workplace practices

Is your office normal? Workplace practices can be wildly different from office to office. Here’s a reality check on yours.

can we talk about GOOD companies for a change?

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I work for a large company that, when I started, I thought was going to be really great. It isn’t. It is the opposite of great. On an almost daily basis, I am blown away by how cruel this company is to its workforce. What […]

Read the full article →

should managers ever push back when employees call in sick?

A reader writes: Should there ever be limits on someone using their sick leave if they have it available to use? We’ve had employees tell us “my allergies are acting up today” or “I have to stay home to make sure my pipes don’t freeze.” I don’t want to be in the business of questioning […]

Read the full article →

someone or something is deleting our work emails

A reader writes: My coworker, Jane, and I share a common Outlook mailbox and the emails get sorted out to each team member chronologically. Example: first email gets assigned to me, second email gets assigned to Jane, third email gets assigned to me, fourth email gets assigned to Jane. And so on. We can tell […]

Read the full article →

8 terrible stories of companies getting sexism awareness very, very wrong

Recently we talked about workplaces holding egregiously clueless “celebrations” for various awareness days/months. Not surprisingly, a ton of the stories shared were about sexism. Here are eight stories of companies getting sexism awareness events remarkably wrong. (Note: some of the stories shared were so offensive that it’s hard to laugh at them, so these aren’t […]

Read the full article →

can I bring a blender to work?

A reader writes: I have recently started an in-person job after searching for months. I really want to keep it, but I’m so used to working remotely that my in-person skills are rusty. It doesn’t help that I might be autistic and have a difficult time reading the room/taking social cues. Any advice you can […]

Read the full article →

let’s discuss egregiously clueless “celebrations” at work

Earlier this week we had a letter about a company that inexplicably decided its sole observance of International Women’s Day would be … to interview a man about sexism. Let’s talk about other cases of egregiously oblivious “celebrations” — the office that sent out weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, the nurses told to wear […]

Read the full article →