sounds like they’re taking leave to manage some kind of family crisis, medical or otherwise. It’s not clear why that would be “less invasive” than just saying the person is on mat leave or parental leave.

        (Also note: maternity leave and parental leave aren’t necessarily the same thing! In places that have both, “maternity leave” usually means leave that the parent who gave birth can take while “parental leave” means leave that either / any parent can take, including adoptive parents. Although I’m 100% with you that we need a more inclusive word for the first kind than “maternity.”)

  22. MSD*

    #2. Yikes. I have to say I got really impatient with Jane. Stop inviting Veronica to meetings. Tell her (in a professional way) to butt out. Going to the manager before even first having a conversation with Veronica is not a solution.

    1. Great Frogs of Literature*

      I wonder if LW would get more traction in getting Jane to take action here if they highlighted the ways in which this behavior is a problem for everyone else. Given the somewhat passive way Jane kind of fell into this role, I can easily imagine her going, Well, it’s just a problem for me, I can deal with Veronica being annoying and not recognizing that she’s letting the team down by not dealing with it more aggressively. I am certainly often more motivated to fix things for other people than just on my own behalf.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Lol, this is me too. I had a boss who was bullying me, and since it was both my first professional job and my first time dealing with a narcissist, I let it hit my self-esteem really hard. My boss said I wasn’t as good a contractor as my teammate Alex (which was true), so I didn’t deserve to be paid as much as I was.

        Then I found out that my boss not only bullied Alex as well, he just straight up wasn’t paying them. There was a moment of perfect clarity where all my boss’ bullshit faded away and I was filled with righteous anger on their behalf. I was ready to start a damn union, except we were a startup of 5 people and we were all planning to quit in a few months anyway.

    2. Colette*

      I wonder whether the meeting invitation was originally sent by Veronica, so it’s tricky to cut her out. It can still be done, though – Jane sends a new meeting invitation at a different time and asks her team to decline Veronica’s meeting.

  23. The Cosmic Avenger*

    LW#2, it sounds like Veronica is technically not supposed to be part of your current team at all, so if I were Jane I would consider cancelling the old meeting series and issue a new one without Veronica. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do, although she could find an excuse, we tend to do that every year or two or three with Outlook meetings for one reason or another. It feels a bit like a nuclear option, but then it also sounds like Jane has tried a lot of things to regain control of her team, and if she’s retiring soon she may also be less likely to care about fallout.
    There might need to be some intermediate steps, such as emails or chats with Veronica about her interference in a team she is no longer any part of, but it also sounds like that may be clear and she may just be ignoring/steamrolling over that.
    Of course, the best course of action would probably be for Jane to talk to her boss and work it out without this big of a shift, but I suppose that Veronica is giving off bully/narcissist vibes from not only contradicting but negging on and explicitly undermining Jane, so I think this is eventually where it would wind up if Jane really doesn’t want to put up with the current situation.

    1. HalesBopp*

      Thank you! I felt like I was going crazy over here. Cancel the meeting series with a note that says, “Restructuring to be in alignment with new scheduling changes; will send out new invite,” remove Veronica, and send out a new invitation! Also, if Jane is truly close to retirement (so hopefully more minimal risk), I would also be reaching out to her boss and saying, “Hey, this is a dynamic I’ve noticed. I know Jane is nearing retirement and has likely been trying to keep the peace, but I am concerned about how this is impacting the team and how it may impact the next person in Jane’s role.”

  24. Teej*

    For #1, do a cost/benefit analysis on the meeting itself. 2 hours * number of employees * cost of employee = meeting costs.

    Assuming total cost per hour per employee is $100 (wage + taxes + benefits) – we’re talking six figures for a 50 employees meeting.

    It’s one thing to “build culture” but is that manager willing to build culture at six figures per meeting?

    2. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Yeah, my company bills out our time at over $300 per person per hour, so it doesn’t take long to really add up. I was in a six person meeting for an hour last week, and that comes to almost $2,000.

      Meetings are expensive!

  25. Clearance Issues*

    commiseration about the meetings… we have about 4-5 meetings that are close to identical. mostly the same content, same presenters, just slightly different audiences: office, regional, company wide but department only…
    A consistent amount of feedback has been “we have too many of these meetings and it is impacting productivity. Can we either decrease the frequency of these meetings or change the local ones so they are more targeted?”
    Management said “You don’t have to attend ALL the meetings!!!” but clammed up when asked “so which ones are less important.” People choose to skip meetings to get work done, attendance drops, individuals and groups are scolded for not attending in person…
    I’d love a solution because this is exhausting.

    1. Trudy's Blue Summer's Dress*

      I don’t have any advice, but your situation sounds different than the LW – their meeting is remote, and just once a month. Sounds like a shitty meeting, but truthfully at that frequency it wouldn’t be a big deal

  26. BigBaDaBoom*

    For #2 as infuriating as Veronica is I’m skeptical of Jane’s abilities as a manager. It’s one thing not to want to have a fight for your own benefit if you’re close to retirement. But this situation is repeatedly making things hard for your team in terms of getting conflicting instructions and it certainly must be affecting their work. Fight for *them* if you won’t fight for you. They deserve a clear command structure and single set of instructions.

    1. Lady Danbury*

      This is a great point. Jane may be wonderful in certain ways, but the way she is (not) handling Veronica showcases red flags on the part of both parties, not just one. It might be different if Jane had tried to address the issue and got nowhere. But she hasn’t even tried and it’s definitely impacting her team’s work environment and (likely) their output.

    3. Trudy's Blue Summer's Dress*

      That’s true but if Jane is really close to retiring she may have checked out already. Which means she probably shouldn’t be managing the team at this point. Depending on when that retirement date is, Veronica may have been told she’ll be back running the team…. Speculation but i’ve seen things like this before

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        This was my thought! I’ve definitely seen situations where a person in a role allows something like this to go on because they don’t mind it, but the problem is it sets a standard for the next person.

        1. Zombeyonce*

          It’ll be SO much harder for the next person in the role, especially if they’re an external hire with no capital yet. They’ll come into this established situation with Veronica butting in where she’s not needed and have a hard time not just figuring out how to stop her, but even knowing where her role should begin and end with the team. Better to stop this before Jane retires or it’ll be completely entrenched.

          1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

            I agree in principle, but good luck getting Jane to do that. If she doesn’t feel like fighting back, she’s setting up a bad situation for whoever replaces her, but I don’t see anything that any of her reports can do about it. This sucks for LW and her coworkers, but unless Jane can somehow be persuaded to put up a fight for *their* sake (if not her own), they are probably stuck with the status quo, awful as it is. 8-(

  27. Pocket Mouse*

    #5 – Just a quick plug to use gender-neutral terms here! Unless there are policies that have the actual words ‘maternity’ and ‘paternity’ in them, AND someone needs to know precisely which policy your colleague is taking leave under, you’d be doing a bit of good in the world to say “parental leave” or “family leave” by reinforcing that it’s meant for all parents.

    (And to forestall a ‘it’s maternity leave for the woman giving birth’ type of response: nope. Nonbinary people and trans men give birth too! The type of leave for recovery from childbirth would most appropriately be called “medical leave” and I would argue that unless the child is placed for adoption, it’s okay to lump that in with “parental/family leave” because it’s related to how you became a parent/expanded your family.)

    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      I agree. Also, “family leave” is much less invasive, as it covers adoption, family medical issues, family non-medical issues, etc. As someone who values their privacy, I would much prefer this.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Definitely understand that some people prefer it for privacy, but since it includes family members getting sick/dying, calling it “family leave” probably wouldn’t stop the follow-up “is everything okay?” questions.

        1. Peanut Hamper*

          Some people are just nosy/inquisitive/caring in a way that ignores social or work norms/etc.

          The easiest way to answer this would just be “yes” because I would assume that “is everything okay?” means “is everything okay in relation to work?”. I have a few coworkers that I am close to and I would probably tell them a few details, but I would really just want the vast majority of people I work with (either internally or externally) to know that my work is being covered and they will not be impacted.

          But the people I am close to in my org would already probably know whether everything is okay or not.

    3. HannahS*

      Yep, I made the switch over to saying “parental leave” instead maternity/paternity leave. Our legal categories are actually called “medical leave” for time off before birth due to complications of pregnancy, “pregnancy leave” for the birth/recovery time, and “parental leave” for everything else. As you say, I like it because it really does cover a wider set of circumstances than just a mother and father having a baby together via pregnancy.

  28. Mango Freak*

    #1 I’m surprised and confused that anyone’s taking these meetings seriously at all.

    I would either stop showing up, or I’d have it on mute (and my own camera off) while I did what I wanted.

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Yeah, this is “get other work done and listen with one ear for your name” territory for sure. If you can get changes made to this meeting, OP1, that’s fabulous. But given how infrequently it happens, and the fact that your boss asked for more engagement from your team but didn’t demand it, you can still get real work done during these hours.

  29. Dawn*

    LW4: When I was laid off last year from a major (Canadian) corporation, I declined to sign their incredibly restrictive non-disparagement agreement. They were barely offering me anything beyond my legal entitlement, in any case.

    I’d imagine that at this point the company probably wouldn’t hire me back, but it was more important to me to legally retain the right to be able to talk about the company and my experience there (and believe me, it was an absolute gag order) than the couple thousand extra dollars I’d have netted for signing. So I say that if you can afford it, go for it, it’s important that people be able to speak out!

  30. Yes And*

    Re LW3: I’m going to write down “What have you tried so far?” and tape it to my monitor.

    1. Zombeyonce*

      I find it very effective both at work and at home. My kids know when they come to ask me for help that they first need to tell me the three things they tried first. Hopefully this’ll get them to do that once they’re old enough to have jobs so their future coworkers aren’t writing in to AAM about them.

  31. Nancy*

    LW1: turn your camera off, set yourself to mute, and do other work until your name is called, just like I suspect others are doing. Monthly staff meetings existed long before remote was ever a thing. It’s just back then we had to walk to a conference room and sit there, now we get to sit at our computer and also do other work.

    1. 653-CXK*

      I have to say that when we have our all-staff meetings, I do other work while people talk as a background. It’s similar to being in a coffee shop – it’s soothing and I concentrate better while someone talks about the new llama grooming techniques, or introducing our new CIO Wakeen, or Bob’s review of guacamole purchases.

  32. tabloidtainted*

    #5, if your colleague has said she’d prefer not to tell people she’s on maternity leave, you can also forestall concern by saying something like, “Claire is on leave until June (everything’s okay!/no reason for concern/etc.) and will get back to you then.”

  33. CubeFarmer*

    I’m in a sort-of Jane/Veronica situation. I’m Jane. My prior manager retired and I got promoted.

    The thing is, for a while, my Veronica forgot to step back. I was willing to give it time because this was a huge life transition for her. But still, at first she made no effort not jump in whenever she felt like it. She would still get inadvertently cc’d on emails, and because she was still receiving those messages, she would feel empowered to respond as if she was still running the program–completely depriving me of a chance to step up and deal with issues and solve problems on my own. At one point she even gave me a list of tasks in a reply-all! It was embarrassing.

    What helped was shutting her out of subsequent replies to a message. “I’m taking Veronica off of this email because she retired.” Every so often Veronica would reach out “Hey, were you able to do this?” Then I’d reply to her privately, “I was able to address XYZ with them separately.” Gradually Veronica got the message.

    What really worked was shutting down her email address. People now get a bounce message.

    1. Pocket Mouse*

      I’m shocked your Veronica had access to her work email after retiring, even if her email address was still live. Preventing access should be a standard part of any separation process, including due to retirement.

  34. TQB*

    LW #4 and, well, everyone in the US – the non-disparagement agreement must be supported by consideration (to wit, $$$) in order to be enforceable against you. It is usually accompanied by a waiver of claims. If you’re already an employee, that has to be something additional, like a severance payout.

  35. Raida*

    1. My boss leads the worst staff meetings ever
    Goddamn, even with clear, solid feedback he’s just leaning in to “but someone likes it!” That is sad, and unprofessional.

    As I haven’t had my cuppa tea this morning because there’s no milk and I’m feeling particularly vicious… here is scorched earth:

    As the group of managers, you could be *really brutal* and tell him something like “We require an agenda for the Section Meeting. It cannot have more than five minutes of intro, next section must be Section, Directorate, Company updates. If that is not attached, I will instruct every member of my team to decline, I will attend and provide them with minutes.
    If the agenda is attached but not adhered to, I will instruct them to send feedback on any issues, and automatically decline the next section meeting regardless of agenda for me to attend alone and take minutes for them.
    Then, if that meeting did go as expected, I’ll tell them the meetings are in fact structured as represented and they can accept them going forward again.”

    And he can see how he feels about a ‘culture’ which is “You’ve made it clear you only care about your favourite team so everyone else gave up.”

  37. Some Internet Rando*

    LW1 – You may need to consider the possibility that your manager is not in fact a good manager.

    Everything you asked for is reasonable and he pushed back…. These meetings sound like a morale killer. His disinterest in getting this feedback is probably a sign of other issues under the surface.

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