we have one bathroom key for 18 women, coworker makes bigoted remarks about his own religion, and more

by Alison Green on March 10, 2026

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

1. We have one bathroom key for 18 women

My workplace is moving offices next week, and our bathroom situation is changing dramatically. We’re going from five unlocked unisex bathrooms to two gendered restrooms of two cubicles each, shared with other tenants of the floor. Those bathrooms will be locked, and for our entire 25 person staff, there is one key for each gender. (I am given to understand the matter of additional keys would cost management extra, and they are … skinflints.)

The trouble comes in a couple factors. One, my office is predominantly female, so we’re going to have a lot more demand for our key than the gentlemen. Two, some of my coworkers take, frankly, for-e-ver, which is fine, I don’t know what’s going on and that’s their business, but … three, there are times when my bathroom needs can be sudden and urgent. I don’t want to have to hope the key is up front if I suddenly need it, and then suffer if it’s not.

We had a town hall about the move yesterday and I expressed my concerns in a non-specific way, and they were brushed off. Other women on the staff feel the same way, and we’re looking for a way forward. What are our options here? Being female doesn’t necessarily qualify under something like ADA, I can’t just “forget” the key in my bag one day and take it to Home Depot and use the key machine (not that I ever would, of course) because there’s only one copy, and at this point the only thing I can think of is getting an accommodation letter from my doctor to force management’s hand, but that only helps me, and not the other 17 women on staff.

This is a terrible set-up! One key for 18 people? Bathroom needs aren’t by appointment; they happen when they happen, and all kinds of problems could result from someone needing the key when it’s not available (not to mention that at some point someone is going to lose the lone key, and then what?). It’s absurd that they’re not getting at least as many keys as there are stalls, plus a backup. (Or better yet, if the bathrooms need to be locked, why not lock them with a keypad and give you all the code? They might not have control over that since it sounds like they’re renting space in multi-tenant building, but they can absolutely pay for more keys.)

Meanwhile, though, you and your other concerned coworkers should push back as a group. The framing to use is a pretty flat and insistent, “This won’t work for us.” Point out that with two stalls for women, two women are supposed to be able to use the bathrooms at once, and the keys need to reflect that.

2. My coworker makes bigoted remarks about his own religion

I am very happy with my company’s culture and compensation, but I have a concern regarding a coworker. One of my colleagues frequently makes stereotypical remarks about his own culture/religion as a form of self-deprecation. Because our workplace is not very diverse and many of my younger coworkers are not worldly, they have begun to repeat these bigoted comments back to him or even initiate them themselves.

While our supervisor is often occupied with meetings and likely hasn’t witnessed this, I am concerned that the behavior is creating a hostile environment. I also worry about customers overhearing these remarks.

How do I effectively complain about discriminatory comments when they are being initiated or encouraged by an employee from the culture/religion being insulted, especially to a supervisor who may not recognize the behavior as problematic?

There’s no “except if you’re from the group you’re using a slur about” exception in the laws about discrimination and harassment at work; people can’t say bigoted things at work even if they’re talking about their own race, religion, ethnicity, etc. In fact, a court case on exactly this last year found that using racial or religious slurs is not protected activity, and employers can enforce rules against discriminatory language regardless of whether or not the speaker belongs to the group they’re speaking pejoratively of (as long as they enforce those rules consistently).

If you want to ask for it to be addressed, I’d frame it as, “I don’t think it’s okay for anyone to use this language at work, and they don’t know who around them might also belong to the same group.” You should also mention that other coworkers are now starting to use the same language themselves, which is additionally not okay.

3. My coworker asks questions that I answered in the email he is replying to

When I have discussions with a specific coworker, he will typically ask a follow-up question that was answered in the previous email. I am increasingly frustrated because I feel like he isn’t actually reading the email and is only skimming it. We are swamped with work, and I am losing patience but I don’t want to be rude. I simply want him to put in the effort prior to asking a question.

“That’s addressed in my email below — take a look there and that should answer it, but let me know if there’s a different aspect you’re wondering about.”

If he keeps doing it after you’ve replied that way a few times, you can just start copying and pasting the piece of the earlier email with a line saying, “Answered below, copying it here.” (If this coworker is your boss, you need to soften that a little but could still say, “I answered that below so I’m copying it up here for your convenience.”)

4. Can I ask for a retroactive raise when a temporary role becomes permanent?

On the surface this is probably an easy yes/no question, but as someone who only a few years ago negotiated my salary for the first time ever (thanks to your advice and potential scripts I got $5,000 more!) at age 45, thinking about it has me riddled with anxiety.

When offered a permanent role for something you’ve been doing on a temporary basis for several months, can you ask to have the pay be retroactive to your start date in the temporary role?

Not generally. You agreed to a rate of pay for the job for that time period, and now you’re negotiating a different one going forward. It’s also possible that they didn’t give you the same level of responsibilities or accountability in the temporary role as they’re going to be giving you in the permanent one (when they figured that you might not be doing the work for longer than a few months).

5. A report from someone interviewing Gen Z candidates

I’ll preface this by saying: I’m not always 100% perfect at never complaining about “the youths” of today and their really tall socks, and I hear a lot from random colleagues about how terrible working with Gen Z is. I haven’t had much professional interaction with interns or juniors in the last few years myself.

I put up a posting to take interns for the summer, and I did interviews over the last two weeks. I have been 10/10 impressed. Everyone who applied was in their early to mid-20s.

  • I gave a choice of Zoom or in-person; every single one chose an in-person interview (I was fine with either, but I thought it was nice that they wanted to come in).
  • My office is on the 22nd floor of a huge building with many elevators (I warned them and provided instructions, but people often still get lost); every single one showed up in the right place, and on time (NOT 30 minutes early, which I hate, and not late).
  • Everyone wore something reasonable.
  • They all had great questions for me ready to go.
  • One of them got a (better) job at a bigger firm and wrote a thoughtful message withdrawing and thanking me for the interview.

This has not always been my experience since I started hiring interns ~10 years ago. The only bad part is that I have to pick someone now and say no to the rest!

{ 379 comments }

{ 379 comments… read them below }

  1. Of two minds (but not today!)*

    I think where the OP says ” two gendered bathrooms of two stalls each” they mean 2 bathrooms total: one for males and one for females, 2-stalls each – only 2 toilets for this group of women. In any case, to have plural and only allow access to one (at any given time) is Not Right.

      1. Karen*

        I would be the last person to leave for the day, take the key and get my own copy made. Bring the original back early the next morning and not tell anyone I had an extra key.

        2. Sacred Ground*

          So, what happens when you use the key that you’re not supposed to have and you walk in on someone?

            1. Griz*

              If I thought I had the only key to a bathroom with stalls, I would be more likely to do things outside of the stalls such as changing outfits, so I would get a surprise if someone suddenly had a new key and walked in on me. The number of keys should be publicized, AND people should make as many keys as they need without management approval. Or someone should jam the lock!

              1. Homunculus*

                There isn’t only one key period, there’s one key per tenant (or conceivably more than one key for the other tenants since more keys are available and OPs company has just chosen not to get any more) so no one should be doing anything outside of the stalls.

          2. Starbuck*

            Well multiple business tenants will each have their own key since they share the floor so this isn’t an issue.

        3. Ohio Duck*

          I would also be tempted to do this, because the situation is outrageous, but copying keys that don’t belong to you can get you in a ton of trouble at work.

      2. Laser99*

        This is why I wish everyone would install single-user cubicles. I know it’s unrealistic, though.

    2. amoeba*

      I’m slightly confused by that part! I’d assume that even if there’s just one key, when somebody is already in the bathroom, it would just… be open and the second person could walk in and use the second stall? If not, that’s a horrible setup for sure.

      (Of course, that would add the danger of accidentally locking in the second person… but I’d hope that would be manageable by making sure everybody checks when they leave?)

      Guess it depends on whether the outer bathroom door can be opened without the key once it’s unlocked…

      1. Someguy*

        I suspect that each of the tenants on the floor gets one key to each bathroom. It’s one key for 18 women at this company, but the two stalls serve some larger number of people. (None of this makes it less problematic.)

        1. Antilles*

          That might be the case, but this is still easily solvable by the company’s management asking for a second key. For a 25-person staff, the rent is likely in the five figures. If the CEO bothered to ask, there’s no way the landlord risks losing a tenant over a few bucks to make an extra copy of the key.

          2. fhqwhgads*

            I don’t think the issue is they can’t ask. It sounds like it’s in the lease additional keys are $x and all they need to do is request it and pay a probably small in comparison to overall rent amount. OP’s assuming the CEO won’t ask because they don’t want to pay that amount. I don’t think anyone expects the situation to come to “give us another key for free or we’ll walk”, but also there’s likely already a lease in place. So it’s not like they really can walk. If they’re gonna be cheap about it they’re gonna be cheap about it. But it also sounds like OP may be assuming they’re gonna be cheap about it. If 10 of the staff of 25 are all like “hell no” they may very well get the damn extra keys.

        2. Another One*

          I’m hoping that there are actually more bathrooms around but maybe they have different keys? Because if it’s two gendered bathrooms for- say- 100 people that doesn’t seem like a lot.

          Though I don’t know the math of people per bathroom in an office building.

          1. Of two minds (but not today!)*

            Plumbing codes require a certain number of toilets. bases on type of occupancy and Square Footage, I think.(because number of occupants in a building can change year to year).

            Come to think of it, locking of the bathrooms may violate building code or some other reg. A lot of times tenants and building owners make modifications that seem minor – like locks in area leading to the fire exits – but that actually violate codes. A little research might be warranted, if you’d like to get rid of the locks entirely. (check health codes and OSHA, as well as employment law and building code for office occupancy.)

            1. Babbalou*

              There is no building code that prohibits the entrance to an office building’s toilet rooms to remain unlocked. You would need to be able to get OUT of the bathroom, but it’s fine to require a key to get in.

              And generally the door locks behind you.

              Doors to fire exits are another matter entirely. Of course tenants have to be able to get OUT of the space and into the fire exits. They may not be able to get out of the fire exit except at the ground floor, though.

              I am a retired architect who worked on commercial buildings.

            2. Momma Bear*

              Our bathrooms are locked. We have two per floor with 5 stalls in each. There’s a keypad and we were given the code for every bathroom on every floor we share space in case there’s an issue with the bathroom on the floor we are on. At least here there’s no law saying they can’t be locked – in fact many businesses do and say “no public restrooms” on the front door.

              At a minimum this employer needs to get a second key for the bathrooms. A keypad would be even better. Limiting access to such a necessity is asking for problems.

          1. Babbalou*

            I worked in a building in NYC with one toilet for women and one for men, the doors to these two rooms were locked.

            The number of toilets required by code is based on the maximum occupancy of the floor, calculated by square footage.

            So my assumption is that this building has relatively small floors.

      2. Artemesia*

        The door locks when it closes — and this is ridiculous. It is ridiculous that there are only two stalls to share not just for 18 but for other tenants AND that they only have one key. Someone is going to accidentally pocket the key the first week. Not having at least two is nuts.

      3. Polly Hedron*

        that would add the danger of accidentally locking in the second person

        and that would violate fire regulations.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          I think it’s also unlikely to be possible to lock in the second person. This type of door is generally the sort that can always require a key from the outside but never the inside.
          That doesn’t make it good. It’s still a crap setup. But there probably isn’t any danger of locking someone in. And there probably is also not a situation where if one person is “in” it’s entirely unlocked to all.

      4. The cat is on my lap now*

        You wouldn’t lock the second person in because you don’t need the key to get out.
        These doors lock when they close, you don’t key lock them.

    3. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      Because I am a retired law nerd, I looked up the OSHA requirements, and I think this setup is in violation of OSHA. OSHA has a minimum number of toilets requirement, which for 16-35 women is 2. If they only have one key, they don’t have access to 2 toilets, only one, particularly because OSHA requires that access be “prompt.”

      Also, too cheap to get a KEY MADE?!

      1. Lex Talionis*

        If pushing back as a group does not work and the key isn’t marked “Do not Duplicate” I would totally go to Home Depot and make a few more. And one day extra keys would magically appear. Like manna from heaven.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          What is costs to literally copy the key and what the landlord charges to provide additional keys are different things. I agree the CEO needs to just pay for more keys, regardless, but the letter is implying the balk is at the cost the landloard charges for additional keys. Not someone taking the key to home depot themselves, which is probably not permitted in the lease, regardless of how easily it could be done.

      3. Resume Please*

        I think it is a violation. The bathrooms must be accessible.

        My former office had a locked bathroom. But it was a KEYPAD, so accessibility was not an issue (also, less headcount per stall.)

    4. tiny dino*

      Very basic suggestion–would it be possible to put a lockbox with a code on or next to the bathroom door? Then people could get the key from there and put it back as soon as they open the door.

      2. Miss Pickles the cat*

        Or locking the key inside the bathroom – then you would need to get the key from another tenant?

        1. Elara Harper*

          This is exactly what happened multiple times at a former employer- the key was attached to a large-ish wooden bar. It was too large for a pocket, and would get left on the sink. At that firm, office manager had a master key, but after several weeks of her work day being interrupted multiple times a day, defeat was conceded and a key pad installed.

      3. Venus*

        Based on suggestions so far, I’d suggest:
        Lockbox with a keypad next to the door (tiny dino’s idea), with the key bungee-cabled to the inside of the lockbox. That way it can’t walk away and is immediately accessible to those who have the code.

    5. DJ*

      What if a woman suddenly gets an attack of the runs or needs to throw up whilst someone else is pooping in one of the stalls (so can’t rush out to open the door). And more than 2 keys are needed as two women could be in the stalls and a 3rd needing to quickly access the basin area (to throw up, something in their eye etc etc). Others should be able to access the bathroom basin area for any relevant reason whilst the stalls are being used.
      I do like the idea of a code lock so NO ONE has to go searching for keys whilst addressing the issue of preventing non employees accessing the loos. Tradies or contractors just there for a day or 2 can be given the code. But get if it’s a renting a building/relying on landlord issue may not happen.
      But management being too stingy to get additional keys cut!!!!!

  2. nnn*

    #2: As someone who is from a religious background that I feel negatively about, the part I’d find most compelling is that younger, less worldly co-workers’ norms are being mis-calibrated.

    If someone quietly took me aside and said, “Look, I get it, you’re talking about your own background, But it’s doing our younger co-workers and the workplace as a whole a disservice to have them thinking this is neutral everyday casual language, and it would be a whole big thing to have to course-correct them and get into the nuances of who can say what…it would be way easier to just keep it out of the workplace.” – that would make sense to me! Part of the reason why I feel negatively about my background is the way adults around me growing up talked and the things they normalized led me to come across to outsiders in a way that I didn’t intend, and I certainly wouldn’t want to inflict that on someone else!

    The other messaging about how it isn’t okay for anyone to use that language would be far less compelling to me. The reason for this is I’ve had many, many people who share my background and are quick to say “Discrimination! Prejudice!” when I mention anything negative about my own firsthand experience with my own religious background. But somehow, oddly enough, they never mention discrimination or prejudice when someone of our shared background says something negative about a more marginalized demographic they’re completely unaffiliated with.

    I can’t tell through the internet whether LW’s co-worker would receive the messaging the same way.

    1. Slippin’ Jenny*

      I’m LW#2. What you say might work, and I appreciate it. Its worth a try at least!

        2. Lenora Rose*

          I have watched autocarrot remove my apostrophes from it’s … then when I complete the sentence, give me the blue underline for grammar mistakes and **suggest putting it back**…

            1. Bananapants with a visible bananathong*

              Probably — I do too. (Legitimate changes, like ‘teh’ to ‘the’, are autocorrect; unwanted, counterproductive changes are autocarrot.)

      2. Database Developer Dude*

        I come at this from a unique standpoint. I’m a Black man who regularly has issues with my fellow Blacks over the use of the n-word slur. In your place, I would have very little patience with the colleague, to the point where I would have a pointed conversation with him, and then bring in HR if it didn’t stop.

      3. a clockwork lemon*

        My boss does a good job handling this sort of thing in my rambunctious and sassy office–his script to redirect is generally a variant on, “We’re all professionals, we’re going be nice to ourselves and each other,” which works for pretty much any flavor of ribbing or joking that’s gone too far.

        You may need to separately have the conversation with your employee anyway about how the juniors are watching and emulating his behavior–I had a pretty rude awakening about how closely my juniors are trying to model themselves a few months ago and had to change some of my more, uh, relaxed work habits to Set An Example.

    2. I am not Jane Eyre*

      @n, your comment hit close to him.

      I am also from a background that many people feel negatively about (even members of said background). I going to share my opinion and experience and hope LW and others can find something valuable.

      When I encounter people not of my background, I think of myself as providing others the chance to see that I am not the negative things they may have heard. I always tell them my background (in case anyone is wondering).

      Within in my background, I find that many have an inferiority complex that they’ve internalized listening to others in our group. They often surprised that I do not share their inferiority complex.

      There are ways to battle this without demeaning yourself.

      I don’t even know that I provided anything useful. I just wanted to share.

    3. xylocopa*

      Agreed. It’s true that the bigger picture is “no one should be talking like that here,” but in terms of people’s relationships with their own culture and religion (…disability, gender, yourself in general…) I think it really helps more to realize “if you talk like that, other people who don’t have your context are going to pick it up as normal and okay.”

      2. Ocean Breeze*

        I’m also from a minority background that many people have difficult feelings about (in no small part due to endemic and horrifically violent abuse) and in my experience these folks do not really care if other people pick up hateful ideas/forms of speech. The potential reward of belonging and finding community with people outside their background outweighs the risk of bigoted violence, every time.

    4. HannahS*

      I hear and get your second point and the complicated feelings it raises for you, and also I think it’s still a legitimate one. Anyone is entitled to offer fair criticism of any group, including their own/former. But a) that doesn’t make it appropriate for work, and b) creating a hostile environment for others is not a win. And it’s not like this guy is sitting people down and having thoughtful discussions about his identity.

      I see it a lot, TBH, in my own group. Like as a fairly low-stakes examples, I’ve known plenty of assimilated secular Jews who make a lot of deprecating jokes about Judaism, where the punchline is, like, “Keeping kosher is SO DUMB HAHAHAHA” or “Jews overreact to things, HAHAHAHA” and boy let me tell you, as a more observant, identifiably Jewish person in the workplace, spreading that attitude makes my life harder. Sure, it helps that one person fit in–they get to be everyone’s “Oh but my Jewish friend said it”–buddy, but when I face actual discrimination, that attitude isn’t helping. Someone saying that in my workplace DOES actually create a hostile environment, even if the person saying it feels entitled to do so.

      1. LL*

        Yeah, I’m also a secular Jew and I hear Jews repeating Jewish stereotypes to each other as jokes or whatever, which is annoying, but I’d be pretty mad if they were regularly doing this in front of non-Jews because then the non-Jews think it’s okay for them to say that and it’s really not. Also, in my experience, it’s not just secular assimilated Jews, I hear it from religious Jews and those that are less assimilated.

      2. iglwif*

        ^^^This^^^, and also there’s a lot of stuff that it feels okay to say amongst ourselves that I absolutely 100% NEVER would say, or want to hear said, in front of non-Jews. I might joke about “Jewish standard time” with other members of a shul committee, but absolutely not at work!!!

        So I think in LW’s situation my response would be something like, “The kids are starting to cluelessly repeat the stuff they hear you say about us. I don’t like where that could go and I know you don’t either, so can you knock it off, please?” But it sounds like LW and the offender here aren’t actually part of the same community, which undoubtedly makes that conversation harder to have.

        1. Slippin' Jenny*

          I am the LW, and you’re guessing right that we are not part of the same community. I’ve considered appealing to his better nature, but we’ve worked together for long enough that I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work. The only person who could make him stop would be his boss.

    5. Brooklynlite*

      But were these many people who share your background talking negatively about a more marginalized demographic at work? I get where you’re coming from, but there’s a legal issue at play here. As a manager, you can’t quibble over who can say what. You must shut down this type of language wholesale or you’re breaking the law.

    6. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Thank you for this. I fear I may be guilty of doing this (not often, but not never) and this is helpful to remember!

    7. Lenora Rose*

      In-group self-deprecation is often healthy. A friend of mine once theorised that one key difference between a religion and a cult is that the religion will invariably have people making jokes that poke fun at themselves and their fait, and in a cult, any attempt to make such a joke is met with disapproval and even punishment. (This was in response to noting that in some places, supposedly free churches do act more like cults than like religious groups).

      The problem seems to arise when people from that religious in-group make friends who aren’t part of it. Because part of being safe around a friend is making your in-jokes in front of them.

      But then those out-group friends often forget that the trust extended to them does NOT extend to the rest of the secular world, and say those same things to other out-groups, but say “It’s okay, they told me I could say it.”

      Yes, because in-groups know how to code-switch and when to NOT say it. Outsiders allowed a small in-road have a very bad and very common habit of not realising they need to do the same.

      1. Ohio Duck*

        Yes! There’s a sort of unspoken social contract to it that you’ve explained really well.

        One example that I find fascinating is from hip hop. Kendrick Lamar used to bring up fans on stage sometimes to rap with him, and this one white woman said the n-word where it appears in the song a few times. Kendrick stopped the song, told her she had to bleep it out, then restarted. After a couple lines she said it again and got sent back to her seat. Some fans got really upset by this. But she broke that social contract! What she does in her own home or with her Black friends (if she has any) is one thing, but you cannot get up on stage in front of Kendrick Lamar, God and everybody and rap the n-word as a white person. You can’t!

    8. MigraineMonth*

      I think there’s a world of difference between sharing your own experience being part of a group and just repeating stereotypes about that group. There is a gray area where personal experiences can mirror stereotypes closely enough to feed into the stereotype, which I think is where nuance and context matter.

      The employee repeating negative stereotypes about their religion is probably not prefacing that with, “In my experience in [local sub-group of the religion]…”

  3. Pam Adams*

    I work with university students, most of them Gen Z. Like LW5, I see many good things in them.

    1. But what to call me?*

      Same, and many of them are great! Some are still pretty early in the process of figuring out how to be an adult, but that’s always true of whatever group is heading out into the world for the first time.

      (I’m getting pretty annoyed at some of my fellow millennials whose response to finally growing out of being the generation everyone accuses of being shallow lazy spoiled brats ruining the world is to join in accusing the next generation of being shallow lazy spoiled brats ruining the world. It’s nice to see Gen Z positivity.)

      1. Tea Monk*

        They’ll be like ” did you know a 20 year old on tiktok has a wrong opinion about work?” and I’m like ” yea, they just got here and a lot of stuff is jarring when you first see it”

      2. Gen Z*

        In my experience Gen Z is already ahead of the curve in bemoaning Gen Alpha as the downfall of society.

      3. fhqwhgads*

        It’s almost as though being good or bad at interviews is not actually a generational trait. /sarc

      4. Distracted Librarian*

        +1000 to your last paragraph. I’m GenX, and after years of being called slackers, what are we doing? Calling the next generations slackers. I like to remind my fellow Old Farts that bashing the next generation goes back to at least Plato. C’mon folks, get some new material.

    2. Natalie*

      Yes! I work with teachers, and many of our newer teachers are Gen Z.

      They are great! Nearly every one of them is thoughtful, hardworking, energetic, and creative.

      Glad to have them aboard! :)

    3. TooTiredToThink*

      Yeah, I know a few Gen-Zers and this made me happy to see as a bit of a confirmation bias. I was *literally* grumbling to myself right before reading today’s letters about how people are complaining that Gen Z doesn’t show any initiative – and as the team lead of a group of Gen X and Millenials – I’m like – it’s not a Gen Z problem hah!

      1. Database Developer Dude*

        Honestly, Boomer managers don’t really want Gen Z to show initiative, they want them to take the lead in doing things the way they want them done.

    4. Ananabanana*

      Same here! I manage fellowships programs aimed at postbac, and honestly everyone is stellar. There are some norms to work on (please no exposed navels in our business casual office!), but they’re all such motivated and passionate individuals, despite honestly being dealt a shitty hand between COVID and the current administration and… I dunno, the entire state of the world where they’re forced to try and take on adult responsibilities in a dumpster fire. Obviously this is a sweeping generalization and ymmv, but like any young folks, they’re trying to calibrate themselves and it takes mentorship and guidance.

        1. Seraphina*

          I just don’t get the broccoli hair! I think curly hair of the same length around the head is gorgeous.

        2. MigraineMonth*

          I don’t think there’s anything wrong with “broccoli hair” (though I could do without the AI-generated images that replace hair with broccoli). I think it’s nice to have a popular hairstyle for men who don’t want to shave off their curls. Besides, it’s just hair!

          1. AnanaBanana*

            Fair enough! One should always pick the style where they’re most comfortable. I work on a college campus, and it’s just ubiquitous enough for me to go “my pals, there’s more than one hairstyle!” Tbf, I was a teenager during the heavily gelled spiky bangs of the early aughts, so maybe there’s just latent trauma.

            1. Beluga*

              I was a teen during the “Bieber hair” age (remember the little head flick boys would do to get their side bangs out of their face?), so I also try not to side-eye the curly tops.

        3. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

          I think the broccoli hair is adorable. Also a bit ridiculous, but the best fashion trends always are.

    5. Some Internet Rando*

      I am Gen X and I love Gen Z! They are funny and thoughtful and have the best slang. They give me hope for the future. Glad to see something nice written about a younger generation.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        I’m a teacher and my students – probably youngest Gen Z and oldest Gen Alpha and they are awesome. Yes, they are teenagers so they make mistakes and don’t always think ahead but that was true of every generation at their age. They are just so much more open and less cliqueish than our generation.

      2. The OG Sleepless*

        I’m Gen X and my kids are Gen Z! I know I’m biased, but my kids are just cool. They’re articulate and caring and well-informed. My son can tell you all about the writings o They both work hard at their jobs and actually seem to like hanging out with Mom and Dad.

      3. iglwif*

        Me too! My Gen Z kid is terrific, and her friends are great, too.

        I have a tentative theory that one of the reasons some older people don’t like Gen Z in the workplace is that Gen Z folks are more likely to see past/through the corporate BS, stand up for themselves and each other, and call out stuff that doesn’t make sense.

        Admittedly though my sample size is still very small.

    6. hell's shells*

      Seconded. The kids are great! All the generational stuff is largely BS anyway but I never want to miss an opportunity to say most of the younger people I know are interesting and passionate and funny and everyone I know who regularly engages with a broad swath of teens and young adults feels the same. I suspect a lot of the people who thinks kids these days are vapid freaks just need to expand their own social circles. If all the teens in your family suck, perhaps that’s a your family problem and not a teens problem.

      I digress. Intern season is the best because the new professionals have a lot to offer and bring a vital belief that they can improve the spaces they occupy, which can be a real effort to hold onto at certain points in one’s career.

    7. PhyllisB*

      Agreed. Y’all have heard me talk about my newly hatched social worker granddaughter. She’s 24 and awesome!! Much more mature, level headed and respectful than I was at her age. (Well, I was respectful, just not the other.) I have a lot of faith in this generation!!

    8. PhyllisB*

      Yep. I’m a Boomer, and I remember hearing my parents and grandparents generation saying the same about us.

      1. Panhandlerann*

        Amen. My dad thought television was the downfall of my generation, including my brothers and me and acted like we were a disrespectful, immature, hopeless lot. (You can’t imagine how little trouble we actually were!) Folks talking about the internet or whatever as the downfall of today’s younger generation sound just as he did.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, I’m tail end of Gen X (like a lot of definitions put the end at about 2 or 3 months after I was born) and I always think that a lot of the complaints about young people on the internet/their phones now really echoes what was said about us and television.

          “Young people don’t go outside anymore. They just sit in front of the TV instead of playing outside like kids were meant to.”
          “Television has killed the art of conversation. People don’t talk to each other any more. They just sit in front of it. They don’t even know how to hold a conversation anymore.”
          “It’s not healthy the way kids are just sitting in front of the TV. They don’t take any exercise.”

    9. LL*

      Yep, of course! I don’t know many Zoomers, but of course many of them exhibit good traits, this is true of all generations!

    10. What's that in the road - a head?*

      I’m a Boomer, and know too many fellow Boomers who think “these kids today” are lazy, arrogant, avocado toast-loving slackers who will cause the end of civilization. So I enjoy sharing studies with them that conclude, “Millennials/GenX/Whatever demographic you dislike actually want meaningful work, are coachable and ready to learn, and they saw their parents burn out over 60+ hour work weeks, so they want a meaningful life outside of work.”

      Lucky for me, I get to work with 20-somethings, and I also see many good things in them. Just like any generation, Boomers included, they’re in a new phase in life and need to learn new things, but they’re handling it just fine.

      Also, I find a lot more empathy in younger generations, they seem more focused on bigger-picture things that impact people and/or the world around us. Whereas a lot of the Boomers I know tend to embrace “Every man for themselves” and “If it doesn’t benefit or bother me, I don’t care about it.” This is micro level only; I’m not painting the entire Boomer generation this way, just the ones I know.

      1. Susannah*

        Totally agree! Though it goes both ways: I’ve seen social media with Gen Z women calling Boomer women “evil” (seriously!). And I want to say… um, this is the generation that fought for and secured equal pay and reproductive rights (and wish you’d done more to keep the latter). But I guess every new generation laments elder age groups!

        And I remind younger generations that the old folks they mock were the ones who actually came up with the phrase “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”

        1. PiperPony*

          I mean, it’s also the generation that turned back reproductive rights cause who is on the supreme court? It’s not Gen Z.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Yeah, super weird to blame Gen Z for not protecting abortion rights when most of them couldn’t vote in the 2020 presidential election (which led directly to Trump appointing three Supreme Court justices). They definitely couldn’t vote in the 2008 midterms, which is when Republicans gained control of many state legislatures just before the redistricting.

            Young people have been out there with the majority voting in favor of reproductive rights in every generation.

          2. What's that in the road - a head?*

            I don’t think this is a Boomer or generational thing as much as a belief thing, either faith- or politically-based. I mean, some of the loudest anti-reproductive rights activists out there are younger-than-I-am men and women of the ultra-conservative, christian nationalist, evangelical, and/or fundamentalist persuasion.

            It’s true there are Boomers on SCOTUS, but Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh are uber-conservative Millennials.

            1. Not everyone can wear a corn pizza*

              Amy Coney Barrett (54 years old), Neil Gorsuch (58), and Brett Kavanaugh (61) are not Millennials. They are Gen X. The oldest millennials are only in their early 40s.

              1. What's that in the road - a head?*

                I stand corrected. I try not to think about generational monikers or those specific Justices.

        2. huh*

          Boomer women helped pass those things, and then immediately turned around and took rights away from others when they could. Ask your Boomer lady friends who they voted for. :)

          (by the way, how were Gen Z supposed to help secure those rights, when the elected officials that allowed them to get removed are overwhelmingly NOT Gen Z??

          1. What's that in the road - a head?*

            This Boomer quasi-lady friend of yours most certainly did not vote for the Tangerine Tantrum Thrower, or support anyone who wanted to take away reproductive rights. And I also know several uber-conservative Millennial/GenX-Z who loudly vote for anyone willing to take away those rights.

          2. MigraineMonth*

            This is an example of why generation labels can’t be applied to specific cases. Unless we’re talking about world events lived through, people within a single generation have very different lives, experiences working, access to resources, and yes, political views.

            Most demographics that “vote Democrat” or “support Trump” only do so by a pretty narrow margin. A demographic that “overwhelmingly” supports candidate A often has 30%+ voting for candidate B.

            The Boomer women I know weren’t actively campaigning for abortion access in their youth, and they also didn’t vote for Trump. That tells you more about my social circle than Boomer women in general, though.

    11. Seraphina*

      I’ve found that a lot of them are eager to have the “workplace experience” that they feel Millennials had before the pandemic started. I taught college English a few years ago, and they were the regular mix of students – some high-achievers, a few people who never showed up and expected to pass, and many in the middle.

      Gen Zers have always had that looming sense of dread because everything IS kinda terrible now compared to their parents’ (GenX) generation, and there aren’t as many job opportunities. It was honestly like that for us mid/younger Millennials, too (graduating in 2009 during a financial crisis- yay?), so I empathize strongly with them.

      Generational stereotyping can be dangerous – people are people, we all want pretty similar things. Sure, generations tend to have interesting quirks, but let’s not fall into the trap of being shocked when Gen Zers are eager, successful, and professional.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Gen Zers have always had that looming sense of dread because everything IS kinda terrible now compared to their parents’ (GenX) generation, and there aren’t as many job opportunities.

        This is one way Ireland really differs. Not saying Gen. Z here don’t have difficulties, but yeah, the ’80s here was near 20% unemployment rates and emigration rates so high that we talked about how we were educating our children for export. I was 9 and worrying if there’d be jobs when I grew up. I don’t think Irish 9 year olds today think like that!!

    12. ChaoticNeutral*

      I work with a ton of Gen-Z’ers and supervise three, they are awesome! Hard working, intelligent, stick up for themselves, ask great questions, and funny as hell.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Agreed! “Stick up for themselves” is the part I see a lot of people react negatively to, or attribute to “kids these days just don’t get it”, but as someone who grew up having to grind I love the influence that Gen Z is having on the workplace.

        I saw a statistic earlier this week that said 70% of Gen Z prioritize their mental health over money, and hell yeah. Good for them. I’m trying to be more like Gen Z tbh.

    13. Bee*

      I’ve been acting in some student films recently, and of course the kids who choose to go to film school are a self-selected group of particularly dedicated weirdos (affectionate), but every group I’ve worked with has been professional, fun, friendly, and organized.

    14. Media Monkey*

      my daughter is one of the younger Gen Zs (she is 17). i may of course be biased but i see her age group as hardworking, knowledgeable and accepting, and they know far more about politics and the world around them than i ever did at that age. i mean it comes with a healthy (or unhealthy) tiktok habit but there’s lots to like!

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        I teach her age group (well, mostly younger – technically, I teach 12-18 year olds but I tend to get the younger classes due to my particular subjects and so on) and yes, they are awesome.

    15. Anna3*

      I work at a college and I see lots of amazing gen z (this year gen alpha) individuals, so I always wonder, who are these complaints about?

  4. Mabby*

    LW1 while I’d not lose the key in my handbag I’d certainly consider being the last woman at work one day, taking the key, getting some copies made, and then being first in the next day. Or if there are any female managers “forget” to return the key after using it causing them to feel the pain of having to run around to figure out who has it.

    1. Heidi*

      When things like this have happened in my prior workplaces, people started propping open the door or taping the locking mechanism open.

      1. Bathyphysa Conifera*

        I appreciate this straight mechanical approach. And like Mabby I would head to the nearest hardware store and get multiple copies made.

      2. Griz*

        I might accidentally shove gum into the locking mechanism, and then accidentally do it again each time management repairs it.

    2. lyonite*

      I agree with the idea of pushing back as a group, but if for whatever reason that doesn’t get traction, can you work out an informal agreement that the person with the key will leave it in the door while they’re inside? This might not work in an extremely insecure environment, but if the only issue is other tenants on the floor, then I can’t see it being a huge problem.

    3. MK*

      I frankly don’t understand why there is pushback in making more keys; they are very inexpensive to make (unless it’s some sort of fancy lock, I suppose, but it sounds unlikely).

          1. MK*

            To be frank, I never thought to ask any landlord to make me extra keys, I just make them myself.

            1. Bathyphysa Conifera*

              This has shades of the extremely secure system to limit access with a rotating code, which causes the people who need that access to write the new code in pencil above the keypad.

      2. Bathroom access is a human right (anon)*

        1. In my (limited) experience, these often are hard-to-duplicate keys. And not obviously so.

        2. where they lock the bathroom door, there’s often a bigger safety problem. So leaving a key in the lock or propping won’t be safe.

        3. Management may be hoping to downsize by attrition that part of the workforce that’s female and has pressing bathroom needs. Read, older, or pregnant, or sicker. Bring up how this could be ruled discriminatory? (Though for up to 25 in the UK, which regulates such things, only two mixed use or women only toilets are required. But as they’re shared between businesses, your state or province or country may have minimums by law, that apply here, and require either that two be literally available… or even mandate more than two.

        Can you use a Slack channel or similar for “bathroom occupied” or “any bathroom buddy, meet me there”? Going in twos or small groups so one can safely hold the door is pub-normal, though awkward at work.

        I know its not the question, but the neutral to gendered shift is also not good for any trans and NB coworkers. Currently in a bathroom bill state and meeting people whose remaining option now seems to be pre-planned extended daily dehydration, starvation and adult diapers.

        1. Xennial*

          With keys, there’s three cramps – one, the ‘do not duplicate’ stamp, two, the blank and three, any chip-coding. The first is often just an informal agreement that ‘to be honest’ they won’t cut copies of DND-marked keys – so often you might need to ask around until you find someone who will cut. The second is harder because by keeping those key styles in patent it means the smiths can’t get the blanks to cut (or might not be in stock). The third is perhaps the hardest to ‘get round’ – but I suspect the management company wouldn’t have bothered coding an internal bathroom key.

          Source: having to get new sets of keys cut when new landlord was a total incompetent and left me with no spare and zero keys for the communal front door.

          1. Miette*

            I hear you, but in my experience, when a landlord is too cheap to provide at least two of these up front per restroom (or offer to make copies that management ought to be happy to bear), they’re not shilling out for any extra security measures like security chips in locks. If they were that thoughtful about their tenants’ safety, they’d have a keypad locking mechanism.

            Frankly, this is a Gordian knot that is easy to solve the Alexandrian way: as suggested above, someone needs to be last out/first in and get herself to a local Home Depot where the key cutting machine is DIY and shockingly inexpensive. If that person is in a management position (I have been that person, hence the experience), then she can share this with peers for general consensus and then go forward. The gents likely feel the same way – they just haven’t thought it through yet. (If you want to make sure they do, buy everyone a round of espressos one afternoon and wait.)

            1. Xennial*

              Agreed, which I think the only cramps here are #1 (‘DND’) and #2 (‘Weird shape we don’t stock’). But to be honest, probably not even that.

              And yes, this is the sort of issue the on-site manager/supervisor sorts, probably involving a) duct tape, b) a key-cutting machine, c) a doorstop or d) a mixture of all the above.

          2. Bathroom access is a human right (anon)*

            Those are three, but there are others / additional.

            Some manufacturers (notably Abus for their higher end keys, like certain of their “dimple” keys) require a code card and/or they require an owner’s “security card” be presented in person to duplicate the key. I’ve been told that the tolerances on the dimple keys are fine enough that one can’t reliably duplicate a key from a key, on top of how they strictly control access to blanks; DK if this is true.

            Now that I think about locks, maybe check out the Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube? So far as I know, picking doesn’t damage the lock.

            And heck, if it’s a simple lightweight internal door with no particular protection for the lock, check whether the door can be opened by slipping a credit card between the door and the frame.

            1. Mars Jenkar*

              Picking can damage a lock if done incorrectly, a point that even LPL has acknowledged in his videos, which is why one should never practice picking on a lock in use.

        2. No Tribble At All*

          A “bathroom buddy” slack channel would be deeply embarrassing and way too personal. Are people supposed to log when they get back? I don’t want anyone to be able to infer my average bathroom duration from looking at the slack channel.

          A while ago I worked at an operations center where it was solo night shift operator in my location. The main site had trouble getting in contact with one of the other shift workers (turns out she would bring in a pillow and nap during night shifts). The manager suggested we have an “AFK” button so that the main site could see when we were away from our desks, and it could log when we were back so the other site could see. I pushed back, saying I didn’t want the official ops log to include the fact that I took a 15-minute poop. It was an effective argument.

          1. Bathroom access is a human right (anon)*

            Making it embarrassing is half of the point. It documents how much useful work time is being used to set up and negotiate timely bathroom access.

            Some people won’t be comfortable participating in this particular version of semi-malicious compliance, but I’m betting enough will lean into it to help get things changed.

        3. Lee Plum*

          “Management may be hoping to downsize by attrition that part of the workforce that’s female and has pressing bathroom needs.”

          Are you suggesting that management is trying to downsize by spending a lot of money to move to a new facility? Facility moves are very, very expensive. I find this suggestion unlikely.

      3. Elephant*

        Agree! I am a teacher and every teacher in every school I have worked in had a key to the faculty bathroom. It’s deeply weird to me that adults would need to go ask someone for a key to go use the bathroom!

        1. Joyce to the World*

          My office space recently downsized which left 2 single use bathrooms for over 135 desks. Check with OSHA, there are regulations around the number of toilets per person. Your office size may just be small enough to not require additional, but doesn’t hurt to check. My office gets away with it because there are larger, multi-stall restrooms in the next office space over. We have to badge out through the carousels, badge out through the outer doors, go next door, come back, badge back through the outer door, and then badge back in through the carousels. If it’s urgent and the other two bathrooms are full… good luck. Later in the day, those two toilets in the office pretty much flush non stop.

  5. Pterodactyls are under-cited in the psychological literature*

    I get to interact regularly with several teens at the tail end of Gen Z and they are just delightful. Courteous, curious, kind and hardworking. :)

      1. Mary Lynne*

        wait – the photo of Billie Eilish’s outfit at the golden globes in this article – the socks are what they are talking about?

      2. metadata minion*

        Huh. Well, I’m inadvertently following youth fashion trends for the first time in my life :-b

        1. somebody or other*

          Same here–I didn’t realize my compression socks were so fashionable. :-) BTW, I’m 65.

        2. Bathyphysa Conifera*

          If we hold still in our style long enough, each of us will briefly become fashionable.

          2. Sweet Fancy Pancakes*

            My adorable Gen Z niece and her friends wear white socks folded down (sometimes with ruffles!) with their t-strap DMs in a style I rocked back in the 70s as a little kid. I’ve been wondering if I would look ridiculous if I tried it myself…

        3. PhyllisB*

          Yep. My kids used to laugh at me wearing colorful crew socks, now they’re in style again. I feel vindicated!!

          2. Irish Teacher.*

            Yeah, having been at school in the days when the uniform rules specified either black tights or white knee-lenght socks, I’d think of those crew socks as pretty short.

      3. mango chiffon*

        I can’t believe crew socks are considered “really tall” now….I just wear them because I wear ankle boots 90% of the time and don’t want my skin rubbed raw

        1. Sillysaurus*

          Toe socks are super popular in the trail running community! They even give them away at many races (usually Injinji brand).

      5. LemonTaffy*

        I hadn’t known short socks were even a thing — I guess I’ve truly never been ‘cool’ given what’s been in my sock drawer for decades.
        But I might be now!

        1. Crooked Bird*

          I hate short socks and I hate skinny jeans. I don’t fit in any decade!

          I’m so annoyed I can’t find boot cut jeans at my local thrift store anymore. Boot cut jeans are what I wore in college and I will wear them forever, over my tall socks, and anyone who thinks they’re uncool can attempt to bite my thoroughly covered ankles…

      6. Grandma*

        As an old fogey I’ve had them all and continue to wear them all (except the 1st). As a child I always wore white, folded over socks. As a teenager I wore knee socks with the required dresses/skirts for school. Then I wore crew socks with my jeans. Now my sock drawer is full of purpose socks: wool socks for winter, cotton socks for summer, no-show and ankle socks for the gym or shorts days, trouser socks for the occasional wearing of better pants than jeans, crew socks with jeans, hiking socks and liners to go with the hiking boots, and toe socks for sweaty summer days to prevent between the toe blisters. Not to forget the unicorn and llama compression knee socks for after my knee replacement. Best of all: bare feet, no shoes, no socks.

    2. Oniya*

      My manager (who is probably a millennial, by virtue of being younger than me, but not *that* young), wears socks that you can’t see above the top of his sneakers. I suppose ‘really tall’ is relative.

      1. Transatlantic*

        Haha, I’m a GenX working in a small company founded by millenials, and for some reason two of the approx 40 year male leaders have started wearing their loose fit jeans or trousers rolled up past their ankles with bright white socks pulled up to their shins/knees (not sure where they stop) with black shoes. It’s definitely a look, and an intentional one, but not one I dare ask about or they’ll probably start mocking my delightfully colourful socks in return.

        1. bamcheeks*

          Well, that’s exceptionally on-trend of them. That’s how my early-20s employee was dressing in 2024. The uniform of the xennial male manager where I am is definitely still skinny jeans. (Xennial female managers like me are opting for the wide-leg or barrel jean.)

        2. LL*

          That’s interesting. I’m around 40 and I still don’t really like wearing taller socks, except when it’s cold out. It’s ankle socks all the way for me. (I don’t like no-show socks either because they always get pushed down and then my heel rubs against my shoe and it’s uncomfortable.)

      2. Seraphina*

        As a Millennial, I own a few pairs of boot socks and about 25,643 pairs of no-show socks! I think the no-shows were in direct reaction to our Boomer dads rocking the knee socks-and-shorts combo in warmer weather.

        1. Chickadee*

          Just now realizing I dress like a boomer dad haha. (Millennial female, wear shorts + colorful compression socks in the summer, although I wear pants to work so I look more put together.)

        2. Dazzling You Too*

          I’m on the older side of millennial and if I’m wearing pants I ONLY will wear crew or longer socks. Probably longer than the photo. I just cannot stand the sensation of the bottom of my pants touching and rubbing my bare ankles, even though nobody can see it.

          I guess I’m fashionable now, then?

      3. Catherine UK*

        I wear this type of socks (we call them ‘trainer socks’ in the UK, while our ankle socks seem to be in-between trainer and crew socks) when I’m wearing shorts. My generation (early 90s born) used to roll our socks down in summer to make them as short as possible. We’d look too much like our dads, or even grandads, if we wore crew socks with shorts!

    3. amoeba*

      This is the No 1 thing I’m extremely grateful for – I’m clearly a Millennial, but have always *hated* the weird idea that socks have to be invisible, so that’s one “Gen Z trend” I’ve wholeheartedly embraced, lol!

      (Also, I feel that it’s pretty common with most Millennials nowadays, as well… fashion changes!)

      1. curly sue*

        This is undoubtedly a skill issue on my part, or weird foot shape, but I cannot fathom how ankle socks stay up.

        Any time I’ve worn socks with an ankle of less than 3″ long or so, they wind up collecting around the arch of my foot. The ones with good elastic can take a few hours to meander down there, but normal pack-of-socks ankle socks take mere minutes. I spend the entire day trying to fish my socks out from around my feet, defeating the purpose of “sock” as a category of garment.

        (I am very late GenX or very early Xennial, for anyone who’s counting.)

        1. SarahKay*

          I have a single specific pair of boots that somehow eats ankle socks in the way you are describing but with all other shoes and boots mostly my ankle socks just… stay up. Really old ones with feeble elastic might sink down to gather round my ankle, but rarely sink further.
          I don’t think I have any specific sock skills so it might be, as you say, something odd about your feet shape – or maybe the shoe fittings?

          1. bamcheeks*

            (those boots might be half a size too big! My old Doc Martens Chelsea boots used to do that, and at some point I realised that I need a 39 in DMs like I do in birkenstocks, even though I’m 40 in everything else. Never had the problem since.)

          2. PhyllisB*

            If you’re wearing boots, you need boot socks. They remind me of the knee socks popular in my youth. Crew socks do slide down in boots but boot socks will not. in fact, when it’s cold and I’m wearing pants, I’ll even wear boot socks with regular shoes. No one can tell what length they are under pants. if they even notice, they will think you’re wearing tights.

            1. SarahKay*

              I had to google crew socks, and it sounds like pretty much all my ‘ankle’ socks would fall into this definition. For me ankle socks are any socks that cover from just above the ankle, up to about mid-calf, regardless of thickness.

              And mostly my socks stay up – or at least over the ankle – regardless of whether I’m wearing shoes, ankle boots, walking boots, etc. But for some reason this particular pair of ankle boots ate pretty much every pair unless they were particularly sturdy and well-elasticated socks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

          I became a wacky sock devotee in the 80’s and 90’s when attending Catholic school and crazy socks were the only non-uniform item I was allowed to wear. I *never* got into ankle socks or below- they feel so weird! I don’t understand them- don’t your ankles get cold and/or they make your shoes hit your ankle bones weirdly? I am Xennial or geriatric millennial, so take that for what you will.

        3. Chirpy*

          I find it’s an issue with the socks themselves, or sometimes the combination of particular shoes/socks. Annoyingly, I’ve not figured out how to tell the difference until after you’ve bought the socks, but it generally seems like the generic plain thicker cotton socks do it less than the thin cute ones. I have a whole pack of fun Wonder Woman low-rise socks that I can’t even wear around the house because they won’t stay on my feet *at all.*

        4. Another One*

          I have a handful of gym socks that can do it but yeah, all of my regular socks go to at least my ankle and always have.

          Signed a Xennial/very early Millennial with apparently tiny heels.

        5. Messy*

          I’m probably about the same age as you. I can’t stand socks. I have tiny feet and they never fit right. Most will end up completely coming off of my foot over the course of a day. My boss and I are the same age and she also can’t be bothered with socks. Perhaps it’s a late GenX thing!

      2. DJ Abbott*

        I’m late boomer and when I was growing up, pants always had to come down to the shoes, and socks above the ankle. Children whose pants didn’t come down to the shoe and showed the sock were teased, and the pants were called “high waters”
        I noticed the bare ankle trend in the 2010s and it went against everything I knew of fashion. Especially going around with bare ankles on 0° winter days! Didn’t these people have any common sense? I never go around with bare ankles myself. I’m much more comfortable if my lower legs are warm. Meanwhile, I have a younger colleague who will never give up her warm UGG boots in winter.
        The whole thing made me realize how arbitrary fashion is. The feelings I developed growing up about right and wrong style are completely arbitrary. Who knows what the style police will come up with next? Meanwhile, I’ll continue to wear my preferences of fitted clothes and keeping my legs and feet warm.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months” — Oscar Wilde

        1. DJ Abbott*

          You can wear stockings now! I do. Before I had to start wearing support socks I wore drugstore nylons in the summer, and I still wear warm winter tights in the winter. I get the footless fleece lined ones now and wear them with socks and boots. They’re much warmer than pants and more comfortable. Before the fleece lined, I wore sweater tights. You can Google for stores that sell them. :)

    4. Dr. Vibrissae*

      I may be in the minority, but I didn’t like wearing socks in general and try to wear shoes that didn’t require them. If I have to wear socks I prefer those that only go to the tops of my shoes. I have muscular calves and anything taller ends up scrunched around my ankles anyways. Trends are all good and well, but I won’t bother with any that doesn’t work with my own comfort.

    5. Bunch Harmon*

      For a generation that’s mocked for encouraging people to self-identify as autistic, I don’t understand the sock thing. I have had multiple conversations with neurodivergent colleagues about our mutual hatred of socks, and tall socks just mean there’s more sock to hate.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I’m autistic, and I love socks. I’m particular about them (I hate no-shows, thin or itchy ones), but I like them so much I used to wear them with sandals until people made fun of me. I have separate soft and warm ones for sleeping in.

      2. metadata minion*

        Sensory things vary so widely! I love socks, and I’m also one of the few people I know, of any neurology, who haaaaates stretch fabric in everything. I miss the old jeans. They were like armor and I felt stable and cozy. Now my pants move when I don’t expect them to move and it’s just weird.

    6. Bathyphysa Conifera*

      This detail delighted me because I now envision “The youth today and the location of the edges of their clothes!” as an observation you could throw down in any decade. And people would have thoughts.

      I picture Sophie telling Parker to say this if she needed the crowd to stay put a few more minutes, and not drift off to discover a man drilling holes next to the mainframe.

  7. Andy*

    For #1, I’m not sure what the current system is. Do you have to ask for the key, or take it from like a receptionist desk or something? That doesn’t seem ideal. That person is going to be (probably subconsciously at first) tracking peoples’ activity. Can the key at least be placed in an easy to see area so people can see at a glance if it’s taken? It still needs a better solution, but that could work until you win the fight for more keys/keypad/just not having to lock the stupid door.
    As for how to win that, how difficult would it be to get building management or whoever to unlock the door? You know, on the off-chance people keep accidentally locking the key in the bathroom until your management caves?

    1. Arrietty*

      I don’t really understand why the toilets need a lock at all. The cubicles sure, but why lock the outer door?

      1. amoeba*

        I mean, I kind of get if it’s only locked when nobody is inside, and the key is placed in a central location. In that case, no need for additional keys? Just go and either take it or see that it’s already gone, so the door is open, anyways. If you have to ask for it or the door doesn’t stay open while somebody is inside… yeah, that’s worse.

        1. Another One*

          I assume if there is a key- and every office has to have one- that the door locks behind people.

      2. Marcela*

        I work in a building that has many different offices and has the public entering it regularly. I find having the door to the employee-only bathroom locking to be preferable for safety reasons. However, unlike LW’s situation, every employee has their own key, and there are more than 2 stalls, so access is not a problem.

      3. Andy*

        Because they’re sharing with other tenants, I assume it’s to stop randos coming in and treating them like public toilets, if they’re easily accessible from outside.

        1. AngryOctopus*

          But if there are a lot of tenants, it’s better to put a locking keypad on the door instead of the key system. Not that the tenants have any control over this, but I would certainly be bringing it up All The Time in conversation with the landlord.

          1. Antilles*

            The argument for physical keys is that it’s easier to control access for outsiders. With a physical key, a random person or occasional visitor has to ask for the key every time and it’s obvious if the key goes missing or doesn’t get returned. Meanwhile, with a keypad, anybody who uses it once has that code until it’s changed (likely meaning “forever”).

      4. TracyXP*

        My building has just added a code to the bathrooms on our floor. It’s a multiple tenant building with 3 floors. The 2nd and 3rd floor are each entirely occupied with a single company, so no one from the 1st floor can use their upper bathrooms because it’s part of their office space. But we had a big problem where the folks from the upper floors were coming down and using our 1st floor bathroom and taking it over (the men’s especially had people waiting). So we got a coded door and now have upper level people upset about it.

      5. Esther*

        My office uses restrooms that are in a publicly accessible area. The doors to the restrooms are locked for safety and privacy. Also, since there are only women working in the office, the men’s restroom is also labeled for use by women only and the lock is to prevent non-company-workers from entering (since somebody keeps taking down the signs on the door that these restrooms are only for workers).

        However, we have a keypad lock and all employees know the code, so there is no issue with keys and such.

      6. Perfectly Cromulent Name*

        My guess is that the office is in a location with a large homeless population. I live in a city with a significant homelessness problem and bathrooms are locked everywhere downtown, from restaurants to office buildings. But it’s all keypads, not keys!

        1. A Reader*

          And at a lot of businesses, those codes change with some regularity. I work in an area of my city that has a lot of homeless residents (including a lot of drug use, so there is a case for protecting access to restrooms that are located in establishments that serve the public), and my favorite local-to-work coffee shops changes their bathroom code daily. (IDK if they handle it differently for employees, like with a badge system – I will admit that as an employee I could see it becoming onerous to learn a new code every day.)

  8. BigLawEx*

    I’ll admit it. I’m the person who always forgets the bathroom key, in the bathroom.

    I do it 99% of the time. I was so proud last week when I didn’t when visiting someone’s office, but it was a close call. You need a second key just for that.

    1. Katia Joy*

      A situation where there’s the possibility of no bathroom access because someone misplaced a key is completely unacceptable

    2. Mad Scientist*

      I lose absolutely everything. You’d need to put a GPS tracker on that key or else I would definitely lose it.

    3. morethantired*

      Yeah I worked in an office with one bathroom key and we discovered this problem pretty quickly. There always needs to be a backup key.

      1. No Tribble At All*

        Or the comical “key attached to 3 foot novelty pencil” you sometimes get in coffee shops. Honestly there’s some opportunity for swag/branding here

        1. EmmaPoet*

          My oral surgeon’s office shares a bathroom with the rest of their floor, it’s kept locked and they have the key at reception on a big key ring. The only problem is, people will still accidentally leave it in the bathroom, so someone has to have another key to go retrieve the forgotten key. This has happened at least twice when I was there.

  9. August*

    For OP1, Given the current climate it’s hard for me not to be extremely worried about trans people when it comes to this switch from unisex to gendered restrooms. And if I’m honest, the switch in general, feels kind of suspicious to me. In any case, I hope whatever solution you ask for as a group considers them, even if you don’t know of any in your current office!

    1. Myrin*

      They’re moving offices and these are pre-existing toilets which other tenants also use and probably have been using for some time. Sure, building management could take this as an opportunity to change the setup but while they’re handling everything else about this situation in a ridiculous manner, I don’t find it particularly “suspicious” on the company’s part to simply, well, not do anything.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        They are sort of doing something by keeping them locked though. Unless the doors are ones that automatically lock when you close them and it hasn’t occurred to them to change them, they are making a specific decision that bathrooms need to be locked, which is…quite a weird decision really.

        1. Malarkey01*

          Keep bathrooms locked isn’t uncommon in areas where you want restrooms reserved for staff. Unfortunately in some areas you do have situations where you don’t want the public in bathroom space.

          1. HonorBox*

            My business has public restrooms in our lobby, and we have had to install keypads with an access code for those. We’re more than happy to give it out, but there were numerous instances of people coming in and camping out (sitting, filming TikTok videos, etc.) for long periods of time. It made other members of the public not want to use the restrooms. So there are definitely reasons that you might want to have some sort of limits or control over access even to public spaces.

            1. Madre del becchino*

              Making TikTok videos in the restroom? I don’t wanna know what those are about…

                1. Bathyphysa Conifera*

                  Part of the wisdom of age is realizing that if you google something and find out, you are then stuck with that knowledge.

              2. HonorBox*

                I only know what I’ve been told – it was dance videos with costume changes. There’s good lighting, a full-length mirror, and a fair amount of floor space.

        2. I Would Rather Be Eating Dumplings*

          It’s possible that’s a requirement of the building rather than a choice made by the company if they are leasing.

        3. Myrin*

          Oh, definitely, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the change from gender-neutral to gender-segregated bathrooms, which was the assertion I was replying to.

          1. I'm Just Here for the Cats!!*

            It’s a new building they are moving to so they probably don’t have a choice as thats how it is set up.

      3. bamcheeks*

        Yeah, they’re not changing the toilet rules in an existing space, they’re moving space and that’s the set-up in the new space. It sounds like a regressive step, but not a calculated or conscious one.

        I don’t get why they need the toilets to be kept locked though! It’s either completely unnecessary, or they have *terrible* security which raises a whole other set of issues.

    2. Xennial*

      Well, the OP is ‘moving offices’ (I assume different buildings), and in my ~25 years of experience of office life (though admittedly the UK) the general rule is that if they’re stalled affairs they’re gendered, if they’re solo rooms they’re usually unisex. Most of the time, you’d encounter the latter in either offices which had say one bathroom per small floor or they’re conversions from a domestic house.

      What smells distinctly weird about this is the requirement for *keys* – I have never encountered this before with the exception of a few food/cafe places which hated randos coming in just to use it or the occasional warehouse where the bosses were on complete power-trips. Why? Yes, using Occam’s Razor I suspect the building company is doing ‘their bit’ to ‘protect natural-born women’ (*coughs loudly*) by keeping the bathrooms locked from imaginary intruders but decided to do it also to the mens’ to shut up suspicious types like myself.

      Because this setup is bonkers in general and I won’t stop in my belief (despite much evidence to the contrary) that the bulk of humanity is made up of reasonable people I strongly suspect (due to the company’s non-movement on this) have found work-arounds – from leaving Da Key in the lock all day, an unofficial job for the fist in / last out to ‘unlock the bathrooms’ or leaving them on a table by the offending doors etc.

      1. Gritter*

        Yes, as some also from the UK this whole scenario struck me as mad. I’ve never worked anywhere where the toilets where locked and I can’t possibly image why this would be required.

        1. Nobody you know*

          I worked a small office block by a park which had key pads on the doors because security was low and there’d been incidents with unhoused people using the facilities.

          We also had at least one trans woman that I know of using the women’s facilities and nobody raised an eyebrow about it, back in the 90s.

          where on earth did this hatred come from? oh yes, Epstein funded campaigns.

          1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

            This wasn’t universal, even back in the 1990s. I had a friend then who was intersex, and in her 20s chose to change her exterior presentation from male (her parents’ choice) to female. Her manager about lost her mind at the thought of my friend using the women’s room at work and tried to get my friend fired. Fortunately, the manager was fired instead.

            1. Nobody you know*

              and these days the manager’s appeal would be funded to the supreme court by jk Rowling :⁠-⁠(

        2. I Would Rather Be Eating Dumplings*

          My experience is that this is only when restrooms are publicly reachable but are reserved for staff. It is unusual.

          1. AngryOctopus*

            To me it’s similar to having a lock on the employee lounge like when I worked at CVS–the lounge door was accessible to the public in that it was in the back hallway that led to the storage area, so there was a lock on it so employees could go on break, use the toilets inside, and store their personal things with no issues. If the bathroom is accessible to anyone who walks into the building (visitors to companies, people looking to leave sales literature, lost people), then I can see why they’d be locked. I do think a keypad is a better solution than keys, because you can’t lose a keypad.

          2. Myrin*

            Interestingly, that’s never been a problem for us even though I work in the town hall which is by definition open to the public.
            I think the key is that the staff-only toilets have nondescript doors without any signage at all in a row of identical doors with the three in the middle being the actual public toilets.
            People on the whole don’t even seem to register the additional doors.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              I suspect that providing bathrooms available to the public solves a lot of the issue. People need toilets, and there are vanishingly few available to the public in my city (unless you’re a customer).

        3. Another One*

          I’m at a university and the bathrooms on our floor are keypad locked. There are unlocked restrooms on some floors, but I think that is limited to the floors with classrooms/academic departments.

          Our floor is generally just my admin department and an equipment group (they provide equipment rentals to students in some of the departments in our building.) So it’s easy for everyone to be provided the code.

          [I say generally because there is an exhibit space on our floor that I’ve never been in but I believe is about historic local industry. It’s only open on occasion. It may have its own restroom.]

      2. Malarkey01*

        I don’t know if this is a uniquely American thing because we don’t have a good system of public bathrooms in our cities but it’s incredibly common in US office buildings to lock a bathroom that isn’t behind internal office doors. Otherwise there is a health and safety issue with non tenants coming in.

        1. Guacamole Bob*

          Yeah, I’m kind of surprised that more people haven’t run into this more often, at least in the US. I feel like half of my medical providers are in buildings where they have an office suite on a floor with other tenants and they have keys hung up somewhere for patients to use the shared restrooms. It’s more common in more urban areas and less common in areas where the only people likely to wander into the building are people who belong there, but it can be found anywhere.

          How necessary the locks are and how careful people are with keys and codes will vary by building – sometimes it certainly seems like overkill – but I tend to assume the building has some sort of history of members of the public coming in and leaving messes or camping out in the restrooms, or even one tenant complaining about a different tenant’s clients or patients not leaving the restroom clean. And then once the system is in place, people are reluctant to reduce security so it persists even if it’s not really needed.

        2. Reactions*

          True. At the same time, in my travels (in Canada, China, and across Europe), I have rarely found good public bathroom situations. Many places are worse than the US.

      3. Hannah Lee*

        Some spaces I know have keyed or coded rest rooms to keep non-staff from wandering in to do whatever in the rest room. Spaces that have public / non-staff accessible rest rooms sometimes have to deal with people using the rest rooms to take drugs, and passing out or worse ( for example, my city’s public library deals with this multiple times a year)

      4. LL*

        no, it’s probably not anti-trans, tons of office buildings in the US that have multiple businesses on the same floor have shared bathrooms that are locked. They general don’t construct buildings with more than two bathrooms (which are gendered) per floor because the makeup of the floor can change when tenants change. If one organization takes up the entire floor, there’s no need to lock the bathroom because there’s already a locked door to access the entire area.

        For example, my therapist’s office is in an office building on a floor with multiple suites and they have keys for the bathrooms.

        1. Xennial*

          While there are reasonable reasons for doing this, I do suspect the landlord/building company might be trying to ‘fix a problem which didn’t actually exist’. OP would have to judge for themselves whether this is so.

      5. Strive to Excel*

        My immediate thought was that either one of the building owners or one of the other tenants specifically has had bad experiences with a public restroom in the past and now insists on having it locked.

      6. Career regulator*

        I live in London, near my house (suburban neighbourhood with a commercial high street), there is a “business centre” which is a two story building with various offices and other businesses in it including a gym, accountants, estate agents, photography studio etc. It also used to have a lovely little restaurant that has an entrance directly into the road but didn’t have its own toilets.

        Because of the nature of the other businesses in the centre, the centre was open to the public. So customers of the restaurant had to ask for a key to use the toilets (because otherwise they would have been open to the public and probably impossible to keep clean). The key opened a lock much like a standard British house lock, which meant it locked automatically behind you. Once you got into the toilet area with the key, there were separate rooms for men’s and women’s toilets with a sink and two stalls that closed/locked in the usual way (i.e. no further need for a key).

        If the public have general access to OP’s building because of the nature of the businesses sharing the space, I can absolutely understand the wish to preserve safety and cleanliness by having a locking door. I don’t think it’s an especially American set-up/issue.

    3. Seraphina*

      Yeah, and if someone is not out of the closet at work, they are likely to feel uncomfortable asking for a key to the bathroom that they are most comfortable using…it becomes a whole thing. I think locking bathrooms is unethical in the first place, but there are about 10 extra layers of concern.

    4. fhqwhgads*

      If they were remaining in the same building and the building were switching from unisex to gendered bathrooms, that would be worrying. What’s described in the letter is moving from a building with unisex bathrooms that do not require a shared key, to a building with gendered bathrooms that do require a shared key. I suppose one could read something into the choice of the new building, but I think it more likely the new building’s bathroom situation was simply deemed “not a dealbreaker” on the lease, rather than being an intentional choice to move from one to the other. From an inclusion standpoint, it’s certainly bad they didn’t factor it in. And it’s bad for all the reasons addressed in the letter and many threads. But this move does not seem to be targeting trans people. To be clear: it’s not good that it seems to have forgotten they exist, but it’s less bad than actively targeting them.

  10. The cat is on my lap now*

    LW1: If there are two stalls, there should definitely be two keys. If not, one stall will often be empty (yes, I know the other businesses have keys too.)
    Additionally, there should also be at least one sink, so one person in each stall, and one washing hands – you need more keys. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait to get in, even if someone is not in a stall.
    As Alison said, someone will lose a key, but as will happen more often, someone will leave it in there and the door will lock behind them, locking the key in. (This happens at my local library often.)
    It could also lead to a situation of a queue forming in the hall as people wait for someone to walk out so they take the key directly and go in. Surely this is not what the business wants.
    Push back on this.

  11. LBD*

    Youth these days and their really tall socks?
    I’m *cough* decades old, and when I was a youth, we wore our jeans dragging on the ground, and under them, we wore knee socks. Right up to the knee. You couldn’t risk the social disaster that was someone discovering that you were wearing ankle socks or crew socks under those denims. And don’t get me started on the ‘no red socks on Thursday’ (may have only been my school, but it was safer to never have any red socks at all. In fact, best stay away from any bright colours. In fact, if you got the pant length right, no one ever saw even a hint of sock. But, you know, youth. And growth spurts. And parents whose laundry practices might shrink those pants to unacceptable shortness.
    Fun times!
    I do admire the knee socks the young ‘uns wear these days!

    2. metadata minion*

      My only objection to knee socks is that so many of them appear to be manufactured for people with tiny calves, so as someone who walks everywhere and is also fairly generously padded, I can never find ones that fit.

      1. AngryOctopus*

        I hate any socks with elastic/higher than my anklebones because I find they just cut into my skin and I get marks–but I guess that’s not really a fit issue because they’re supposed to be tight enough to stay up? I wear short socks from Bombas and they stay well. My feet also get super hot so the less sock coverage the better for me, but that’s a “me” issue.

      2. Carlie*

        My friend, you want the company Sock Dreams. The front page of their website is all extra-tall socks, but they have extensive offerings in all heights.

      3. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        I solved this problem by buying soccer socks! They’re sized to leave room for shin guards and also for people who have calf muscles, so they’re roomier than most other knee socks. They also tend to come in athletic sizes rather than fashion sizes, so I can find a medium that’s bigger than typical women’s socks and smaller than typical men’s socks and fits my heel location correctly.

        Also, they’re designed to hold up if someone else kicks you in the shins while wearing cleats, so they don’t tend to run or get holes much under normal wear. I bought some black ones without any logos that I wear instead of tights or trouser socks for more formal occasions and that was a major improvement.

    3. Nightengale*

      Interesting, I spent my youth (1980s-90s) being ridiculed for wearing knee socks. Also for other clothing choices such as wearing skirts rather than jeans. And for every other aspect of what we now know was being neurodivergent. But the knee socks were definitely a specific cited target.

      I still wear knee socks in season. There’s the summer season of light skirts and ankle socks and then the winter season of wool skirts and knee socks, and then some transitional periods of spring and fall.

  12. Higher-ed Jessica*

    It sure would be a shame if there was no bathroom access and 2/3 of the workforce had to go home for the day.

    1. Autumn*

      Are you suggesting LW sabotage the toilets in a way that makes them unusable or inaccessible, instead of acting like an adult & re-raising the issue with people who can help?

      Keyboard warrior comments help no one.

      1. metadata minion*

        I assume they were suggesting that if the key gets lost, all the women go home for the day, not that they should intentionally block access.

    2. Resume Please*

      Sure would be a shame!

      Let’s be honest though, change happens when someone in the C suite/a higher up is inconvenienced

  13. I Would Rather be Eating Dumplings*

    For OP #1 – it may not be an ADA violation, but it might flirt with violate OSHA, especially if someone loses the key and the women suddenly have no bathroom access.

    I believe you need one toilet for every 1-15 people, so two should technically be enough, but you also cannot have “unreasonable restrictions” and I think we could argue that one key, which effectively turns the two toilets into one usable one, is an unreasonable restriction.

    1. Athersgeo*

      But. It’s not just the 18 ladies in the OP’s company. There are other companies in the building. It could easily be the case that it’s two toilets for more than 30 women. And that’s not accounting for however many men there are for the two designated male toilets. Given what we (don’t) know about the other tenants, it may already be into OSHA violation territory!

      1. Xennial*

        That is a good point. We also need to factor in if the key setup is that you can’t leave the thing unlocked, that two-stall bathroom is effectively a one-person capacity.

        Now factor in not just the other tenants of this floor, but visitors too.

        1. HonorBox*

          Absolutely this.

          My workplace has 15-16 people in the office any given day. Twice as many women as men. We have two unisex “staff” restrooms that are single-stall. And we have public restrooms in our lobby. I bet at least once a day, a member of the staff uses the public restrooms because both staff restrooms are in use at the same time. There’s no chance that there won’t be a queue and no chance that 18-30 people are going to not have some sort of challenge when the restroom access isn’t great.

          1. Xennial*

            Well, that doesn’t matter because all those queuing people are on their own time and have nothing else better to do…

            That might be the only way the OP’s group to push back on that the bosses will listen.. That this method is simply too inefficient and over time will cost the company in lost work-time.

      2. I'm Just Here for the Cats!!*

        I understood it to be for their section of the building they had these 2 bathrooms. NOT that there were only 2 bathrooms for the entire building.

        1. Xennial*

          If all the bathrooms are locked and OP’s crew doesn’t have those keys, they functionally *are* the only bathrooms in the building.

    2. Engineery*

      If it were me I’d craft an argument around the building code.

      The International Building Code (IBC) specifies the allowable number of restrooms in an office building, based on total occupancy. If the building has multiple restricted-access office areas, restrooms in those areas count only for the people with access. Private restrooms (e.g. a private bathroom attached to a single office) don’t count at all. For occupancy standards, I don’t think it matters if the restroom and workspace are behind the same locked door or different locked doors. (So long as the distance is no more than 1 floor or 500 feet.)

      The IBC doesn’t allow multiple-occupancy restrooms to be lockable from the inside, and I’m not sure on what would be required to convert a multiple-occupancy restroom into a single-occupancy restroom for this purpose. If it’s permitted here, you’re absolutely right that it means each restroom only counts for a single toilet. IBC permits a max of 25 people for one male and one female toilet. (Or two unisex.) If these are the only restrooms available to the 25 people in OP’s office, plus an unspecified number of other office workers (“shared with other tenants of the floor”) that would fall below code.

      I don’t see anything that would claim a restroom key is an “unreasonable restriction.” It’s certainly off-putting to have to ask for a restroom key like you’re at a gas station in a sketchy neighborhood. But absent any other information, the possibility of the key being unavailable when needed isn’t any different than the restroom being occupied or out of order.

      The act of converting multiple-occupancy restrooms into single-use restrooms by locking them should have been proceeded by an occupancy calculation. It is quite possible the building owner (or someone with similar authority) failed to do so and is unaware that they’ve just reduced the legal occupancy of the building by half. I think that’s the best angle to approach this from.

      Note: IBC is just a common foundational standard, and local jurisdictions adapt it to their own municipal code, so OP should base arguments on the local building code.

      2. I'm Just Here for the Cats!!*

        The thing is that there are 2 stalls in 1 bathroom but there is only the 1 key for their company. That means that it is effectively only 1 bathroom. having only 1 key is what is unreasonable. If someone has urgency issues they will not be able to go get the key and get to the bathroom in time.

  14. Farewell bear facts*

    #3 You are probably right that he is skimming the email. People will often do that especially when busy. Are your emails long? Are you making them as clear as possible by using short sentences and bullet points?

    1. Susan Calvin*

      So I know where you’re coming from (clear writing is a skill! we can give advice to LW, not the person they complained about!) but quite frankly if this one particular coworker who makes a pattern of wasting their own and everyone else’s time because they’d rather take an email chain two more turns around the block than invest an extra 5 seconds up front in reading properly, my sympathy for their stress level is negligible.

      1. morethantired*

        I work with clients and that sort of work teaches you that you just gotta adjust how you communicate with some people to save yourself a lot of headache. Making sure emails for this person are easy to skim means just taking the time and energy you end up spending being annoyed at their behavior and put it up front in writing the first email. You can’t force them to read more carefully but you can make yourself write in bulleted lists or short sentences.

      2. Captain Swan*

        I had a client once that would ask say 3 questions in an email. None of them were things that needed long answers. So we would send back answers to the three questions. Next the client would say great I see that you answered the first thing but I really need the other two as well. This went on until one day I was at the client’s office and saw him read the most recent email and some others. The client only read what showed up in the preview pane in Outlook. he almost never opened up the email into a seperate window.
        From that day on all responses to this client were calibrated so that the full message fit in the preview pane and if that meant you sent 3 emails instead of one so be it. And it worked, path of least resistance and all that.

        1. Grenelda Thurber*

          Client just needs someone to explain how to configure Outlook to him. You don’t have to open a separate window to read the whole email. But yeah, I get taking the path of least resistance, especially with a client.

      1. Mad Scientist*

        Probably! But if the only person who does this is more senior to them and others are generally more junior, then that might change things. Not assuming this is the case – LW3’s emails might be perfectly concise and this might be entirely an issue on their coworker’s side. But it’s worth acknowledging the possibility since I think it’s something lots of us could improve on!

        2. cosmicgorilla*

          This was my thought – is LW writing big blocks of text, could they restructure their emails with headers and bullet points to make the key information easier to find.

          It’s not just a junior/senior issue. It’s also possible that this one coworker has dyslexia or ADHD or some other issue that makes reading long emails challenging. It doesn’t suggest that “their emails are fine”, as Agent Diane said. It suggests that the other coworkers don’t have this particular challenge, or that some of them do, but they’re unwilling to burn political capital to ask for clarity. Some coworkers might be going to a lot of extra effort to take in these emails – have had friends who did the same as they didn’t want to be perceived as problematic and “different.”

          If indeed the emails are blocky, then all who receive the email would appreciate reformatting with headers and bullet points.

      2. Hannah Lee*

        ^ This

        Given the number of articles, posts on the internet that have one or more people commenting “I can’t believe the writer didn’t mention xyz!” when xyz was clearly mentioned in the thing they are commenting on, and only one colleague does it, and does it frequently, I’m going to guess it’s a that guy issue, not an OP can’t write clearly issue.

        RTFA is a thing for a reason. Alison provided some okay work-appropriate variations on that.

    3. Seraphina*

      Right, and this is why executive summaries exist! In an email chain, I add a few bullets to reiterate the main points. I would never expect someone to read a long email chain unless I explicitly asked them to.

  15. Myrin*

    I’ve talked about my workplace’s apprentices before and I can only repeat myself in saying that they’re all completely normal coworkers, just young.

    One is extremely shy and only very gradually coming out of her shell, one is a bit reserved and insecure but has taken really well to his mentors, one seems to be spacing out at all times but is fine with direct and clear instructions, one is very confident bordering on arrogant and has a slightly irritating way of speaking, and one is a self-described “boring guy” who’s really good with a lot of things but lacks ambition and drive.

    All of these could be said about other coworkers of all ages and apart from all of them being pretty quiet at first – which is understandabel since they’re so young and in their first workplace dealing with lots of different (older) adults for the first time! – I’ve yet to see any specific characteristics or behaviours which could be ascribed to all of them. It’s almost like they’re just people!
    (Not a comment on OP’s lovely letter, just in case it comes across that way, but on the internet talk on youngsters in general.)

  16. Michigander*

    LW1: I think that I would first try to make it very clear to management that this is going to be an issue, as persistently as possible. And if they don’t get more keys or make it so the door doesn’t lock (Why does the door need a lock in the first place? Is it somewhere open to the public?), operation “sneak the key off to get duplicates and/or put tape over the locking mechanism” starts.

  17. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    #1 I suggest, as a first step, sneaking out a key to a locksmith to get a quote for new keys, or indeed to find out if they can be duplicated unofficially – some types of keys require written authorisation from the key owner before duplication.

    Then, if you can buy new keys and management look like they’ll keep ignoring you, all the women wanting their own key pay in advance and then someone sneaks out the key again and gets the whole batch.
    You shouldn’t have to do this, but your management are a bunch of skinflints who SUCK.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Of course, if the loos are not open to anyone outside your organisation, then use a doorstop to permanently keep the door open, at least until management see sense and give you each a key.

      1. Xennial*

        ‘Duct tape over the latch’ may also work in this situation. In fact, I will happily bet that something like this is already in operation.

        1. Bathyphysa Conifera*

          Fold up a bit of paper and slip it into the opening where the latch goes.

          I believe both Leverage and Burn Notice used this.

    2. Emmy Noether*

      The locksmith may even be able to quote a price from just photographs of the key, so maybe there’s no need to even sneak it out the first time.

      (I once even got a duplicate key from a photograph – but it was one of those really simple residential room keys where the locksmith just has them in stock. Not possible with anything fancier.)

      1. Phony Genius*

        You absolutely can get a duplicate key from a photo; there are many such services. Of course, it can only be done with standard-type keys. If it’s an electronic key, forget it.

    3. No Tribble At All*

      Take the key to one of those “minute key” kiosks in a hardware store. Those things will happily duplicate something that says “duplication prohibited” without a warning, and it’s like $5 per key.

  19. Jenga*

    Bathroom keys are a nightmare. We had one for a few years in our office. It was always getting lost. I went in on a weekend when the office was empty and borrowed it to make my own copy. Should I have had to pay my own money? No. Was it worth it? Yes.

    1. Secret Key Keeper*

      After the first time the key is lost, it is inevitably attached to a large unwieldy object to prevent future loss. Further inevitably, it will be lost anyway.

      Also, I once paid four bucks for a key that fit the paper towel dispenser. Ours was always jamming and they took days to bother unjamming it (and never correctly). With my secret key, I can fix it better than the trained maintenance staff. And I’ve only needed to use it about a half-dozen times in the two years I’ve had it.

    2. RVA Cat*

      All of this, plus imagine if the genders were reversed and you had men resorting to “trucker bombs” or peeing in the stairwell. *barf*

  20. CR Month*

    It’s great that you’ve found a good crop of interns in #5. Is that supposed be unusual though? The tone of the letter was like you discovered some rare breed of Gen Z that is competent . I’m in my fifties and I haven’t found any difference in these things by generation

    1. Emmy Noether*

      I think that was the point of the letter. As a counterpoint to other people complaining that the Youths are not fit to work and lazy and civilization is falling down (it’s the same complaints on repeat since time immemorial).

      2. CR Month*

        I know, it just seemed a bit condescending.. Like “I interviewed seven women and believe it or not they can all do math!”

        Sorry if I’m being uncharitable –

        1. Susan Calvin*

          It’s a matter of audience I would say – some people out there do in fact require frequent reminders about women’s capabilities, and while for the most part this comment section is free of those people, it does suffer from the occasional bout of Generational Stereotyping, so the LW might indeed reach some people who need to hear it.

        2. Emmy Noether*

          I think it is uncharitable – you’re reading a tone of astonishment into it (“believe it or not”) that I don’t think is there.

          Obviously real data is better than anecdata, but since a lot of the “youths, amiright” complaints are anecdata at best, countering with the same isn’t necessarily a bad strategy. Stories can sometimes be more powerful than statistics.

          I personally like to report that in my experience, girls are good at math: in most of the classes I was in during school, the second-best at math was also a girl. It’s anecdata, but it says “I don’t experience the world in accordance with your stereotypes”.

        3. LL*

          You are being uncharitable. The OP doesn’t believe that Gen Z is full of slackers or whatever the stereotype is, but they know that there are negative stereotypes floating around out there and they’re pushing back against that. It’s not condescending.

        4. fhqwhgads*

          I think you’re reading it wrong. You’re taking the tone as surprise at the generation’s competence. It’s not. They’re saying “hey all you people who blindly insist that generation is not competent”. The condescension is directed at the people who paint an entire generation with one brush.

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      I took the point as more pushing back against people who are like “young people these days!!” Not that these young people are unusual but that they are the norm and that is not how young people are stereotyped.

      I don’t think choosing to interview in person rather than online is either a positive or a negative though. Might show they are a bit more savvy than I’d have probably been at their age and they want to see the workplace before making a decision but…it’s not really an indication of greater committment than somebody who chooses to interview online.

  21. Sarah Fowler Wolfe*

    I have had the same excellent experience interviewing Gen Z over the past few months! I did find that they used ChatGPT for cover letters (lots of repeated phrasing across candidates) but they were appropriately personalized and still solid letters. And all well-made resumes too.

    1. LW5*

      Yes! I didn’t mind the similar ChatGPT cover letters either, since they were clearly tailored/edited.

  22. E*

    #3, I have a coworker that did this. He is too lazy to look for an answer and wants everything just given to him, it drives me nuts! I eventually started answering by writing ‘see below’ and highlighting the answer in the previous email. I also took longer and longer to reply each time he did this, eventually he got tired of waiting 4 hours and would figure it out himself. He no longer does this to me, but he still does to others.

  23. Melisande*

    #LW 3 – I had a colleague like that, would ask questions I’d already answered in the email/briefing. Maddening. As they were senior to me, I had to roll with it, but did find it helped if I rewrote the style of my emails with the key ask or vital info in the first para and then “background below” rest of the email. I also made use of bold type to highlight key points throughout and summarised at the end. It didn’t entirely fix the problem, and it was irritating to have to spoonfeed them, but it did reduce the instances a lot.

    1. Mad Scientist*

      This is good practice generally and especially when the person is senior to you. I think it’s called “good email hygiene” and I believe there’s a post about it on this site somewhere (will link it in a reply if I can find it). Since the LW is mainly having this issue with one specific coworker, I’m not sure if it’s relevant advice in their situation, but it totally could be (and if not, it could at least help others).

      It really is helpful to have a TLDR or “short answer” at the top of an email, and then more info below in case someone needs more details. But not everyone will want / need those extra details or have time to read them, especially if the person is more senior. Personally, I minimize the use of bold and/or highlighted text in emails because I find it visually distracting (and when I receive emails from others with bold / highlights, I often find that the info they chose to emphasize isn’t actually the most important info in my opinion… not sure why, but it’s been a recurring pattern).

      I have a coworker who is more senior to me whose emails are so incredibly long and so frequent that I genuinely struggle to keep up with reading everything, and by the time I do catch up on one of his emails, I already have 3 more from him in my inbox. It’s so easy for important info to get missed when people refuse to be concise. But he’s more senior to me so there’s not much I can do about it (if it were a more junior coworker, I might advise them to summarize more / be more concise for the sake of my sanity and their own reputation).

      On the flip side, if I’m sending an email with detailed instructions to a more junior coworker (generally following the same format, with the task / request at the top and then a bulleted list of steps to follow underneath), I’m a lot more likely to get annoyed if they respond to my email asking a question that was clearly addressed in like step 2. I had a coworker like that once and I quickly ran out of patience with him. It’s one thing to ask for clarification, it’s another thing entirely to ask a straightforward question like “where do I save the file” when one of the first bullet points in my email says “please save the file here (link)”.

      So the dynamics really do change depending on seniority and the purpose of the email. Providing info to the busy higher-ups who really only need to know the short answer vs. providing instructions to a junior coworker who doesn’t even bother to read them… Very different!

  24. Frodo*

    oh man, #2 is the same real life scenario that a lawyer shared in a harassment training I attended a few years ago. It ended up with a huge investigation that took months and ground work to a halt in this organization. Not a good work environment and puts the organization at risk.

  25. LW5*

    I likely won’t have a chance to comment again today (and my letter really isn’t the important one here; OMG the bathrooms!)

    Just wanted to say thank you for posting my letter! I hope it comes across the way I meant it. It’s not that it should be a shock that intern candidates can be competent, but more that the level of professionalism was such a stark contrast to the barrage of complaints I hear from people in my life about Gen Z.

    Also loving that my silly comment about socks has sparked discussion ANKLE SOCKS 4 LIFE

    1. CR Month*

      I had mentioned in a comment above that it did come across that way, but I retract that now. If you are hearing that many complaints about Gen Z it makes sense to “set the record straight “

      1. metadata minion*

        As a Millennial, I am *so annoyed* by some of my generation who are now complaining about Gen Z. Come on people, don’t you remember when we were Kids These Days?? And all we managed to destroy was breakfast cereal and chain restaurants; Gen Z seems to be going straight for capitalism and I’m behind them all the way.

      2. Jay (no, the other one)*

        Oh, yeah. There is so much crap being amplified about “kids these days” and it is, well, crap. It shows up repeatedly in the AAM comment section and is startling because Alison’s commentariat generally avoids falling into stereotype traps. I suspect I notice it more because my kid is Gen Z. She and her friends are hard-working, professional, committed, and concerned about the world. They are also trying to find entry-level jobs in the worst job market since I don’t know when. She just turned 26 and many of her cohort are now without health insurance since they are no longer eligible to stay on a parent’s plan. So the fussing about how they are not willing to work and only want to scroll TikTok makes me a bit, um, upset.

        1. Another One*

          My oldest nieces and nephew are Gen Z and, I agree, they’re incredibly hard working, care about the world, focused, and they care.

          Can some of them- one of them- sometimes be overly passionate about their interests? Sure, but that’s that age to me. I remember my classmates in college who were involved in social movements and they were the same. That’s the awesome thing about that age.

        2. Grenelda Thurber*

          +1000 – Every generation seems to have issues with later generations they encounter in life. The whole discussion is a huge waste of time IMO. Later generations are just younger, that’s all. They don’t all have the same behaviors because they’re the same ages, and it’s really unfair to say or imply that they do. We had plenty of “ne’er do wells” in my generation too. I won’t even get started on my brother-in-law, who leans back in his chair, puts his feet up on his desk, and starts complaining how kids today don’t have any respect (’cause I’ve seen pictures, police reports and heard stories about how respectful he was in his teens and 20’s).

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I think it’s a combination of two things. One is people just forgetting what they were like when they were younger and wondering why young people today don’t have all the knowledge they’ve built up over twenty or thirty years. I see this hilariously in school with 3rd years (14/15 year olds) who every year insist the 1st years (12/13 year olds) are so annoying and immature and “we were never like that.”

            The other one is that professional people tend to associate with other professional people so they assume everybody is like that. Then they get promoted and see that no, a lot of people are not like that (not saying you only see unprofessionalism as a manager, but you do see more of it) and they think that it has increased because they never behaved so unprofessionally and avoided those who did.

    3. mpe1*

      Like many others here, I was thrilled to bits by your letter! I’m a GenX parent of a GenZ kid and I’ve been saying for years that this is a brilliant generation coming through. (Why, yes, I’m biased! But it’s still true.) Thank you for seeing them, and honouring what they bring.

  26. Eeb18*

    #5 made me very happy! My team has one Gen Z individual on it and she is outstanding – smart, responsible, takes initiative, doesn’t think she’s too good for small tasks, overall a great hire and a great person. Being a Gen Zer certainly does not preclude being hardworking and professional, and I love that OP took the time to recognize that.

  27. HonorBox*

    Thinking about the first letter, I’m picturing a crappy gas station with the bathroom key hooked to a hubcap.

    I just don’t see how it is reasonable to have a single key, especially when there are two stalls in the restroom. If someone is using the restroom, presumably the door locks behind them and then no one else has access, and you’ve cut the available number of toilets in half. When you go back as a group, point out that the setup for this access really means 1 toilet for 18 people (and that’s just the 18 in your office, not to mention others who have access too), not two. At the very least, there should be two keys because there are two stalls. And even that’s still limiting, because God forbid someone just needs to go in and wash their hands. I think it is also worth pointing out that while there may be cost to getting additional keys made, the downtime when people ultimately have to queue up and wait for access to the restroom is going to be more costly. I can’t imagine the cost of getting additional keys made is like having electronic car keys made. We’re probably talking $100 for a handful of keys. Again, at the very least, there should be two keys for each restroom.

    I’m not sure how your management is, so I say this knowing that it could land poorly, but I think it is also worth pointing out that controlling bathroom access like this makes staff feel like they’re immature and school-aged where bathroom access has to be asked for and granted.

  28. No Tribble At All*

    LW#1: Another yucky thing about shared bathroom keys — I don’t trust that other people will wash their hands. So now the key becomes a hotbed of grossness.

    1. HonorBox*

      I had that thought, too. Not only the washing of hands part, but where does the key get set while someone is in the restroom?

  29. Transman in the Bathroom*

    #1

    Many, many years ago, I worked for an organization whose office was on a floor with multiple other organizations. Bathrooms for each floor were in common hallways outside the business offices. It was during this time that I started my transition. Since the organization I worked for was a bit conservative, I did not want to come out at work and use the men’s bathroom. However, as my transition progressed, I started getting weird looks from women in other organizations who saw me in the women’s restroom.

    I solved this problem by going to another floor. One floor up also had multiple organizations with shared bathrooms. No one thought it was weird that they didn’t recognize me (since there were multiple offices) and I didn’t get weird looks using the men’s restroom.

    I don’t know how the office building you are moving into is set up, but it’s possible you could do something similar to what I did – go to another floor of the building to pee.

    1. Xennial*

      Except in OPs case, if their floor’s bathroom is locked, so will the others be. Well, probably.

    1. AnonInCanada*

      It may not be all that cut-and-dried. First, she has to get the key off the premises and to a key cutting place. Second, the key may have “Do Not Duplicate” stamped on it, and most key cutters will abide by the command. Also, if the key does say “Do Not Duplicate,” even if the key cutter ignored it, finding the requisite blank to duplicate the key will be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.

      OP #1 and her colleagues need to speak up as a group to address this with the bosses. If that fails, then they should look into OHSA regulations regarding the number of available washrooms per occupant. Not just them, but everyone occupying that floor and accounting for visitors as well. This could go beyond just the company’s managers, but the building’s as well.

  31. mango chiffon*

    Honestly the concept of a shared bathroom key that people have to take into the bathroom and presumably set down somewhere IN the bathroom gives me the ick. I’d need that thing to be perpetually stored in a vat of hand sanitizer to feel good about using it. Giving everyone their own key would make it less gross about someone else’s potty germs

  32. MCMonkeyBean*

    Is this a public building? If not would it be easier to argue for the bathroom simply being left unlocked rather than asking them to make more keys? Who do you even get the key from if there are multiple companies sharing the space, a locked bathroom in this situation seems like a terrible setup regardless of there only being one key.

  33. CR Month*

    For #4, i don’t know if your company would give you a retroactive raise, but I don’t see the harm in at least asking about it. It’s not that uncommon ime

  34. Sneaky Squirrel*

    #1 – And when someone loses the bathroom key by leaving it in the bathroom, or when management has to spend time going desk by desk trying to figure out which employee forgot to return the key, then what happens for those who need to use the toilet?

  35. Alex*

    Love #5. While every group inevitably has bad apples, my general experience with GenZ has been very positive. And I work with tons of GenZ people. For the most part, they are kind, resourceful, people and I enjoy working with them. (I am right on the cusp of Millennial/GenX for reference.)

  36. CzechMate*

    LW 2 – this exact scenario came up at my workplace last year. I work in higher ed, and some of my student workers (international students from East Asia) came to me saying that their professor (an immigrant from South Korea) was repeatedly making bigoted-self-inclusive comments in the classroom. We directed the student to either file a bias reporting form and/or to speak to the head of the department. To add to Alison’s perspective:

    -If this is a minoritized identity, other people who belong to that group don’t need to hear negative stereotypes about themselves at work or school, period.

    -There are power dynamics within identity groups. In the example above, the professor (male, green card holder or citizen, with a PhD) had a lot more power and security than his students (female, nonimmigrant visa holders, just trying to pass their class to get their Master’s). This means that the people hearing the comments may feel more hurt, upset, angry, or alienated by the comments and have less standing to say “Hey, please don’t say that.”

  37. MitchH*

    I once worked in a building with 3 floors which had one single-stall unisex bathroom per floor and 8 employees per floor. In my first week at work, I was told that only the department heads (one per floor) were allowed to have bathroom keys, but that was ok because I “only had to ask” my supervisor whenever I needed the key, and she didn’t mind. All of us held daily meetings with outsiders scheduled at different times. This meant that when I had a break to use the bathroom, my department head was usually in her own meeting. Again, she said, “No problem, just knock on my door when you have to go” (!).
    I firmly pushed back against this. The idea of having to go to this woman whenever I needed the bathroom for any reason including just wanting to wash my hands before lunch made me feel infantilized. My insistence on having my own key gave me a reputation of being difficult my first week on the job. However, after thinking it over, my supervisor agreed that it seemed a little extreme for people to have to ask permission to use the facilities! In the end all employees on each hall got their own bathroom key. We were a non-profit on a shoe-string budget. It wasn’t prohibitively expensive.

  38. Lurker #123*

    Absolutely ask for a code keypad. It’s inexpensive and so much better. We asked for a lock for the public bathrooms on our floor for security reasons (I once walked in on a man doing hard drugs in the ladies room, which is 3 stalls). Cheap building management installed a keyed lock. My office and the other tenant on the floor (a small law firm) pushed back (they told management this isn’t a gas station). They promptly installed a keypad lock and it works like a charm.

    1. Another One*

      Is it wrong that my first response was why would be pick the women’s restroom to do drugs in over the men’s room and not why would he do drugs at work?

      1. Lurker #123*

        It was during Covid, when we were all mostly remote, and my office is downtown. Some random dude with no connection to my office found out our floor was unlocked and warm in the winter. I still have no idea why he chose the women’s bathroom instead of the men’s. I then put a code on our floor full time since we weren’t open to the public due to Covid so we haven’t had any repeats.

        1. Another One*

          That’s both better and worse. And a reminder of why my office put a keypad on our stairwell door at our previous office location.

        2. Homunculus*

          I mean, I don’t do hard drugs, and certainly not in bathrooms, but if I *had* to pick a bathroom to do hard drugs in I would definitely pick the women’s room over the men’s. They’re almost always cleaner!

  39. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    #3 I suggest reviewing whether your EMs are reader-friendly. Especially when you are all so busy, it’s easy to miss info buried in a narrative EM or with walls of text.

    Standard format everywhere I worked was numbered bullet points to start which summarised the key info, followed by a section “Details” or “Background”. The subject line was either Project number: brief topic title, or for a reply, “AW:” preceding their subject.

    We were all engineers/techs, with many ESL or GSL (German SL) so clarity was essential and brevity much preferred.

  40. Whatchamacallit*

    LW #1 omg this happened to me when I was at an employer that moved offices. The new building’s manager kept ALL the women’s bathrooms locked for “safety” but not the men’s. We had one bathroom key. (You needed a fob to access most floors, it’s not like strangers were wandering around the building.) What was odd was (allegedly) the women in the other offices liked it and basically said oh yeah, it’s so much safer, we love that he keeps the bathrooms locked, so our operations team saying “this is insane” didn’t hold much sway with the property management because no one else had complained.

    Eventually we were able to get multiple keys made. I don’t know how that is not a gender discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.

    1. Decima Dewey*

      When I worked for the accounting firm, the receptionist insisted that the women’s restroom be locked for safety. (Apparently the men were on their own.)* I got a rubber chicken keychain so that the key would likely be returned. That resulted in the male accountants learning that I had a cool key chain.

      My current library branch has unisex bathrooms, and the public bathroom has a key that’s at the circulation desk. A couple of times a month I have to go get the public bathroom key out of the bathroom when a patron leaves it there (I have a submaster key that opens almost everything).

      As to the men’s restroom not being locked. In the main branch, the men’s restroom was often used for hookups, so logically the men’s should have been the one locked.

      1. nnn*

        Idly wondering about cause and effect – what if the men’s was being used for hookups because it’s the one that wasn’t locked?

  41. Emily Bembily*

    Why are the bathrooms even gendered if they’re effectively locked to one person at a time? Makes no sense.

    1. Silver Robin*

      I think since they are shared with other tenants, there can be a situation where two people from different companies are using the bathroom at the same time. So it is not technically single use…just single employee per company use which is still absurd

    3. Agamemnon*

      I’ve written in before about how necessary it was at a former job in the admin building of a public transit agency. Bus drivers used to come to our building and wreck the bathroom by covering the toilet in urine. Plus since there were 2 women to 20 men, we’d be waiting and waiting and waiting for a bathroom only for it to be covered in piss.

    4. I'm Just Here for the Cats!!*

      a local store has 8 single bathrooms 4 women 4 men. Make it make sense?

  42. morethantired*

    LW2 — one place I worked had quarterly all staff meetings and they would bring in some sort of entertainment or guest speaker at each one to liven things up before the lunch break. One speaker kept making these same sort of self-depreciating jokes about his own religion. A man who worked at my company and is of that same religion, he cringed at the first one. At the second one, he groaned. At the third, he got up and walked out, and asked the HR rep to join him outside the room. Needless to say, there was a formal apology from the company shared first thing the next morning and stated that all future guest speakers would be told these types of “jokes” are not acceptable. This was my first job, and I appreciated that my coworker did that because it taught me an important lesson in that it’s never okay to joke about things like that at work.

  43. Name (Required)*

    As an Elder Millennial who managed two INCREDIBLE Gen Z women at my last job, I love love LOVE LW No. 5’s note. No generation is a monolith!

  44. Ex-Prof*

    #2. Whenever someone says “I can say that because I’m ___”, I always think (and sometimes say) “Oh, did you get permission from everyone else who is ___?”

    The result of this sort of thing is exactly what’s happening in LW’s office.

    1. Dahlia*

      That’s shaky, imo. Reclaimed slurs are very valid. For instance, there are groups of gay people who refuse to use the word queer and consider it an unacceptable slur no one should use. I, a queer person, am not going to ask them permission to label myself as a queer person.

      1. Slippin' Jenny*

        I’m LW#2. Interesting comment, thank you. Alison edited my email to make it more general, and in reading the replies, I think that was wise. The self-deprecating comments my coworker makes are unhelpful at best, and flat-out bigoted at worst.

  45. Half a Cupcake*

    I love the Zoomers in my workplace. The one on my team in particular has been so sweet about helping me identify AI images online without making me feel old about it when I sometimes struggle. (I feel like I was good at this six months ago, but the images just keep getting closer and closer to reality.) They’re all very sweet and hardworking and feel comfortable asking me if such-and-such is a workplace norm or something they should push back on, which I’m glad of.

    And I’m also so glad to be able to tell them “While another workplace might not treat you with as much respect for your adorable cottagecore outfits and hair bows, it’s fine here. Please keep being yourself.”

  46. RaginMiner*

    RE LW5: I genuinely think the kids are alright. I run a mock interview program for engineering students at the college I went to and we have a great turnout- they want to know how to do well and they put a lot of effort in.

  47. Caliphate*

    Management citing ‘cost’ as the issue not to duplicate a key? Seriously? I think it’s less than $20 at my hardware store to buy a key blank and get a new key cut.

    1. Phony Genius*

      I’m guessing that it’s some kind of super-sophisticated electronic key that can cost $200 to duplicate. I’m mostly joking but if your company really can’t afford a one-time cost of $200, then your company has bigger issues behind the scenes. They probably paid over 100x that in moving expenses.

      1. Xennial*

        Dunno. I’ve worked for skinflints who’d begrudge £20 from the petty cash if they felt they could ‘go without’ or even better, deliberately not do it so someone paid out of their own money. And to the best of my knowledge, they never went under.

  48. Griz*

    As someone with colitis, this bathroom setup is so horrid I’d be getting an accommodation to work from home. Multiple stalls takes away my dignity during a colitis episode. I need privacy – acoustic, olfactory, and visual privacy. And I need to go urgently, I don’t always have time to wait for someone to bring back the key, or even fiddle with a lockbox to get the key.

  49. The cat is on my lap now*

    Does your building have tap cards for any reason? To get into your area as opposed to the other businesses?

    One place I worked used a tap card system on the toilets. I assume this would be cheaper than a code-entry. Everyone had a card.

    The same card also let us into the staff kitchen, but also restricted people to certain areas of the building – only people who needed to could get in the accounting or HR areas for example.

    If someone quit or lost their card, it could be individually deprogrammed. (This only took IT a minute, not complicated.)

    It doesn’t sound like LW’s place is big enough to need all this, but it could be more useful than a physical key.

  50. An Australian In London*

    Bosses of LW1: Buying 20 keys will cost us $X.
    Me: Replacing the chairs and/or carpet after an accident will cost a lot more.

  51. JustMe*

    LW #4 – I say it can’t hurt to ask! I’ve been able to get retro pay from my org (higher ed) twice when a temporary role or responsibilities became permanent. Maybe my org is unusual, but maybe yours is too :)

  52. ChurchOfDietCoke*

    Oh, maaaan, I would *definitely* be the person to lose the toilet key by about 11am on day one…

    SURELY a keypad with a code is the only logical solution here!

  53. I am the definition of cringe*

    #3: I feel your pain. So much.

    #1: What would happen if you just…forgot to lock the door when you leave? I may or may not have done that to our conference room and it saved a lot of headache.

    1. Phony Genius*

      I think most bathroom doors with locks are self-locking. Conference room doors, not so much. Of course, there are exceptions.

  54. Feel free to disagree.*

    In response to the Gen Z writer’s thoughts:
    We need to stop being surprised by people doing things “right” for an interview. We need to be PREPARING those people for success at interviews.

    If you don’t expressly mention in your interview invitation expectations for dress, timeliness, etc. (or explain how tricky it can be to find the right elevator), then you’re setting unnecessary traps and unfairly disadvantaging people who didn’t have people in their lives ready to help them know those norms.

    Are you expecting a suit? Consider offering clothing resources locally where people can find suit. Don’t want people early? Feel free to say “we won’t be able to work with you before your interview time, but feel free to wait in the lobby of the building and come up in the last 10 minutes before your time.” Are you actually going to look at the one person who accepts Zoom instead of coming in person and say “why didn’t they make the same effort as the others?” Well then, you need to make it clear in the invite that in-person is preferred if available.

    I love the LW’s enthusiasm and their point is well taken that we shouldn’t be pre-disposed to thinking Gen Z will do poorly, but I’m saying let’s make it even easier for them to do well or lets change our own expectations!

  55. Coverage Associate*

    I haven’t read all the comments, but I have been an all day visitor to offices with the bathroom situation described, and didn’t like it. Ironically, one series of visits was for depositions in a case that was all about who had copies of keys to a gate and when and why. Someone had been injured on the gate and the property owner was unaware of all the organizations and individuals who could have unlocked the gate. So I get key control issues.

    A common arrangement I see is where there’s a physical key for visitors and a code for people who work in the building. It keeps the code from getting out and having to be frequently changed and keeps the bathroom doors locked. The same thing happens when employees’ badges or keys for their workspaces also work for the bathroom, and each business is given one or two visitor badges or keys.

    Also, is it OSHA compliant if access to tepid water for handwashing, etc can be unavailable and it’s hard to figure out how long it will continue? Of course there are small businesses that only have one bathroom that may be occupied, but then you can knock on the door and talk to the occupant. In the situation I visited, if the person with the one key is in the stall far from the door, it may take some pounding and yelling to communicate.

  56. Mutually Supportive*

    #3 I wouldn’t copy and paste the text from below into my reply email (then they might not realise that the info was already there) but I do sometimes write “see yellow below” and then highlight the relevant info in the original text to make it easier for them to find whilst also making it clear that the info was already there.

  57. In my 40s*

    #5 – from a legal non-profit: i’ve now worked with four very recent law grads (mid-20s at most) and they have all knocked my (no-show) socks off. I don’t remember having that kind of initiative and confidence and poise at that age – they all VERY MUCH have had their act together.

  58. Cnslr. Troi*

    Wow I’m so happy to see someone address this. I’ve heard from many older and age-level colleagues (millennial here) about the ‘horrors’ the younger generation is apparently inflicting on them. But my personal experience working with Gen Z has always been one defined by intelligence, thoughtfulness and frankly, a kind of ruthless efficiency I can only dream of. Happy to hear that this positive experience is elsewhere too!!

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