boss treats our coworker’s performance issues as team issues, my manager hasn’t announced her promotion, and more

by Alison Green on October 28, 2025

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

1. My boss treats our coworker’s performance issues as team performance issues

I have a colleague, Sarah, who has been in the job longer than anyone else but constantly ignores our processes. Some of these processes were put in place even before I joined almost eight years ago and she helped teach me.

This has resulted in extra work for me and another colleague, Jacinta, who has now been assigned to monitor Sarah’s work and provide feedback. But even worse, our manager does not seem to directly address the issue with Sarah but instead calls team meetings (some in-office when we are all remote) over and over again to address the same issues that via data we know are only regularly made by Sarah.

Jacinta has told our manager that it has not made an impact, but the issues persist (and have for years), along with blatant disregard of any correction Jacinta makes at the manager’s request. How can we get our manager to accept that there needs to be direct conversations from them and not from Jacinta, who officially is in the same role as Sarah?

P.S. I do really enjoy my job. My boss is very nice and knowledgeable. Plus, I work from home which I love. I also really enjoy the company I work for.

Jacinta is the one best positioned to spell it out for your manager. It sounds like she’s overdue in saying to your manager very bluntly, “When you address XYZ via team meeting, it’s not registering with Sarah and the same problems continue. She needs to hear from you one-on-one that XYZ needs to change.” And she also probably needs to draw a line about monitoring Sarah’s work and giving her feedback. As Sarah’s peer, it’s really only appropriate to ask her to do that if Sarah is receptive to feedback and if your manager is, you know, doing the job of actually managing Sarah (and even then, asking Jacinta to monitor her work — as opposed to just providing feedback — isn’t great).

It sounds like your boss is trying to outsource the uncomfortable parts of her job to Jacinta rather than doing them herself … but Jacinta doesn’t have the authority to actually do what’s being asked of her, which is why everyone is so frustrated. This is only going to get better if Jacinta tells your boss it isn’t working and that your boss needs to get more hands-on with Sarah.

Related:
my boss sends scolding emails to all of us — and then tells me I shouldn’t take them personally

2. Handling a manager’s strong negative reaction to a discussion about inclusion

I’m looking for advice on how to handle a difficult situation at work involving a senior leader’s reaction to diversity and inclusion initiatives.

A colleague of mine had a one-on-one conversation with a senior leader to suggest sharing recommendations from our DEI committee to help make an upcoming conference more inclusive. During that conversation, the senior leader reacted very strongly and negatively:
* He talked over her for roughly 10 minutes.
* He repeatedly said the idea wasn’t feasible and was counterproductive.
* He appeared angry and frustrated and shut the conversation down.
* He commented that because the conference audience is predominantly one demographic (white and male), the organization was “already doing a pretty good job representing their demographic.” (!!!!)

The conversation ended unresolved. My colleague is worried about raising the issue further because it could damage her working relationship with this leader. She brought the situation to me because I am the next most senior person on the team.

We both agree that something should be done, as this behavior is contrary to our organization’s stated values. However, HR is not really an option — they handle benefits and employee handbook issues, not interpersonal dynamics, culture, or promotions. The next level up would be the COO, who has shown herself to be responsive in situations like this, but it feels like “bringing in the biggest guns,” and we’re hesitant to escalate to that level. But maybe we should.

Given these constraints, what is the best way to handle a situation where a senior leader dismisses diversity initiatives so forcefully in a private conversation, and the person raising it fears retaliation? We have both already documented these incidents privately, but otherwise have yet to take further action.

Your colleague should talk to the COO. This is a big enough deal to escalate it, and she’s the appropriate person to escalate it to.

When she has that conversation, she should say that she’s worried about retaliation for escalating it, and ask the COO for her help in guarding against that. That’s something people receiving these kinds of complaints should always be thinking about it, but it can help to spell it out and explicitly ask for assistance in ensuring it doesn’t happen. That will often prompt the complain-receiver to be more proactive about guarding against it.

3. Should I tell my manager I know she’s been promoted?

My (excellent) manager has been due for a promotion for a while. Last week I noticed that her Teams label changed from “Job Title” to “Senior Job Title” – but she hasn’t said anything about it! Her email signature, which employees manually create, has remained the same, but things that are controlled by corporate have been updated. She’s been candid with me that she worried she was “mommy-tracked” after returning from maternity leave and has been working hard for this. I’d love to congratulate her and talk about it, but I haven’t brought it up so she can announce on her own schedule. But it’s been close to two weeks and I’m getting impatient!

The promotion won’t affect our team structure, and it’s not a role that anyone else was competing for – just a title and pay bump for people after a certain length of seniority and strong performance. I understand there’s all kinds of reasons that she, her supervisors, or corporate may want to hold off on announcing a promotion. My questions are: a) what are those reasons, and b) would it ever be appropriate to quietly tell her I noticed and offer my congratulations?

I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to quietly say, “I saw your title changed — congratulations!” … but first give her a while longer to announce it herself. She might have reasons for holding off.

As for what those reasons could be, generally internal politics of some sort. For example, someone else going after the same title didn’t get it and they’re trying not to rub it in her face, or they’re still working out some details of the new role (i.e., it won’t just be a pay bump) and aren’t ready to share those yet, or they’re waiting to announce it paired with something else, or she’s got personal stuff going on and doesn’t want to deal with even positive commotion at work right now, and on and on. There’s no knowing. If she still hasn’t said anything after a month, I think it’s fair game (they did update the corporate stuff, after all, and you’re seeing it), but give her some space with it for now since she seems to be trying to take some.

4. I was told not to take lunch breaks — but it turns out everyone else takes them

I work at a nonprofit with over 2,000 remote employees. When I started remotely, almost two years ago, I was told multiple times by my boss that I needed to work 40 hours per week, and that the culture was that we worked through lunch from 9-5, for a total of 40 hours. After two years of this routine, I found out that others on my same level and below me have been working 9-5 and taking an hour paid lunch break. I had no idea this was happening! And it feels very unfair. My direct report has also been doing the same as I have, as I instructed her. She is non-exempt and I am exempt. She is based in New York and I am based in Illinois.

After I connected with my boss about it, he said that he would speak with HR. Their response (through him) was that there are no labor laws requiring paid or unpaid lunch breaks and everyone should feel they have the agency to balance work and rest time to perform and tend to their priorities. I feel a bit taken advantage of because, after consulting with a few of my colleagues, I’ve been working an extra ~260 hours per year compared to others on the same level who have been taking a lunch break everyday.

Am I unreasonable wanting clarity on this? Is it legal for me to be working through lunch without a break?

Federal law doesn’t require meal breaks at all; it’s left to the states, so the laws in play are different for you and your employee. For you, Illinois requires a 20-minute meal break for every 7.5 hours worked, and no later than five hours after the start of the shift (if you were non-exempt, it could be unpaid but because you’re exempt, your pay can’t be docked). For your employee in New York, her state requires employers to provide at least 30 minutes of break time if an employee works more than six hours, though it doesn’t need to be paid. So, there’s a second legal issue.

A lot of states don’t require meal breaks for exempt employees. Since you’re remote, I wonder if your employer is based elsewhere and didn’t know about New York’s law — which wouldn’t excuse them from complying with it, but might explain what happened. But most states do require meal breaks for your non-exempt employees, so it’s extra odd that they wouldn’t have known about that. Still, it sounds like this direction was coming from your boss, not from the broader company (since no one else has been functioning that way). But your boss was acting as a representative of your employer, and your employer is liable for the directives he gave you.

As for what to do, can you talk with HR yourself? Point out that the organization has inadvertently been violating both state laws, and that as a result you and your employee have both worked a couple hundred hours more than everyone else. Then say, “I’d like to get this remedied in a way that’s fair to us both” and see what they say. If this had just been an unfortunate accident that didn’t break any laws, they might tell you there was nothing they could do and they’d just ensure it was fixed going forward. But given that they’ve been breaking the law, you have some leverage to push for some additional compensation to each of you to make it right.

5. Can my old manager share info about me with my new manager?

While I was on leave, my manager was promoted and we got a new manager. Before I left, I had a meeting with my old manager and the team lead because there was a miscommunication about the hours I could work. In my interview, because I’m a single mom, we had agreed that the only night hours I would work were if there was an emergency.

Well, this new manager came in and sat me down to say that word around the office is I won’t work nights. She said she reached out to my old manager, who she said I refused to work nights. Is this type of conversation legally even allowed? The meetings within my company are supposed to be protected and confidential. My lead and my old boss apparently spread this around my office, as no one should’ve even known this.

Yes, it’s legal — and generally necessary — for your old manager to relay information to your new manager about your schedule. This is a pretty normal conversation for managers to have. Otherwise, how else would she know, let alone adhere to, what you had negotiated for when you were hired? It also wouldn’t be that unusual for others in the office to know that you’re never available nights; that’s going to come up in a bunch of work-relevant ways that other people may have a legitimate need to know.

Generally the only info you can expect to be treated as confidential in a work context would be private health information — but even then something might be shared with a new manager to the extent that it affected things like scheduling or medical accommodations.

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{ 177 comments }

{ 177 comments… read them below }

  1. RLC*

    Another possibility for LW3’s manager: the manager received a change in title and increased responsibilities without any additional pay. This happened to me, new title in the directory and far more responsibilities; sounded good on paper only as my pay grade did not increase. The “congratulations” I received felt a bit awkward.

    1. KateM*

      My thought was that considering the way OP describes the promotion, “I got the title and pay bump that all people get after a certain length of seniority and strong performance” may not feel like something that even deserves an announcement.

      1. amoeba*

        Yeah, this. We have the same structure and I’d certainly never even consider making an announcement to my team because of that kind of promotion! There might be an e-mail from my boss at some point, but at my company, those are often just done as a “promotions this quarter” thing, late, or just… forgotten. Like, a lot of the time people do just find out because the title on official things changed.
        So if it happened here, I’d feel zero worries about “hey, I saw you got promoted, congrats” because the whole thing just feels incredibly normal to me.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, my last promotion from level 2 to 3 was an achievement for my boss, who went through all the bureaucracy to get the level 3 position created. My boss acknowledged that I should have been hired at that level and moved me into it as soon as the position existed, so it didn’t really feel like something to be congratulated for.

          Actually, that’s my only promotion… ever? I worked 7 years at a weird company that claimed it was egalitarian because it didn’t do titles or promotions.

      2. a clockwork lemon*

        My company announces promotions in a big list once a year, regardless of when the promotion actually happened. There’s usually a pay bump, but it’s not generally treated as a big deal. My own manager got a promotion at some point in the middle of last year, and it only came up after the announcement list was published and someone else on the team saw it because nothing about his actual role/responsibilities changed.

        1. KateM*

          Yeah, official announcements where I worked were “so X has left the company and your greatboss is now Y”, not “this junior programmer is now just A programmer / programmer is now a senior programmer”. That was something that normally happened to people.

    2. 2cents*

      Came in here to say that the exact same thing happened to me, unfortunately. And yes, the “congratulations” feel a bit awkward.

    3. Ann O'Nemity*

      It seems like major promotions—where an employee takes on new reporting lines, functional areas, or strategic priorities that others need to be aware of—are much more likely to be widely announced than stepwise promotions that involve minimal changes in responsibilities.

    4. Laser99*

      “Congrats on the big promotion! What are you going to do with all that extra money?”
      “Uh…”

      1. RLC*

        In my case, no room to push back as my previous position had been eliminated in a restructuring and I was given two options: “accept this position with all these new duties, or be made redundant”.

    6. Another One*

      A friend of mine is just receiving an out of cycle promotion. She’s under the sense that there won’t be an email announcing the promotion because this isn’t the done thing at her employer.

      She doesn’t particularly care- she cares about the title and the pay (cuz realistically she was already doing the work.) And everything internal will automatically update with her new title, like Teams, even if the company doesn’t make an announcement.

  2. But Of Course*

    In letter 4, the LW is in Illinois and the report is in New York. It doesn’t substantially change Alison’s advice, but I will note I find it weird they’re adhering to a 9-5 when every org I’ve worked at that has a schedule expects roughly 8-5 to accommodate a lunch.

    I will also note if you live in a state that requires breaks and you feel like it, you can always report the violation to your state’s department of labor. My mother’s employer ended up paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars for wage theft for failing to give breaks. Obviously that’s a nuclear option unless you have union protection or know where all the bodies are buried, but it does exist.

    2. happy red panda*

      At my current job, I work 7-3 with a half hour unpaid lunch and two paid 15 minute breaks. A lot folks lump it all together into one 1-hour lunch break. I’m not unionized, in case your curious. I do think my job is a rare unicorn in that I feel like I’m taken care of really well at work.

      1. But Of Course*

        I only noted the union issue to point out that if you’re Jane Average with no contract and no union, filing a wage theft claim may very well put you on a fast route to being fired. It would be illegal retaliation, of course, but that’s not the deterrent it should be.

    3. Doreen*

      Every place I’ve worked required either 7 or 7.5 hours of work per day and the unpaid lunch brought it to 8 hours between start and finish ( 8-4,9-5,12-8 etc)

      1. Long time lurker*

        This is how my workplace operates as well. Exempt employees compensation and leave, however, is based on a 35 hour workweek and we generally have a LOT of flexibility in how lunch/breaks etc. are used. Non-exempt employees are compensated for 40 hours a week, and are expected to be available to work 8 hours a day, meaning a longer “work day” that includes unpaid breaks.

    4. Asloan*

      I wouldn’t say anything in OP’s situation. I would take HR’s advice and quietly take a short lunch break if I wanted one,but to me the worst of all worlds is the most likely – a new 8-5 or 9-6 scheduled with a mandatory unpaid hour for lunch. Taking 20 minutes, keep it to yourself, and quietly keep working 9-5 is the best scenario for me. (You say your coworkers take a paid hour but I wouldn’t want to become known for that personally).

    5. dude, who moved my cheese?*

      In contrast I’ve never worked somewhere that required an 8-5 instead of 9-5, so I find that weird. 8-5 absolutely isn’t universal!

    1. Heidi*

      Plus if everyone else works nights, they’re going to eventually piece it together that the OP never does. I got the sense that the OP felt that the old manager had put a negative slant on the situation when describing it to the new manager, though, instead of something everyone had agreed to up front.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        I think it’s the indication that LW “refused to work nights” when it was actually agreed upon that gives a negative slant. Also the new manager framed it as gossip/rumor. Honestly, I’d be weary of new manager. They communicate like a pot stirrer.

        1. timeisacircle*

          Who actually used the word “refused?” Words mean things, and it’s important to know what exactly was said by whom–Was it the old manager, the new manager, or you? I think it’s important for the LW to clarify this soon and get it sorted out. In most states, an employer can change your schedule, so turning the temperature down on this is important.

        2. Brett*

          This could likely be the new manager twisting the words of the old manager to match their preconceived narrative.

      2. Casey Cases 'Em*

        Yes, this was my reading. I’d want to correct the new manager and say “it’s not that I won’t, it’s that I _can’t_ work nights except in emergencies, and this was agreed at my interview,” because it sounds like old manager is sore at having to do this and the resentment has carried over.

        1. AngryOctopus*

          This. The only bad thing here is that if the new manager truly said “I heard you *refuse* to work nights”, that’s a misrepresentation of your employment terms. I hope LW said “actually, I negotiated that when I was hired since *insert details of that here*”.
          LW, it’s not too late to go to your new manager and say “I wanted to clarify that not working nights was something agreed to with Old Manager when I was hired, and I am still willing to do so if an emergency arises”. It’s 100% necessary for New Manager to know that you can’t work nights on a regular basis (just as they’d need to know if you arranged an offset hours schedule, or worked T-Sa, or were in charge of all aspects of AccountX even if that’s not normally how work is distributed), but you want to go into this new relationship making sure that New Manager knows that not working nights was agreed to at the outset, not something you just refuse to take on.

      1. A Reader*

        I too am and remain confused by questions (and not just here, I have encountered this in real life, too!) that are framed as “Is it legal?” Certainly very few of us know every law everywhere, and it’s understandable to be frustrated by frustrating situations, but it’s like…why would there be a specific law against Y? How would that even work?

        1. Myrin*

          I got a feeling that OP was somehow under the impression that the arrangement made with her old manager was “private” in the same way that, for example, health issues would be. (And indeed, depending on where you are, employers might face legal consequences if they, for example, blabbed to any random coworker about your cancer treatments.)
          But even there, that generally doesn’t count for the successor of the person who it was arranged with in the first place!

          1. newish*

            Even if the reason were protected, knowing OPs schedule would not be. Even if they can’t work Fridays due to receiving cancer treatments, coworkers can be told that the person doesn’t work Fridays.

          1. Peanut Hamper*

            This is capitalism. If we didn’t have laws against slavery and child labor, rich people would just buy a bunch of orphans and send them down the mines.

            It never hurts to check, especially as so much of this is handled at the state, rather than federal level.

              1. Curious*

                That assumes that the current Supreme Court doesn’t re-instate Lochner, which centered freedom of contract.

            2. a clockwork lemon*

              People’s schedules in the workplace are on par with people’s names in terms of basic factual information, especially in a job where there’s scheduled shifts and coverage concerns. It’s factually accurate to say that OP won’t work nights–that’s the schedule she negotiated when she was hired.

              The “in case of emergency” part is largely irrelevant here, this is about standard operating procedures for the team/company. OP doesn’t work nights. OP’s coworkers are aware that she doesn’t work nights, because they are working when she is not. There’s absolutely no expectation of confidentiality around stuff like scheduling, especially on a team with coverage-based responsibilities where someone is working shifts OP won’t take.

          2. Laser99*

            I’m always surprised by the things employees think are LEGAL. “My boss told me we are not allowed to discuss salaries”, “I gave Boss my notice and she said I owed them the money they spent on sending me to a conference last month,” etc.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              I think we don’t have good education around this in the US. I certainly didn’t learn it in school, and my parents only knew the laws that applied to their sectors. There are all the legally-required materials on the bulletin in the break room, but other than that where are we supposed to learn the laws (other than this awesome blog, of course)?

        3. Guacamole Bob*

          I think this happens when someone feels they are being mistreated by an employer/manager and their question really boils down to “they can’t treat me like this, can they? Surely there are rules against this” even if the issue is really not a legal one.

          In this case, though, it led OP to a clearly erroneous line of thinking – of course managers can talk about employees amongst themselves, and often have valid reasons for doing so. The fact that the new manager seems to have a poor attitude about the schedule is really the issue, not how they were told about it.

        4. The Office Druid*

          I’ve definitely noticed a trend relatively recently for people to vastly overestimate the legal protection they have as employees. They seem to equate “I personally think this is unfair” with “obviously this must be illegal.”

          In the US, unless they’re trying to fire you because of you’re a member of a protected class, or trying not to pay you, it’s almost none, except for a few random state laws.

          1. Myrin*

            FWIW, I started reading AAM in 2014 and the “Is this legal?” questions were definitely already a thing back then (although possibly you’re including that in “relatively recently” and mean it as opposed to the 70s).

          3. Summer child*

            This. The things that people think are covered under discrimination protection is almost comical. I once had an employee who accused us of discrimination and creating a hostile work environment because she was not allowed to wear open toe shoes in an area where the likelihood of something being dropped on your foot was high. According to her, we were
            “preventing her from dressing in a way that made her feel good about herself”(?!?) People also don’t realize the concept of at-will employment. We don’t have to give you 14 documented chances to correct a behavior before we fire you. We don’t even HAVE to give you one if we don’t want to.

      2. Not on board*

        I think the LW was thinking more about the fact that it comes across like the old manager told the whole staff that LW refused to work nights, and created a negative atmosphere and then did the same thing with the new manager. Then LW thought the whole thing should be illegal.
        There is an issue with the way the new manager approached the LW for sure, making things seem far more negative and gossipy than they should have. The only thing for LW to do is to clarify with new manager that when they interviewed, they stated they could only work nights in an emergency and that old manager hired them with that agreement.

        1. umami*

          Yes. This seems like one of those things where it would become obvious that LW is not working nights, and when other employees don’t have any context, they will fill in the context with their own thoughts (and generally negatively). It’s naive to think people aren’t talking and speculating about why one team member seems operates under different rules, especially if it seems to be some secret arrangement.

          1. Myrin*

            I’m wondering about the “no one should’ve even known this” part myself.

            OP seems to view the situation as “nobody knew I only worked nights during rare emergencies – old manager and team lead misunderstood something about my availability which we cleared up in a meeting – I went on leave – new manager heard talk around the office that I refuse to work nights – new manager reached out to old manager”.

            But isn’t it actually just as likely – possibly even more so – that everything went exactly like that with the exception of the very first step? As in, people were already remarking on OP’s not working nights, but since old manager knew that and had in fact explicitly agreed to it, she didn’t do anything about it? For new manager, however, this was new information, so she acted on it.

            That does not in any way excuse the fact that new manager seems to have fumbled the whole messaging and resulting conversation.
            But while I can theoretically imagine a job where it’s indeed possible for someone to be working a completely different schedule from everyone else and nobody being the wiser, I reckon it’s actually much more likely that everyone has long noticed OP’s working hours but the talk of that simply hadn’t reached her.

            1. umami*

              Yes, that is my thought too. People didn’t just start talking about this when a new manager came in – the new manager just didn’t know why it was happening until reaching out to old manager. I don’t think LW has made that important connection.

      3. Melody Powers*

        My impression is that she was connecting it to parental status, since that was her reason for not working nights, and then it probably got conflated in her head with laws preventing discrimination based on that category in some states. Sometimes people bring in ideas about confidentiality to these things too.

      4. not nice, don't care*

        Maybe OP thinks this kind of conversation equates to a request for accommodations under the ADA, which are very confidential.
        My personal experience is that informal/verbal accommodations are only one boss away from being ignored, and that it wasn’t until I made a formal HR/doctor-involved request that my needs were accommodated. Until then I was always threatened with being assigned impossible work/schedule.

    3. abca*

      Do you think that managers are doing scheduling everywhere? That is not the case. It is very common that “schedule maker” is someones specific job.

      In this case it sounds like the night shift limitation is similar to an accommodation so it would make sense that that is known to HR and the person doing the scheduling. LW doesn’t say she never wanted the manager to know. The gossip about it and the phrasing of “refuse” are unexpected. Perhaps she expected that she would have a private conversation with new manager about it.

      1. Colette*

        The manager should know even if she’s not doing the scheduling, because performance reviews can be affected by things like this.

      2. Don't Usually Read the Comments*

        Being a single mom is not similar to needing a medical accommodation. And, yes, it’s common for the manager to either set or be aware of the schedule and any impacts, such as requests for time off, availability, etc.

        I agree that the phrasing is problematic, but can be easily clarified. It may be the new manager phrased it wrong or that’s the actual feeling among OP’s coworkers. OP seems like a very private person, so it wouldn’t surprise me if prior boss didn’t explain to anyone why she doesn’t work nights and neither did OP. In the absence of info, co-workers may have made an incorrect assumption that is now treated as fact and was what the new boss heard.

      3. metadata minion*

        It’s extremely normal for a manager to at least have access to the shift schedule, and to comment on the fact that one employee never works nights. Maybe the appropriate response is “she has an accommodation to work days” with no other details, but it’s pretty reasonable for a manager to at least need that much.

        Depending on the work, daytime and night work might vary, and in order to appropriately assign tasks, monitor performance, etc., the manager needs to know when employees are working even if they’re not the one assigning the shifts.

    4. MBP*

      I think the bigger issue is how it was worded. OP “refuses to work nights” is much different than OP is “unable to work nights outside of an emergency”. One says OP is difficult, the other matter of factly states OP’s availability.

      1. el l*

        That’s what the reaction should be about: “At-best mis-stating the situation.”

        New Manager did not break the law or any professional norms in getting this information. Whether they are a jerk, or incompetent at messaging, remains to be seen.

  4. DropBearWhisperer*

    LW5 that’s a really normal conversation for a new manager coming in to be briefed on the team, including everyone’s agreements and restrictions and/or availability. If that was a quote from the new manager “the word around the office is…’ then that does seem like a rather adversarial way to approach the discussion with you and I can see why you were taken aback. But yes, this is really normal discussions between managers.

    1. Metal Gru*

      I feel like the new manager doesn’t like the idea that LW has special arrangements (and I wonder if this will carry over to other situations where things are different for different people due to differing needs but ultimately equitable – I bet it does). “Word around the office is…” means new manager seems to have asked everyone about it rather than LW. There will now be a lot more “emergencies” requiring LW to work nights I expect… I wonder though if there has always been resentment from other team members and they are seeing this change of manager as an opprtunity to get it changed / bring it up again?

      1. Amateur Linguist*

        LW5 was on leave when the management changed, so the new manager didn’t have a chance to discuss it until now. Still a bad way of communicating, but understandable why she didn’t discuss this with LW first.

        I think that, unfortunately, if the job has those kind of needs it might not be workable in the long run. I’ve seen this happen at my work and it’s difficult for everyone — the business needs what an employee might not be able to give and the accommodation they’re seeking would put more burden on others, which has been ruled to be unreasonable/undue hardship. I’ve been through these discussions myself and it did need a bit more finesse in negotiation than I was expecting; here in the UK we have a right to make a flexible working request, but the needs of the business can be used as a reason to decline, and in my line of work the coverage needs run pretty deep, to the point where we can’t really keep spare managers sitting around for the off chance that someone needs to go off sick or has issues with working a full 9-5 week.

        But unfortunately, yes, it looks like the reality of not being able to take on her fair share of night work (for understandable reasons) night be taking its toll on others who have to fill in. The manager sounds like she’s going about it in the worst way possible, but the sentiment behind it may have been ‘we tried this but it’s not working out so we need to revisit it’. LW needs to play ball here despite the bad messaging because it masks a real problem in many roles and it sounds like it’s the other colleagues — who may have needs of their own that are difficult to juggle with the demands of the role — who are bearing more of the burden here.

        1. bamcheeks*

          it looks like the reality of not being able to take on her fair share of night work (for understandable reasons) night be taking its toll on others who have to fill in

          This is certainly possible, but it seems wild to state it as a near-certainty based on the information available. I think you’re leaping quite far ahead of the text there.

          1. Amateur Linguist*

            It seems to me if the job requires some night work, but LW has asked not to be given those shifts unless they really can’t avoid it, then at some point at least someone is going to feel that way. Working with people in coverage situations, there’s certainly a need to work around this kind of thing and find an equitable solution and divide things up fairly — with regard for LW5’s circumstances but also with regards to the job requirements and the ability to maintain fairness across the board.

            I get DJ Abbott’s point as well, but there’s something that needs to be addressed here regarding the situation and it would be better for OP to address this before it gets too difficult.

          2. Chirpy*

            This is a pretty common thing to happen, though, so it’s not a huge leap. The night/ weekend/ worst hours often get shoved off onto the childless/single coworkers, instead of the parents taking their share.

            – signed, the childless, single person who actually had the most seniority time-wise at one office, who all the parents (including the one with the stay-at-home spouse) dumped all the worst hours on and who was the only one not allowed to take flex time.

        2. DJ Abbott*

          Or it could be that the manager is resentful herself, but the employees are not. I would try to find out which it is before I make any big decisions. Are the other employees OK with OP not working nights and the new manager twisted their words? Or is it true that everyone is feeling resentful? That’s the key question here IMO.

          1. AngryOctopus*

            This. It could be that the other employees don’t like it, it could be that they don’t really care one way or another. But if the new manager has an issue because the others resent it, they need to present it as “I know you were given this accommodation at the outset, but it’s not working well because it’s causing the others to have to work X schedule instead of Y schedule, which they were promised when they came aboard”. Needs can change and things need to be renegotiated, but the new manager needs to not start with “So, I heard you refuse to work nights” instead of “So, I know it was agreed you’ll not work nights on a regular basis, but unfortunately after reviewing with everyone, that doesn’t work because [insert reasons]. Are you open to revisiting this?”

            1. Amateur Linguist*

              Yeah, she’s not doing it the right way, but it sounds like in the question LW is asking — whether or not it’s legal for her new manager to know this or have talked to her previous supervisor about it — it could be a suboptimal delivery of a valid point. LW isn’t even taking umbrage at how it was said (which is valid!) so it’s important that, now she knows it’s legal, she needs to explore the situation a bit more with the manager in a proactive manner to sort this out. (Maybe she shouldn’t have to and the manager should do the heavy lifting, but now LW knows the legality of the situation it might be a good idea to get this sorted before it gets problematic.)

              1. umami*

                This is a good point. LW had an (erroneous) expectation of privacy around her arrangement, and that became her focus, rather than how to clarify with her new manager what the agreed upon arrangement was and why. But new managers are not beholden to prior agreements like this – in fact, the onus is on the new manager to ensure that the department is running smoothly for everyone, not just one employee. The manager’s framing was pretty poor, but they do have the right and responsibility to reassess how things are going overall and realign as needed.

        3. Specks*

          We don’t know anything about the situation. Maybe there’s resentment, but maybe there isn’t. Maybe there is unfairness and maybe there isn’t. Maybe she took a pay cut or didn’t negotiate pay to get the flexible hours, for example. Maybe she makes up for the nights in other ways. If this is indeed how the new manager brought things up — and not her own dramatic interpretation — that’s a crap way to manage regardless. You’re supposed to quell rumors and improve your team’s relationship, not stir the pot.

  5. Metal Gru*

    Letter 4 – lunch breaks. You have 2 problems here – legal (which was covered in the answer and I’m sure it will be in the comments) but also political/organisational. Manager has forwarded on the communication back from HR and there are really a couple of ways you could take that. As an implicit backing down from manager’s stated policy (and then you have the conversation about the 260 extra hours a year, which equates to 6.5 WEEKS !!) or denying the original policy was ever stated – do you have the “work through lunch” in writing anywhere? I think if it was only stated verbally it becomes a “he said, she said” situation that maybe won’t get any traction with back pay etc.

    You could also have a more direct conversation with the manager: thanks for following this up with HR. This directly contradicts the policy you stated about working through – has something changed? You [manager] need to understand that this has put me in a difficult position as I now have to reverse the directive with my own direct report and honestly it makes the organisation look incompetent.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I would tell the manager that from today my direct reports and I will be tasking daily lunch breaks, without any comment about looking incompetent – she might even see this as a reason to keep insisting on working through.
      I’d also ask the manager, copy to HR, about compensation for all the extra hours worked (imo it’s mainly her responsibility to sort out her own breaking of company standards)

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        What I find interesting about this question is that OP and their direct report (the whole company?) work remotely, so how would anyone even know if they were taking a lunch break or not? I also work remotely and while there are some days that I just work through lunch because I feel like it, I do also take lunches away from my computer other days. I don’t make a big thing of it, I just leave my desk and go eat (or on nice days sit outside and read). I do agree that OP should clear this up with HR and maybe try to get back wages for time worked, but I don’t think OP needs to start announcing when they’re taking a lunch break. I guess if this is the kind of company where everyone is scheduling meetings all day every day or continuously sending Teams messages and OP needs to be on top of that, then maybe they need to tell someone they’re on break, but barring that I think they can just do “silent lunch break.”

        1. MBP*

          I agree with everything you said except asking about back compensation. OP is exempt – you don’t get paid for overtime. And even though her report is non-exempt, unless she was working more than 40 hours she isn’t owed back pay either. Sure it sucks that others were working less than 40 hours a week and getting paid for 40, but if she pushes for back pay she’s going to ruin it for everyone.

    2. Travis*

      There is no back pay in this situation. If they are hourly, they are charging their hours and getting paid for them. If LW is salaried, the nature of being salaried and exempt is that your pay is the same regardless of how many hours you work.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        It wouldn’t be “back pay”, but LW can request restitution for themselves and their report based on the fact that they have been *denied their legally-required breaks* for years now. It wouldn’t be as straightforward as “we’ve worked X extra hours, so pay us X”; it would be more of a negotiation on what each party thinks is fair (possibly influenced by how much the company would have to pay if LW reported the situation).

    1. Grumpy Daddy*

      I’d suggest via phone, or ideally in person, with a follow-up email confirming what was said.

  7. Marvel*

    I think most people have had a boss like LW #1 at least once. In my experience, it usually stems from a desire to be “nice” and not “single anyone out,” but inevitably it means the problems continue while everyone else gets increasingly annoyed at being treated like part of the problem when they’ve done nothing wrong.

    I’d love to say this is mostly an issue with new managers (it’s definitely a mistake I made when I was a new manager!) but nope, I’ve seen it from individuals who have been in leadership positions longer than I’ve been alive. It is especially prevalent in my industry, which is full of creatives and known for being more touchy-feely than most.

    I worked with an executive director once who would spew vitriol *at me* about how much he hated someone on my team (there’s some industry-specific context here where “on my team” means I oversee their work, address problems, and escalate to the higher ups if they don’t listen, but they don’t really “report to me” as such and I don’t have the authority to impose consequences beyond an awkward conversation). It was nasty stuff that attacked her character as much as her performance: in his view, she was arrogant, egocentric, and ruining the project to “show off.” He wasn’t wrong about this, mind! She truly was a problem—but organizationally speaking, *he* was the one with the authority to address it, not me, and she had already shown that she was not willing to listen to a word I said. Once, I did pass on a more constructive version of his feedback, at his request. She was so incensed at my AUDACITY in “criticizing” her that she marched directly to his office to demand an explanation. He, of course, insisted that I must have “misinterpreted” him. Reader, I did not. He simply refused to give her any feedback directly, and she continued on with her problematic behavior until the end of the project. She and the executive director were also long-time personal friends (think a relationship measured in decades rather than years), which made everything that much weirder.

    As a manager, I believe in being kind and direct. I categorically refuse to be “nice.” I wish I could prompt other managers to realize the difference… unfortunately, in my experience, “nice” managers rarely change. They’ll make all kinds of excuses, but the reality is that they prioritize harmonious relationships and being liked over actual ethics and integrity.

    1. Allonge*

      I think part of the temptation is that reasonably often, yes, one team member has a large issue, but some others make the same mistake sometimes, and it’s easy to see it more as a team problem than as an individual one.

      This still does not make it ok to keep addressing it to the whole team!

      1. Fancydress*

        Yeah I’ve definitely sent team comms like ‘Hey, can everyone please remember [specific part of our process]?’ off the back of one person making an error, but only when it’s an error that others have made in the past OR could easily make in the future. But this always comes after a direct convo with the person who made the mistake about it first, then the team comms are a follow up.

        And crucially if it’s a repeated problem one person is making, or an error that I wouldn’t reasonably expect others to make, then no team comms.

        1. Varthema*

          Same here. In that scenario you mention, usually the group reminder is sufficient to solve the issue, IME. but as a crucial difference to the LW’s situation, any further corrections on this point go straight to the main offender(s). (And then it’s actually helpful to have the recent group reminder to point to, so they can’t claim ignorance or forgetfulness.)

        2. metadata minion*

          Agree. Heck, I’ve even sent reminders to the team when *I’ve* made a mistake on something we don’t do very often — “hey, team, in case anyone else forgot since last time, you have to scan demon-haunted books twice or they start possessing your barcode scanner.”

          1. MigraineMonth*

            “DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, scan them three times. We can’t afford another Maroon Tuesday Incident.”

      2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        In that case, they should do both: a general reminder plus a 1-1 reminder.
        Also, for problems other than performance, e.g. a coworker is say skipping work she doesn’t like, or taking 3-hour lunches without cause, then at least some coworkers will copy her unless reminded it’s not ok.

      3. Marvel*

        I think it’s different when it’s a mistake that everyone makes, even if some make it more than others. That, to me, does justify addressing the group at large rather than as individuals. That doesn’t sound like the situation the LW is in, though.

        It’s also different to me if it’s something like a brief reminder email over something trivial, e.g. “please remember to wash any office dishes you use and place them in the drying rack.” But work errors that require other staff to cover and are serious enough to result in multiple in-office meetings for an all-remote team? That’s bonkers. You have to address individual issues with the individual. This is as much for them, the employee, as for you, the manager—they deserve transparency and a chance to correct the issue, or begin job searching if they think they may be unable to perform to the required standards.

      4. Junior Assistant Peon*

        As a general observation, group communications about one person’s misbehavior usually sail over the head of the individual they’re really directed at, with a side effect of making innocent people paranoid.

        1. Be Gneiss*

          My go-to talking point on this is that if you have someone wearing a unicorn onesie to work, and you have an all-hands meeting to say unicorn onesies are absolutely not allowed, the person who wears the unicorn onesie will NEVER think that means *their* unicorn onesie. Meanwhile, a dozen people will worry that maybe the sweater they wore last week was *mistaken* for a unicorn onesie and this meeting was all about them.

          2. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Yah, case in point when the CEO at my last job made a point of telling us at an all-staff that we shouldn’t take vacation during our busy time of year (we had lots of fundraisers in the fall), which led to several of us asking our managers if we shouldn’t have taken a week off during the two months when we were busiest? Managers seemed to think the comment was directed at one of the C-levels who had taken two weeks off, but it was quite demoralizing for the CEO to call out every single person who’d taken any time off. Most of us needed the time off for specific events so it’s not like we could have done it at different times.

            (And there had never been breathed a word of this non-policy that the CEO seems to have invented that particular year….if they really didn’t want us taking time off then, they should have mentioned it ahead of time or made it a true policy. That would have pissed everyone off too, but at least it wouldn’t have just been a passive aggressive comment to everyone after the fact.)

    2. Another Kristin*

      Constantly amazed how the following things are basically work superpowers:

      – being able to say what you mean
      – being able to say no
      – showing up on time
      – following policies and instructions.

      I know that when I’m in a group receiving feedback like “Some of you are not complying with TPS reporting standards”, I always think – is this me? Are my TPS reports not up to standard? Where did I go wrong? – and then I go back to my reports and doublecheck that I’m crossing the I’s and dotting the T’s, or I ask the manager if I’m the one making mistakes. It seems like some people hear the same thing and think “Good thing I’m not one of THOSE losers who keep messing up their TPS reports” and go on their merry mistaken way.

    3. BongoFury*

      I’m not 100% sure obviously but I think LW#1 might be my coworkers, their names are literally Sarah and Jacinta and this scenario is happening in my group. They also read AAM religiously.

      *IF* it is, what LW#1 left out was the manager of both Sarah and Jacinta report up to Trevor, who adores Sarah. They’re very very good friends outside of work. Jacinta lives across the country but she’s asked to oversee all of Sarah’s work because everyone above Trevor can see that there is A Problem and there is general respect for Jacinta outside of Trevor’s management stream.

      We’ve all had bad bosses who are adored by their upper management. It sucks but it’s common. I’ve never seen a manager be asked to spy on another manager before but I’m not surprised it happened here.

  8. BellStell*

    Ah yes for the OP whose manager will not address the problems with a team member. The missing stair school of managing to avoid being held accountable as a manager for a bad employee. Why can’t people manage? That is your job!

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      A manager who shies away from giving unwelcome feedback to a bad employee is a bad manager.

    2. timeisacircle*

      Because in America we don’t see it as a specific skill set. We promote the hardest working individual contributor to a management role , whether they have the skills to manage people or not. And then we don’t reduce their workload so they have time to manage.

      1. Worldwalker*

        Yep. Management is seen as some sort of aristocracy. And as a reward. We don’t “promote” the best teapot painter to sales … but we very well might “promote” them to management. Even though they probably have more skills related to selling teapots (at least they could describe the art process to buyers) than to management.

        This is why managers are paid more and treated as more valuable to the company. They’re not. There is no valid reason that managers need to be paid more than their reports. But the concept of managers as aristocrats, not just as employees with a specific skill set, persists.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        I worked at a tech company that wouldn’t hire managers, they’d *only* promote technical ICs to management. On the plus side, your manager understood what you were working on and had pretty reasonable timeline expectations. On the minus side, none of them knew how to or wanted to manage.

        I had multiple coworkers promoted to be my manager, do their duty for 1-2 years, then request a demotion so they could go back to doing the work they loved.

    4. BongoFury*

      Wild guess, but I’m wondering if they don’t have time because they’re too busy doing all their employee’s work for them

    5. KPI.exe*

      I once had a manager like this. He was a peer who had been promoted.

      After the 4th or 5th emergency team meeting where he berated the group for one person’s mistake, I pulled him aside and asked if his comments were directed at me. He looked baffled and said, “What? No. I have no issues with your work.” So I asked him why he was pulling me away from my work for something that had nothing to do with me. He said, and I quote, “Don’t step in front of a bullet that’s not aimed at you.”

      I at least had the presence of mind to say, “I have no way of knowing if that bullet is aimed at me or not, because you’ve lined all of us up in front of the firing squad.”

        1. KPI.exe*

          Yes, it actually did. He quit calling emergency team meetings. No idea if he ever talked to the actual transgressor 1:1, though.

          It probably helped that when we were peers, we were the kind of work friends who tease each other all day and play [truly harmless] pranks on each other. If he’d been hired in from the outside, I still would have said something but would likely have not expanded on his bullet metaphor.

  9. Neila N.*

    For LW 5, I am curious about the precise verbiage used. “LW 5 can’t work nights” may mean the same thing as “LW 5 refuses to work nights” in terms of making a schedule, but one is a statement of your availability while the other could be an attempt to undermine you or make you look like less than a team player. (If that was the wording used I definitely get why you’re feeling defensive or even attacked!)

    Either way though, I think the solution is proactive, matter-of-fact communication. Of course you’d LOVE to work nights, but there just aren’t any drop-in daycares open then, sorry! Once your new manager understands that it’s not won’t but can’t, I doubt they’ll have any true issue with it.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      “Once your new manager understands that it’s not won’t but can’t, I doubt they’ll have any true issue with it.”

      I wonder if the OP’s coworkers have complained, maybe seeing a new manager as their chance to change a scheduling system they find unjust, especially if there is inadequate or even no additional pay for night shifts. It could be also that circumstances have changed for one or more coworkers, so they are struggling and the sytem is under strain.

      Since the OP was able to negotiate no non-emegency night shifts, it sounds like her skills are in demand, or at least were at the time. If the job market in her field hasn’t changed, she should be able to insist on the original terms (if she’s in the US, I gather she won’t have these in a legal contract)

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      The wide-eyed innocent look is unlikely to work with her coworkers and it sounds like she’s started off poorly with the new manager too.
      It’s often a problem when an HM agrees special conditions that her successor dislikes or doesn’t like explaining to coworkers.

      1. Amateur Linguist*

        Agreed. I think it’s important to look at this with your new manager and develop something that suits everyone, because it’s in her own best interests to make sure it can continue.

    3. DisgruntledPelican*

      You last paragraph shows a real naivete of the world. Because in my experience, “once your new manager understands that it’s not won’t but can’t, your new manager will explain that night shifts are a part of this job and if that doesn’t work for you, then this is not the job for you so let’s go ahead and have Friday be your last day.”

  10. June*

    I would wait for manager to announce her promotion. If she wanted anybody to know prematurely, she would’ve told them.

    1. D*

      I’ve had coworkers who suddenly had “senior” on their job titles and no one ever really said a word about it except in quarterly recognition meetings inn huge groups, because it genuinely did not matter outside of their paycheck. They had the exact same job duties and the exact same job structure.

      It sounds like this is one of those cases, and therefore getting acknowledged for….getting an extra pay check because I’d been there long enough…? would be kind of weird.

      1. TechWorker*

        Really? Promotions work like that in my company too except that it usually represents a gradual increase in contribution and/or responsibility and then you get recognised with the promotion. People can feel different ways about that but I’d be surprised if most people thought of it as completely meaningless beyond the money :)

        1. amoeba*

          Not completely meaningless, no, but certainly not something you’d make an announcement about! I mean, maybe the boss or the org might, but I really cannot imagine sending an e-mail to the team saying “hey guys, I just got promoted to senior xy!”
          It’s different if your responsibilities actually change, you have a legitimate reason for informing people of that. But an announcement of just the title change would just feel incredibly braggy to me.

          (I would change my signature though, so maybe she does want to keep it quiet. Sure. Or she just never thinks about her signature and has forgotten – which also absolutely could happen to me.)

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            In a similar vein – my boss is putting me up for a bump from analyst x to analyst x+1, and it won’t actually change my job any, he’s doing it because I’m already performing at the x+1 level, and I kind of don’t want him to go out of the way to share it with my team if it goes through, because I don’t need to feel like the cause of any “how come I’m not getting bumped” or similar, and yeah, it would just feel braggy. (And my email signature just says “analyst” now, without the number :P )

            1. amoeba*

              Yeah, I got a promotion from “scientist x” to “scientist x+1” a few years back and I’m almost sure that that wasn’t, in fact, announced anywhere, and I also just have “Scientist” in my signature. You can tell by looking at my Teams profile, because that automatically has the full title, but I think nobody noticed and I also felt no need to discuss it with anybody.

            2. anon writer*

              Also similar – I went from Mytitle 2 to Mytitle 3 recently, and my boss actually asked me *not* to announce it. It was definitely a time thing, though, as I had just passed the five-year mark.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, wait. She might not be that thrilled:
      I had a promotion without a payrise but with additional responsibilities. My manager congratulated me and shook my hand, but I was not celebrating. He’d said before that he only gave raises to people he thought might otherwise leave (rampant ageism in my field and country)

  11. Properlike*

    For #4 – what about having only two employees out if the entire company work through a paid lunch? Would they get compensation for that as well?

  12. Unclear on break rules*

    I am confused on LW4. Is LW4 non exempt? Is the LW4 being paid 36 or 4o hours a week?

    Does it matter?

    1. Myrin*

      “She [= OP’s direct report] is non-exempt and I am exempt.”
      OP is paid for 40 hours, but so are her colleagues who only actually work 35 hours a week (with “an hour paid lunch break” per day).

      1. Unclear*

        HR response was cryptic enough that it’s unclear to me if the 1 hour paid lunch break is official policy or if logging accurate timesheets is unenforced.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Exempt employees don’t need “accurate timesheets” unless it’s for billing purposes.
          I think the question for LW4 herself is: did her colleagues work 35 and get paid for 40 and HR’s response means “yeah that’s fine regardless of what your boss told you”. Or is the actual expectation “whether you take a 30 or 60 minute lunch, you then don’t leave until late in the day”.

          Like, LW mentioned 9-5 but other employees took lunch, and LW worked 9-5 no lunch. But normally what I see is, exempt or not, 9-5:30 for a half hour lunch, or 9-6 if taking an hour lunch. The confusion is the boss originally told OP to work 9-5 with no break, and OP therefore told her own report the same. But it’s possible HR really meant, y’all do the math yourselves, we don’t care 30, 60, whatever.

    2. Laggy Lu*

      It’s also weird that everyone is remote, but must apparently work only 9-5? How would anyone even know if a salaried employee was taking a real lunch break, away from their desk for an hour? It’s probably more of an issue with the hourly staff, but for OP, it seems like they just take a lunch break and make sure they put in their time and get their work done.

      1. A. Non*

        This has made me wonder if the boss’s original point was that there needs to be some kind of coverage 9-5 and not that OP shouldn’t take a lunch break, but that there isn’t a set time for it/the office is never ‘closed for lunch’ and everyone just takes one when they can.

        1. Metal Gru*

          But then surely the manager would have clarified that / corrected LW’s understanding, rather than sending the query on to HR?

          1. A. Non*

            We don’t know how LW explained the issue to the boss, so it’s possible they were still operating under the misunderstanding that LW was asking when/if there was a set “lunch time” for the company or something?

    3. MigraineMonth*

      My understanding is that it isn’t a pay dispute (the company is paying both LW4 and their report correctly), but that they have been denied their legally-mandated breaks. (HR was incorrect when they asserted that there weren’t laws requiring breaks; there are in both the states where LW4 and their report work.) LW4 and their report could ask that the company make restitution for illegally denying those breaks.

      Going forward, it’s possible the company/LW4’s boss could give them their breaks but require them to work additional hours, but that would be out of step with how the rest of the company is handling it (with a paid 1-hour lunch).

  13. Everdene*

    LW4 reminds me of a manager who did the exact opposite when he hired me, he was a ‘nice guy’ who wanted to be universally adored. He emphasised strongly that our lunch hour was unpaid, yes, I must take the full hour rather than finish early and no, don’t get sucked into working over lunch… Over the next few months he got more and more frustrated as I read or studied or shopped during that hour. He believed I should have known what he meant was that I should volunteer for an hour every day because I believed in the mission so much. The day he said that I laughed outloud. It didn’t go well. (I lasted a year before rage quitting)

    1. Dust Bunny*

      My workplace doesn’t dictate how long a lunch break we take but does want us to take them and doesn’t GAF what we do with the time as long as we aren’t working. But they are very clear that it’s a break and we’re not supposed to work off the clock.

      1. Myrin*

        I believe that’s the point – Everdene’s boss was talking a big talk but hoping Everdene would magically understand that it was all lip service so that he could think of himself as “the guy who openly encourages disconnecting during lunch”.

      2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        Everdene shouldn’t be suckered into working over lunch FOR OTHER PEOPLE. But just doing their regular job isn’t being suckered.

      3. MigraineMonth*

        The boss wanted Everden to work over lunch and was lying when he encouraged them to take the entire hour off. From the reference to “volunteering”, he probably expected Everden to be so dedicated that they would illegally work off the clock.

        If the arrangement had ever been discovered, though, the organization would have been liable for paying Everden for all of those (probably overtime) hours. You owe an employee for all time worked *even if* you don’t know they’re working additional time/overtime. You also cannot have anyone volunteer to do work done by a paid position, even if you’re a nonprofit.

  14. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

    This kind of ties into a question I’ve always wondered and meant to look into the AAM universe to see if it had been answered. I’m exempt, salaried, with a requirement to work 80hrs a pay period. Our organization has a culture where we eat lunch at our desks while working. As such, do I have to have an ‘unpaid 30 min’ break, or can I just count it as work time? I use public transport (I’m on site in DC, company is based out of VA) and most times I end up at approximately 10 hrs and 15-45 min (depends on when I get to my desk), which I log as 10hrs (I work 4 10hr days in office, and a few telework on Friday). I’d like to think that since I work the 10 hrs, and I’m salaried, the base 10hrs should be good enough to count and I don’t need to stay the 30 additional minutes to make 10hrs and 30 min equal to 10 hours.

    1. AlexR*

      I’m in the same situation and it’s truly never occurred to me to fight for a lunch break. Most people in my department don’t take one at all unless it’s a business lunch. I will take 15 minutes every so often to eat a sandwich, although I’m not really a big lunch eater in general. I’m usually working 9-6. At OldJob where I was non-exempt, non-salary, I only put down a lunch break if I left the building, which was common among the organization. I’ve never seen people make big drama about lunch before but leave it to AAM.

      1. BongoFury*

        My whole team is remote but they’re all on the East Coast, and I’m two hours behind them. My 10-11AM is very, very quiet but from 11-3 I am always, always booked into meetings. I just work through it because I’d rather sign off early anyway.

    2. Amateur Linguist*

      From what I can gather, exempt means there’s no limit to what time your employer can claim, but it’s set as a norm around a 40 hour working week. This is something that will vary from office to office and field to field and it may be best to observe your own working environment and what goes on in it.

      1. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

        Yeah, we actually ran into this because for exempt your organization can put expected hours into your contract (really to prevent you from saying ‘oh, I worked 30 hours this week and still got my work done so you have to pay me my full rate.’)

        A few months ago they tried ‘recommending’ that we work 88 hours a two week pay period charging 80 to the paid labor code and 8 to the unpaid labor code. Everyone pushed back and said we were only required to work 80 hours, so no, we’d only charge to the unpaid line if we worked over 80 due to how our schedule worked out that pay period, not because we were required to do so. That’s how it became ‘oh, we were recommending because the nature of our work a lot of us go over and we just want to take credit for your good work’. But we did hear that another contract the organization picked up, the contracts they gave those who moved/got hired on to that project say that they will work 90 hours / two weeks and charge 80 to the paid line and 10 to the unpaid. Government contracting is wild. But a good lesson in reading contracts and pushing back as a group!

        1. Amateur Linguist*

          Absolutely!

          In the UK we do generally have contracted hours, but no direct national law about overtime, so things are a bit looser. We do have a minimum wage and you’re not allowed to work such hours as would bring you down below that rate (for instance if you’re contracted on 37.5 hours at minimum wage, you can’t work more than that at all). To be frank, a lot of people will be on a fixed contract like this and their pay won’t fluctuate based on the exact time you clock in and clock out; I suspect I’d be hourly in the US based on my job, but I’m salaried here and prefer it because I know I’ll get a specific amount at the end of the month (and today is in fact payday!). Overtime can also be taken as Time Off In Lieu, so it doesn’t have to be paid out.

          The other reason I enjoy being salaried is that I’m not clock watching. I obviously can’t be late starting up, but I’m often up and about by half 8, particularly now I have a cat who needs feeding around then, so I might as well log on and get going. I am above minimum wage so I’m not creating any liability for my workplace, and I do get to log off at 5 on the dot when my better paid colleagues with more responsibility may have to finish stuff up. The rationale for me is that if I sit down waiting for 9 to start, then I’m bound to get sucked into something that isn’t work, and when I look up and see it’s now 9.10 and my computer hasn’t booted up yet…well, yeah, now I’m late.

          It just suits my routine, but on the flip side, that’s my routine because I’ve grown up in this system and it’s what I know. I’m glad there are at least some brakes on complete exploitation and that the logical outcome isn’t that you’re expected to be on for 168 hours a week!

      2. MBP*

        Exempt basically means you don’t get paid for overtime. You earn the same salary every week/2 weeks/month regardless of how many hours you work. If your boss isn’t a tyrant, this means that when things are busy you may work more than 40 hours a week. But when things are less busy, they’ll overlook a long lunch or coming in late/leaving early sometimes. It generally evens out in the end (if you’re treated like a human with a life outside of the office of course).

      3. MigraineMonth*

        This. Salaried exempt is supposed to be great because it’s “prestigious” and you have additional flexibility (and at least there is a salary floor). In practice, exempt is often a scam where the company expects heaps of unpaid overtime.

        There are few laws protecting exempt workers from exploitation. Your company could decide next week that it wants a minimum of 50 or 55 hrs/week from its exempt workers, and without a union contract or sector-specific laws I don’t think there’s any legal recourse. (The company can’t dock your pay for not working the number of hours they demand, but they *can* dock your PTO and/or fire you.)

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Yep, this is why I prefer to be hourly. If I do have to work overtime, I get paid overtime.

          Our lunchtime is very flexible. If I’m swamped, I might work through lunch and eat while working, but then I take off early the next day, take a longer lunch, or otherwise tweak my time. If I have nothing on Friday, I put in PTO and leave early, if I’m not saving it for something.

          1. Amateur Linguist*

            Nice idea with the PTO. I have more than I know what to do with, but I ended up with 6 hours spare two years ago with a 7.5 hour day. I took off at 2pm on two consecutive Fridays and enjoyed the longer weekend. Watching my mum trying to get her head aeky d

            This year I will be left with .12 of an hour as an artefact of some weird calculations or whatever, probably still from when I moved from part time to full time then used up the 6 stray full hours. Maybe I can leave 7.2 minutes early on 31 March (leave year resets on 1 April).

      4. fhqwhgads*

        “Exempt” is an abbreviation. The thing you are exempt from is overtime pay, in a nutshell.

    3. Sneaky Squirrel*

      DC doesn’t require you to take a lunch break. If you take a break under 20 minutes, it has to be paid. If you take a 30+ minute break, your employer can decide whether it is paid or unpaid. To qualify as a break, you generally have to be fully relieved of your duties – checking emails and working while you eat is not a break.

      So to answer your question, you are not required to have a 30 min unpaid break. You may choose to if you’d like and your employer may choose to count that time as unpaid time if you do. But if you’re eating and working at your desk, that should count as work time because you are working.

      1. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

        Thanks! One of my coworkers was insisting that we need to work 8.5 (or in my case 10.5) and count it as only 8, because of the ‘requirement’ to take 30min unpaid lunch, which no one actually takes since most of us just bring lunch and eat at our desks.

        I just want to make the train and not stay extra time :).

    4. Travis*

      You are salaried and exempt. There is no such thing as a paid or unpaid lunch break. There might be a chargeable versus nonchargeable lunch break, or you might have a lunch break that is duty hours versus non-duty hours. If you are working, even if you are eating at the same time, then your time is chargeable/duty hours.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        There is also no federal or Washington DC law requiring breaks for exempt or non-exempt workers.

  15. You move diagonal*

    For #2, can you and/or your colleague talk to your own manager first? They may be able to guide you toward the best approach, and might make it easier to start the conversation than if you’re worried about bringing it to the COO

    1. Malarkey01*

      I agree with this. Also being a realist many companies positions on DEI initiatives have changed dramatically.
      Before pulling the COO in, it’s worth taking the temperature with a trusted leader to see if this is a good idea to raise or if that directors decision is the new standard as it seems like you got a pretty firm decision and going above him will burn some capital (and may be totally worth it but not if the COO isn’t going to support this either).

    2. Amateur Linguist*

      Yeah, this also helps you to plan your strategy as well. While a lot of DEI should be self-evident, the reality is that we’re in a battle for hearts and minds and have to be a bit savvy about how we present things. A more constructive approach and dialogue with the COO about what is possible and what the constraints are would be a better political strategy, then trying to work with those constraints to build something everyone can get on board with. The more people see DEI as something harmless and that is meant to uplift and empower, the fewer concerns they will have and the more they will buy in.

      The way we do it in my org is to really push the variety of experiences and ways of thinking and make it more about seeing ourselves as individuals with something to contribute regardless of other elements of our identity. While these identities are important to us as human beings, within the workplace it’s the contribution and team effort that matters most and casting it as important to the field to expand the range of people that want to go or get to be heard.

      The discussion with the COO needs to have some political strength behind it if you want to achieve something that everyone sees as a step forward.

    3. Asloan*

      I agree that personally I would approach this differently than the advice given. Unfortunately DEI is in the crosshairs at the moment and I have little confidence the higher-ups want to hear about it regardless of their policy/mission statement TBH. I wouldn’t put myself out there by leap frogging one senior leader and going to another. I would look for an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback like a 360 review or employee survey or something that wasn’t hanging a target on my own back, sorry to say :(

  16. HonorBox*

    OP1 – If you’re in a position to say something to Jacinta – and by that I mean that you’re friendly with her, not in a reporting position – I would suggest to her that she have a conversation with your boss given her unique and important spot. She’s unique in that she’s been tasked with monitoring Sarah. She’s important because she’s a peer, both of Sarah and of others who are stuck in the meetings that the boss is holding.

    Jacinta needs to tell the boss that the multiple meetings are not helpful. Sarah is not picking up on the messages, and everyone else is feeling frustrated at having multiple meetings to address something that only one person needs to hear about.

    Your boss seems like a person who wants to be liked. That’s all well and good, but if they continue to not address Sarah directly, others aren’t going to grow more and more frustrated, so they’re getting an opposite result, and more people than Sarah will dislike them. If your boss wants a change in results, they have two options. They can address Sarah one on one. Or they can give Jacinta the power to do more than monitor.

  17. MBP*

    #1 having a nice manager is great, but doesn’t mean much if she won’t actually manage her employees. Jacinta should not be the one providing feedback – your manager should be, especially since this has been going on for a while. I would meet with your manager (just you and Jacinta), let her know this process is not working, and that she needs to talk to her one on one. It’s creating more work for you and Jacinta and it needs to be addressed – by your manager.

    1. HonorBox*

      As I noted above, I’d also point out to the manager that she’s running a risk of alienating the rest of the team by not addressing Sarah directly. They’re smart people. They know the meetings are not about their work. And manager is wasting their time by forcing everyone to sit through unnecessary meetings.

      1. Momma Bear*

        Agreed. Outsourcing the job of managing Sarah is building resentment. Jacinta should not need to babysit her peer. Those “we’re going talk about this because I’m afraid of talking to that one person” meetings are unproductive anywhere. I often left those annoyed I had to waste my time getting a talking to about something I wasn’t doing. Boss needs to boss up.

      2. MBP*

        Agreed. It’s similar to a manager who punishes everyone when a few mess up, instead of addressing it with the ones messing up.

  18. blue-star*

    I’m a little surprised by the answer to #2. I think it’s a great answer for 2023. But in this environment, sadly many many companies’ attitudes towards dei has changed. I would think about the actual culture within the org before escalating this.

    1. Beany*

      I agree (at least in the US), but I also think that it’s largely the abbreviations “DEI” and “DEIA” that raise hackles and attract negative attention. Many of the ideas — especially the Inclusion bits — are pretty common-sense and uncontroversial if you can frame them properly.

      1. You move diagonal*

        I think in this case some of the details we don’t know might be relevant – specifically what kind of recommendations were they making. If it’s just to change some wording on a brochure that might be very simple. If it was a request to reconfigure the bathrooms or something like that it might not be feasible.

        Not that those things shouldn’t be done, but it would shed a little more light on the attitude of the exec and the wisdom of going above him

    2. bamcheeks*

      LW also says, this behavior is contrary to our organization’s stated values.

      It’s certainly possible that the organisation’s commitment to its stated values have changed, but I think if the organisation has those stated values, then it is absolutely worth employees pushing them to live up to them. Don’t make it easy for the organisation to give them up!

  19. Sunflower*

    #4 My workplace threatens to fire us if we don’t sign out for lunch before 5 hours are up. We can’t even glance at an email. They don’t want to get fined hundreds of thousands of dollars because someone signed out 1 minute late.

    Let your employer know they are breaking the law and the consequences if the department of labor finds out.

  20. Pocket Mouse*

    #3 – Believe it or not, she may not be aware the promotion went through! The last time my title changed, I knew it was going to happen eventually but communication around the timeline seemed to be, for some reason, conveyed in writing to my supervisor, who then verbally conveyed it to me. I don’t believe I myself got any notice in writing about it happening either in advance or when it happened. So if the process is the same where you are, the verbal relay may have been missed or delayed.

    In any case, I think you have good standing to privately tell her you noticed and were happy to see she got the title change she was working so hard to get. Someone mentioned above that her pay may not have changed accordingly; focusing on the title change would be the way to go if this is a possibility.

  21. Lalitah*

    Lw2: If you are in the US: one thing (I do is to check the Individual Contributions found here https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/how-to-research-public-records/individual-contributions/ to check if the senior leader has contributed to politicians who lean anti-DEI, if you catch my drift. Also, check the COO as well. This will help you craft your message to find common ground (another good resource is this https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/politics) and will help you know who you’re talking to.

  22. Travis*

    LW3: I would encourage you to think differently about your manager’s promotion. You say you’re getting impatient – impatience is a strong reaction. Her promotion is not about you. While it is natural that you want to congratulate her, try decentering your own reaction and waiting for her to announce it on her own time or even not announce it at all.

    LW4: your manager has the right to expect you and all of his direct reports to work 40 hours a week even if other managers are OK with 35 hours a week. He should not have placed limits on whether or not you take a lunch hour, but you need to separate the lunch break issue from the hours-worked-per-week issue. You did not say whether you were salaried or not – the rules on lunch breaks after a certain number of hours typically apply to hourly workers, not salary workers. Either way, if you want to take a lunch break, take a lunch break. Just be certain that you continue to work the number of hours that you are expected to work

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      If other managers are Ok with 35 hours, then the company probably is too, so the Op should not have problems standing up for equal treatment.
      At least our side of the pond, 35-37 hours is the norm and I expect that’s true of many US workplaces too.

    2. Coverage Associate*

      I believe that LW said that they were exempt/salaried and that LW’s report is not.

      Unless “salaried” is being used to mean non exempt but not regularly recording hours worked. I had a boss use it that way once.

      But in that case LW and the direct report might still have unpaid work. Usually where there are paid breaks, they are built into the work day, so an 8 hour day assumes a paid break during that day, and a 40 hour week assumes 5 paid breaks. If the breaks aren’t taken, the employee effectively worked more than 8 or 40 hours, and this is the case even if there’s a writing about “we expect 8 hour days and 40 hour weeks.”

  24. spcepickle*

    LW #5 – I would highly recommend getting something in writing from someone above your supervisor that says you will not be scheduled for nights, but I would also understand that in the United States your employer can change the terms of your work. I manage people who have to work nights. If I came in as a new manager and found out that one person did not work nights – I would start paperwork to fire them. Not because I am mean or don’t want to support working parents, but because if the job requires night shifts, the job requires night shifts and it is really unfair to everyone else in that position to have to take on more night work.
    I think it is important that you know that a deal struck with your old supervisor would not protect you from being fired for not meeting the job requirements. Doubly so if it was just an oral agreement that was not written down or signed anywhere.

    1. Kella*

      This is such a weird take. Coming in and firing someone who isn’t available nights is a much bigger swing than just a different judgement call. That’s a complete re-evaluation of what is and isn’t required of the job, and a re-evaluation of whether employees have the freedom to negotiate their schedules or not. Those are entirely different terms to be working under.

      If night hours were a *requirement* of the job, she never should have been hired. But she was hired, with the explicit agreement that she wouldn’t work night hours. It’s a very normal thing, especially for jobs where people’s hours shift from week to week, that different people have different available hours to work. If you had student employees who could only work at night and not during the day because they had classes, would you fire them?

  25. Insomniac*

    #4 If you’re going to push fir some kind of retroactive compensation for this lunch breaks, id suggest you’re more likely to get it if you don’t ask for money – which may not be possible in the budget, especially as this is a nonprofit. I think you might have better luck asking fir it in terms of paid time off, which you can take as a nice little vacation. (Possibly spread over multiple years, cause that is a lot of hours)

    1. fhqwhgads*

      I’m not familiar with the NY or IL laws, but in CA there is a meal-break penalty, whereby the employee denied the meal break within the required number of hours into the shift is automatically entitled to specific compensation.
      Doesn’t change the budget of this place. And I don’t know if there’s a similar thing in the relevant states, but I don’t love the recommendation to approach the employer as “hey you broke this labor law but don’t worry you won’t have to pay for it.” There may be other local laws in places where they have other employees that specifically puts them on the hook for paying those employees now, backpay. This employer needs to get used to the idea that there are financial penalties for this sort of thing. Better hit it head on.

  26. GenX Cog*

    LW4 – if your report in NY state is hourly, then your company has been violating wage and hour laws. Having been an employee in NYS and now supervising NYS workers myself, I’ve become intimately familiar with the “any person working 6 or more hours gets a 30-minute unpaid lunch break” rule. Note that the law does not actually differentiate between salaried and hourly workers, though in practice this is only an issue for people who punch timeclocks.

  27. Just Me*

    LW3 – When I finally (after 2.5 months of waiting, post-interview) received my promotion at work, I was told to not say anything to my team or anyone else within the organization as the company likes to send out a company site-wide email to announce the promotion. It took my manager 3 weeks to finally get it out!

    However, for certain job requirements, my title was immediately changed as it enabled me access to “management only” information. The title needed to be official in order for me to be granted access to certain intranet files or within our software packages. If anyone noticed my title change, they never said anything to me until after the email came out.

  28. fhqwhgads*

    The thing that’s weird in #5, which isn’t what the LW was asking, is that the newboss came into as “so you refuse to work nights”. And it sounds like that’s because the old boss framed it that way.
    But the letter says this was a negotiated thing during the hiring process.
    So if anything, the beef shouldn’t be that the schedule info was shared with others, it’s that it was apparently shared in a disingenuous way?

    Oldboss should’ve said “LW5 has outside of work responsibilities and isn’t available to work nights. This was agreed upon when she took the job.” Newboss could still decide, well that doesn’t work for the role anymore. But it’s kinda crappy for it be framed as “refusing” without further context when it seems like the people involved should’ve had that context?

  29. Mad Scientist*

    LW5: “The meetings within my company are supposed to be protected and confidential.”

    Even if that were true, that wouldn’t apply to your new manager. They will be in any of those “confidential” meetings moving forward, so it only makes sense that they would need to know the context of what was discussed / agreed in prior meetings. Think of your manager as the company’s primary representative from your POV. If there’s an agreement between you and your company, then that’s also an agreement between you and your manager, and it’s up to your manager to enforce the terms of that agreement, so of course they need to know the terms.

    Do you work in a heavily unionized industry / company, where these sorts of meetings / negotiations are typically mediated by a union representative? If so, that would make a lot more sense!

  30. Seeking Second Childhood*

    LW3, There’s one more possibility that I’d seen in the workplace. Someone’s been a Llama Wrangler for many years and has been promised a promotion to Wrangler Supervisor. Upper management got fussy about skipping grades so promoted her to Senior Llama Wrangler–a position that didn’t even exist when she would have first been eligible for it. She considered the “senior” a snub and left for greener pastures.

  31. Southern Violet*

    Can Jacinta state plainly in the meeting that the issues are caused by Sarah? Sometimes slightly shaming people gets their behavior to change.

  32. Kella*

    OP5, I really hope you send an update but I’m so curious about what the central problem actually is here. There seems to be a lot of context missing. How was the miscommunication with your previous manager uncovered and what was the new agreement reached in that meeting? What gave you the impression that meetings with managers are supposed to be confidential, even with regards to other managers? Why was your old and/or new managers using scrutinizing, distrusting language to describe your scheduling limitations? What is it that the new manager was actually intending to communicate in that meeting? This really feels like a situation where there absolutely is a problem and that OP is right to feel unnerved or undermined, but that OP may have incorrectly identified the source of that feeling.

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