should we have “fun” out-of-office messages, managers trash-talk my old job, and more

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

1. Should we really have “fun” out-of-office messages?

At a company-sponsored women’s networking event last year, a speaker suggested that people should make their out-of-office messages more “fun” — i.e., include details about where you’re going, who you’re going with, fun facts about the location, etc. The thought was it would make you seem more human to the receiver, and they would then be more likely to respect your time off.

I find this advice grating for a few reasons:
– It’s too much information to read through. I just need to know when you’ll be back and who to contact in the meantime.
– I don’t think you should need to know what I’m doing with my time off in order to respect it.
– The fact that this advice was given at a women’s event for a very conservative, male-dominated industry adds an extra layer of ick I’ve not been quite able to put words to.

I’ve talked to a few folks around the office, and reactions have been mixed — some feel it’s too much, and others think it’s fun and I’m being a fuddy-duddy. This is obviously something I can just opt of of, but I just need to know: Is this a thing? Am I totally off-base here? Am I a fuddy-duddy?

You are not a fuddy-duddy.

People rarely read an out-of-office message and think, “Why didn’t she say more about why she’s out sick?” or “But who is going on vacation with her?” or “I wonder why she chose Yellowstone.” And while some people might enjoy reading that your destination in the Bahamas is “home to the world’s largest underwater sculpture,” a lot of other people are going to think, “Cool, but I really just want to know when you’ll be back.” There’s nothing wrong with including something personal (within reason — “I’m on my honeymoon! I’ll be back on the 23rd” is fine) but what the speaker is recommending is overkill and likely to come across as cheesy or odd.

The idea that people will be less likely to respect your time off if you don’t include extra info is bizarre — and it feels like the speaker is telling on themselves a bit there.

It’s extra gross at a women’s event because it plays into the deeply problematic idea that women need to put in extra effort to soften or pep up their communications (“humanize yourself! the most important thing for you is to make other people feel good so be warm! but not too warm or someone will take it the wrong way! no, not like that!”), a burden that’s placed on men far less often.

2. My new managers trash-talk my old job

I started a new job at a charity recently, after leaving the government sector where I’d worked for 10 years. My two managers keep referring to my past experience in negative terms, like “you’ll find things are very different here, we don’t do things the slacker way like where you used to work.”

My new job is actually extremely similar to my old job with the exact same software and processes (and I have a qualification in this area). I’m trying hard to learn the way of the charity and have been getting great feedback. Despite this, comments are made about how I feel to be working in “the real world, where we actually work hard.” But I’m a diligent worker and put in a lot of effort at my old government job and likewise in my new job.

My manager once worked at the government department I’ve just left, so I think he has a chip on his shoulder from his experience there many years ago. In my interview, he asked whether I’m a self-starter because everyone he knew at my old workplace couldn’t think for themselves and was lazy. I was taken aback at this, but I just calmly explained what a diligent worker I am.

I’m getting upset at the constant digs, and this is still being brought up six months after I started. It’s especially frustrating that I’ve been getting great feedback but feel I constantly have to prove myself because of my employment history.

This is Extremely Weird.

It might be interesting to say something like, “You keep mentioning that. Do you have concerns about my work ethic? I’d want to be able to address it if so.” Sometimes taking something like this very much at face value and responding accordingly will highlight how weird the other person is being, and it’s possible that framing it that way could nudge them to stop.

Or you could say, “I can’t speak for other teams, but the team I was on wasn’t like that. I’m surprised to hear you say that so often.”

Or you could just internally roll your eyes and keep in mind that while it’s possible that they had bad experiences with your old department, their constant harping on it is a tell that there’s something weird going on with them and it’s not about you.

3. How can I help an employee without money for food?

I am a supervisor of a team of about 15 in a large organization. One of my direct reports has disclosed to me that she is experiencing food insecurity and relies on charity for her groceries. I suspect she is not eating three meals a day. I would like to assist her but I don’t know how to go about it. I am not able to give her a raise and due to medical issues she is not able to work more hours. An added layer to this situation is that she used to be in the role which I am now in but had to step down due to these medical issues. I don’t want to come across as patronizing and I don’t want to break her confidence by reaching out to anyone in our organization about her circumstances. Are you able to give me advice about how I can help?

Would you be up for giving her an occasional gift card to grocery stores or similar? If you think it would make her feel more comfortable, you could say that someone gave it to you but you don’t normally shop there, or it showed up in your mail and you thought of her … or you could just say, “People helped in me in the past and I’d be grateful to be able to pay it forward.”

Beyond that, is your sense that your organization would assist her in some way if they knew? If so, I think it’s okay to talk to someone discreetly (someone who you trust to also handle it discreetly) and find out what options might be available. I appreciate you not wanting to break her confidence, but I’d put this in the category of “manager acting to help an employee” and sometimes that does involve looping someone else in (assuming she didn’t explicitly say you shouldn’t share it with anyone).

4. Can I ask to be laid off with severance?

I’ve been working for my employer for seven years, with three in a specialized role that did not exist before I pushed for its creation. We provide marketing services for other agencies, and I am the lone employee who creates any kind of marketing content for our organization.

Yesterday, I was told by the CEO that the marketing department (which consists of me, my manager, and a C-suite exec) was being restructured and my role was essentially being eliminated. I was told that I would be transferred to an operations role that I have virtually no experience in and that is, in my opinion, a huge step back professionally. My salary will remain the same, but this role has significantly less autonomy and is far below my skill set. Typically, it’s more of an entry-level role.

While my CEO says the hope is that this move is only temporary, I have no faith that that’s true. The company has historically struggled with lead generation and they’ve cited that the lack of leads is prompting this move. (For the record, I have never been held responsible for this or had any indication in my overwhelmingly positive performance evaluations that this was under my purview.) I fail to see how eliminating this marketing role will help them turn things around, but my larger concern is that this move will take a massive toll on my mental health and my ability to even look for new employment opportunities. The role has unrealistic productivity performance metrics with a high probability of burnout, and I would essentially have to learn an entirely new role that isn’t aligned with my experience or professional goals.

I have it on good authority that the company recently offered severance to an underperforming employee (far less senior than me) as an alternative to a demotion. This former employee ended up taking neither option, which makes me wonder whether there might be an opportunity for me to suggest a layoff with severance instead. The company has been actively trying to avoid layoffs, and part of me feels that the CEO is trying to do the “right” thing by finding a way to keep me employed. I recognize this might not be the smart thing to do, given the current state of the job market, but I do wonder whether there’s any precedent for this. If the worst they can say is no, do I really have anything to lose by asking? I don’t want to let my ego convince me to make the wrong decision, but I feel so depressed about the idea of having to make this transition at work, even temporarily.

You can absolutely try to negotiate a layoff with severance! You could frame it as, “I appreciate you trying to find another role for me, but I’m not sure this one makes sense for me professionally. Would you be open to structuring this as a layoff with severance instead?”

You will probably lose a bit of your leverage on the amount of severance since they know you don’t want the other job, but not necessarily. And you could ask for a specific amount up-front so you’re anchoring the discussion with a specific number from the get-go. Or if they’ve done layoffs before and you’d be happy with the amount of severance people got then, you could ask for it to be matched now.

5. Do I have to tell my interviewers if I’m fired in the middle of a hiring process?

I have been put on an action plan at work. I don’t think they sincerely wish me to improve and I’ve also lost motivation. I am looking for a new job. My question is, if I get let go and I am in the middle of an interview process, do I have to disclose I am no longer working? I know I should be truthful if directly asked, but what if they don’t ask me?

You don’t need to proactively disclose it. If they ask if you’re still employed there, you should be honest — and you shouldn’t talk about the job in the present tense if you’re no longer there — but you don’t need to go out of your way to announce it either.

Related:
I lied to my interviewer about being employed

should our office kick everyone out at 5 pm?

A reader writes:

I would like to ask you and your readers about a discussion my organization had about working late. I don’t work in the office late. I have worked late at home occasionally, but I do not stay in the office longer than close of business. Some team members do though, to a ridiculous extent. In other teams it varies. One team during the pandemic worked late frequently, but I understand that they’ve now returned to normal.

In a staff meeting and in my own team’s meetings, I’ve suggested that the organization could use a policy set by the controversial entrepreneur Alan Sugar. His rule was that work ends at 5 pm and that everyone had to be out of the building at 5:15. The book I read said that he enforced this rule by having security always lock up at 5:15. However, the wording I’ve used in meetings is that Sugar had staff kicked out of the office at 5:00.

I presume that any part-time employees would have their hours strictly enforced too, but the book only seems to cover the full-time staff.

Whichever way you phrase it, the rule was that staff were only allowed to work in their contracted hours. Everyone had five working days, 9-5 each week and no more. If they hadn’t finished a task by close of business on Friday, they’d have to finish on Monday. Apparently, it encouraged good timekeeping at the expense of making everyone nervous in the last 10 minutes of the day.

My organization’s staff network believes that such a policy would not always be practical, but it would certainly encourage staff to consider work-life balance and to think carefully before working late.

Just so that you know, I have never missed a deadline and I have often received compliments for the standard of my work. So, what do you think of this policy?

I like the intent, but the execution is impractical.

For one thing, it would make flexibility completely impossible. A lot of people like being able to flex their hours — coming in late after an appointment and staying a little later to make up that work, or to working a different schedule than 9-5 if the nature of their work permits it.

Plus, in many jobs, there’s an ebb and flow to the work — this week is busy so I’m going to be staying later, but next month is slower so I’ll knock off early a bunch of days. A lot of people want the autonomy to manage their own schedules and workflow that way, and the nature of many jobs permits it.

There are also jobs where it’s inherent to the work is that sometimes something urgent will come up at the end of the day and it has to be dealt with or there could be serious consequences (think PR, law, tech, and a zillion other fields — although I’m guessing you’re not in one of those or this would be an obvious no-go).

This is also likely to just spur people to work from home at night when they might prefer to just stay a little later to finish and then have a clean break once they go home.

All that said … is a strict 9-5 system better than jobs that expect people to work unsustainably long hours and have no time to themselves? Of course, and I can see how it would look really good to people who are dealing with the latter. But the choice isn’t between those two starkly different options. A healthy organization can ensure workloads are sustainable and people are able to disconnect from work, without employing this kind of rigidity. If your organization isn’t doing that, that’s a problem … but it can be solved with a less blunt instrument.

I found a perfect candidate — do I need to interview others?

A reader writes:

I recently posted a position that’s a bit above entry-level. People from various backgrounds could do well in the role, but I had a pretty specific profile in mind when I wrote the job description. I was thinking I’ll never find someone who checks all these boxes, but I did! This person has the right education, the right work experience, lives in the right place, and comes with a glowing recommendation from a former colleague who I couldn’t respect more. Our first phone conversation was the professional equivalent of a great first date. We’re even on the same page about salary (I took your advice and gave our range up-front).

I haven’t interviewed anyone else yet. I know best practice is to talk to several candidates, but I just can’t get excited about any of the other resumes in my inbox. Do I need to keep looking even though I think I’ve found “the one”?

I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Client’s employee talks all day long outside my office
  • Can I ask job candidates if they’ve ever disparaged an employer online?
  • My coworker can’t remember my name

my coworker is spreading a rumor that I have bulimia

A reader writes:

I really need some unbiased advice here as I am really struggling with a situation at my job but at the same time love my position and don’t want to leave.

I’ve been at my current job for just over two years. Initially, I really enjoyed my job and my coworkers, but over the past few months the office secretary, Marcia, has started to make multiple comments regarding my appearance and what I eat. She has made comments regarding dresses I wear, claiming they are not work appropriate ( even though they are turtleneck, maxi, sweater dresses), made comments about how much I eat, comments about how little I eat, and so on.

These comments had started to chip away at my morale, but the most recent incident has me completely baffled.

We were having a company luncheon at which all of my colleagues were present. Midway through the lunch, I notice Marcia making odd looks at my plate, motioning to her boss (the VP) to look at my plate, and such. Finally, I asked her what she was looking at as I could genuinely feel her stare from across the table. She proceeded to tell me, in front of all of my colleagues and the VP (!) that I reminded her of a girl she knew with bulimia. I was so taken aback that I stood up, threw my food out, and left.

Multiple lower-level managers, including my boss, asked me about the incident and I responded that I was obviously offended and would not be attending any food-related work events. I did hear from my boss that when Marcia was spoken to (by him, not her boss) she said the only reason I was offended was because I must actually have bulimia!

Fast forward a few weeks, I am finally starting to forget about the incident, and suddenly Marcia storms into my office, raises her voice at me, and tells me that I need to stop discussing her comments regarding my bulimia (!) and that people do not like that I keep bringing it up. An important fact to note is that I’ve only ever discussed the incident when asked about it. Her boss, the VP, then came over to my office to state that while the way she “apologized” was not acceptable, he really needs to work culture here to remain good! From his statement I sort of got the feeling he was telling me to stop talking about the issue as well.

A few weeks have passed and I’m really having trouble getting over this. Is there anything I can do about to make sure Marcia doesn’t continue spreading these hurtful rumors even though multiple weeks have passed since the initial incident? It seems the VP and the rest of the office (minus my boss and immediate coworker) have her back and are doing nothing to rectify the situation. Furthermore, I have lost all trust in the local leadership and am not sure how to move on from this. Note, we do have a small HR team but they are not local.

What is up with Marcia?!

Aside from being off-the-charts rude and obnoxious, Marcia’s actions are also creating a legal liability for your company. If you actually were bulimic, Marcia would be creating a hostile environment over a disability — and in fact, the law protects you even if you’re just perceived as having a disability (regardless of whether or not you actually do). By attempting to convince people that you have an eating disorder, Marcia risks triggering the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that could have significant ramifications for your company.

Two next steps:

1. Go back to your VP and say this: “I thought about our conversation and I’d love to put this to rest — but to do that, Marcia needs to stop commenting on my food and clothing and spreading false rumors about my health. Can you help with that?”

2. I also suggest getting in touch with HR. It doesn’t matter that they’re not local; this is the type of thing that any decent HR department wants to be looped in on, and they would want to hear about it now, not after Marcia has handed you a legal cause of action.

I’m also curious about your other coworkers and whether you can enlist any of them in shutting Marcia down if they hear her talking about you. Ideally you’d have a few — or even just one very assertive one — who will say things like “that’s really inappropriate” and “wow, why would you say something like that?” if she tries commenting on your food or clothing again.

Last, where’s your boss in all this? If there was ever a time for a manager to advocate for someone on her team, it’s when they’re being harassed by a coworker and no one else thinks it’s a big deal.

company wants me to tell my current job I’m interviewing with them, telling a former intern to honor time commitments, and more

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

1. Potential job wants me to tell my current job I’m interviewing with them

I had an initial phone interview today with one of current company’s vendors. This vendor provides the software that tracks all the manufacturing and inventory activities for the product we make.

They told me that because I work for one of their clients and they want to maintain good relationships and not have people think they poach employees, at some point in the process they will require that I tell our COO and CEO. I didn’t fully clarify at this point when they would want me to do that, but it was said to be before the offer stage.

I understand their point of view, but if the COO (who is my grandboss and previous direct boss) and CEO find out that I applied for this job and I don’t then get the position and stay at my company, I will be iced out. It will be a subtle icing out, but it would torpedo any of my chances of advancement. They are absolutely the type where once you do something that they feel crosses them in some way, you are written off. I would be okay telling them if I knew I was going to get an offer and that I was going to accept said offer, but I don’t want to tell them before that. Oddly, if I just got the job and left, they would be fine and no bridges burned. It’s more if they know you want out but then don’t leave that things become a problem.

How do I go about navigating this with the company I’m interviewing with? I’d like to tell them I have to have something concrete before I tell the COO and CEO. But what if they insist I can’t move forward without doing this first?

Yeah, it’s absolutely not in your interests to agree to that. It may be in theirs, but you’re the one who needs to worry about your livelihood and quality of life at work. You should stand firm on this. Tell them, “I understand where you’re coming from, but sharing that we’re talking before anything is finalized could make my life here very difficult if I don’t ultimately end up coming to work for you. I’d need to wait until we’re at the offer stage before talking with them, but of course at that point I’d be happy to assure them that I approached you and you didn’t try to recruit me.”

Related:
Interviewer wants an approval letter from my current job, saying they know I’m interviewing

2. Telling a former intern she needs to honor time commitments

I recently received a message from a former intern — I was not her manager, but rather associate-level in the same workplace — who wanted to ask me about a former employer. Specifically, she’s interested in an entry-level program that I participated in and wanted to get my perspective. I agreed and we scheduled a time for her to call me.

She did not call, nor did she respond to the message I sent her about eight minutes after the start time asking her if she’d still planned to call me. The kicker: I half expected this, because a few months ago, she did the same thing to another colleague. They agreed on a time to meet for coffee, and she showed up 22 minutes late and did not apologize.

This person is smart and was a good performer during her internship. She is also young and may not realize that she’s coming off as having a callous disregard for other people’s time. How can I gently tell her that while she might have a promising career ahead of her, she needs to honor time commitments (and that when she doesn’t, word gets around)?

A few years ago, I would have said that if she gets in touch with you again, you could say something like, “Since you’re early in your career I hope I can give you some advice: it’s really important that you show up on time for appointments you request — always, but especially when you’re asking someone for a favor. If you don’t honor time commitments when people set aside time to help you, it can really come back to bite you.”

But frankly, I’m pretty skeptical that she’s unaware that she should honor her commitments, and I don’t think it’s your job to remind her. If you were her manager, absolutely. If you were a former manager who had really invested in her development, maybe. But otherwise, she’ll figure it out through natural consequences. (Or she won’t. But you have better things to invest your energy in — like helping people who do respect your time.)

3. My interview got cancelled the day before it was scheduled for

I’m writing this in utter frustration and confusion as I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or did I do anything wrong.

I applied for a position of graduate control engineer. I was first asked for a phone interview. It went well and I was asked for a in-person interview after six days. It also went well, and I proceeded to the personality and attitude test three days later. I passed that test and then my second interview with the director was scheduled more than a week later. I was preparing for that final interview but then just a day before it was supposed to happen, I got a email that they found a better candidate and they cancelled my last interview.

It took me around three weeks to go through all of these interviews and assessments, but in the end I did not even get a chance to appear in my final interview to prove myself. They didn’t tell me what did wrong. But shouldn’t they have given me a chance in the final interview to see if really the other candidate is better than me? If they had failed me after the interview, I wouldn’t have been feeling this disheartened.

That’s not really how hiring works. Sometimes it’s obvious that one candidate is head and shoulders above everyone else, and when that happens, it doesn’t make sense to go through the motions with remaining interviews just to create a sense of fairness for the candidates. When it’s clear that no one else will be competitive (and we’ve got a letter coming on that later today!) they don’t really owe you a chance to “prove” yourself; their obligation is to use their time and candidates’ time well to try to identify the strongest person for the role. If they were confident they’d done that and an additional interview wasn’t going to change that assessment, it’s actually more courteous to you not to waste your time.

(If I were advising them, I’d emphasize that “we found a better candidate” needs to include “and that person is accepting our offer” — since it doesn’t make sense to stop interviewing people until you know that person you’re most excited about is actually going to take the job — but that’s advice for them rather than for you.)

Related:
I’m frustrated that my interview got canceled because the employer found better-qualified candidates

4. Why does my employer want my emergency contact info?

I work for a medium-sized nonprofit and was recently informed that HR cannot provide emergency contact information in a timely way to my leadership. Leadership thus asked for our personal contact information and that of our emergency contact. It was one of those “asks” that’s not really an ask, based on the multiple times it was requested and the language requiring it be completed ASAP.

I have a personal policy not to rock the boat in these situations, and it’s easier to put down the phone number for a Jiffy Lube in lieu of my partner’s number and move on, but am I off-base thinking this is contact information for THEIR emergencies not mine?

Emergency contact information is usually stored for things like: you have a medical emergency at work and they need to contact someone, you don’t show up for days and they’re concerned about your well-being, there’s a natural disaster in your area, etc.

If an employee recently had an emergency and there was no way to reach them/a contact for them, I could see them wanting to collect it for everyone with some urgency.

But have they given you a reason to think they plan to use it for their own work emergencies instead? The answer to your question really depends on that — on whether there’s something going on that’s made you assume this is to contact you when they just need a file pulled quickly or something. If you’re not sure, you could clarify what the info will be used for (“so I know the best contact to include”).

If they are asking for an outside emergency contact so they can call that person when they need to locate you to do outside-of-hours work, that’s a pretty outlier level of dysfunction.

5. Listing resume achievements when you don’t have metrics

I’m trying to update my resumé since I’ve been fired and have read your suggestions, but I’m having a hard time figuring out what to write on achievements, and here’s why: I worked as a proofreader/copy editor (don’t know if that’s important or not) as part of a team. Every material would go through at least three team members, and I find it hard to specify my contribution to the overall product in these cases. The company was awful at providing feedback, so I don’t really have an idea of what exactly I was doing right. There was also no way to measure productivity and stuff like that, so I also don’t have metrics. I was told I was the best proofreader on the team, but I don’t know how to express that on my resumé, because my achievements really feel like the general responsibilities of my job (correct spelling mistakes, punctuation, syntax etc.). Can you help me with this?

Think about outcomes. For example, you “ensured all materials were meticulously proofread and final versions presented a polished and professional image” and “copy-edited to improve flow, clarity, and voice.” You could also say, “was called the strongest proofreader on a three-person team by team manager” and, if available, you can supplement that with details like “regularly requested as the editor of choice for high-profile materials” or “known for fast turnarounds and high degree of accuracy” (assuming you can back those up).

Related:
how to put outcomes on your resume when you don’t have easy measures
how can I write a resume when my jobs don’t have measurable results?

I was promised a raise for doing a lot more work … and it didn’t come through

A reader writes:

I’m feeling bamboozled by how my compensation situation has shaken out. I am a non-exempt salaried employee and have been the entire time this all went down.

I joined my current company almost two years ago at a salary that was slightly below market for my level of experience and competency. At the time, I was fine with this because the workload and stress would be so much lower compared to previous jobs that it balanced out. The role I was hired for was exclusively wholesale. Then two things happened:

1. Last spring, we got a new department head who managed to make everyone’s job significantly harder and more complex through their micromanagement, control issues, and god complex. Their presence has directly led to the departure of several senior members across different departments because the new culture was no longer something they wanted to deal with. The rest of us are hanging on by a microscopically thin thread.

2. Last summer, my direct business counterpart departed for greener pastures. I was asked to take on their portion of the business as well and cover the whole distribution region. I agreed on the condition that my pay, title, and job description be updated to reflect this change. Leadership in my department agreed and confirmed the timing would be this spring when appraisal season rolls around. The company only does them once a year so I agreed to this timeline and began working both portions.

The workload was challenging and I had very little help due to the lean structure of the team. While I got work on some really cool projects, the light at the end of the tunnel was that I had been assured that I would eventually be properly compensated for this massive undertaking.

Come appraisal and raise season, I am offered a whopping single-digit percent increase and single-digit percent bonus on my salary as a reward for double the workload, demands on my time, and stress level. (Actually, it’s currently tripled because another counterpart left in the fall and that role still hasn’t been backfilled.) No title change and no updated job description either. Needless to say, I was enraged, disappointed, and demoralized by the final number. A single digit percent is a merit increase for someone who does only their job and does it above average. Not only did I get an “exceeds expectations” rating in my assessment, I did it alone. Not to mention, inflation alone in my current area is 6.1% from when I was originally hired. Most importantly, this is not what I agreed to.

I immediately requested a meeting with HR to discuss this. I calmly and professionally made my case and explained that either I receive an updated salary and title and job description or I go back to my original scope of work. Turns out HR was not informed of my agreement with leadership. HR was also not happy to find out I did not receive an updated job description from this agreement either. They assured me that my concerns would be addressed as part of a larger conversation with the department head about the structure and workload for our team. I don’t have a clear timeline for when this will happen or what that means for me as an individual employee.

Based on what I know about the company’s headcount and my conversation with HR, what will most likely happen is that I will be put back on my original scope of work and the direct business will shift to someone else or a new hire.

Do I have any recourse here, legally? Sure, they could put me back on the original scope of work with this slightly increased salary but what legal right do I have for compensation for the eight months I spent doing double and sometimes triple the work? What about leadership agreeing to my conditions for taking on extra work, even if HR didn’t know of it? My feelings of demoralization aside, is this illegal or just really awful?

I know either way, this isn’t sustainable long-term for me, but I am feeling like an absolute clown who was bamboozled into working like a dog for free with no options but to take it or leave it. Are those really my choices?

This hinges entirely on what the agreement with your department leadership looked like. Do you have something in writing saying “we will increase your salary to $X in April 2024”? Or was it more like “we’ll revisit your salary in the spring and make sure you’re paid appropriately”? If they committed to a specific number — and, crucially, if they used language like “will increase,” not “may increase” or “will consider increasing” — then they’re probably legally bound to that. That’s true even if HR didn’t approve it since it was a commitment from your company leadership.

But if they didn’t commit to a specific figure, just to “a raise” … well, then they met their obligations to the letter, if not the spirit.

If we could go back in time, I’d strongly advise you to get a specific number or range in writing. If you don’t have that, you’re unfortunately at the mercy of whatever they judge reasonable now. They can say, “We promised you a raise and you’ve received one” and that will be true.

Spelling this out a little more: the law doesn’t require an employer to pay you more for taking on more responsibility or more stress or even a whole other job. It does require them to pay you for all the hours you worked since you’re non-exempt; has that been happening (including time and a half for all hours over 40 in a week)? If that didn’t happen, you have a very solid wage claim for that missing pay. But there are no legal grounds beyond that unless they committed to a specific figure or range that they’re not now providing.

Similar things are true about your title and updated job description, although it’s even hazier there. If you have a written agreement that says “if you do XYZ, we will change your title to __ in April 2024,” you might have grounds to push that — but there’s a lot of room for them to say they expected XYZ to have been performed at a higher level or otherwise weasel out of it if they want to (to be clear, that would be very weaselly, unless you really didn’t meet the role’s expectations).

So, what can you do if there was no clear agreement with specific numbers attached? First and foremost, you should try pushing back. If you can cite specific conversations about a different figure, or past precedent you were relying on, or notes that you made at the time, or anything else to support your case, you should cite that. If you’re willing to leave over this, you can make that clear (or at least heavily hint at it). But ultimately, this will be about what you can negotiate. Absent a clear and specific agreement, the law wouldn’t require them to do anything different.

Second, you can talk. Tell your coworkers what happened. This won’t help you, but it could save someone else in your company from making the same mistake, and it’s a way of flexing some power that your company probably won’t like (and which is legally protected too).

I sent a text about my problem employee to the wrong person

A reader writes:

I find myself in a pickle and am a nervous wreck. I have been a manager for two years and it has not been easy.

The manager before me was stepping down and badmouthed me during a staff meeting she held with the employees prior to my arrival. It was hell when I arrived. One particular employee undermines everything I say and new rules that I put into place. She is very passive-aggressive and nothing is ever her fault. I have been fed up with it and I asked my sister, who is a minister, to put a request on her prayer list. The request was to remove this employee and any other problem employees from the facility and to make the facility peaceful. Well, I accidentally sent the text to an employee with a similar sounding name, and she showed it to the employee. I feel like a complete idiot. What should I do?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Our recruiters send rejections “from” me with errors in them
  • Employees want to throw me a baby shower but we just need money

my coworkers are obsessed with talking about their kids … and I’m the only childless one here

A reader writes:

I work in a small public-facing office of a government agency. Due to some staffing changes in the past few months, my coworkers are now exclusively mothers of young children, with one exception who is the grandmother of young children. I am now the only man and only non-parent in the office. I have no problem covering shifts when people have childcare needs, but the amount of baby-related conversations at the office is driving me crazy!

In the past few months, I’ve heard detailed play-by-plays of potty training (including details like the texture of a toddler’s poop), frank conversations about postpartum depression, and details I as a gay man never thought I’d learn about the birthing process. On the one hand, I’m happy my coworkers are able to support one another, as I’ve gathered that such mother-affirming workplaces are pretty uncommon. On the other hand, I find it really distracting.

I tried using noise-cancelling headphones when chats get out of hand, but even this wasn’t foolproof: my colleagues often share with each other videos of, say, their seven-month-old eating carrots for the first time, played at maximum volume — and the shrieks of joy (cute to those who want to watch, I’m sure) still manage to pierce through my headphones and distract me. Moreover, since disgruntled members of the public sometimes come into the office, I have some safety concerns about not being able to hear all activity.

I really don’t want to shut down all the support my colleagues have found in one another — the support and care they have for each other is very touching. None of their work seems to be suffering, either. But at the same time, I don’t have a child and don’t plan on having one in the near future, so I find this an immense distraction. Is there a way I can bring this up or set a boundary without sounding like a woman hater or anti-natalist?

Oh, this is tricky.

In some ways this is like if you worked in an office where everyone but you was obsessed with sports and talked about it constantly, complete with shrieks of joy when a team won and graphic discussions of a player’s knee surgery. It would be annoying and distracting, and it would get really old.

This is similar, but with poop and childbirth thrown in.

In theory, with any topic that dominates office conversation, you should be able to say, “Y’all, this is a lot and I beg you for a topic change.” And you should definitely be able to speak up when the conversation is actually disruptive.

In reality, with this topic, there’s a pretty decent chance that it will land as “squeamish man doesn’t like women’s conversation.”

And that’s not fair. Your objections are reasonable. You should be able to work without constant bombardment on any one topic, and definitely without poop and childbirth discussions. But with the numbers in your office being what they are — and with the classic tropes that exist in society about men around this kind of talk — it’s still likely to land that way.

Given that, I think I’d just pick your battles carefully. You’re probably not going to be able to do much/anything about the prevalence of kids as a topic. But you can speak up when things are getting too graphic (“I learn a ton here about kids, but I really don’t want to hear about poop while I’m trying to focus — can you skip that?”). And if you really have safety concerns about not being able to hear over the noise, you should raise that too — possibly with your manager since that’s a pretty serious issue that should fall in her purview.

Beyond that … this is going to be a child-talk-heavy office and your best bet is to try to see it like any other topic you might not be interested in (again, like an office of sports-lovers or foodies or, I don’t know, avid hikers). Set some boundaries around the outlier stuff, and figure the rest is just this office’s quirk.

Also! Assuming you’re stuck with a good amount of this as long as you stay there, is it possible to mentally reframe this as an interesting opportunity to learn things you haven’t been this exposed to previously — a peek behind a curtain that a lot of men don’t get or don’t take advantage of? If you can approach it with more curiosity than aggravation, it would probably go a long way with your colleagues — and would also make it clearer that you’re not being anti-woman or anti-kid when you do set some boundaries. (To be clear, I’m not saying they should be overwhelming the space with this topic as much as they are; they shouldn’t be. But realistically, if you can’t change that, this could be a useful way to approach it.)

wearing revealing exercise clothes around coworkers, telling an employer I have another offer, and more

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

1. Wearing revealing clothes to exercise around coworkers

I’m a young woman at my first corporate job in a male-dominated field. I go to the gym across the street after work on most days; it’s not affiliated with the company. For comfort and convenience, I often wear somewhat revealing clothes to exercise (tight shorts and crop tops/sports bras). I dress modestly in the office and don’t change clothes there.

The problem is that many of my (male) coworkers go there too, and it’s the unofficial office gym. I’m concerned that it’ll damage my professional standing being seen in skimpy clothes, even though it’s technically outside of work. Do you suggest that I adhere to any sort of dress code while I’m there? Or should I dress as I please because I’m not at work? My office is pretty chill, but I’m still concerned about double standards.

Dress however you feel comfortable at the gym. You’re not walking through your office hallways in booty shorts; you’re dressed appropriately for the space and for the activities you’re participating in. It will not hurt your professional standing unless you work somewhere that’s far more dysfunctional and sexist than the average workplace (a bar that allows for a fair amount of dysfunction and sexism before this would be an issue).

2. My employee wants to be promoted into a job that doesn’t exist here (and probably shouldn’t)

I supervise a high-performing, early career employee who has been in his current role for two years. He would like to be promoted into a role that he’s written for himself. It’s a role that doesn’t exist in our industry or our organization. I’m happy to help this employee and be his champion, but I do not think this is a role that the organization needs. It is hard to make a business case for how the role adds anything to the existing set-up. If it did exist, I do not yet think this person would be ready to fill it. He’s not a bad employee, he just needs more experience in a broader variety of activities that relate to this position he’d like to have. Do you have any advice for me in coaching him or a path he would take?

You’re not doing him any favors (or serving your organization well) if you aren’t up-front about the challenges you see in his plan. Be direct with him — explain that you think it’ll be tough to make a business case for the role and why, and explain what qualifications you think the company would want if they did create it. At the same time, you can talk to him about what kind of path he’d need to take to get those qualifications, what that might look like, and whether there are opportunities in your organization for him to strengthen himself for that type of work, even if he doesn’t ultimately end up doing it there. And if he’s intent on making a case for it there, let him make that case — but being honest about your assessment will help him make better choices for himself.

3. How do I handle having to drop a job opportunity that I really wanted?

I’m entering my senior year of college after this semester, and I was recently able to secure an opportunity exactly in the field I wanted to be in. It would have opened a lot of doors in my field, and I was originally really stoked — except they never disclosed it was unpaid. That fact and an hour+ drive to the location multiple times a week on top of two other jobs (gotta pay rent) meant I had to drop the opportunity.

How do you get over something like this? I’m still in the regret phase even though I know I couldn’t afford to do it.

There are going to be a lot of job prospects in your future that would be perfect except for one thing, and that one thing will be significant enough that it’s a deal-breaker. It could be the salary, or the location, or the manager you’d be working with, or the hours, or the company culture. This is really normal, and it’s good to get comfortable with it early on, because when you try to ignore the “just one thing” that makes a job a bad fit for you, that’s how you end up in a job where you’re miserable (or broke). Take this as an early lesson in being clear-eyed and resolute about what does and doesn’t work for you, regardless of how enticing it might otherwise be.

Also, it’s sketchy as hell for them not to disclose up-front that the work was unpaid. That’s a red flag about them generally.

4. Timing my resignation with a week off and a company retreat

I am a program manager at a small company, and I’m the only staff member assigned to my program. Every summer my company shuts down for a mandatory paid week off, and the next Monday is our mandatory all-staff retreat, which consists of serious planning sessions interspersed with team-building activities. We have to set goals for ourselves and our programs and stand up in front of the whole company and declare what each of us is committing to for the upcoming year.

I’m planning to leave the company this summer to start my own business. I really want to take advantage of the paid week off, and I’m concerned that if I give notice right before the break they might let me go immediately to avoid paying me for that week off. I have a good relationship with my boss and don’t think he’d do that, but there are also some pretty horrible leaders above him who have screwed over employees before, and money has been really tight the past few years so I think there’s *some* risk.

I also don’t want to wait more than a week after the break to give my two weeks notice, because I need to get ready to launch my business in the fall. If it’s not ready in the fall, a big chunk of my prospective customers will sign on with other service providers for the year.

Is it better to fake my way through a full day of public planning, goal-setting, and making commitments, just to turn around later that week and say “just kidding!” or to give my notice before the break and cross my fingers they don’t let me go immediately? If it’s the former, any advice on how to reduce the awkwardness?

Why not give your notice right after the week-long break, on the first day of the retreat? Give it that Monday and ask whether your manager would rather you attend the rest of the retreat or spend that week getting your work in shape to transition. He can make that call — but that way if he wants you at the retreat, you won’t have to pretend to make commitments for the coming year because it’ll be out in the open that you’re leaving. If that timing seems awkward, you can note that specifically: “I know the timing isn’t ideal, but now that I’ve made the decision, I wanted you to have to maximum possible notice.”

5. Do I need to tell employers I have another offer I am considering?

I have been applying for positions and interviewing for a long time. A few weeks ago, two employers indicated they intended to make an offer. However, both still needed to go through their internal approval processes, which has taken several weeks.

Now, I have received one offer (I have two weeks to review it) and the other employer says they will send an offer in two days. Do I need to tell the employers that I have another offer? If so, what would be a good script to use?

I don’t want to make either employer think I am uninterested because I am considering another offer, but if I don’t mention it now they may be caught by surprise when I decline which may impact my reputation in my network. They are both great jobs but very different, and in different locations too, so it will be a difficult decision.

You’re not obligated to announce if you have other offers. Employers generally assume you’re interviewing with multiple companies and realize they could lose you to an offer you like better (or simply because their offer/job isn’t right for you, even if there aren’t other offers in play). If an employer is ever shocked to learn that you’ve been talking with other companies, that’s on them — not on you for not spelling it out.

You might choose to mention it anyway if the situation calls for it — like if the second company’s offer is delayed and you’re going to run up against your deadline for the first (in which case it could make sense to tell the second one that you’re very interested but you have another offer that you need to answer by X date). Or if you prefer Company A but Company B makes a higher offer, you might see if A is willing to match it. But you don’t need to announce it just on principle — only if it serves your interests in some way.

the plant saver, the altruistic horse, and other stories of kindness at work

Last week we talked about kindness at work. Here are 15 of my favorites of the stories you shared.

1. The teachers

I’m a teacher. Ive been at schools where our faculty has arranged housing and supplies for families after devestating fires. Currently, we’re gathering money to support one teacher (medical bills, heating issues) and another (family medical emergency). We regularly feed and cloth our students. I buy books and supplies for kids. I’ve had one student our entire department “adopted” from K-12. We bought her books, winter clothes, year books, food, went to her club sports games, paid for her extra curricular fees. I went to her graduation-her own parents didn’t show. I guess this is just to say … if you’re not a teacher you may not have any idea what all we are doing to try and keep these kids alive and loved.

2. The move

About two years ago, I moved cross-country to take my current job. The relative who lived nearby and was supposed to help me move in to my new house flaked on me, and the place I was moving to is a very remote, tiny village, so hiring help from the nearest town would have been astronomically expensive, especially on my budget. I posted a desperate message on the employee Facebook group to see if anyone could take ten minutes out of their day to help me carry a few larger pieces of furniture I knew I couldn’t move on my own.

When I arrived at my new house, four of my new coworkers I had never met before showed up with a housewarming gift, stayed to help me unload my entire U-haul, and helped me put together some of my furniture. What probably would have taken me all day to unload on a dangerously hot August day only ended up taking about 45 minutes.

3. The theft

I was a very new employee at a law firm and in the middle of a lot of life stuff: divorce, two children, elderly parents, and commuting. I was barely making ends meet. I had $100 for groceries in my wallet which was in my backpack and I got on the subway. When I got to my office, my backpack was unzipped and my wallet was gone, along with my grocery money.

I was really upset and my boss asked me what was going on. Then heard him on the phone talking to one of our vendors (he HATED talking to vendors) and arranging to go out to lunch that day. At 11:30 am, he told me to get my jacket, we’re going out. I was then wined and dined at a very fancy steakhouse for the next three hours. We got back to the office, slightly tipsy and feeling a little better about the world. When I got back to my desk, there was an envelope with $150 in cash and a note from all my coworkers telling me that they had my back. When I protested that this was more money than was stolen from me, my boss said, “Well, you need to buy a new wallet too, don’t you?”

4. The puppy

I was mid-20s when my childhood dog died. She had a stroke on a Saturday night, and the vet told me on the phone that there wasn’t enough time for me to get home because of her pain. She was my buddy.

At church on Sunday, I saw a coworker. She asked if I was okay, and I told her.

At work on Monday, I lost it while making copies before school in the front office. I got to my first period, and one of my high school sophomore male students looked at me and asked if I was okay. I told their class about my dog. He asked if he could check his phone because his mom was texting him – not uncommon – and I said sure.

35 minutes later, the principal and that mom walked in my classroom with that student’s new four-month-old puppy. My principal covered the rest of my morning classes, and I got to cry on, cuddle with, and play with a puppy – which healed a little bit of my broken heart.

5. The plants

I worked at a children’s museum at the onset of the pandemic, and most of the staff were enthusiastic Plant People. The office was full of plants of all kinds, some of which were decades old. People would get attached to other people’s plants, which were usually propagated or bequeathed to the office when folks retired or resigned. Folks would leave detailed instructions for the care of their plants when going on vacation or parental leave. On March 13, 2020 we stayed late preparing all the office plants to survive the two weeks (LOL) that the museum would be closed to mitigate the spread of Covid.

Obviously we did not go back after two weeks, by which time we were scrambling 24/7 to retain members, find cash to keep folks on payroll, and pivot to virtual programming. If anyone was thinking about the plants, we weren’t talking to each other about the plants.

Unfortunately, 80% of staff were laid off at the end of the July 2020, myself included. We had to arrange a day and time with the head of facilities to get access to the museum office to pack up our desks and return work laptops, etc. I remember driving over there and being overcome with sadness at the prospect of seeing all those dead plants.

Reader, there were no dead plants. The plants were just as healthy as the day we closed! Apparently the facilities guy (let’s call him Dan) had been taking care of the plants the entire time without mentioning anything to anyone!

Dan was always grumpy and never spoke more than was absolutely necessary, but it was the kind of workplace where everyone was friendly to him even if it was never reciprocated. He’d been there 30+ years and was never engaged in the plant mania in any way, but clearly it mattered to him that the plants were a big deal to us.

I took home some of my plants that day as well as clippings from a few communal plants I was particularly fond of, and today they’re thriving in my home office several states away. I really loved that job, so it means a lot to me to have a physical reminder of that part of my life. Really grateful to Dan for making it possible.

6. The plane tickets

My husband was away on a business trip to Europe when I received the news that his father had unexpectedly passed away. I had no way to reach my husband so I reached out to his boss. His boss’s response was for me to not worry, that he’d get ahold of my husband with the news.

About 45 minutes later he called me back to tell me that my husband would be on arriving that about midnight that same night, and would I be home for the next hour or so? Within the hour there was a knock on the door, I expected it to be a fruit basket or some flowers. It was not a gift basket, it was two plane tickets, return tickets to our home city, business class, on a flight leaving first thing the next morning. The return ticket was undated and they were issued by the travel service used by the company for all business related travel.

When we returned from our time at home for the funeral my husband took a thank-you card and went to speak with his boss. His boss had “absolutely no idea” that we’d received any travel assistance from anyone at the company and there was no way to arrange for us to reimburse them for the cost of tickets “that never existed.”

7. The pasta

In August of 2022, I fell off a boat, landing on the mooring gubbins, breaking five ribs. My boss, realizing I’d have to cancel my holiday to Italy, sent me pasta and sauces from a pretty high end pasta delivery service, saying that if I couldn’t go to Italy, it would come to me. I was VERY touched.

Entertainingly, some months later, I discovered another box from the same place on my doorstep. I messaged my boss, thanking him – I was very surprised and slightly confused. I realised then what had happened (and he admitted it) – he was ordering pasta for his own family and forgot to change the delivery address. He let me keep the pasta and we laughed about it :)

8. The phones

A coworker had a stroke in the office one morning, and he was rushed to the hospital. We were all obviously quite shaken. Two people from a business across the street heard what happened and walked over to cover our phones for the rest of the day so we could all focus on our coworker and one another.

9. The boss

My first boss with my current employer was amazing. She reached a manager position maybe a decade before she planned to retire, and her goal was to get all of her people (who were interested) launched in their careers with our employer. Our position was entry-level but many people didn’t have this kind of help and stayed there for years or decades. Not her people. When she had your twice annual review, she would ask what you were interested in for the future; if you didn’t know (as I didn’t when I first started) she would come up with suggestions based on what she knew of your strengths.

Once you gave her something to work with, she would do everything in her power (including getting involved in upper-level politics that I never fully understood) to get you experience in that area. For example, someone told her that they wanted to get into training, and after that she had them help with training every month for the next several months (along with others, so we all got experience with it) so she could add that to her resume. By the time she retired, every employee she’d had more than a year or two (who wanted to move on; some people were close to retirement and this was just a job for them to coast through those last few years) had their careers launched and many of us are still working those positions she helped get us into.

10. The basement

Coworker had a daughter with significant physical and mental disabilities. Coworker’s spouse was the fulltime caregiver to the daughter but they passed away suddenly. Coworker’s extended family planned to temporarily move in to help care for daughter. CEO of the company and about 5 staff members spent a several days finishing coworker’s basement to accommodate the extended family members, company paid for the materials as well.

11. The calendar

A few years ago, I was dealing with an awful personal crisis that just kept spiraling. The new (bad) news tended to show up around the same time every week (think test results), and I was just a mess for the next hour or two. I started blocking the time on my calendar so I didn’t have to deal with anything.

I confided some of the details to one of my colleagues, who is also a friend. He started blocking off his own calendar in the same period, so if I needed to come into his office and cry, he’d be available. It made me feel so much less alone through it.

12. The bags

I was working the job from hell. But, I worked with some absolutely amazing people, some of which I’m still friends with to this day. My last year there my father’s cancer turned terminal. I lived at home with him and took care of him while working full-time. I also had to coordinate nurses and home care, and did a lot of his home care myself including changing diapers.

I found myself one day running low on plastic shopping bags. We were using them to dispose of the diapers. and where I live, if you go shopping you have to use reusable bags or at the time pay for plastic (now plastic is banned and you have to use reusable). I sent an email to my entire office saying if anyone had any spare bags I could steal from them, I would be incredibly grateful to have them.

The next day I came in and my desk was covered in bags. There had to be 500+ bags.

And then the nicest thing was one girl spent the evening crocheting a bag to store the plastic bags in for me and even checked around to see what my favorite color was and made it from that color wool. It was so pretty and absolutely so kind.

My father passed two months later, and it took me another couple of years to go through all of the plastic bags I received, but I still have that teal crocheted bag holder the one woman made for me. It was something so simple, but so thoughtful and so kind.

13. The bike

In my early 20s, I didn’t have a license and biked to get around, including to work. One night when riding home I crashed my bike and it ended up needed to be taken to a repair shop to get fixed. The amount to repair it was a significant amount of money for me at the time, and I was worried about being able to pay the bill.

While my bike was getting fixed, I walked to work or got rides from coworkers. One of them asked me where my bike was getting fixed up and I told them, thinking nothing of the conversation.

When I went to pick up my bike and pay the bill, I was informed that the bill had already been taken care of and that I could just take my bike home. I found out that the repair bill had been taken care of by a VP at my employer — not a guy that I was super close to but that had heard about my transportation troubles through the grapevine. It was such a a kind act, and one that I will always remember.

14. The ally

I started my current job in the middle of covid, and it was still such a weird time. I had also just gotten out of a domestic violence situation, and between those two things I had terrible anxiety, especially related to being around other people.

I met and became friends with one of the few other people who came into the office, the IT manager. He had been with the company for 10 years and had a reputation as the grouchiest grumpiest guy around. He had never attended a single office event in all those years because he just kind of hated everyone. But being often the only two people in the office, we got to know each other and got along just fine. I learned he had PTSD and it made it really hard for him to be in groups, too.

When my company started having in person events again, I was a wreck. Being in a group of people that I had barely met was unbearable, and my anxiety was through the roof.

Wouldn’t you know it but from that point on Mr. Grumpy came to every single office event and just quietly sat where I could see him or reach him if I was having a panic attack. He barely said a word but kept other people from bothering me, and worked through his own social anxiety just so I would know I had a friend behind me. He still does it, years later.

It might seem like a little thing but it means everything to me. It’s one of the deepest kindnesses anyone has ever shown me. I work hard to let him know how much I appreciate him!

15. The one from a horse

When I was a teenager, I worked at a horse farm, and there was a “mean” horse there who was known for biting people. Let’s call him Bitey (I forget his real name). He was easily spooked and had probably been mistreated; I never knew the whole story.

Since my job was to feed the horses, they all liked me, and Bitey would even let me pet him. Therefore, I was assigned to hold Bitey’s halter while the farrier (the horse foot doctor) tended to his feet. It was a hot summer day, and I didn’t know that standing with your knees locked can make you pass out. Sure enough I started to feel woozy, and then I passed out cold. I heard the farrier and his assistant yelling as I blacked out.

When I came to a few minutes later, they told me that the supposedly “mean” horse had caught me mid-faint with his head, and gently lowered me to the ground! What a sweetie. Horse people love stories like this, and it was all anyone talked about for days.