ask the readers: what flies in your industry that would shock others?

by Alison Green on July 13, 2017

This idea was sent to me by someone who works in a newsroom and said, “My editor looked at me like I was crazy for asking if I’m going to get in trouble for keeping a machete at my desk.”

…followed by this excellent suggestion: “Could we have an open thread sometime of things that are chill in your industry that would be extremely not chill elsewhere?”

So, let’s do it. What flies in your industry that you’re pretty sure would not fly somewhere else?

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{ 1,203 comments }

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  1. AdAgencyChick*

    We’re not as drunk as they are on Mad Men, but there’s definitely alcohol on the job in advertising. Sometimes the wine bottles start coming out as early as 2 PM on Fridays!

    I usually don’t partake — not gonna waste calories on cheap wine — but lots of people do.

      1. Bend & Snap*

        This is like the only thing I miss about working at a PR agency. Nothing flows anywhere in corporate PR unless you’re at an event.

      2. Chinook*

        Ditto for the small town newspaper I worked at. Once the weekly was sent for printing, alcohol was allowed.

        1. michelenyc*

          There is actually an AA meeting that is known here in the city as the one that all the fashion people go to.

          1. Catty Hack*

            ::shudders:: There’s a small but significant number of journalists I know who have developed problems with alcohol because heavy drinking is such a given in the profession. Even the problem drinking is downplayed much more than it should be because of the culture. I’m not a heavy drinker at all by industry standards but my non-industry friends are always horrified when I tell them how much I’ve had in any given week – it’s a bit of a wake-up call.

            1. Clisby Williams*

              Yeah, I remember comments on some thread here that made it sound like there are businesses where drinking at lunch is a complete no-no. I worked at newspapers for almost 12 years, and found that idea bizarre. Actually, I worked in IT for another 25+ years, and would have found it bizarre there, too. I’m not talking about going out for lunch and coming back drunk, but the idea that you couldn’t have a beer or a glass of wine is just weird to me.

              1. Anon for this*

                I work in the transit industry. Even though I’m at the management level in an admin building (so infrequently interact with people that actually operate vehicles), drinking is a huge no-no at anything that could be seen as representing the organization. Even if it were at a restaurant within walking distance. It’s not used as prizes either, the only exception would be if it was an informal “social” activity at a restaurant where everyone was buying for themselves and it wasn’t during the workday (unpaid lunch would be a no). The optics would just be too bad.

      5. MintyFresh*

        Talking about how scenarios where, say, a large city was wiped off the map can keep you up all night with worry but that if the world was destroyed tomorrow, who cares because we’re all dead anyway.
        Hearing “my P doesn’t look right” on a regular basis.
        Cracking jokes about actuaries and finding them hilarious.

        Insurance.

      6. MintyFresh*

        Talking about how scenarios where, say, a large city was wiped off the map can keep you up all night with worry but that if the world was destroyed tomorrow, who cares because we’re all dead anyway.
        Hearing “my P doesn’t look right” on a regular basis.
        Cracking jokes about actuaries and finding them hilarious.

        Insurance

      1. CappaCity*

        +1 Digital Marketing/Tech. We have a wine fridge in the break room. I’m not a drinker, but working happy hours are definitely a thing around here.

        1. anonymouse*

          I worked in digital marketing tech for a year and we had a rolling keg cart and an endless supply of champagne and sparkling rose in the fridge. Not unusual to pop a bottle and drink bubbly from company branded coffee mugs in a conference room with coworkers for a “working session” (where we all worked independently while talking and drinking).

        2. Manders*

          +1 from another person in digital marketing. Although my husband is a high school teacher, and his colleagues have wilder parties than any group I’ve worked with.

            1. Chinook*

              Once I started working as a teacher, I finally learned why all the teachers felt that the “Friday Library Meeting” was so urgent – that was when they hauled out the beer and coolers. Those were usually stored in the Phys.Ed teacher’s fridge next to the ice wraps and water bottles (and explained why we as students weren’t allowed in his office).

              1. Kimberly*

                Here they would be violating the law. The cops used to sit in our parking lot and ticket people walking with a case of beer from the convenience store across the school parking lot to the apartments.

                1. Specialk9*

                  Wow. By any chance do you live in Ferguson? That’s a nice way to pervert the law to get lots of easy money.

            2. Batshua*

              I remember being shocked and horrified that there was a BYOB booze party called “Red SOLO Cup” being advertised in the elementary school bathrooms. (Only the staff bathrooms, but still!)

            3. Die Forelle*

              I remember student teaching and asking my cooperating teacher about the choir rehearsal posters in the staff bathroom. Turns out the venue was a local bar, and that was the code for the Friday happy hour.

              And can confirm, teachers do indeed know how to party! We used to get a half day on two Fridays per school year, after two long days of parent-teacher conferences. There were two or three bars in town where teachers from across the district (8 elementary schools, two large middle schools, and the high school) would meet up on those parent conference Fridays.

            4. no more interns*

              Truth!!

              My (soon to be ex) husband is an elementary school teacher and I found out the hard way that they go apeshit when they get together and alcohol is involved. The women he is cheating on me with are also elementary school teachers! Who knew that elementary school teachers are getting it on!!!! It makes me think about what was going on with my teachers when I was in elementary school.

              1. Just Answering*

                Not all of us. Seriously, I’m an elementary school teacher of 18 years in both public and private schools, and I’ve been to one bar one time with my colleagues. And, in no school I’ve been in has it been ordinary or normal to go out together or stay in together and drink.

              2. IForgetWhatNameIUsedBefore*

                At one of the schools I went to as a kid, my mom found out that my second grade teacher was having an affair with the principal (both married, of course.) And it was a religious school!

                And she was a mean, nasty teacher to boot. Who knows what they saw in each other.

            5. Kriss*

              I come from a family of teachers & have lots of teacher friends (elementary to college level) & yes they can party. they were all circulating a meme not too long ago called “the teacher’s fidget spinner” it was a corkscrew.

            6. BananaPants*

              If I had to deal with 20+ 6 year olds every day, I’d be inclined to cut loose after hours, too.

          2. EmKay*

            Oh yeah. We had a weekly “book club” Fridays after class. The first time I got invited I said “but I don’t even know which book you’re discussing” and everybody laughed.

    3. Paige Turner*

      There are definitely “closing beers” at my coffee shop workplace and at my SO’s bikeshop workplace. It helps that we’re in a city where a lot of people bike or take public transit home.

      1. Iris Eyes*

        How does the way people get home help? More people die every year from being a drunk pedestrian than from drunk driving. And drunk driving is drunk driving in most states whether you are in a car or on a bike (motorized or not.)

        1. Cyrus*

          Because drunk driving is illegal and a danger to yourself and others. Drunk walking is only a danger to yourself. Drunk biking, a reduced danger to others (not nonexistent, I’m well aware, but reduced), and while still illegal and still dangerous to yourself, probably generally less likely to get arrested for it.

          It’s obviously not ideal to walk or bike drunk, but you asked how it helps – maybe it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as driving drunk.

        2. Natalie*

          And drunk driving is drunk driving in most states whether you are in a car or on a bike (motorized or not.)

          This is incorrect, it’s much more varied than that, and in some states it’s quite vague and up to the courts.

          Assuming “closing beers” is one round, it seems pretty unlikely the person is so drunk that they can’t safely take public transportation home. And what are they supposed to do, sleep in the coffee shop lest they get hit by a car walking home?

        3. Lissa*

          Well, considering that I’ve been inundated with ad campaigns against drunk driving since I was a kid, and see a ton of press about it, vs. never seeing similar things about drunk biking/walking, I think regardless of your personal feelings about it, most people would avoid drunk driving to a much greater extent than the others.

        4. Eric*

          This is not true.

          Over 10,000 people in 2016 in the United States died in alcohol-related car crashes.

          About 6000 pedestrians died in TOTAL in the United States in 2016.

          1. Specialk9*

            Yeah, I was going to give that a giant CITATION NEEDED. I used to ride an ambulance, and know the dumb things people can do drunk and high, and no way they’re dying more from falling funny or stepping into danger, as opposed to bring drunk while operating tons of machinery. That’s a very strange idea, and makes me think there is an ax to grind there.

    4. Yamikuronue*

      My boss’s prior team started literally holding their biweekly team meetings at the pub. They just all peaced out at 2 on a given day and ran through status updates over beers.

      1. MsMaryMary*

        I had a manager who would have our 1:1s at a bar. We were friends before she became my manager, and she managed nearly a dozen people at a company where monthly 1:1s were the expectation. We’d leave at 4:30 or 5:00 on a Friday, go out for drinks, talk about work for half an hour/hour, and segue into our weekend. We didn’t do it every month, more formal performance conversations like my annual review were done at the office. But for general stauts updates anf check-ins, we met over drinks.

        1. Mabel*

          Wow! I love having cocktails, but I would hate to have them mixed with work. Too fraught for me.

    5. Alexa*

      I worked at an investment firm and this was normal there, too. We had a huge Thanksgiving potluck (meats & beverages catered by the company but sides provided by staff) every year and our Marketing VP, who was a huge wine connoisseur, would bring cases of Beaujolais for us. Taxi vouchers were also provided ;-)

        1. Wendy Darling*

          There was so much drinking when I was in grad school. I’m not sure how you survive grad school without all that time in dive bars tbh.

        2. B*

          +1 science management. I work at a site where there are also labs, and they sell beer, wine, and sparkling wine in the cafeteria. Plus, every month one of our teams organises a “happy hour” for all staff.

        3. Chameleon*

          I fondly remember when we went to happy hour and afterward my lab mate was looking really worried. I asked him what was wrong and he just shook his head and said “I’m drunk, and I have to set up 5 96-well plate reactions tonight.” Somehow he managed but I was pretty glad I wasn’t him.

            1. Typhon Worker Bee*

              Oh, but tipsy science can be fun! (As long as you’re not doing anything complicated, expensive, or dangerous). During grad school, I did routine tasks like splitting cells, setting up (safe) bacterial cultures, making solutions etc. in the afternoons after our monthly pub lunches. It was really fun because pretty much the whole group was in it together.

            2. BananaPants*

              In our case as undergrads, it was beer AFTER engineering. No good can come of getting liquored up and then using power tools or doing electrical work.

              My senior year, most of us worked it so as to have no classes on Fridays – we’d spend a good chunk of the day in the lab or machine shop working on senior design projects. At 4 PM we’d head over to a nearby bar with a number of the grad students for beer, pizza, and foosball. Sometimes the 2-3 profs under the age of 40 would come as well, which was fun.

        4. Typhon Worker Bee*

          Depends on location. Here in Vancouver, it is Not Done to order an alcoholic drink at lunch. However, I did my PhD in Glasgow, and you’d hear people say things like “just one for me, I’m working with radioactive isotopes this afternoon”. Exact same field and type of institute.

          After-work drinks do seem to be a ubiquitous feature of academic science, though! I worked in the private sector for a couple of years after my postdoc and the same was true there.

          1. Mr McGregor's Gardener*

            My favourite (Sheffield, UK), was “Just one more for me, I’m making radioactively labelled virus particles this afternoon”.

        5. AfterBurner313*

          +1 computational chemistry and studio artist. I’m surprised I have a liver left from surviving the 1990s.

    7. Nonny for this thread*

      Software and web/graphic design too, in my experience! I once worked in an office with empty booze bottles all over the place. And clients regularly came in there. The big boss and others smoked weed in there after hours too.

      1. Cindy*

        I work at a smallish software company (70 employees) and we end work every Friday at 4pm and drink company provided beer. We also have a ping pong table, fooseball and darts. So it’s like our own little bar.

      2. The Other Katie*

        Can confirm. I used to work for a data company. First interview: Friday afternoon, finished because start of their Friday kegger.

      3. many bells down*

        At my husband’s tech company, bottle of whiskey are considered a standard “thanks for helping out with that project” gift. You do not have to take them home to drink them.

    8. Lauren*

      Most ad agencies have a bar with beer on tap or just fridges and closets dedicated for alcohol, some have PT bartenders at night. It encourages all nighters and working all the time in the ‘last minute, sure we can do that by tomorrow’ culture.

    9. Anonygoose*

      I once worked as a scotch whisky tour guide… As you can imagine, regular ‘tastings’ were definitely part of the job there!

      2. Rachel 2: Electric Boogaloo*

        I temped in the office of a major alcoholic beverage company a while ago. They had an actual bar in the office. During the workday it was used as a large meeting room and/or a lunchroom (it was right next to the kitchen). Once a week, though, they had a happy hour at the end of the day with free drinks for employees. (They did have a drink limit, though.) The company swag given out to employees included bottles of the company’s products – it was rare to see a desk that didn’t have loads of (unopened) bottles of alcohol on it!
        They also had multiple employee focus groups/tastings of new products.

    10. WILSON*

      +1
      In advertising. WINE! I’m in medical advertising, from a very stitched-up academic background and this shocked me. That is not to say I haven’t embraced it! A glass of red does wonders for apprehensions and creativity. The second sends me downhill rapidly.

    11. K.*

      Yep! That’s been my experience at ad & PR agencies. Happy hour Fridays were a regular thing at one agency – 4:00 every Friday, without fail.

    12. Tin Cormorant*

      This doesn’t sound shocking to me at all, but it’s probably because my last job (at a startup mobile game company in San Francisco) had beer on tap. You could go down to the third floor at any time and have a beer. Not sure how many people actually took advantage of it, but it was there.

      1. SL #2*

        Worked in SF for a bit and we had a beer mini-fridge that was behind the office manager’s desk and she used some of our grocery budget to restock it. We operated on the honor system: no beer until after 5 pm OR Friday at 3 pm.

      2. Butch Cassidy*

        I was a temp OM at an SF consulting firm, and we always had beer on tap. People usually didn’t break into it until Friday afternoon, but when the keg ran out we had a Situation until I called in a replacement.

      3. Not Rebee*

        I work for a startup tech company as well and we have a beer fridge in the game room and a kegerator outside on our little patio area. Not to mention a slide in the building XD

    13. Alex*

      I spent a year teaching English in France. At school one day the teachers (in an elementary school) all had a glass or two of Beaujolais Nouveau. I thought this would never fly in the US.

    14. DD*

      Yeah, I worked with a software/web development team that was located off-site in a bar. The location was a bar previously, and they kept, complete with three beers on tap. People would routinely have a beer any lunchtime or sit at the bar and code with a pint. I never witnessed it being an issue–everybody treated the perk responsibly. Wasn’t much of a draw for me.

    15. phedre*

      I would LOVE to be able to drink once in a while at my job. I work in fundraising at a nonprofit and do a lot of writing (donor communications, grants, newsletters, appeals, etc.). On days when the words aren’t flowing and I’m feeling stuck, a beer or a glass of wine at work would seriously help (I did this all the time in grad school). One drink loosens you up enough for writing to be easier, but you’re not buzzed and are still coherent. But sadly there is a strict no alcohol policy in my office.

      1. Tiny Orchid*

        When I really need to get the words flowing, I flex my hours/stay late and bring my work home/to the bar and get the first draft of a proposal pounded out. There’s the old saying “write drunk, edit sober”

        2. phedre*

          I really try hard to keep work at work – I only work on proposals from home in really rare circumstances. But the next time I have to bring one home I’ll definitely have a glass of wine! Or if I’m really stuck on a piece (side eye at my current project) I might just have to take a laptop to the bar.

      2. AstronautPants*

        You need to get on the face to face side of fundraising to experience the way drinking is a part of the job! A good alcohol tolerance is necessary to bond with donors and still ask them for a gift in many places. The head of our division was known for his love of wine, and would hold yearly tastings to pick wines for events.

    16. TotesMaGoats*

      I think people would be surprised at the amount of alcohol in higher ed dean’s office fridges.

      1. Hapless Bureaucrat*

        Oh lord. In my previous life in academia I worked with associate deans for whom the three martini lunch was an at least twice a week affair. We staff got to come with on special occasions. And so many of the tenured faculty had booze in their offices. Yet heaven forbid we post a picture of a legal drinking age student at a social event where the red solo cup was not doing a sufficient job of concealing the kind of liquid.

        1. Tedious Cat*

          At OldJob I don’t think we could have gotten the law professors to attend anything without booze. I think they got loaded in the faculty lounge every Friday afternoon.

      2. JustaCPA*

        wow I wish I worked with yall! NEVER at any company I worked for! (course this was private not public)

    18. KarenT*

      Publishing too. Company events are mildly more professional than frat parties. When I read that letter the other day about interns and drinking I couldn’t help but wonder…

    19. Cdn enviro consultant*

      At the first consulting firm I worked at, we consulted solely for the oil and gas industry (pre-2008 bust). There was always beer in the fridge, it was as much a staple as coffee. We could bring in our gaming console, hook it up in the conference room, and get drunk on Fridays. Sometimes people would just pass out on the couches after a good night. This company had to cut back on the free booze at the corporate Christmas party after number of years, and though senior management never said why, it was likely because of the staff hookups/drama/pregnancies.

      We also used to obtain massive contracts by taking clients to box seats at a hockey game where the beer just flowed.

      God I miss those days.

    20. V*

      +1 law firms. Every firm I’ve worked had beer, wine, Scotch, etc, floating around and it was normal to start drinking around 5 on Fridays (which is early, considering our hours are typically 9-7). One of my old firms had a culture of post-work happy hours multiple times a week and occasional day drinking at lunch. Surprisingly few incidents of people too buzzed to work. You just learned your limit and didn’t cross it.

    21. Dav*

      As a cruise ship musician, we had to perform in “parades” that had absolutely nothing to do with our actual job and were mostly just humiliating dancing while wearing knock-off Disney character costumes. It was pretty standard to buy a fifth of jack ashore on those days and pass it around the five lucky “volunteers” who had parade duty that week. You’d chant “every parade is the best parade!”, take a shot straight from the bottle, and pass to the right until the bottle was gone.

      Yes, this is how you twenty-something alcholics.

    22. CanadianDot*

      In most government offices here, alcohol at work is strictly verboten, but I interviewed at one high-level office that hosted dignitaries regularly, and had a lot of strict protocol, was all suits all the time, etc. I made a joke about “So, no jeans and beers on Fridays?” and they laughed and said there were NEVER jeans at work, but they did have a wine fridge…

      1. Specialk9*

        I mean, government *contractors* have to take that seriously, but what Fed with tenure gets fired? I know several Feds who disappeared for big chunks of the day to drink.

    23. Emmie*

      I attended a private grad school. Our professors and students occasionally drank in class. The college cafe in the school building served beer and wine!

    24. Stranger than fiction*

      We had lots of drinking going on when I worked for a mortgage company, but that was before the bubble burst so not sure if it’s still like that in that industry.

    25. Lemons*

      Same goes for theater. No one cares how drunk you get or where, so long as you plan around the show schedule and stay safe (so keep away the saws and swords).

    26. Anonicat*

      Most fun part of interning at a small magazine company was the regular Friday Beer and Brainstorming meeting – brainstorming headlines and cover lines, the punnier the better.

    27. Jiggs*

      I’m also in advertising and I was going to say the day-drinking as well. Beer/wine with lunch. 2 pm “we had a hard week” drinking on Fridays. Client meetings at restaurants with booze flowing. Cocktail tastings for events. Wine tastings for events. There’s a lot.

    28. Government Mule*

      A (maybe) interesting story. When Apollo-Soyuz with the Russians was announced, the NASA project lead was quoted as saying to his team, “boys, this is what we’ve been training for our whole lives!”

    29. Old Admin*

      The sales department of *every (IT) company* I’ve worked for had a fridge well stocked with cheap champagne, Spanish Cava (sparkling wine), prosecco… at the slightest excuse corks would be popping right after lunch.
      I also worked for Siemens in Europe for a while – replace the fizzy stuff with local beer, drunk in jolly groups at the desks of the sales department. Not so much for tekkies.

  2. Brandy*

    Before my company became more corporate (im grateful they are, more professional) the owner would offer up drinks mid day to the staff. And he was an attorney. I can only imagine the liability if someone got into a wreck or got a DUI.

      1. Brandy*

        We have a lot of job sprawl (office parks all over the area) and taxis only go to the airport and downtown. And when this was going on, a while ago, Uber and Lyft weren’t a thing. And everyone working here lives everywhere, multiple cities.

  3. Kat M.*

    Former massage therapist here.
    I’ve touched the butt of every single coworker I ever had in that job.

        1. Annonymouse*

          It is ok and sometimes necessary to hit or hurt my coworkers.

          But I work in the martial arts industry and its always in that context of teaching, training and sometimes horseplay.

          Not like that time my psycho ex boss put a coworker in a chokehold while he was answering emails. Still in the MA industry but that is messed up.

    2. Nobody You Know*

      I used to be the HR Manager at a well-known educational retreat center where the hot baths were “clothing optional.” My co-workers and I got to see each other nude.

      1. Coalea*

        Interesting that you say you “got to” see each other nude. For most places I’ve worked, it would be that we “had to” see each other nude!

        2. paul*

          Yeah, I’d be horrified. I may have body hang ups but I do not want anyone I work with to ever see me shirtless, let alone naked.

          1. the gold digger*

            A friend of mine works for a company headquartered in Finland. He hates going to Helsinki – he says, “It’s the Beloit of Europe” – because he has to get cold and naked with his co-workers.

              1. the gold digger*

                Alison, the daughter of a college friend of mine (we went to college in Houston and she still lives there) will be a sophomore at Beloit. Maybe.

                When Ruth told me her daughter wanted to attend school in Wisconsin, I asked, “Does she know what it’s like to be cold?”

                The daughter swore up and down that she wanted cold. She spent a year up north and is now thinking of transferring.

                1. Solidus Pilcrow*

                  Heh, Beloit is far from “up nort.” It’s pretty much as far south as you can go in WI without going into Illinois and is notably warmer than the northern 2/3 of the state. Good thing she didn’t decide to go to the more northern schools like Stout, Eau Claire, or Superior; she would have never survived. Fun fact, today’s high in Superior WI is 58° F.

                2. Wintermute*

                  Solidus Pilcrow:

                  I’m a UW alum and lived my whole life in Wisconsin, a woman I went to school with actually bought battery-powered heated underwear!

                  Also, my friend, that lives in Beloit, has an entire very funny rant about the town, the line that sticks out is “In French it’s a beautiful word, sounds very nice, but people in Wisconsin pronounce it like the sound of a turd dropping into a toilet– BLOIT!”

                3. the gold digger*

                  Solidus, we are on our way up nort’ tomorrow! A night in Medford with family (north of Hwy 29 is nort’ to me) and then ten days on Madeline Island! Yes, we are taking sweatshirts. We know how this goes.

              2. Moira*

                I used to work for a company that is headquartered in Beloit and could say the same thing about them!

              3. Alissa C*

                Why am I geeking out that we share an alma mater?

                I went from living in a nudist community in FL, to school at Beloit, and despite growing up in Philly, the first winter was seriously hard on me.

            2. paul*

              I hate being naked in front of anyone but my wife, and I hate being cold, so I think I’ll just avoid Finland then :)

          2. Rachel 2: Electric Boogaloo*

            I hear you. I don’t even like to get naked with my friends, let alone coworkers or my boss!

      2. Chinook*

        That was my job teaching ESL in Japan. My first week there, my Canadian coworker took me to the public bath to show me the ins and outs of etiquette and help me get over the jitters. I can honestly say that I saw every single one of my female coworkers nude as well as a high number of my female students.

        1. Specialk9*

          Do people not have showers at home, or is this a communal thing? I.e. was it optional to skip?

      3. Anonicat*

        When I was doing recruiting for a skin cancer study, I would tell people that my job was “calling strangers and asking them to take their clothes off for science.”

    3. TotesMaGoats*

      I just found out that one of my current “students”, in that she’s a student at the university where I now work, was also my massage therapist a couple of times. So, one of my students has seen me mostly naked and also touched my butt. That said our massage table convos convinced her to go back to school and do the program she’s doing.

      1. Liz in a Library*

        One of my former students (she was in my class) was doing her nursing clinicals at my gyno a few years ago. Pretty sure that was my all-time most awkward pap.

    4. Kat M.*

      I just want to say, for my friends and colleagues who read this blog, this is NOT me (another Kat M.).

      LOL

    5. Chameleon*

      In my old massage school days, we would take turns analyzing each other’s structure and disfunctions by standing in front of our class in our underwear. I no longer feel any shame at being undressed in front of other people.

  4. Lore*

    The first thing that leaps to mind is the entirely work-relevant, yet also entirely too extended conversation I had with my direct boss and our department head about gay male threesome erotica. (And the subsequent research into the various permutations of menage erotic romance.)

      2. Lore*

        Book publishing. My division has a line of digital-original romances that are frequently *extremely* explicit.

        3. Anon for this*

          …Lore, I actually have a finished, mostly-edited novel that I’m worried won’t get picked up because of the sexual content (gay, straight, lesbian, threesome). Any chance I could pick your brain a little about publishing options? (Not here, obviously.)

          1. Lore*

            I’m not working tomorrow so I won’t be on the open thread constantly, but post the query there and I’ll get back to it at some point. (And I’m probably not the only one here who can offer you guidance, either.)

          2. Nonny for this thread*

            Your options would heavily depend on what genre (and subgenre) the book falls into – I suggest reading submission guidelines pages for numerous publishers to get a feel for the market. (Another writer here.)

      1. EddieSherbert*

        That sounds like a really interesting job! Are you part of a publishing company? Or is the marketing part a whole different organization? Do different genres typically have their own marketers?

      2. Manders*

        Ooh, this would be perfect for one of Alison’s interviews!

        I’ve always wanted to give book marketing a try, but I ended up in SEO instead. How did you break into the field?

    3. Anon for this*

      Illustrator here and that subject makes up about 30% of my income hahah. I have conversations about it daily

    4. JAM*

      I just want to say Chuck Tingle comes up regularly at my office. And I have no connection to publishing, it’s just “Gay T-Rex Law Firm: Executive Boner” connects somehow with my job in a way I don’t feel like clarifying.

        1. Bun*

          When you’re not at work, Google “Chuck Tingle”, or search the same on Amazon. You will not be disappointed!

          1. AcademiaNut*

            But do it in incognito mode, or Amazon will be suggesting related items for years.

    5. The OG Anonsie*

      In my academic days there was an idea floating around between some colleagues and I about soliciting entries for a book focusing on the role of nature and technology in various forms of fantasy-based gay erotica. I think the specific piece of erotica that set this off is… One could say entirely inappropriate to describe on this blog, but I will say that it involved centaurs.

  5. MuseumChick*

    The amount of what I call “emotional babysitting” museums do. For volunteers, donors, etc. A grumpy word from a long time volunteer can change the course of a whole project, they have to constantly be reassured that they are “valued” even when all they do is screw things up. Museum employees are in a constant battle to not offend anyone in the slightest.

    1. Quackeen*

      Oh, man….I used to work in a museum back in the day. We had one employee who was The Docent Whisperer and would soothe the ruffled feathers of the wealthy ladies (often part of a donor family) over liquid lunches. He was a casual employee making $8 an hour in this crazy role of Keeping Things Operating Smoothly, but he loved the drama.

    2. Quackeen*

      Oh, yes. I used to work in a museum back in the day. We had one guy who was essentially The Docent Whisperer, taking long lunches with rich ladies who worked as docents (frequently they were also donors or from donor families) , soothing their ruffled feathers and keeping everything running smoothly. He was a casual $8/hour employee, but he had a way of managing these situations (didn’t hurt that he loved the drama).

      1. museum sara*

        Bless the Docent Whisperers. That’s a skill set that cannot be undervalued. One of my old coworkers literally had a nervous breakdown and left the field after dealing with docents for two years.

    3. Objects don't argue back*

      This rings so true it hurts. The level of unpaid emotional labor in museums is breathtaking, as is the amount of time *everyone* puts into managing volunteers.

      (I can’t even write about it, but what you say about one cranky volunteer with a strong will changing *everything* is just…I need to lie down or something, due to the floods of memories this is bring on1!)

      1. MuseumChick*

        1) Love, love, LOVE your username!
        2) I remember when I was having issues with a volunteer a friend of mine who has never worked in a NFP let alone a museum told me, “Well you just have to confront them.” I almost ripped his throat out.

        2. Greengirl*

          THIS! Other staff outside of donor/volunteer management will say “Just tell them no” and I’m like “um, maybe you could do that instead of me? Because actually that doesn’t work when I do it.”

      1. Ramona Flowers*

        Oh yes.

        I used to do alumni comms stuff for a few universities. Oh my goodness there were some egos involved…

      2. Audiophile*

        Really? I was thinking of moving to that from development in the next few years. Maybe I will rethink this.

    5. Library Fairy*

      +1 for the public library

      Sooooo much emotional handholding. Not just for volunteers and donors (and city council), but also for regular patrons and even just regular people who wander in the door. I’ve had so many people break down over job applications in my presence, it’s unreal.

      I can’t say I hate this aspect of the job, as a lot of people are really great fun to have someone listen, but it can be really draining.

    6. Murphy*

      I used to work in animal welfare, and we had similar issues with volunteers. Don’t get me wrong, our volunteers were WONDERFUL, but very sensitive. They would complain about the slightest thing, so we often had to tiptoe around people, let them do things not exactly inline with normal procedure (nothing harmful) in order to keep them happy. (Also compounding this was that employee turnover was higher than volunteer turnover and employees are often much younger, so you got a lot of volunteer who acted and felt superior to staff, which was often allowed to happen. But that’s a slightly different issue.)

      1. Sibley*

        I was a volunteer at an animal shelter. I was very careful to be professional and follow procedure. If I didn’t do something right, I apologized, asked how to do it, and tried to do it right in the future. And I specifically told every staff member that I was around that I WANTED to be told if I wasn’t doing it right.

    7. MuseumGirl*

      Work at a museum and THIS. Even for our curators – the emotional hand-holding and whatnot is SO TIRING

    8. Mythea*

      +1 for nonprofits. I worked for a chamber of commerce and you would not believe the amount of handholding necessary.

    9. Shark Whisperer*

      I work at an aquarium and we metaphorically popped champagne when we got a new volunteer manager who decided enough was enough and she would start firing all the problem volunteers (but we are lucky that our volunteer base and our donor base don’t heavily overlap and our volunteer waitlist is pretty long). Now if we could just get marketing to understand that we do in fact know what we’re doing…

    10. The OG Anonsie*

      This is 100% of the reason why I don’t work in museums anymore, let me tell you. “I know Carrie didn’t break that piece of equipment but Sharon says she thinks it was Carrie, and Sharon’s the daughter of one of the board members and we need her support, so I’m going to proceed as if it was Carrie’s fault but I want everyone to know I don’t personally believe that it was her and will not hold her responsible otherwise.” Good god.

        1. The OG Anonsie*

          That was not a hypothetical! It’s funny now but it sure wasn’t when I worked there XD

    11. Agnes Stonewick*

      I think we can safely round up to include all of the Arts. I worked managed dancers and volunteer production staff for 12 years, and oh my goodness, sigh… I tried to embrace the emotional babysitting as “professional development enrichment” for them, but holy mother of pearl.

      1. Winger*

        For sure. Any cultural nonprofit has to do an incredible amount of hand-holding/babysitting/therapy for their donors and volunteers. I have worked in other corners of the nonprofit world and in my experience, this really is more difficult in the arts world than in academia, social services, etc.

    12. Kay*

      THIS. x10000. Oy. All the advice to be polite but brief, or to tell people you need to get back to work, when the long talker is a volunteer with money, or community heft? Out the window.

  6. Backstage Rachel*

    Oh man, I actually just had this discussion with some of our student workers the other day.
    The entertainment industry is rife with “inappropriate” jokes and conversations, often sexual in nature. Mostly Just ribbing. As a woman, I’ve tried to nip overtly sexist remarks in the bud. Some times it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Currently, I work with mostly women, so it’s alright.
    But yeah…lots of joking and convos about sex or drugs.

    1. Backstage Rachel*

      Oh, and the touching. I can’t tell you how many dancers/actors/other techs have grabbed my butt or elsewhere right before running onstage

      1. Winger*

        I have a lot of experience in semi-professional and student theater and the touching thing was a constant irritation for me. When I started out as a student musician it was much the same, especially with choirs. Why does a choral rehearsal need to start with backrubs? Eventually as I made my way into the world as a musician, I was delighted to see the gratuitous physical stuff was not part of the deal among most professionals.

      1. curmudgeon*

        see, this is what I do miss!
        There’s a certain freedom in working live events that you don’t get anywhere else.
        ‘course, I coulda done without the the ED telling me that for his father’s funeral he was going to lay him out on an ironing board, stick a calla lily in his ass and slide him into a hole in the ground…

        1. Recovering stage manager*

          Me too! I switched careers, and moved into one with a lot less cursing and dirty jokes, and I kind of miss it. Still work for an arts-related nonprofit, though, so it thankfully acceptable to stop work on a Friday afternoon and discuss the artistic merits of “King Lear with Sheep” (actual show title) and and Faust done on a trampoline.

    3. MommaCat*

      I posted below about tech theatre, but I specifically talked about using condoms on the mic transmitters and reaching down actor shirts to fix the mics. I work with a high school theatre now, and I have to tread the line of keeping things appropriate and making sure the students know the industry terms for various things (NFG stands for No Flipping Good, the “dang it nut,” etc).

      2. Anonymouse*

        I’ve also heard NFG defined as “Non Functioning Gear” in a student environment, although when I used that term to describe an NFG piece, my supervisor said, “What? No, that thing’s just No F**king Good”. LOL

    4. Lehigh*

      Ah, memories. “You’re gonna hear some stuff,” was said at a hobby event, but it could equally apply to my short time in pro theater.

    6. Mythea*

      +1 for kitchen staff too. Whether cook, pastry chef, sous or even as dishwasher – There is crazy comments and way more touching than you would picture

      1. Lissa*

        Yup! I have to admit I sometimes laugh at the amount of horror people express at the possibility of things happening that would’ve been so, so normal when I worked in food – going by the comments here the police would be getting called every day for employee assault and harassment. ;) (which isn’t to say that things never crossed the line, but I do feel like “the line” was quite a bit further than in other environments…)

    7. Normally A Lurker*

      No just the joking, but like, the actual amount of nudity required in entertainment (theatre, dance, and modeling world here) between quick changes and everything else.

      I think the number of people who have seen me naked or I have seen naked has to be… WAY higher than outside the industry.

      And it’s totally normal.

      1. Backstage Rachel*

        That’s true. I actually didn’t even think about it…but I have seen a lot of body parts, both as a performer and a tech

        1. Cate*

          This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread; the years I spent in costume/wardrobe in theatre. So. Many. Naked. Actors. My friends would say they wanted my job so they could see X person naked, but the truth is you have professional detachment. Partly out of respect and partly because it’s just a normal part of the job.

      2. Kelsi*

        Yup. Burlesque dancer here. I’m pretty conservative about people seeing me naked in my personal life, but when I’m at work I have nearly walked pantsless out of dressing rooms more times than I can count.

    8. rib me like one of your french girls*

      Wow, yeah! I went to school for technical theater and on the first day of class my professor said, “If you’ve got a problem with people cursing, find a new fucking career.” He wasn’t wrong. I find it pretty relaxing, though; stagehands all have sailors’ mouths but it’s nice to know that nobody’s stewing in their frustration, and although the end of the industry I’m in is still pretty (straight) male-dominated, the casual-to-profane vibe means that if someone crosses a line, I can tell them to fuck off and gain respect for it instead of having to worry about going through HR or something. As a queer and non-male stagehand it helps a lot, especially since corporate culture really stresses me out. Plus it had the side effect of teaching the guys I’ve worked with how to make the “right” kind of jokes about it (ie: I find it hilarious if we get a shipment of warped wood and someone affectionately says how nothing’s straight in the shop I’m supervising!) The more someone teases you like that, the more you’ve been embraced as part of the workplace, and I actually felt alienated when people didn’t feel comfortable making jokes at my expense the way they would about each other.
      Although it does make for a bit of a culture shock when I’ve had to work non-industry jobs; I haven’t slipped up yet, but there’s always a re-adjustment period when I have to remember that stagehand terms for hardware and cables might be a little too bawdy for pretty much any other work environment. (Also, no other jobs seem to allow utili-kilts so freely as employee attire.)

  7. SometimesALurker*

    Not as shocking as I bet some of the others will be, but in my industry it’s not unheard of to need to wear both dirty/painty/rugged clothes and sneakers, and business formal or even cocktail attire in the same workday. Some days, you don’t even know which you’ll need, so people keep a change of clothes on hand. In my job I have a less severe version of this — my work shoes are “sensible shoes” and I always have extra blazers and scarves to dress up an outfit that’s on the casual end of business casual.

    2. A Programmer*

      Business casual (at my desk) or business formal (meeting clients) and jeans + steel-cap-shoes (troubleshooting) here.

      The job is programming for assembly line robots.

    3. SusanIvanova*

      I’ve heard horror stories of the days when big companies like IBM required business formal at all times, even for the computer engineers who might find themselves crawling through the under-floor cable space. I was working at a software company in the mid-80s where we were casual most of the time, but one day word came down that IBM reps would be on site and we must all dress appropriately. And of course I did end up dealing with wires under the desk in a skirt.

    5. Quinalla*

      +1 for MEP Engineer (we work with architects, structural & civil engineers, etc. to design new buildings and renovations) for this problem. I really need to start keeping a change of clothes at work as for interviews to get new work I’m expected to dress business formal, for meeting with clients nice business casual, for work business casual and jeans on Fridays and for site visits – boots, hard hat, safety glasses, clothes that can get dirty but still look professional. I’ve basically given up wearing skirts/dresses ever as who knows when I’ll get called out for a quick site visit where I’m tramping through mud or climbing ladders or crawling around to get to some piece of equipment. I should keep a change of clothes at work all the time for site visits, usually I just do it as needed, but that’s probably the way to go.

  8. anony*

    Extended conversations (and demonstrations, using hands/arms) about how to use various forms of contraception, yelling about periods, the like.

    (repro health non profit)

    1. Anon a Bonbon*

      Yep, I work in a clinical setting and it’s common to pass through a conversation about herpes. We’ve had whole meetings on genital warts and the difference between…well…I don’t want to subject anyone else to the discussion.

      1. Pam*

        Not work-related, but my mother was a public-health nurse. If ‘gonorrhea’ had been on the second grade spelling test, I would have aced it!

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        In the Peace Corps we had a practical personal health presentation from the location nurse on the variety of different sores you might see on the penis and what they might mean. With photographs. I think they figured it was the most effective way to convince people to use condoms.

          1. Falling Diphthong*

            Our Peace Corps doctor (who covered several neighboring countries, with each country having their own nurse) once did a presentation where he held up a clear glass of feces, mixed in water, stirred it, and explained “So those of you with giardia, this is what’s making you sick…”

            1. Julianne*

              Our nurse had a diagram showing all the routes feces could take to get into your mouth. Flies, your unwashed hands, the unwashed hands of someone sharing your food, etc. It wasn’t a particularly remarkable diagram, but they displayed it during every single health session we had in PST.

        2. Julianne*

          Riding in what passed for public transit and/or hitchhiking with a giant bag full of vagina models and wooden penises. Fun fact: in my 3rd year, I was pictured on the front page of one of the national papers holding said vagina and penis models. It may just have been the best moment of my service!

        3. Anya*

          Our PCMO was hilarious! He talked regularly about diarrhea and how important it was for us to replenish fluids if it happened. I was in a cold place (not tropical or subtropical at all!) so we also got talked to a lot about frostbite. My favorite lecture of his was, “Do not sleep with prostitutes. If you see a prostitute, you must assume that she has syphilis. If she doesn’t have syphilis, she probably has something worse!” Only half of our little training group was guys, by the way, but that didn’t stop our doctor. He was the best, though. He did combat medicine for the Soviet Army in the 1980s and knew everything about the human body. I wish I could consult with him again!

          In your country when volunteers got together, was there a whole lot of drinking and swearing? We used to get together, play board games, and do our best to out-curse each other in any and all of the languages that we knew! A friend of mine who was in a different country said that her fellow PCVs’ parties were subdued compared to ours.

          1. Julianne*

            Drinking, swearing, and talking about poop. Crowd sourcing diagnoses and treatments for mild to moderate GI problems from other PCVs was always the de facto first step before calling the PCMOs. (Because who wants to ride for hours in a cramped car to get to the capital to get their diarrhea treated?)

        4. Chinook*

          “With photographs. I think they figured it was the most effective way to convince people to use condoms.”

          Canada World Youth used the same theory when trying to explain to our Latin American counterparts what frostbite is and why you really needed to wear all those layers, gloves and hats when in Northern Alberta in November. I think the photos of blackened, 3rd degree flesh even scarred our participants from Southern Ontario.

      3. veggiewolf*

        +1 Pharma here. Totally normal to discuss STIs, and colonoscopy prep on the same day in the hallways.

    2. Ros*

      Medical research. Extended conversation with colleagues about exactly what “counts” as “sexual partners” (for a study protocol that specified “less than 5 sexuality partners”).

      And then discussions about how to phrase that to patients…

    3. Purplesaurus*

      Also in healthcare and have had conversations about fecal transplants, the continued use of leeches and medical grade maggots, and beer orders for DTs.

        1. Anonicat*

          We found out the waiters were referring to us as “the weird table” when we were talking shop at dinner once.

    4. Optimistic Prime*

      Yeah, when I worked in the public health world there were lots of extended conversations about sex, contraception, and other reproductive health issues. One of the reasons I got my currently job is that my coworkers were thoroughly impressed that I was able to present my research (which was all about HIV risk behavior in gay and bisexual men) in a completely unflappable manner, but at that point that was pretty normal and I had been talking about far more outrageous things for upwards of 7 years so…*shrug*

      1. MPH Employee*

        I used to work at a university in the public health department and there was a bowl of condoms on one of the desks in the administrative offices. I can’t tell you how many times I almost reached my hand in, thinking it was a candy jar, and then….nope.

        1. NY nonprofit*

          Haha, same here with thinking the condom jar had candy in it! I worked at an HIV org for many years. The UPS/FedEx guys loved us for the free condoms. We also hung (wrapped) condoms on the office Xmas tree as decorations. Lots of talk in the office about sex too. Seemed normal to me until I mentioned it to friends in other industries.

    5. JustaTech*

      The time my boss had to explain circumcision to another scientists, and decided that it would be easier to draw it (language issues). And that drawing stayed up on the whiteboard through lunch. (We did HIV research, the other folks did herpes research, so it wasn’t like anyone was super surprised by it.)

      1. Evan Þ*

        That reminds me of the time in fifth-grade Sunday School that one of my classmates asked what “circumcision” was.

        Fortunately, it was a guys-only class.

        1. Chinook*

          Eh…I had the same question about circumcision in my junior high, mixed gender class. My description didn’t include a diagram, but it did make the one boy cross his legs while the girls all covered their mouths in shock.

          As usual when I covered anything touching on a sexual nature, I gave the parents a heads up. I think that was the moment their response to awkward questions from their kids ended up getting a “ask your Religion teacher” response. :)

          1. Chinook*

            I know this because the kids started coming to class with more interesting questions (which they were all able to make at least partially on topic for Religion class).

            This is why I love teaching junior high!

    6. Zoe Karvounopsina*

      Ditto. Yesterday, I tried to convince a co-worker we should ask someone to look into what effect SPACE might have on LARCs.

    7. Jolie*

      I used to work for a public health campaign on cancer awareness. Part of the job was explaining to old folks how to take part in the NHS bowel screening programme. It involves taking stool samples. Also carried around a big bag of plushie boobs, to show women how to examine their breasts.

  9. Muppet Herder*

    I work at a non-profit fundraising consultancy agency. Extreme liberalism here is 100% cool and seems to be expected!

    2. wobbly*

      I’m not in politics, but politics-adjacent? Political advocacy? I’m pretty sure everyone has some recurring meeting which is partly devoted to complaining about how terrible various Republican politicians are, with swearing proportional to current events.

      We also have 100% non-ironic uses of the phrase Politically Correct and no one is giving me weird looks for having an Industrial Workers of the World logo pinned up by my desk.

  10. Librarian*

    Political statements.
    When a local cop was acquitted for the blatant and on-camera murder of a black man my boss dealt with her frustration and disappointment by filling the display cases at the front entrance with Ta-Nehisi Coates and books about lynching.

      1. Librarian*

        And lots of academic, theological, and otherwise specialized libraries would. I don’t believe Alison intended us to only post if the behavior in question applied to every single facet of the industry in question.

      2. neeko*

        And lots of public libraries would. I work to work at one that would have encouraged that.

      3. Alice*

        It comes to my mind that in a library that often has themed displays about topics in the local news, it would also be a political statement _not_ to address a hot, local topic.

        2. Mints*

          This seems typical to me. Libraries put up displays bases on current events all the time.

        5. Nonny for this thread*

          +10000

          Sometimes in any context, not just this one, silence is its own statement. Often not one you’d wish to make.

      5. anon for this*

        Well, I don’t think this kind of display is shocking at all. Really quite standard. I think it’s more shocking to many people that a library would not make a display inspired by a local news story.

      7. DNDL*

        When I was a librarian in rural Kentucky, I had to grin and bear all of the blatant political talk. Just because it’s frowned on for *you* to make statements doesn’t mean the patrons won’t…

        As a librarian in a city that went for Clinton by over 70%, I gotta say…I now love all of the blatant political talk. And my boss is the most talkative of all.

    4. OhNo*

      As another librarian, yep. I broke out our small collection of books on race and policing to make a very pointed display recently, too. It’s not even just topics in the news, either; it seems like every other month I’m making a display that would doubtless upset certain portions of the political spectrum. I’ve done displays that are pro-LGBTQ, pro-refugee, pro-abortion, pro-alternative medicine…

      I happen to work at a small college whose overall political bent is very liberal, so it’s not necessarily as pushy as it seems. At this point, I just know what my patrons want to see. Libraries in more conservative areas also put up displays that conform to their community’s political leanings – I know there’s a library near my uncle’s place that puts up a massive how-to-hunt, choose-your-gun, field-dressing-for-dummies style display every time hunting season rolls around.

      1. Iris Eyes*

        I find this interesting. As an educational institution wouldn’t it be in the best interest of your patrons to present as many views on the topic as are available? Granted people don’t always want what’s best for the.

        1. olympiasepiriot*

          In this particular case, what works, exactly, would be an appropriate opposing view?

          The Clansman by Thomas Dixon?
          The Blue Book of the John Birch Society?
          Or just lots of knee-jerk pro-police editorials from around the nation?

          1. OhNo*

            That response seems very accusatory. Iris Eyes didn’t cite a specific case, and I mentioned several in my post that they could have been referring to.

        2. OhNo*

          Yes, it is. But there’s a difference between having those points of view available in the library collection, and putting them in a display. Having them in the collection means students and faculty can find them and use them as desired. Putting them in a display gets complaints.

          And yes, I’m speaking from experience there.

    5. Nonny for this thread*

      It’s horrifyingly sad that “don’t murder black people on camera” has to be considered a controversial political statement.

        2. Nonny for this thread*

          Yeah, I didn’t word that very well! The “on camera” bit was meant to emphasize that it’s unambiguous and unarguable that the killing was in fact murder, not self-defense, so there’s nothing to have a controversy about…

    8. Indoor Cat*

      So, I’m not a librarian, but a lot of my friends are. I live in a swing county in a swing state (Ohio).

      After the 2012 election (and probably after the 2008 election, although I wasn’t here at the time) there was a display featuring books by then-president Obama (“Dreams From My Father,” “Audacity of Hope,” collections of his speeches, etc). In the run-up to that election, I remember there also being Mitt Romney books and Hillary Clinton books on display.

      Fast forward to 2016 and the election of president Trump. This year the display during the run-up were more generic books about elections, people who fought for the right to vote, what makes America great, that sort of thing. But, it was fully expected by many people–both patrons and staff– that whichever candidate was elected president, the display would be books by that person.

      Instead, the display was mysteriously empty for a few weeks. Eventually, it was filled with Christmas / Winter Holiday themed books, many of them crafts oriented.

      Let me tell you, the *lack* of a Trump display riled *plenty* of people. There were letters sent with recommended lists of the best Trump books. People accused the library of having a liberal agenda. There were all-caps comments and people said they’d boycott, or petition against the next library levy, just because there was an Obama display four years ago and there’s no Trump one now. Unfair!

      On the flip side, some Democrats were incensed at the very IDEA that the library MIGHT put up a Trump display! So they’re pre-emptively mad about something that hasn’t happened yet!

      Fortunately, people have short attention spans and then the holidays happened. I still don’t know why there wasn’t a Trump display–was it an intentional protest by a librarian Democrat? An attempt to not ruffle feathers that backfired? Hard to say. But, sometimes it seems like libraries are inevitably political, no matter what you do.

      1. Librarianne*

        To be honest there aren’t very many books about Trump and it was likely that all the books “by” Trump (or his ghostwriters) were checked out at the time. There may have been nothing to display.

  11. Rainbow Brite*

    I work in tech, my hair has been every shade of blue, purple, pink, and various combinations of all of those. My Dad once told me that I should change it because “That is not how a professional young lady looks,” but I shut that down when I went on a couple of interviews last year and got offered every job.

    1. ceiswyn*

      Also in tech, and my hair is currently every shade of blue purple, pink and teal.

      I’m on the end that does the interviewing :)

      1. Agnes Stonewick*

        I would like to work with all y’all! I was a frontend dev for several years beginning in 1996. After the tech bubble burst and all of the fall out settled, I shifted gears until the recession, and then went to college… I need to shift gears back. I miss having an income.

    2. Junior Dev*

      I work in tech too and I have an undercut with the top dyed blonde. Two of my male co-workers dye their hair. We had a guy come in for an interview in a t-shirt and jeans, and my boss often wears sweatpants to work.

    3. starsaphire*

      Heaven bless tech-industry dress codes!

      At my interview for this job, I asked about the dress code. My soon-to-be-manager stood up and showed me his cool new sneakers. He was wearing Levis. My supervisor was also in jeans and a T-shirt.

      Generally speaking, “dressing up” around here either refers to cleanroom suits or to Halloween. I am grateful every single day.

      Yes, there is a good sprinkling of pink/purple hair around here too. :)

      1. Security SemiPro*

        I’ve conducted interviews in rainbow socks without shoes. Specifically to drive home the point that people can/should wear what makes them feel comfortable and happy. (Well, and because it was what I was wearing that day.) God bless tech dress codes. Please wear clothes.

        I do draw the line at sexist/racist crap on said torn t-shirts.

        1. Wendy Darling*

          I explain the Seattle tech dress code as “don’t be naked, don’t scare HR with your shirt”.

          I was considered to dress particularly formally at my past job. My entire wardrobe consists of knit dresses and leggings because comfy.

          2. JustaTech*

            That’s it in Seattle biotech too, except the “please meet the safety rules if you’re in the lab” (ie, no sandals).
            I’m terrified of having to learn to wear “real” clothes, even though I’d like to.

          3. MissDisplaced*

            Sounds like heaven!
            And I actually do have a fairly casual field (but not that casual)

      2. CAA*

        I usually tell people that our dress code is “shirts and shoes required, but the shoes can be flip flops”. Also, I once knew a co-worker was interviewing for a new job because he showed up to work wearing long pants for the first time in 5 years.

    4. Manders*

      A friend of mine in tech told me that he dyes his hair before interviews and wears casual clothing just to make sure the company is judging him for his skills, not his looks. He’s very well-paid, so it must be working for him.

    5. Discordia Angel Jones*

      … and this is why I can’t wait to switch careers to tech when my (tech relevant) Masters is awarded! ;)

    6. an.on*

      I’m 40, gainfully employed, and my 70 year old parents still give me the side eye about certain things like that, like visible tattoos or dying my hair or wearing jeans and chucks to work. Dyed my hair purplish blue last year – it washed out in 3 weeks – and they were afraid I was going to get fired and have to move home with them. GUYS: I’m married and own my own home and even if I got fired, wouldn’t be in danger of losing my house. I have coworkers with rainbow hair. Half the people around here just came from yoga or ran to work and are still in their compression leggings or mesh shorts. And everyone – regardless of their mesh shorts or blue hair – is sitting on couches or in bean bag chairs looking like they’re doing nothing, but they’re hard working, high performing, well-paid adults doing skilled work – most of them doing the work of 2 people. It’s a casual environment where we work our asses off – the stress eats us alive but I don’t have to wear business attire so I guess it’s a trade off. :)

      1. Connie-Lynne*

        My hair has been purple or green or whatever since 1987 and my 70ish mom forgot that I dyed it!

        I work in tech, as well (Director of Engineering) and my other lady friends and I joke that if our hair was a more natural color, we’d be assumed to be “non technical” in interviews. There’s some truth in the joke.

        1. TechLady*

          I swear to glob I went to a women in tech networking event recently and the advice my boss gave me to spot the developers (versus marketing/sales/biz) was the non-natural hair colors.

          And in that particular instance it was true every time.

      2. Nancie*

        I’m in my 50s. My hair is currently creamsicle-orange, and I’m in either jeans or capris year round. In the summer at least 4 of my tattoos are usually visible.

        I’m don’t even work for an IT company, just the IT department in a different industry.

    8. Tammy*

      Also in tech, and despite being a senior manager who regularly has to stand up and present stuff in front of our executive team, my ever changing hair colors seem not to phase anyone. Of course, I’m also transgender and neurodivergent, and pretty open about both, so my hair color isn’t necessarily the most interesting or unusual thing about me…

      2. anonymouse*

        I’d never heard the word “neurodivergent” before this post and I’m glad to learn a new word (especially since it describes myself). Thank you. :)

    9. AnonMurphy*

      This, and I love the tech sector for it. I’ve had purple, teal, and hot pink in the past 6 months. Also have a nose ring. Not a single issue about it AND I get to wear jeans and flipflops every day.

    10. Tau*

      I am totally looking forward to tech industry dress codes at my new job after I spent the last 1.5 years in a business casual environment. I can wear jeans again! And snazzy socks!

    11. Rincat*

      I’m in higher ed tech and can’t do the bright hair colors anymore. :( It’s still fairly casual, and I think our CIO would be cool with it, but the associate VP would NOT. He wears a full suit and tie even on casual fridays and laid-back social events.

      1. JJ*

        I did the opposite – moved from higher ed tech to non-higher ed, and immediately donated all my suits, chopped 90% of my hair off, dyed what was left as bright as I could, and the tattoos started creeping out of hideable spaces.

        I do miss higher ed, but I very don’t miss the staidness.

      2. SirTechSpec*

        I’m also in higher ed tech and fortunately, there’s one person in my workgroup who’s near retirement and doesn’t give a crap about a lot of things – and so if I ever do get around to dyeing my hair, I can just point to his example :)

        But at least we get to wear cargo pants and t-shirts (though most of my colleagues do wear button-down shirts most days.) No sense wearing heels/slacks/oxfords/ties when you’re grubbing around under desks (though that’s not actually that big a part of my job anymore.)

    12. TCB*

      I work at a business school, but in marketing, so it seems fine to also have bright purple and pink hair. In the interview it was blue, and my now bosses complimented me on it. :)

    13. JHunz*

      One coworker here for a few years had a wonderful succession of multi-color dye jobs. I love the tech industry.

      Personally, my tech industry quirk is that I change out of my shoes when I get in in the morning and put on some nice comfy work slippers.

    14. HR Bee*

      Not in tech, but both of my previous jobs have allowed funky hair! Previous job was as HR in a hippie-type local grocery store and the floor staff was allowed funky hair because it was a part of our “alternative” image, and in my current job, 90% of my interaction with staff is through email or phone anyway, so who cares what my hair looks like.

      I’m back to solid red now, but over the past two years my hair has been blue, teal, purple, blue-and-purple, blue-green-purple, purple-pink, etc. I’ll be very sad if I have to go to an environment that doesn’t allow bright colors!

    15. MonicaLane*

      My friends refer to my hair as skittles! Also in tech although I am on the admin side of things.

    16. my two cents*

      I was an applications engineer (BSEE) for a silicon company (think ‘Tinychip Technology Inc.’), where the bright red and bleached-white hair wasn’t an issue, but OH MAN that one time I dyed over the bleached blonde with crayola purple…that was apparently the line, and they had me dye over it before meeting with customers again. Was also told I couldn’t wear my septum ring in the office due to “dress code”…which was again stupid, because we were a tiny remote office (from an acquisition) as opposed to the huge headquarters in Arizona.

      Now I work in the power industry, again as an Ap Engineer. There’s good ol’ boys all over the place and it’s pretty madmen-y sexist, on the whole – but I’ll save those anecdotes for another thread. It’s funny…so many of these good ol’ boys that I run into with my shoulder-length dark purple hair (think ‘oil slick’ but in just purple) comment positively about it. They seem extra-delighted with themselves when they also notice that I tint my eyebrows to match. And my coworkers, while obnoxious and shouty and are every stereotype about sales guys, seem to find my mods and hair fascinating. These are the same sort of guys who need me to copy/paste excel charts into their PowerPoint presentations because “computers”. lol

    17. Optimistic Prime*

      +1. I work in tech, I have had several different colors in my hair. When I travel back to the East Coast I consistently get questions like “Your employer doesn’t mind that you have colored hair?” to which I respond “I am the fourth person on my team to color my hair a fantasy color.”

    18. Fake old Converse shoes*

      Even in tech the dress code changes depending on your field. I’m usually on the more relaxed side, but people in Finance or BI are strictly conservative. I take evening classes at a local university, and a teacher (who is an Oracle consultant) told my friends and I that no one in “the real world” would take us seriously unless we wore formal attire. The ones who dress casually told him where we work and what we do (one freelance remote frontend dev, a technician, a delivery guy and myself), and he dropped the issue.

      1. Meg*

        Same. Software engineer. My hair color changes every 6 months to a year.

        When I was contracting (I was contracting for 5 years before accepting a conversion to permanent with my last client), I would often tell the recruiter “I have a green mohawk and piercings and visible tattoos. Is that going to be a problem?” before accepting a phone-screen or interview with the client. I’m not going to re-color my hair or take out my piercings or cover up my tattoos for a client who doesn’t allow it when there’s a dozen more tech companies in my area that it’s not problem for.

    19. Becky*

      Tech company that does DoD work. I have a total undercut and the long remaining bit is lilac (faded from Leela purple). I regularly present to C-level execs and no one cares. My parents hate it and worry about me being able to find a job, but if a company wants to judge my haircut instead of my resume I wouldn’t take the job they offered. :-)

    20. Tris Prior*

      Yep. I work in a creative field and exactly zero Fs are given regarding what color our hair is, how many piercings we have, tattoos are plentiful and visible on many co-workers. I’m trying to think what would be out-there enough to get me in trouble, and other than racist or otherwise offensive tattoos or some of the more extreme body modifications, I’m coming up blank.

      Boyfriend will come home and announce something like, his HR has decreed that tennis shoes are no longer allowed in the office, and I’ll look at him like he’s got 2 heads. It’s been so long since I’ve worked anywhere where the dress code was more than “relevant bits covered, shirt does not contain F-word or drug reference.”

    21. Don't turn this name into a hyperlink*

      Not to derail, but I’m wondering if this is a coastal thing (at least in the U.S.), as most of the tech people I know on the East Coast dress business casual at work with haircuts within the stylistically conservative spectrum and who don’t dye their hair. These people work in purely tech-oriented companies. (This is specifically in the Northeast.)

      1. Agnes Stonewick*

        I agree that it’s probably costal, Left Coast specifically. I earned my chops in Seattle and have also worked in the SF Bay Area where looking kooky is de rigeur. I now live in the Raleigh-Durham area where there’s plenty of tech and very few kooky looking people (my chosen people).

        1. Don't turn this name into a hyperlink*

          The one thing I’ve noticed is that everyone at a tech-related mixer who’s a bona-fide professional always wears their shirts tucked in. The people I’ve seen without their shirts tucked in, based on the convos I’ve had with them, are really out of the employment loop in general. (Unrealistic expectations etc.)

          Not saying that if you’re a senior dev on the West Coast and you don’t tuck your shirt in that you don’t take your position seriously; like you say, it’s just a different culture here, and the “professional look” tends to be more stringent in general unless you’re talking blue-collar work. Rather, the implication is that if you’re on the East Coast and you want to be taken seriously, you need to look Puritan/Old World and serious; and if you’re from there and you don’t get that, then you’re probably lost.

          As a fellow West Coast transplant, you have my sympathies tho re: culture shock. I definitely have a sense of “Yay! My tribe!” if I see people with dyed hair and piercings.

      2. BananaPants*

        I think so. I’m in engineering in the Northeast working for a Fortune 50 company, and it would be frowned upon to have purple hair, a mohawk, gauged earlobes, etc. Even as an experienced individual contributor, I wouldn’t have that sort of freedom in my personal appearance. Our office dress code is business casual – no denim of any kind, no capri pants, no shorts, no casual sandals, no sneakers, and sleeveless tops are frowned upon.

      3. Fake old Converse shoes*

        As someone outside the US, it’s more related who you deal with on a daily basis. If your job involves talking to people inside the company or outside it but at your same level, there are little to no restrictions; middle management: dress shoes, nice shirts, black, navy blue or khaki trousers; upper management and C-levels: full conservative attire. Hair with unnatural colors is a big no-no (usually reserved for people in the arts, as it signals ‘eccentric’, ‘diva’ or ‘prima donna’), but tatoos are ok as long as they’re covered.

    22. Not So Little My*

      I’m in tech in Seattle and a decade or two older than the norm for that industry. I was a software engineer for many years, then switched to product/program management for a few years, but decided a couple months ago to look for jobs in development again. I just got word of a job offer a few hours ago, and the first thing I did was contact a colorist to make my hair purple. I haven’t dyed it for 15 years so I’m pretty excited.

      P.S. I’m a long-time reader, first-time commenter, and wanted to share the good news of my job offer with the folks here because I feel like you have really been by my side during my recent career transitions.

    23. dg*

      Ah, yes. I’m a manager at a game studio in Europe, which is all of the shocking things about working in Europe combined with all of the shocking things about working in tech :)

      I’m wearing flip-flops today, and often my coworkers walk around in bare feet. You work 37.5 hours a week, and our company shuts down for two weeks for summer vacation. A large portion of my job is playing mobile games from other companies on my phone, and I’ve worked at companies that would reimburse me for any in-game purchases I made while playing a competing mobile game. My hair has been many colors and I’m covered in tattoos. Alcohol is plentiful.

    24. Floundering Mander*

      I know several archaeologists that have improbable hair (wild dreadlocks, every color imaginable, choppy asymmetrical punk rock looks). Your hair is not an issue when you wear a hard hat all day.

  12. Malibu Stacey*

    I work in Finance – I had to pass a criminal background & credit check to get the job. I could have been ineligible for hire if I had a personal bankruptcy for debt besides medical bills, had a conviction for something not money-related (like a DWI), if I had failed to disclose any misdemeanors besides speeding tickets (like an underage drinking ticket 20 years ago) or a bad credit report. And I could be terminated for any of these things if discovered or they took place after I was hired.

          1. Becky*

            +1 fed job where they interview neighbors and require reporting of certain mental health meds

            1. dg*

              I had a friend who was a defense contractor. He had an affair, and it was policy that he had to tell his company before he told his wife because they needed to assess whether he was at risk for blackmail.

        2. cookie monster*

          +1 for lending specific finance, with the addition that in my state, I can lose my license to do my job if I ever had been 30 days late 3x on Anything (even 3 different things 1x each) or if I ever had a tax lien of any sort, it would have to be immediately paid in full or I would risk my license. This is similar in other states but I don’t know how strict they are on the specifics. Pretty much immaculate credit is required.

    2. Chinook*

      DH’s job as a member Canada’s national police force with the added bonus that they have the legal authority to ask his doctor for any and all medical history at any time to ensure that he is fit for duty. This was proven when the head of the force, before a senate committee, explained in detail the mental health history of a couple of police offices who had appeared before the commission and talked negatively about him.

      Turns out this is the only employer in Canada allowed to do that. Even the military only requires a doctor to declare someone fit/unfit for duty, no details required.

    3. The Cosmic Avenger*

      And IIRC (this was a LONG time ago), for my original background check I had to list every place I’d lived in the last 20 years, and someone who knew me when I lived at that location, including contact information. There were a couple of apartments I lived in for a year or two where I didn’t really talk to my neighbors much, so I wound up putting friends from back home or work who knew me then…even if they had never seen that apartment!

      1. Chinook*

        You mean not everybody has a spreadsheet on their phone documenting their residential addresses since they graduated high school?

      3. Elizabeth West*

        I had to do that for an internship at the police department (just addresses). I didn’t get the internship–they told me it was really close but they picked the other candidate. I saved the information, however, just in case I ever needed it again.

    4. Anon not allowed as a name anymore?*

      Foreign Service is similar, with the added joy of needing a signed form to get married (what do you mean I need a “Permission to Marry” form??”).

      We can also be pulled from our assignments overseas over any physical/mental health issues of our own or of our family members.

      The latter tends to have the impact you might expect, which is officers not seeking help for PTSD or postpartum depression or sexual/physical assault, for fear that they will be sent home and “blacklisted” for cutting an assignment abroad short.

      1. Anon not allowed as a name anymore?*

        Sorry, just thought of another one.

        Health claims need to be signed off on by your boss or admin permission and your Ambassador. It’s completely normal for the entire Embassy to know your health issues before lunchtime.

      2. I heart Jared Dunn*

        This is also true if your spouse works in the intelligence community. I had to fill out an “intent to marry” form more detailed than my own security clearance form to marry my now husband. Plus we also had to submit a “roommate” form because we moved in together one month before we got married. Plus annual financial disclosures (my husband gets to listen to a two day rant every year for that form, but he gets all needed info).

    5. S*

      Finance, too. One senior manager makes a point at quarterly meetings of telling stories (no names) of stupid things employees did that got them fired or warned. The one that stands out in my memory was when someone got on a commuter train so plastered that the conductor couldn’t wake them up to get their ticket, so they got a misdemeanor. Second misdemeanor would cost their job.

      1. Malibu Stacey*

        Not at my current company but at a competitor had their office downtown a guy went to happy hour and decided to keep the party rolling. He missed the last bus home – not sure why he didn’t suck it up and take a cab but he decided to sleep under his desk and got canned for being at the office where they had personal client info at an unauthorized time.

    6. The Expendable Redshirt*

      +1 informal trusteeship. I couldn’t do my job if there was bankruptcy or bank robbery type stuff on my life.

    7. Jesmlet*

      +1 domestic staffing agency, credit check is super important for our clients who need to trust that the people working in their home aren’t in dire straits and likely to steal

      1. PaperTowel*

        That’s kinda sad and discriminatory. I know plenty of people with poor credit, including myself, who are trustworthy and would never steal.

        1. Wintermute*

          and it’s worse than that, it does no good, there’s plenty of rich people that WOULD steal.

        2. Amazed*

          There are no easy answers when the choice is either ‘be sad and discriminatory’ or ‘fail to protect oneself or one’s charge from harm’.

  13. (Different) Rebecca*

    I’m tattooed, pierced, with an untameable mane of rainbow streaked hair down past my butt, and I regularly wear comic movie character t-shirts to work–I’m a practicing and teaching bioanthropologist, and no one gives two tail shakes.

    1. mlem*

      +1 anthropology. Nobody really cares how many visible tattoos you have or what piercings you have when you’re digging holes.

    2. LK*

      Bioanthropology? Does this cross over into ethnobotany? What, in a “simplified so much it’s almost incorrect due to overgeneralization” way, does your field entail?! I am intrigued!!

      (I used to work as a park naturalist after college and we had ethnobotany and native plant use stuff and it always fascinated me)

      1. (Different) Rebecca*

        Not entirely, no–bioanth is the study of the physical aspect of humanity/human culture, and encompasses primatology (monkeys/apes), DNA studies/biochemical studies (where you came from/where you are now, based on the chemical residues in your bones), kinesiology (the study of human movement), paleoanthropology (human origins/prehistory), forensics (anatomical research into the recently dead to help the police), and osteology or human skeletal biology. I’m specifically an osteologist–I look at bones and how their shape effects their function. My dissertation is on the effects of corseting on the female skeleton.

        Ethnobotany would be either cultural anthropology (if the researcher is doing ethnographies/oral history based research) or archaeology (if they’re looking at excavated plant materials).

        6. The OG Anonsie*

          I wanna read that paper… !

          Chiming in for everyone else’s benefit, this is also sometimes called physical anthropology. Not to be confused with medical anthropology, which is typically more on the cultural/social anthropology branch and studies the culture side of medicine.

            1. Saturnalia*

              Thanks so much for sharing! Very interesting and not what I expected (not that I have any knowledge on the topic, I just hadn’t considered how much women determined the course of corsetry fashion).

      1. (Different) Rebecca*

        My secondary specialty is archaeology. It’s a wild bunch. At the SAA conference one year in Memphis, we drank the bar out of glasses. *grin*

  14. EddieSherbert*

    I’m at a vendor for outdoor products, and it’s extremely casual…

    People often wear their workout clothes (including cycling spandex!) back to desks to cool down a bit before showering. Drinking in the office is very normal – I know another department has a keg sitting out by their break area. We’re also pretty close with a lot of retailers (our customers), so there’s a lot of teasing/swearing on phone calls, and occasional drinks with some of them. One customer we’re had for years sends us all mardi gras beads/treats every year.

    1. C Average*

      I used to work for a sportswear company (footwear, apparel, and gear), and it wasn’t unusual for employees to participate in wear-testing. I’d often return from my lunch break wearing shorts, a sports bra, and three different GPS watches on each arm. I’d throw on a sweatshirt (our brand, of course) and get straight back to work.

      True story: once we had a last-minute department-wide town hall (we’re talking several hundred people in a ballroom) scheduled right after lunch. I’d already planned to go running at lunch, so I figured I’d go straight to the meeting afterward and slip in the back.

      I left a long-sleeve top at the start of my running loop, intending to put it on over my sports bra when I finished. But the landscape crew removed it, so I had to skulk into the meeting half-dressed. And then the department VP called me out for a recent accomplishment and made me stand up and be recognized. So awkward. I’m glad I was in racing shape when that happened.

      1. EddieSherbert*

        Haha, that’s too funny! 99% of my company would assume something exactly like that (caught her right before or after workout) – and then definitely give you crap later.

        We also have a gym, locker rooms, and showers, so I suppose I could also add that I’ve seen a lot of coworkers in various states of undress, which is probably weird…

    2. Turquoise Cow*

      I briefly worked for a very health-focused retailer, and their dress code (in corporate) was basically wear what is health-friendly 94 promotes health — which is insanely broad. They didn’t care if you wore jogging pants and sneakers. Most people stuck with something that vaguely resembled extra casual business causal. I had a lot of that from my previous job so I was probably dressed up more than I needed to be.

    3. EddieSherbert*

      …. also just found out that another department did some kind of swimsuit thing today? So there’s legit people walking around in swimsuits. Including a guy in a speedo (with a shirt, so I guess that helps)?

      Noooo ideaaaaa.

  15. Meg*

    Stagehand: We sleep in hammocks after load-in (setup) before the show starts.

    Software engineer: Office provides alcohol on Fridays, and we stroll into work between 7am and 10am and leave between 3pm and 6pm. Super lax dress code, and we curse. A lot.

      1. Saturnalia*

        +having the most epic emerald hair.

        Please excuse the hearts flying from my eyes toward your hairs, Meg.

      2. Connie-Lynne*

        Hee hee I do stagework and computer engineering, too. I have degrees in EE and “Fine and Performing Arts.”

        2. Sparkly Librarian*

          See, I read this and had to double-check the commenter name, because it wasn’t CL!

      3. SusanIvanova*

        I got to hang out with the sound guys at a Duran Duran concert because a former software co-worker had moved on to running his own sound company.

    2. AnonMurphy*

      Oh the cursing. And the ‘that’s what she said’ jokes, which we women make as often as the men. And the Friday booze. GOD I love being in tech :)

    3. chelle*

      I just moved out of tech and so miss the cursing!! Biting my tongue all day!

      Luckily I have regular happy hours with my tech people and our greeting is “F&*k You” and “Hey F&*k You, too”.

    4. phil*

      Wow, hammocks. When I was a roadie and live sound mixer I just sacked out under the console.

      1. kitryan*

        all the places I worked in theater just had loads of ratty couches everywhere – usually what was too torn up for props.

    6. TechLady*

      Also in tech. We have a hammock in the office just for whenever! I’ve never slept in it myself, but I’ve seen other people sleep in it. It lives in one of the lounge areas near our finance department (open office floorplan)

    7. O'Bunny*

      I’ve noted other stage crew asleep in hammocks slung under a working stage. Fast asleep, with a band playing a foot or so above them. An internationally-known, *loud* heavy metal band.

    8. ArtsNerd*

      I used to have ‘artist services’ among my job duties, and I do miss those 12 hour days where 75% was just hanging out with the crew doing crosswords and shooting the shit.

  16. Red Reader*

    As long as they’re in a medical record I have reason to be accessing, nobody bats an eyelash at any naked body parts visible on my screen.

    (Aside from the part where, if there’s pictures of them in the medical record, they’re probably infected, inflamed, oozing, broken, or otherwise remarkably unpleasant to look at.)

    1. Red Reader*

      Also, not so much a “thing that is chill in my industry” but a thing that is (I think) somewhat unusual: in the entire structure of my department, including management all the way up to our VP level, we have about 10% men to 90% women. And of the men, only two (out of about 15) are higher up the org chart than an individual contributor level – our management team is overwhelmingly female at all levels.

      1. Rainy, PI*

        +1–my office of 50+ has 4 regular staff that are male. Of our interns and student employees, it’s still about 90% female. (Higher ed.)

        1. Red Reader*

          Yeah, I’m in medical finance. We have about a half dozen male ICs (out of probably 70 total), one male manager out of eight, no male directors or exec directors (6 female), and our VP is a guy. (But our CFO is a woman.)

      2. Not That Kind of Coder*

        Ha! I’m also in the finance side of medicine and there are two men in our entire department structure (CFO on down). My husband works in IT and has the opposite structure. He’s always joking about my office’s “lack of diversity hires” and “token males”.

    2. Treecat*

      I used to TA an anatomy dissection lab at a university. When the department upgraded the faculty’s computers, our professor had to warn the IT guy that there would be all sorts of naked corpse pictures on hers.

    3. Suzy Q*

      Similar to this, I used to have piles of medical records in my office, and I had a photo of someone’s oozing butt on top of one pile for weeks. Didn’t even notice it until someone pointed it out. When you see crazy medical mishap photos all the time, you become inured.

      1. Red Reader*

        I have not managed to become inured, hah. I have this remarkable ability to open the charts that have pictures of infected anal fissures that were mis-filed in the chart to places other than the “photographs” folder.

    4. Theo*

      I can actually SEE a picture of exposed body parts from where I’m sitting, and in any department I walk through — my entire job early in my career (I work in medical publishing) was checking through an directory of explicit medical photos. Completely normal. Don’t remember the last time before this I registered it as odd.

    5. Anonicat*

      Ha yes in skin cancer research, and I have pics of people in their underwear on my screen all the time.

      Instead when I was counting iris freckles a while back and everyone would start when they passed my computer because the screen was always full of a hugely magnified eye. It was like passing Barad-Dur.

  17. Katelyn M*

    Political campaigns- we drink. A LOT. It’s not uncommon to see someone crack a beer at their desk at 11am on a Tuesday.

  18. Antilles*

    The machete thing made me think of my manager at OldJob who had a framed photo on her office wall of her carrying a giant scythe, with a furious look on her face. Nobody ever commented on it, because we were a construction firm so carrying tools like that (and making jokes about it) is completely standard within the industry.
    I’m pretty sure in most industries, that photo would have gotten her escorted out by security, possibly in handcuffs.

    1. Paige Turner*

      That’s amazing :) My middle school French teacher is from the Caribbean, and she told the story about how when she was teaching at another school in the US and wanted to bring in some items from home to demonstrate Caribbean culture and history. Apparently, the panicked principal told her, “You can’t bring a machete here!!”

    2. Antilles*

      Also, it’s common in the construction management industry to not have the slightest clue where anybody is. Each person manages their own projects and might need to visit a site with no warning, so there’s plenty of times where someone just straight up vanished without a trace for hours on end and nobody has a clue where they are or when they’ll return. At the extreme, it’s not unheard of for people to be gone so often without telling anybody that co-workers legitimately can’t tell the difference between “in the field” and “quit two weeks ago”.

      1. Chinook*

        I laughed the day I was working in an office and couldn’t open up a well sealed box. I took out my swiss army knife and sliced it open on my desk. Everyone around me just went silent until my boss asked me why I carried a knife. I just shrugged and said I thought everyone did. Turns out what is normal in rural Alberta (where my Mom carried one in the form of a business card) is not at all acceptable in downtown Ottawa. Who knew?

        1. Engineer*

          As an engineer in a major urban city, literally all of us carry a heavy-duty multi-tool with a legit knife blade in it on our person at all times. If there’s a sealed package and 4 people don’t pull out their knife to open it, that’d be weird.

          1. DevManager*

            No multitool here, but I carry a beer opener on my key ring due to several software development jobs where build night beers were common and being tired of waiting for one to free up.

            1. Free Meerkats (formerly Gene)*

              Currently on me, multitool with blade, sailing knife for cutting things that might be sewage contaminated, pocketknife for cutting things that aren’t, and a Swiss-Tech Utilikey that goes everywhere with me, including through TSA.

          2. Formica Dinette*

            I laughed because my dad is an engineer and he always has at least a small Swiss Army knife on him. I have countless vivid memories of him pulling his knife out of his pocket. Which sounds evil without proper context.

          3. BananaPants*

            Also an engineer, and here in suburbia I tote a mini multitool on my keychain and have a Swiss Army knife in my purse. I’m always amazed that other people don’t. Growing up, my dad (not an engineer) always had a small Swiss Army knife on his person; I learned it from him.

        2. Tongue Cluckin' Grammarian*

          I work in a lab in Texas and I’m one of four people (3 women, 1 man) well-known in our office to carry at least one knife on my person at all times.
          I open a lot of boxes and it’s just simpler (plus, I keep a knife on me as a matter of habit already). One of the techs and another of the support staff always have one or more knives on them too, and the three of us have been known to gush about new sharps.
          Just the fact that we have knives spurred our boss to do the same, and they’re the #4.

          (You would think this would be a common thing in Texas, but it’s apparently not. And especially not in medical.)

        3. Stinky Socks*

          My kids’ pediatrician, sadly now retired, was never without his pocket-knife, tucked into his business slacks, accompanied by the button-down, necktie and stethoscope. I remember him telling me once that he’d been carrying it since a chemistry class in college (I forget the reasoning) and after 9/11 he was worried that he’d forget to pack in it luggage before a flight and have it confiscated…

      2. Mints*

        Oh man, that happened at my old job! We pulled a tech from the regular field to do low level service. He had a list of tickets. It was good for a couple days then like a week later his manager (lateral to me) was like “Have you seen Tom recently?”
        Me: No, why? Did you lose Tom?
        ….
        But it turns out he was working, just not checking in or recording tickets.

        I teased the manager about it a lot

        1. heatherskib*

          She is pretty awesome. Angry borrowers weren’t too much for her to worry about though since she wrestled gators as a hobby.

  19. HR Hopeful*

    I work in a call center and our dress code is extremely relaxed to the point where my supervisor wears yoga pants almost everyday.

    1. Jaybeetee*

      I actually have an office job that is just about as laid back. I wear jeans nearly daily, but I’ve seen tank tops and yoga pants around, as well as flip-flops and decidedly short skirts.

      1. EddieSherbert*

        Ditto! I don’t know how I’ll manage if I ever got a job that doesn’t allow jeans!

    2. k.k*

      When I worked in a call center people it was crazy casual. Especially on weekend days, since the non-call center staff wasn’t in the building and our department was a skeleton crew. People showed up in pajamas. On the day after Halloween, on girl had been out partying all night and showed up still in her costume (Snookie from Jersey Shore)…though very disheveled by that point.

      1. HR Hopeful*

        We will also have ‘pj days’ when we work half-days around the holidays as well which is always fun. We don’t have them as much anymore b/c we are getting to be more co-ed and my boss didn’t think it was appropriate at that point.

    3. Science!*

      I work in a lab and we all dress very casually. In fact, aside from working at a movie theater one summer in college, I’ve never had a job with much of a dress code (except close-toed shoes and long pants or leggings).

      In fact, not long after I started my post-doc, I had to give a presentation for a group of about 20. I dressed up in business casual and got ribbed for being “fancy”. So the next time I had to give a presentation to that group, I wore my best flannel shirt and hiking boots.

        1. Science!*

          Oh yes, you put EVERYTHING in your CV. I saw a faculty member list every single person he’d mentored in a long list (including those whose thesis committee he was on, but was not the primary advisor for). I was so excited the day my CV extended to 3 pages (by a line, so I shortened back to 2 for the time being to it doesn’t look weird).

  20. Gen*

    Working in the admin side of emergency animal care and you notice that the person sitting next to you has a shirt pocket full of baby animals just peeping away. No one ever mentions it and you never find out what animals they are. Another coworker comes in looking harassed and hands you a cardboard box with the instruction ‘look after this a minute’. You make the mistake of looking inside. Half a dozen orphan ducklings have now imprinted on you, congrats.

    1. LK*

      omg and then you get to be the chick in the Fly Away Home movie though!!!!!

      KI’llshowmyselfoutnow…

    2. Teapot Librarian*

      I would love to have a shirt pocket full of baby animals! (Preferably kittens.)

    4. LeeGull*

      Former PR Asst at a humane society here. Totally this!! Dress code included hoodies with the HS’s logo, so pouch babies and hood babies were not uncommon! But as the professional side of things, with an actual office, I always needed a change of clothes. Might be doing a local news interview in the afternoon depending on how the morning went, but the odds of stepping in feces was ever-present, as was jumping up to unload an unexpected van-ful of hoarded animals in varying states of cleanliness.
      (Once after one of those van loads, I managed to give my personal cat fleas. Me, a human, had enough fleas in me and my clothes to share them with my poor cat. He, as well as my husband, were delighted when I moved on from that job!)

  21. Nora*

    Not my day job, but I volunteer at a zoo and I talk about nothing but poop (consistency, smell), sex (positions, frequency, desire), death (inevitability), and animals eating other animals. Sometimes I forget to not take those conversations with me when I go elsewhere.

    2. Amadeo*

      Yes, there’s no other job quite like vet med, where poop can be exciting. I’ve done AI in cattle, with my arm in a cow’s backside up to the shoulder and cleaned a horse’s sheath (only once, I am very allergic to horses and did this one because the vet supervising didn’t believe me until I broke out in hives). I don’t work as a CVT anymore, but those were interesting times.

    3. hermit crab*

      That’s also my volunteer job! I think the number one most common phrase shared between staff/volunteers is “did it eat?” followed closely by “was there any excrement?” I have mostly worked with invertebrates and (for a short time) herps, so in some cases a positive response to either of those questions was a really big freaking deal!

      1. Nora*

        I talk mostly with (or at) the public, so I get lots of questions like “why is there a goldfish swimming in that cat’s water bowl?” or people accusing the zoo of abuse because a 30-year-old bear died.

        1. hermit crab*

          Ha, yes. Also:
          “What does it eat?”
          “How long does it live?”
          “Is it a boy or a girl?”
          “Where is the bathroom?”

    6. Dust Bunny*

      I used to be a veterinary assistant and, wow, parenting websites have *nothing* on veterinary staff where discussion of bodily effluvia is concerned. We can talk about every poop mishap they can, except across multiple species.

    7. Murphy*

      Yes! I used to work in animal welfare. My friends and I were talking about workplace conversations, and I just said, “We talk about poop a lot…”

    8. Stall mucker*

      I work part-time at a horse farm and so poop-related conversations are a regular occurrence. It’s a riding stable, not a breeding farm, which cuts down on the discussion topics that would be inappropriate elsewhere, but mares still do go into heat, and geldings do need their sheaths cleaned.

    9. Shark Whisperer*

      A coworker at OldJob was fired for “sexual harassment” (she wasn’t actually harassing anyone, she was just being a lesbian near a super religious person, which the religious person found to be harassing). She obviously took legal action and I volunteer to be a witness that she definitely never sexually harassed anyone. Her lawyer was interviewing me and asked if coworked ever talked about sex at lunch in front of offended person and I had to explain that all zoo keepers/ aquarists ever talk about is sex and poop.

    10. Shark Whisperer*

      I don’t think my other reply posted, but I have another story to share. My immediate colleagues and I sent another department poop as a practical joke. Every one loved it because it was parrot fish poop (which is basically sand). This particular poop was also from Aruba and one of the recipients collects sand from different places and did have Aruba sand yet. I can’t think of another job besides an aquarium where you can send someone in another department poop and they say they are going to take it home and add it to their collection.

      (Also this story will definitely out me if anyone I work with also reads this so heyyyy)

    12. Bird Trainer*

      Yes! All the gross animal conversations happen at zoo jobs! ;)

      Not just poop, pee, blood… But some animals (I’m looking at you, parrots!) masturbate… a lot.

  22. DatSci*

    Rage-yelling and name calling are pretty much par for the course in market research and data science. In fact, they’re so prevalent its considered to be part of new researcher training to be screamed at and called incompetent.
    The purpose of this is to make you impenetrable to the reactions you’ll get from stakeholders throughout your career, especially since a lot of the time, you’re presenting findings that powerful people DO NOT want to hear. The theory is that if you’re trained early on to develop a thick skin and not let this behavior bother you, you’ll better be able to navigate being in the hot seat with clients/executives/researchers holding an opposing view.
    I find it surprising to see how sensitive to criticism and yelling most other commenters here are, all that was beaten out of me years ago…

    1. JB (not in Houston)*

      It’s not that they’re “sensitive.” It’s that yelling and inappropriate criticism* aren’t appropriate in most work places.
      And I’d guess that you could train someone to have thick skin without constantly yelling at them and calling them incompetent–I had a workplace like that and it didn’t give me thick skin, it made me not want to share anything that would get me yelled at. I developed thick skin from working somewhere I was trusted and valued. Obviously everyone is different, but for me knowing I *wasn’t* seen as incompetent and worthless allowed me to let unfounded criticism roll off my back. But clearly that worked for you and your coworkers, so to each their own.

      *I don’t see most commenters here being defensive or sensitive to any and all criticism.

          1. Anonymous 40*

            +1
            I wouldn’t last a week in that environment. Not because I’m thin skinned but because I have too much self respect to tolerate being treated that way.

            1. Wintermute*

              +1

              exactly. I am a professional, I bring valuable skills and experience to the table. The era of my career where I had “hire ’em in masses, train ’em in classes and kick ’em in the asses” careers is over. I demand to be treated like a competent professional because I am.

              I’ve HAD those jobs, I could put up with those jobs, if I had to, so survive. I don’t have to anymore, I won’t work someplace that doesn’t treat me with respect.

            2. only acting normal*

              My long time colleague reviewed my paper the other week and included much red ALL CAPS text followed by excessive “!!!” usage, not to mention insinuations of my being unintelligent.
              My refusal to take such s*** means he’s been apologising to me ever since. :)
              His excuse was he’s been on the receiving end of similar from others. Nope. It’s unprofessional whoever is dishing it, and accepting it from others is where he went wrong (as well as thinking he could copy them.) I’m also a reviewer and I know how to deliver a hard review without being an asshat.

              NB – After I’d cooled down, I completely took on board the actual *content* of his comments – the problem was solely the delivery.

      2. Thicket*

        I imagine there’s also a fairly large difference between a workplace where it’s the commonly held wisdom that everyone needs to acclimate to high levels of conflict in order to work with clients effectively, and one where people are being yelled at just because the yelling party doesn’t know how to communicate or enjoys watching the yelled-at party squirm.

        There’s a difference between “cultivating an unflappable demeanor” and “acquiescing to abuse and gaslighting.”

    2. Mary, Not Rhoda*

      Same in my job. Sometimes I think about how sensitive I was 5 years ago compared to now and it’s like night and day.

    3. extra anon today*

      As someone who also works in market research, I have to ask where in the world you live that this is the norm. I’m in the midwest, in a mid-size city, and I have to say I’ve NEVER seen someone get yelled at or called incompetent on the job. Yes, stakeholders do often get upset or angry but how in the world would that justify abusing your employees??? If my coworkers treated me as you described above I would have left the job and field years ago.

      2. Hamilton Reference*

        I named my work computer Aaron Burr. Every time it freezes up, I mutter “You are the worst, Burr.” It makes me feel a little better.

    5. mooocow*

      Huh. I also work in Data Science (e-commerce), but hereabouts it would be a total no-go to yell at coworkers or subordinates. What we do have a lot of is irony, sarcasm, and utterly bizarre jokes to the point that it is sometimes hard to figure out what people really mean and what’s a joke. There is a lot of mutual teasing that would definitely not fly in other industries.

      Another thing that amazes me is that in my job, the hierarchies are so flat that mostly everyone just does what they want, or we hash it out as a team. It works, because we’re a bunch of smart people who actually want to make things work, and I’m very happy with this setup, but it’s not what I expected to find outside of academia.

      Dress code is also really casual – tank top, shorts, and flip flops are deemed totally adequate business attire.

    6. The Cosmic Avenger*

      I’m surprised that this isn’t standard practice in the consulting industry in general. I’ve had great clients, but I’ve heard horror stories about not just abuse, but sabotage and illegal activity (embezzlement, fraud, etc.) by clients and consultants.

    7. Josh S*

      As someone who works in Market Research/Data Science (and has for ~9 years across multiple clients and employers), I have not ever been rage-yelled at or name-called.

      You may have had an unusual experience for our industry.

    8. Rebekah L*

      Uh, no, this is not standard for the industry. At all! I’m afraid you may have just have had a really bad experience and have mistakenly assumed this is normal. It’s really not. Source: twenty-two years working in market research at six major employers.

      I’m so so sorry someone did that to you.

    9. Data analyst*

      I also work in data science and this is totally not my experience. My coworkers are kind and polite. Being verbally abusive to colleagues or losing your temper would not be tolerated. Even raising your voice would raise eyebrows.

  23. HigherEdPerson*

    Digital badges. :-)

    We are also supportive of 2+ page resumes, talking about our feelings, and it’s TOTALLY frowned upon to give just 2 weeks notice. And to give short notice mid-semester —ooooooh you’d get black-balled fast. We’re a pretty interconnected field, so someone always knows someone else.

    2. Shoe Ruiner*

      Hey, me too. The amount of personal information shared is bananas. Also more of a work hard/play hard culture than you would think from the outside. Lots of bonding over drinking, at least where I have worked.

      1. AnotherHigherEdPerson*

        I knew it must be student affairs before I saw the follow up comment. I once gave notice in October for a May end-date after my boss asked me about my plans, and it was totally normal. Other things that are totally normal: living where you work, very casual work environments with TONS of free t-shirts, meal plans, having to teach people you can’t just hug everyone without checking in with them first, and generally odd personal boundaries. I now work as an academic adviser which is still in higher ed and draws heavily on my student affairs background but does seem to have a bit less of the student affairs norms. On the other hand, the power dynamics within an academic department and the way the chair isn’t so much the boss as the only person willing to do this lousy job definitely make navigation interesting.

        1. Shoe Ruiner*

          Going to camp with or rooming with coworkers at a conference (I’ve shared a room with my manager plenty of times and never thought it was weird).

      2. AnonIHE*

        Hahahaha…and I knew by the first words that you are my people.

        I’m in conduct/title IX so I spend time reading through students’ social media accounts (for evidence), interviewing students and asking them super awkward questions (what did you do with the condom afterwards? how many thrusts exactly?), and educating myself about sex culture via urbandictionary.com.

        1. ConductAnon*

          THIS. I am in conduct now, after being in residence life before, and it is amazing the questions I have asked students that felt totally normal at the time. (“How often do you practice Japanese rope bondage for stress relief? How do you navigate that with your roommate?”)

          1. HigherEdPerson*

            Well. That’s…interesting.

            I’m trying to imagine the logistics of that in a tiny res hall room.

    3. Shauna in higher ed*

      Also, obsession with parents’ possible opinions/reactions to many situations: “the student is responsible for X egregious behavior, but in planning our response we have to think of how the parents would react …” ESPECIALLY if the parents are donors or potential donors. I didn’t experience this much in previous jobs, so I don’t think it’s universal, but it’s come up repeatedly in my current role. To the extent that the development office will “check in” about the progress of students from wealthy families to ensure their needs are being met.

      1. HigherEdPerson*

        uuughhhhh yes. The “having to give a crap” about parents and family members. That wouldn’t fly anywhere else except for another educational setting!

        1. HigherEdPerson*

          My office is currently vibrating from the drilling and hammering going on one floor down.

          Oh and ALL THE ACRONYMS ALL THE TIME.
          “Are you going to NASPA?”
          “No, I’ll either be at NACA or ACUI, but maybe I can talk the VP into letting me go to to ACPA or LEI instead? I hear MMI applications just opened, though.”

    5. cleo*

      And all the married couples working in the same institution, and sometimes even the same dept.

      I’ve worked in higher ed both as faculty and staff (in web/marketing and instructional design), although not Student Affairs.

    6. AnonIHE*

      Preferred pronouns as a way of introduction- in an email signature, on a nametag (especially at conferences), and even at the start of meetings.

    7. Anxa*

      I’m in higher ed have the opposite experience. My supervisors are very understanding that I could be gone whenever, but I typically don’t do that. I gave 1 month notice for my last move and my bosses at current job took it pretty well when I changed my availability early semester.

      But I’m part-time, hourly, no benefits.

    8. AspiringSexTherapist*

      I’m an administrative assistant for two sex coaches. One of my bosses teaches a very popular class about squirting, so I have watched him give a live demo where he made one of my other coworkers squirt.
      And overall, just a lot of explicit conversations and very casual dress code (if I get hot, I take off my shirt). Their mission is to make this kinda sex Ed accessible and normalized, so it all feels very in line with that mission. I love it, but I’m very aware that many people would not.

      1. AspiringSexTherapist*

        I swear to God I clicked leave a new comment!!! Sorry this showed up as a reply here!!!

  24. Kyrielle*

    This is less “my industry” and more “this company”, but clothing does trend casual in my industry, and I had a coworker (he’s taken a different job since) who showed up every day in cargo shorts. (Including in the winter. I don’t even. Brrrr.)

    1. Paige Turner*

      I could go on and on about the super casual (like, midnight at the convenience store-level casual) outfits I’ve seen here…I’m a contractor at a federal building, and basically many feds who aren’t trying to get promoted dress very casually.

      1. Former Retail Manager*

        Fed here…so true. Mostly call center people for my organization, but we have some degreed, licensed professionals that look like they’re either headed to a gym or out to the street corner to panhandle. Bizarre!

    3. mskyle*

      My (financial technology) company also trends extremely casual – the interns are generally the best-dressed people in the office and one of my coworkers just walked by barefoot (sometimes he wears bunny slippers). Cargo shorts and sandals-with-socks are standard attire.

    4. Just J.*

      +1

      Shorts are the norm for my office. Even in the winter (and we are in the northeast). As are concert tees, Under Armour, and flip flops. Our jobs are stressful and it’s nice to be able to be this casual about what we wear.

      We have been advised to keep spare clothes at our desks or in our cars for when clients “pop by” (we usually have an hour to 24 hours notice) so we can “clean up our act”and “look the part.”

  25. Nonnonnon*

    Apparently sexual harassment is perfectly acceptable at my [former] company, if they claim it’s not “pervasive or severe” and was perpetrated by a coworker, not a supervisor.

    1. Brendioux*

      Ugh yes, the construction company have a lot of casual sexism, sexual harassment and even racism filling the office and as far as I know, this is pretty common in the industry…

    2. Quinalla*

      I work adjacent to the construction industry and while I’d say on average the sexism and racism is better than when I started, it’s still appalling compared to most. Though I do think it has gotten worse during and since the election, definitely emboldened some folks.

  26. Jeff*

    I work in Christian Higher Education (think private Christian colleges and seminaries). It’s very common for staff meetings to start with prayer and prayer requests, where people will reveal pretty personal parts of their life. Everything we do is often prefaced or ended with references to God’s work in what we’re doing. In some cases, it extends into practices around the campus. Because of our difficult financial situation (common for a lot of higher ed school, but especially Christian schools), our president recently encouraged faculty and staff to fast on Tuesdays and set aside time praying during lunch for guidance on how to navigate our way through difficult financial times. Not mandated, but encouraged. Since I’m an administrator, I also had to sign a statement of faith affirming my Christian belief. Again, pretty tame since it’s pretty standard Christian values; nothing too crazy.

    I have a couple friends who work at a much more conservative Christian school. That school has everyone on staff sign a statement of faith, and part of it is a requirement that you’ve spoken in tongues. If you haven’t done that, you are basically limited in what roles you can serve in at the school, and you have to sign an addendum that states that even if you haven’t spoken in tongues that you’re open to the possibility of that happening to you. Being a mainline Protestant (Presbyterian), I would never want to work at a place like that, but I bump elbows with colleagues who work in institutions like that. So there are some pretty crazy things that would never fly in other environments.

      1. ByLetters*

        My jaw legit dropped over this one. And as someone who’s not at all familiar with this .. is that .. normal for that denomination/faith? For everyone to experience that? Is the idea that, what, they’ve been “touched” by God in some way? I am so confused and yet horrified/fascinated.

        1. Jeff*

          For the really conservative school, I don’t know if that’s “the norm” for every school you would find, but there are some denominations that are huge sticklers on speaking in tongues. It’s sort of like a badge of honor for them, and it’s based primarily on a really dubious reading of Acts 2. It’s really weird and off-putting to me.

      1. Jeff*

        Oh, for sure. You’d be pretty hard pressed to find someone who agrees 100% with a statement of faith. Especially at my school, there’s not a whole lot that would be outwardly facing. Most of it is, “I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ” etc. At more conservative places, you will sometimes find things that say that you’re not allowed to drink or dance (yes, really, it’s ridiculous) in those agreements. The only way that plays out at my school is that we can’t get reimbursed for alcohol at meals, and on campus events have to be dry. So basically as long as the school isn’t paying for it, the expectations are probably pretty standard for any work place (don’t show up to work drunk, don’t get plastered when meeting with clients, etc).

        1. Elizabeth West*

          The no drinking, dancing, cursing, sex, being gay, etc. is in the agreement for a Christian college here, on their careers page. They outright state that they prefer to hire church members, or at least people who conform to the code of conduct. I would never get a job there because I do almost everything on their list. ;D

          1. Anonymous 40*

            One of the ones here has all those requirements, the statement of faith, and that you be an active member of a church in their denomination.

      2. Julianne*

        I did when I was briefly employed at a religious non-profit that was affiliated with a conservative Christian school. While I did not personally agree with the “values statement” (which was in line with what Jeff described, belief in God, Jesus the son of God, etc., nothing about personal conduct or sexual orientation), I felt that I would be comfortable with the probably minimal extent to which I’d need to actively engage with the organization’s/school’s religious teachings in my job. (My immigrant ESL students may have wanted to have lengthy discussions about faith…but since they primarily spoke Karen and Bhutanese and Tigrinya and I did not, that kind of settled that.)

      3. Chinook*

        “do people ever lie about being more faithful just to get the job?”

        Enough that, to get a job in a Catholic school system in Alberta, you need a letter of reference from a parish priest (or a minister or religious leader from whichever religion you are a part of) to basically prove that a)you know where there is a church, b)the priest has seen you enough to know you are a member and c)you haven’t done anything bad enough in the community for him to remember you for it.

    3. HigherEdPerson*

      WOW.

      I work at a Jesuit institution and we are WAAAAAY more chill than that. I’m Jewish and very welcomed here.

      1. Jeff*

        Yeah, I’ve found Catholic and Mainline Protestant institutions to be way more chill. I went to a somewhat conservative Christian school for my undergrad, and even there I didn’t agree with a lot of the policies. I’m way more comfortable where I’m at now.

      2. Bridget*

        YAY Jesuits!! I went to Boston College so I am a big fan of the Jesuits. I had a Jewish friend when I was there who would come to mass almost every week, just because he enjoyed the fellowship. :)

        1. Natalie*

          A friend of mine teaches at a Catholic school and they have a number of practicing Muslim students. Their parents wanted a decent private school that they could afford, and in our area that’s the parochial schools.

          1. Sara without an H*

            I now work at a Catholic women’s college affiliated with the Sisters of Mercy. We’ve had a number of young Muslim women students here, and they seem to feel very comfortable.

            And the Sisters of Mercy are also chill…

          2. MommaTRex*

            Yep. As long as you understand that your child attend mass when the class does, participate in religion class, and otherwise respect things like prayer time, other rituals (some of which would not require direct participation if you are not Catholic), etc., you can even pretty much be an atheist and send your kid to Catholic school.

            1. Chinook*

              The top religion student in my Catholic high school was Muslim. We had him ask his parents why they sent him there and they told him it was because the place was clear on what they taught when it came to religion and morality both explicitly and implicitly. With the public schools, it is definitely not as cut and dry because you can stop the explicit stuff but the implicit is not always so obvious.

            2. Teenaged Rabble-Rouser*

              I’ve been an atheist since about the age of 14. My father was agnostic and at least semi-supportive of my lack of belief. Mum had been raised Anglican and was decidedly *NOT*, even though she only went to church on xmas eve – and the church was across the street from our house!
              During my last year of HS, the school really messed up the timetabling and ended up cancelling two classes I needed in order to graduate early. Our public high school shared a campus with the Catholic HS, so I was able to take those two classes there. They were morning classes, so there was the matter of principal-led prayers over the classroom intercoms that we were all supposed to stand up for and join in with (this was the mid-90s in semi-rural southern Ontario, Canada).
              I was already an unbeliever and uncomfortable standing for and saying things I did not believe in and in some cases absolutely opposed (like the way they treated a few gay friends of mine who had the misfortune of being enrolled there), so I refused to participate. I sat at my desk and read quietly rather than standing up and joining in.
              The school made a huuuuuuge stink about it and threatened to expel me, which I considered equally hilarious (I had little respect for them by then, for lots of reasons *see above – treatment of gay students*) and horrifying (if I lost those classes I’d have been unable to graduate a year early, and with my florid detestation of high school, anything that might keep me there longer than absolutely required terrified me). I also knew that if my parents found out, they would not support me and I’d end up forced to participate in what I considered a ridiculous, hypocritical public prayer-fest, so I did not tell them what was going on and always arrived home early enough to be the one ‘editing’ the incoming mail and the messages left on the answering machine.
              It finally ended up with me (emptily) threatening to make a Human Rights case of it if I was expelled (like a 15yo has the money to bankroll a lawyer… hah! ) but they must have assumed that the lack of reply to the letters they sent meant my parents supported me and they backed off. I was allowed to spend the Opening Exercises part of the first morning class out in the hall, reading and listening to music. Most of the other kids were on my side and at least privately considered the forced, loudspeaker praying awful.
              Not long after I graduated (early, yay!), they ended up accepting the enrollment of a Jewish student and let him spend the Opening Exercises part of the morning out in the hall with his Discman and a book too.

          3. BananaPants*

            No one around here bats an eye at non-Catholics and non-Christians attending Catholic schools. In our area the parochials (virtually all Catholic, one or two Lutheran) are the only affordable private school options and are known to offer small classes and high-quality teaching. Plus, it allows the diocese to keep schools open, since Catholics are having smaller families than they did 40-50 years ago and many don’t automatically opt for parochial school; the non-Catholic students pay higher tuition and keep the schools open.

        2. Sara without an H*

          I, too, went to Boston College (many, many years ago). Jesuit cool is legendary.

        3. Jessica*

          Went to a Jesuit Catholic college back in the early ’90s. They had a Muslim group, LGBT group, a Jewish group, etc. Granted, they also had an anti-abortion rally, a few problematic priest professors (one who derailed his own lecture about the ancient Greeks by going on a rant about homosexuality), hosted some problematic guest speakers in recent years, etc. They don’t bat 1.000 on progressive issues. But at least they don’t have a “speaking in tongues” hiring requirement.

          1. Specialk9*

            Charismatic Catholics absolutely exist, but they’re not super common. The Holy Spirit stuff is generally a better fit with Protestant culture on spontaneity vs ritual, and individual vs group worship. I’m not explaining that quite right – Protestants (minus Anglicans & Methodists) are often more comfortable with things being loosey-goosey in church.

      3. Lily in NYC*

        Hell yeah – I went to a Jesuit university and those dudes knew how to party. We had a priest living on our floor and he had a full private bathroom and would let us fill his bathtub with ice and beers.

        1. Chinook*

          Ditto for the Basilians where I went. One of the priests was known for going out with some of the student residents, taking out the Order’s credit card and saying “the next round’s on God.”

    4. Anon for Religion*

      Wow. I have spoken in tongues, but needing to sign something to that effect would be extremely off-putting to me.

    5. Tedious Cat*

      I met someone who worked at a Catholic university where putting the rainbow overlay on your Facebook userpic was grounds for termination.

      2. Chinook*

        “I met someone who worked at a Catholic university where putting the rainbow overlay on your Facebook userpic was grounds for termination.”

        I can actually understand why because, by doing so, you are “promoting homosexuality” instead of merely accepting it as existing, which is the Church’s stance. And, as a worker at a Catholic university, you are expected not to undermine their teachings.

    6. Mischa*

      I never realized how conservative and evangelical the church I grew up in was until I got out of it. Speaking in tongues was expected, and if you didn’t/couldn’t speak in tongues then you were basically a failure. That particular environment wasn’t very healthy, though, for a host of reasons.

      1. Specialk9*

        Did people lay hands and then make their hands quiver, to show they had the Holy Spirit? I HATED that.

        People ask, hands already reaching, if they can pray for me. I say “sure, so long as you do it silently and without touching me.” Their big smiles falter, but that’s on them. The presumption that God hates physical boundaries is one that bugs me.

    7. Cedrus Libani*

      Meanwhile, at the place I did my PhD…they dragged all the first-years to sensitivity training. The presenter asked everyone who had felt uncomfortable because of their religion to raise their hand. Of the 200 people in the room, maybe 15 did. The presenter started talking about how it’s not cool to assume everyone is Christian…we all looked at each other, but nobody wanted to say it. After a minute or so, I finally stood up and said “Uh, those people ARE the Christians.” (And they weren’t wrong to feel that way, either.)

      I worked with one of the Christians who raised his hand. Admittedly, I did go out of my way to help him (holding doors, that sort of thing) – because I knew it made him twitch (not a woman’s place to do that), but he couldn’t say anything, because I was being helpful. I’m not a saint! But I don’t think it’s my place to make fun of someone’s beliefs, certainly not at work…and I’ve had to side-eye a number of fellow atheists for not watching their mouths.

      I would be very confused if I ever left the deep blue biotech bubble.

    8. Iris Eyes*

      As a former Christian College student, I had to agree not to drink or fornicate among other things for the duration of my enrollment (including breaks where I was away from school.) I know some more conservative schools who may still have separate sidewalks for men and women and require a signed letter of consent from the parents to the school for marriages.
      The no drinking/fornicating/theft rules aren’t all that bad and certainly had their benefits.
      I also had an apartment were extra-marital sex would have gotten you evicted (and I do know of someone who was.)

      1. Anonymous 40*

        At my relatively conservative “Christian” school, one of my classmates got pregnant a couple of months before graduation. The few of us who knew had to keep it absolutely secret because she would have been expelled on the spot. Her wedding was already planned for the week after graduation.

      2. Lehigh*

        I looooved going to a “dry” college. Sure, people drank, but they weren’t dumb enough to be drunk and sloppy in public. It made for a very serene environment.

        1. Roja*

          I went to a dry college too and it was great. The school didn’t care how much you drank as long as you didn’t bring it on campus, so campus was always super chill.

    9. TiffIf*

      I attended a Christian college where it was common to start classes and other meetings with prayer, and all students are required to sign and live by a rather strict honor code, but the speaking in tongues thing even I find very odd.

    10. Miso*

      My mother once applied for a job I think at a vocational school? I’m not sure, but anyway, the job was paid for by the Catholic church. She basically already got the job and the local guy in charge told her that some church guy just had to approve it.
      Well. He didn’t.
      Because while my mother is Catholic, my father, my brother and me are protestant. Obviously she’s not a good enough Catholic, when she can’t even raise her children Catholic… The local guy was shocked about it. Apparently church guy was pretty young and very overzealous…

      This was in Germany btw, where we have all the employment laws – just not for church institutions…

    11. Beatrice3*

      I go to a Quaker college and volunteer lots at a mainline church camp, so I’ve gotten very used to starting and ending every meeting with a moment of silence.

    12. Specialk9*

      That’s utterly insane. My stomach is churning at the thought of that. And I *have* spoken in tongues!

  27. FDCA In Canada*

    My organization employs between, oh, 75 and 100 people, and we have one man. He works in my office of 6. We used to have two, but the other one resigned in February.

    I work for a nonprofit whose mission is to support military spouses and families, who are overwhelmingly women (and children), so it fits the demographic, but I don’t know of many other companies who employ such a skewed ratio of women to men.

    1. Kathlynn*

      All 3 of the retail companies I’ve worked for have fairly high women to men ratios, as do schools. (right now we have about 12 employees, 3 of them guys. at my last job we rarely had more then one or two guys employed at the same time, out of about 7-10 employees.

    2. Chinook*

      The national nurses association in Canada does. When I worked there, there were 6 (none of them former nurses) – one in Procurement, 2 in the mailroom, and 3 in IT (which had only one woman and was notable for also having the only male manager).

    3. Slow Gin Lizz*

      My company of 15 is all women, but we are a non-profit supporting women running for public office so that makes sense. Apparently in the past we’ve had a male intern or two but we’ve been all women for most of the time we’ve been in existence.

    4. Squeeble*

      Wow! My org doesn’t have quite THAT severe of a ratio, but I’m in philanthropy which similarly skews toward women.

    5. AnonNurse*

      I am an RN and while our ratio isn’t quite that bad, and it’s getting better, we definitely have a majority of females. On my unit alone we have no male nurses at all, although there are male nurses within my facility as a whole.

    6. Perse's Mom*

      In my experience, animal welfare/veterinary medicine skews pretty heavily towards women. The vast majority of CVTs I’ve met are women, along with the majority of vets I’ve had over the years. And at Old Job (shelter work), there were something like 3-4 men (two of them in maintenance) for 25+ women.

      1. Ashie*

        Animal sheltering here. My company has over 100 employees and fewer than 10 of them are men.

      2. Hamilton Reference*

        Ditto on the animal shelter! It was great for when we got in dogs who had issues with dudes, but one time a woman came in to surrender her dog who was aggressive towards (human) females and it was like… We only have two guys who work here, and they’re part-time.

        (Thank God we convinced her to keep the dog. She’d had her for 10 years and wanted to surrender her because the dog damaged a new couch. She was scared of fireworks, it was July.)

    7. Risha*

      Most of my career has been on the tech side of health insurance or healthcare administration, and while it was not quite that shockingly skewed, it was generally majority women, including at least once on a 10-20(?) million dollar account implemented by a 20+ person team that accidentally ended up entirely so.

      My current job is with tax software, and until the new hires arrived this past Monday there were only four of us women in this entire office (out of about 30 people) – it’s so bizarre!

    8. Candy*

      Libraries tend to employ more women than men. In mine right now, there’s one man and 10 women. Even in library school I only remember having at most two men per class.

    9. Liz Lemon 2*

      Come on over to child welfare! In my county office (technically, parish office because I’m in Louisiana), we have no men in the foster care, adoptions, and in-home services units. There are three men in the CPS investigations unit. Our attorneys and administrative assistants are all women. No male supervisors, managers, etc. at all.

    10. museum sara*

      In one museum education department I worked for we had one man and twenty-four women. He used to introduce himself as the “department dude.”

    11. Howdy Do*

      I worked at a similarly skewed reproductive rights non-profit and now I work in libraries, all of which were similarly female dominated!

    12. Erin*

      I am in the finance/business office of a school district and there are 3 men in our building of 24. Currently, I’m the third youngest person there, and I’m 40.

  28. Nobody You Know*

    I used to work in a grief counseling center. Gallows humor saved us. The death jokes were rampant!

    1. Cruciatus*

      My aunt worked at a children’s hospital with the dead and dying babies. She had to go to court frequently to speak against the abuse they suffered. She only got through it with gallows humor. At the med school I worked at, before a certain forensics course, the students were always told to expect some black humor because of the kinds of things the presenters see every single day.

    2. k.k*

      I worked in a call center that handled obituaries and death notices for a number of newspapers. Hearing all day about people dying, how they died, and often having to speak with grieving family members…you bet we had some weird humor to save us.

      1. Erin*

        I’ve also worked at a call center that handled funeral homes and hospice patients. You can’t spell funeral without fun.

    3. Elemeno P.*

      I volunteer with sick children. The cancer jokes in the break room keep us from crying on the floor.

    4. therapist*

      Yes! I came here to comment the exact same thing! I work in hospice, and our team meetings at times have involved us crying from laughter about death jokes. Obviously we have the utmost respect for our patients and their families, but without a little levity on occasion we’d all totally burn out.

      One other thing fairly unique to this field is having to regularly adapt my schedule due to my patients having died (happened twice this week alone).

    5. Clinical Social Worker*

      Not grief counseling but when I worked in prison man…the jokes. Anything an inmate or the system could do that was disturbing we made a joke about it.

  29. Ruth (UK)*

    Mine’s probably more of an individual office thing rather than an industry thing but we process the admin for hospital referrals which often explicitly describe patients’ bowel movements, urology issues, gynae issues and so on. It’s reset the norm of what’s considered safe office talk for bodily functions and in my office (of 10 people) we will often openly discuss our own medical issues or changes we’ve noticed, say, in our bowel habit etc in a way in which I would not expect is usually the norm at work.

  30. pmia*

    I work in corporate IT for a big name bank you’ve all heard of. Being IT, we can work from home. I’m currently in a tank top and athletic shorts as I am designing infrastructure changes.

    2. ;)*

      Same. If I ever go back to work in an office, I don’t know how I’ll get used to wearing a bra all day again!

    3. Anonymous 40*

      Healthcare IT here. On work from home days, I’m usually in shorts and a t-shirt with my bare feet propped up on my desk as I work.

      1. Autumn Leaves*

        +1 federal government work from home 3x/week in yoga pants & a tank (& often a dog on my lap!)

  31. Michael Scarn, CPA*

    In public accounting managers and partners go to happy hours and lunch with staff all the time. It’s not unusual for managers to be friends outside of work with the seniors and staff they manage. When I moved to the corporate side I realized how odd that is and how cliquey public accounting is. But now that I’m a manager on the corporate side, my only work friends are people I used work with in public accounting. It’s lonely in middle management.

    1. Snowflake*

      I just started working in public accounting and this is my experience…one of the directors told us about the bachelorette party she attended for a partner when the partner was a (younger) partner and the director was a senior.

  32. Parcae*

    I work in a tiny sliver of a nonprofit industry where the vast majority of our clients and staff are Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native. Our work is completely secular, and our clients and staff represent a huge range of tribal affiliations and religious practices, but we start every major meeting or conference with a prayer. Seems very normal here.

  33. Cruciatus*

    When I worked at a med school library, I frequently had to ask students, “Human or plastic [skulls]?” I realize this probably doesn’t count as most other places don’t have human skulls nearby to hand out, but I like telling the story. Otherwise, my jobs seem pretty tame overall (which I think might be a relief based on some comments here!).

      2. Wintermute*

        “Look, I’ve got work to do, you want a fellow of most excellent fancy or not?”

    2. Another Lauren*

      I had that happen in a science museum I worked at! Went to turn on the lights in the lab and –BAM! Row of human skulls.

    3. Braaaaainsss*

      I frequently have buckets of brains, rats, or eyeballs in my car shuttling them between campuses.

      1. Cedrus Libani*

        I once worked as a foreskin dissector. Had to go make the rounds of the city’s maternity wards every weekday at lunchtime, pick up the day’s harvest, and haul them back to the lab. Where I spent the afternoon chopping them up. Explaining that job in polite company was…interesting.

        1. HR Bee*

          I’m sorry, but I’m curious… why does foreskin need to be dissected? I would have thought it would just be disposed of.

          1. Typhon Worker Bee*

            Foreskin fibroblasts (skin cells) have a ton of applications in science – mostly stem cell research, but other fields too. Because the donors are so young, the cells will grow in lab culture much better than other easily-available types of human cells.

          2. Anonicat*

            Our lab (skin cancer research) uses foreskins from infant circumcisions as a source of cells that definitely haven’t been exposed to much UV radiation. (The parents do consent to them being used for research, we don’t just take them.)

            1. Anonicat*

              It was also my job for a while to drive to the clinic and collect the foreskins in a university car. My sister dubbed it the Brismobile.

            2. Cedrus Libani*

              Salute to a fellow Brismobile driver. =)

              I also worked for a skin cancer lab. The problem with studying cancer cells directly is that, by the time they’re fully cancerous, they’re terribly messed up. It’s hard to tell what the effect of any specific mutation is. It’s much easier to tell what’s going on if you can take a normal, healthy skin cell and introduce that mutation.

              The healthiest, most “normal” skin cells are on newborn babies. Fortunately for us, there’s a reliable source of baby skin…

              The dissection is needed because different cell types are present in different layers. My group was mostly interested in melanoma, and melanocytes are only in the top (epidermal) layer. So I’d take the foreskin, cut the fat and blood vessels off, soak it in an enzyme solution overnight, then peel off the top layer and digest it to release single cells.

              You can use adult skin, but the cells don’t grow as well. I’d sometimes pick up a bucket from the plastic surgery clinic (from a tummy tuck or breast reduction), but that was mostly used by the real dermatologists in the department (testing out treatments on real skin before moving to human trials).

              It’s definitely true that working in a MD-heavy environment, around literal buckets of human parts, warps your perception of what is appropriate table conversation. I once showed up late to a dinner party, because I’d been sent to get the bucket for a penis amputation (due to melanoma), and the surgery had run long because it had already started to rot from inside…and I explained this, to the wide-eyed horror of everyone else.

        3. SQL Coder Cat*

          Ha! My checkered past involved a student job at a reproductive research lab, where one of my jobs was to go to the (academic) slaughterhouse on Friday to get the week’s supply of bovine ovaries- and then spend the next six hours extracting the eggs and freezing them for later use. I use that job in a lot of stupid icebreaker games, in an attempt to get jobs to stop doing stupid icebreaker games.

    5. Librarygal30*

      I ask students if they want the brain model that comes apart, or the one that doesn’t.

  34. P*

    Music industry – had a group outting to a baseball game, and everyone was so drunk and other things from the bus ride, they were ejected from the ballpark before the game even began for being drunk in public. They used to have bands play at the Christmas party, and one guy threw up on himself as the president was making a speech as the party was beginning. Guy kept his job. The list of bizarre incidents just goes on and on with this place……

    1. k.k*

      My spouse works in the industry, and their office Christmas party is insane. The open bar gets well taken advantage of, and this year the CEO was high as a kite during his speech.

  35. Marisa*

    I teach at a pretty large university, and we have happy hours for young faculty and staff. (Young is relative. In the university setting, it typically means younger than 50.) It’s not explicitly stated, but highly encouraged for these people to use the happy hours as a way to find dates. The idea is that you won’t leave the job you have if you work with the love of your life.

    1. Manders*

      Hah! Well, that’s one way to deal with the two body problem.

      Academia is also generally more tolerant, even encouraging, of spousal hires and spouses working together. It makes sense, since there aren’t a lot of industries that require people to move around so much during the time most people are dating and settling down.

    2. Molly's Reach*

      I also work at a university. The contract for faculty includes a stipulation that when a faculty member is hired, part of the deal is that their spouse is also given a job (somewhere) on campus. There are lots of couples here! As well as brothers/sisters, parent/child and all sorts of close familial relationships.

  36. Sigrid*

    I’m an emergency medicine physician and I am currently sitting in a lecture entitled “street drugs and where to find them”.

    4. costume teapot*

      Oh this is interesting. Do they literally mean source-wise? Why would you need them? :o

  37. Dr. Doll*

    Incompetence, arrogance, impracticality, lack of accountability, and occasionally sheer viciousness because the stakes are so damn small. Also long term sexual harassment. Yes, I work in higher education.

    For the record, I think higher ed is a truly valuable enterprise (unlike most Republicans, according to that recent Pew Center poll) but I sure wish we were *actually* as open to self-criticism and improvement as we pride ourselves on being…and that we like to dish out to other people. Maybe I am having a bad day, sigh.

    1. cleo*

      OMG, the DRAMA involved in higher ed is almost impossible to explain to anyone outside of the field

      1. HigherEdPerson*

        It’s crazy. And the TENSIONS between faculty and administration are ridiculous.

        We in Student Affairs gossip more than my entire sorority back in college

        1. cleo*

          Yeah. I’ve worked at like 4 universities now and the specifics (and the level) vary from place to place, but there is ALWAYS drama and tension somewhere – admin vs faculty, academic departmental rivalries, administrative department rivalries, etc. Or that one person who has just enough power to make you miserable if you cross them (i.e the crack-pot in IT / procurement / etc).

      2. JJ*

        God, all the drama – especially with all the internal politics.

        I once had a new staff member come in and say ‘why did you assign this to me this is a stupid idea?’ I responded ‘politics – we need to make x look good’. He got very puffed up and said ‘politics is not a legitimate reason’.

        I just laughed and told him ‘welcome to higher ed’. He didn’t appreciate that (then, he totally got it a few months later)

      3. Amy Pond*

        Omg yes. I was looking to go into higher ed as a career, however after seeing the entire department that I worked for be replaced in a year due to the turnover from the drama and politics I changed my mind.

    2. Also Higher Ed*

      I’ve worked in higher ed for nearly three decades. One of the most interesting aspects of starting to follow the AAM blog is that I finally have it confirmed that much of what goes on in higher ed is most definitely not normal. One of my coworkers jokes (at least, partly ), that in higher ed you can punch your supervisor in front of six witnesses and still keep your job.

      I also agree that higher ed is valuable. Some days it’s amazing how well we can educate students in spite of the craziness.

      2. Airedale*

        Interesting! I’m on my third year in higher ed. I remember once Alison said that AAM needed a disclaimer that all of this didn’t apply to higher ed. Could you possibly explain?

    3. anon for this*

      So much this.

      I work in academic publishing where part of my job is to find reviewers for manuscripts and then later people who will say nice things about the forthcoming book for the cover. Navigating the minefield of factions and rivalries and who hates who because someone’s former adviser once made an off-hand comment thirty years ago . . . just astounding.

    4. GT*

      Also higher ed – and a museum, with all the dysfunction there. I would pretend I was starring in a soap opera and ask myself, “What is the weirdest, most dramatic turn of events that could happen?” and plan from that. 9/10 I was right.

  38. Elmyra Duff*

    I used to transcribe closed captioning for TV shows and movies. There was a cluster of computers used near the back of the room for transcribing porn. So, like, we’d all end up with a shift where we just watched porn all day.

    1. Red Reader*

      I don’t want to totally derail, but I’m curious — who decides how much of the background noise gets transcribed for closed-captioning? we keep the CC on our Netflix because one of the housemates has an annoying habit of walking into the room and talking over the show, plus I have slightly dodgy hearing anyway, and we were watching a bunch of Justice League episodes a few weeks ago that were full of transcribed “biff” and “pew pew” and whatnot, haha. It devolved into my housemate and I narrating our own sound effects off the CC.

      1. Elmyra Duff*

        Good question! It’s dependent on the type of show, what the client wants, and what the captioning company itself does. The one I worked for probably did Justice League. For cartoon-y things, you use a ton of sound effects. The goal is to give the deaf/hard-of-hearing viewer as close to the same experience as the hearing viewer as possible.

        1. Red Reader*

          From my Facebook postings that week:

          “Apparently “bwok” is the sound of Wonder Woman beating the bejesus out of Superman.”

      2. Persephone Mulberry*

        I was watching Agents of SHIELD at a friend’s house this weekend and there was one scene where Coulson was yelling from the other side of a soundproof door and the caption was [yelling silently]. I thought that was great. They also make liberal use of “musical note” graphics during dramatic pauses.

          1. Almost Fergus*

            My fave was [urine splashing aggressively] in a recent episode of the Twin Peaks revival. Never thought of urine itself as aggressive.

        2. Jessica*

          Mine is a court scene in “Liar, Liar” where Jim Carrey is making a bunch of random noises, and the caption says, “[Speaking nonsense]” and then as the camera view switches, “[Nonsense continues]”.

      3. Elizabeth H.*

        I’m so interested in how closed captioning is created. I’m hearing but I always watch EVERYTHING with closed captions. Every time I watch something with other people I get surprised (I don’t know why I don’t learn) when they are not on and when people are bothered by it, bc I hate watching without captions. A funny effect of that is that I know everyone’s name in shows really well. On Orange is the New Black I remember someone complaining in an online review that the newer Latino characters didn’t seem to have been given names/unique identities and I was thinking “what are you talking about, they say their names in every episode” before I realized it was from the CC. I was interested to see below, the idea about not giving deaf viewers more information than hearing viewers because I really like seeing the names – Orange is the new Black in particular gives names even to characters that we only see for a few minutes once a season and I feel like it really enhances my viewing of the show and experience of the characters. I feel that Netflix has very good captions in general.

        1. Jessica*

          I’ve converted several people to watching with captions. It’s a lot easier to follow the dialogue without turning the volume up loudly. I figure that at least when I’m old, I’ll be the one who doesn’t have the TV on full blast 24/7.

          1. DecorativeCacti*

            I do the same so I don’t have to hold the remote through every show and play up-and-down with every explosion followed by whispers.

      4. Optimistic Prime*

        OMG I was watching Justice League the other day and noticed that (my husband and I always watch with captions because we don’t hear good). The funny part is that we were criticizing the sound effects – “Mmm, that was more like a ‘pfft’ than a ‘whoosh’.”

      1. Courtney W*

        This is not an office job with as good pay as OP is probably describing working in, but I do some captioning work from home as a side job with a company called Rev. Anyone who can pass their tests can do it, and it’s nice that it’s something I can just do whenever I have spare time. No set schedule and the pay is per minute of captions (probably not worth it unless your typing WPM is at least somewhat high.)

        1. Saturnalia*

          I will caution that I have a friend who has made her career captioning from home, and at this point has such severe carpal tunnel that it’s limiting her hours (she’s classified as IC so no insurance or other employer benefits). There may be more to her story than her job, but still, like any profession which relies on sound body, it’s important to think about what you might do if your body fails.

          1. Malibu Stacey*

            Yeah, this A Thing for a lot of people who do a lot of typing. Stenos, court reporters, admins, etc.

            1. Jessica*

              Coders. I feel very fortunate that I don’t have carpal tunnel–but I do have shoulder problems from keeping those muscles tense all the time, so…

          2. Courtney W*

            Yeah, I’m not necessarily recommending it – like I said, I only do it as a side job, not a frequent thing.

        2. Elmyra Duff*

          It was an office job, but the pay was about $10/hr and a bachelor’s degree was required. They acted like you should feel privileged that they’d even pay you that much. It was ridiculous. I did Rev for awhile as a side gig, and I liked it a lot more.

      2. Figment*

        I wouldn’t recommend it. The first company I worked for laid off the entire captioning department and outsourced the work to a big firm in Pittsburgh. The second company I worked for laid 1/3 of us off after I’d been there for a year. I took the hint and went into a different line of work.

        But as for how I got it – I had a friend who worked in a post-production facility who got me a job in the tape library, and I happened to impress the owner of the company, who recommended me for the captioning department.

        1. Elmyra Duff*

          Oh shit. I worked for that big firm in Pittsburgh. We screwed over a lot of smaller companies that way and everyone not in management felt so bad about it.

      3. Elmyra Duff*

        You answer a job ad preying on new English majors and look past how badly the company pays and treats you because, hey, at least you have a job. I don’t recommend it.

    3. DataQueen*

      So I have a fun story and question for you – I use the captions because I’m deaf in one ear, and on an episode of a popular Netflix show, they gave away the bad guy in the first 5 minutes because the caption said [X breathing heavily]. The rest of the show was a flashback, so if they hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have known who he was until the last 5 minutes, and it would have been way more excited. I was PISSED. So I wrote a very angry letter to the captions department, cited a bunch of laws, and THEY CHANGED THE CAPTION! I was so happy for all the future viewers that won’t get the surprise ruined, and pretty pumped that my single request got Netflix to do something :)

      My question for you Elmyra Duff, is whether I’m a caption-changing superhero, or whether you have to update captions all the time for this exact reason. And how DO you deal with spoilers, assuming you don’t know the intricate plot points of every show?

      1. Figment*

        I’m not Elmyra, but when I was captioning, the goal was not to give the hard of hearing or Deaf community any more information than the hearing community has. So we strove really hard to not give things away, considering we often had full transcripts and character names to work with. It was tough, but basically until that character was introduced on screen, by name, we were not to use their name in the captions.

      2. Elmyra Duff*

        Oh, cool! I never had to change captions like that. I think the managers mostly dealt with those situations. I was always very careful about not giving anything away because, even though I’m fully hearing, I’ve always watched TV with captions on since I was a kid. That kind of stuff makes me so mad, along with poorly timed captions that give away punchlines or major plot points before they’re actually spoken.

        1. Figment*

          My all-time favorite caption was from the first season of “Preacher”, where a crow is eating out of a Chinese take-out container. The caption read [Eating Chinese food]

        2. DBGNY*

          My HS English teacher gave away the entire plot point, including all spoilers, by page 2 of “The Scarlet Letter”. I was so angry that I had to sit in the class for half a year to learn what she had just blabbed about ten minutes into our first class.

          Arg. It still makes me nuts when I think about it.

    4. Figment*

      HAHAHA, I used to caption as well and I had to caption an unedited season of “Dating Naked”. It was so embarrassing.

      1. Denise biscuit*

        Im just curious-how long does it take to caption a 30 minute or 60 minute show? Or a whole season?

    5. Figment*

      My other favorite captioning job was like six seasons of “Geordie Shore” where we were given no transcripts and had to basically figure out that accent on our own. It was crazy, but by the end, I had a good handle on what they were saying.

      1. Elmyra Duff*

        Oh, my god. I know what you mean. I was horrible with accents. For awhile, we were working on a certain network that used to be about learning, and they were dubbing all of their terrible reality shows in Spanish. Someone already translated most of them, but trying to actually time and place those with very limited knowledge of the language was brutal.

      2. Floundering Mander*

        Wait, are you American? And transcribing Geordie Shore? Man, I’ve lived in the Newcastle area for nearly 14 years (from Colorado) and I don’t think I could do that! Some words still just don’t make sense to me…

    6. Ramona Flowers*

      I used to work for a magazine that carried porn ads and someone had to go through and check all the strategically placed stars (think along the lines of fig leaves) were covering what they were meant to.

      1. the cake is a pie*

        This makes me think of the cards they hand out on the Vegas strip, which I like to call the clap-clap cards (referring to the double hand slap the sidewalk distributors do before trying to get you to take one). There are always strategic stars. I always wonder who exactly designs and prints these cards and whether someone has to make a judgement call on star size and placement.

    7. Lissa*

      I do live captioning (of classes, meetings etc) and having to decide when to put in a non-word sound on the fly can be stressful! Like you said, the job is to give the hard of hearing client the same experience as the hearing people, but something like [frustrated sigh] could be potentially a problem if I misinterpret!

      We also, during training, got taught about how we had to transcribe things even if we found them uncomfortable, like racism or sexual comments, and not to put our own “spin” on things which is interesting when doing political events. (we do meaning for meaning, not verbatim).

      I love seeing a thread about something close to my job!

      1. ArtsNerd*

        I am in awe of people who can do live captioning and translation (inc sign language). I have some minor trouble processing spoken conversation – count me among the many hearing folks who greatly prefer captions! – so taking in that kind of information, processing it, and transcribing and/or translating in REAL TIME is some kind of frickin super power to me.

    8. ArtsNerd*

      I APPRECIATE YOU and your colleagues. So much.

      Not only do I prefer captioning as a hearing person, I live in a city with a large Deaf population and work at a movie theatre. I wish EVERY movie was shown with open captions, and still the number of films released without any captioning track (oc or cc) is pretty staggering. And captions are easier to produce than audio descriptions (for visually impaired folks), which are few and far between.

  39. Nobody You Know*

    I used to work at a start-up software company where we coddled the brilliant young minds who were supposed to create the product that was going to make us all rich. One created a Tiki hut out of his cubicle, complete with umbrella, bamboo, and sand on the floor. Cleaning up after he got fired was incredible. Oh, and we never got rich.

    1. Kyrielle*

      …wow. I worked with someone who set up a whole tiki hut, except minus the sand on the floor. That’s…a whole new level. (Bamboo gate across the cubicle entrance, umbrella over the top, seascapes pinned to the walls, check.)

      But in our case it wasn’t an industry thing or a company thing, it was a this-person thing. It wasn’t _quite_ enough to not fly, but it was definitely viewed as highly odd and not positive for reputation.

      1. Lehigh*

        I dream of having the kind of F U money to be comfortable doing really really quirky things like this at work…

      2. Snargulfuss*

        Wasn’t there a story here a while ago of someone who set up a bed or cot at their workspace. This is so far beyond that!

        1. Quackeen*

          There was the story of someone who set up a pillow fort at their desk. That’s pretty awesome.

  40. animaniactoo*

    Pretty much, I suspect I’m going to be a voyeur to this thread. My industry is pretty tame considering that it’s child and household-license focused.

    Unless you want to count blatant rip-offs of each other’s products changed just enough to be categorized as “not identical”.

    Or wait… I know. The name changing. Don’t have the licensee rights to Teapots in the contract? Sell WaterBoilers instead. Or Hot Beverage Servers with Infusion Cores.

  41. Sunshine on a cloudy day*

    Finance (Asset Management – Hedge Fund/PE space specifically) – pretty extreme and invasive Compliance policies/regarding personal investing and money management.

    Upon starting you must hand over the account numbers of every single brokerage account (for yourself, spouse and any other family members that live under the smae roof) that has the ability to trade securities (even if you don’t use the account for that purpose). A wide variety of trades must be approved by the company before happening and every single personal trade and/or investment made while working here is monitored and recorded.

    My family was very private growing up, particularly regarding money. So this seemed so odd and bizarre to me at first, but now it totally makes sense (it is literally by law that this stuff has to be done).

    1. AthenaC*

      Public accounting as well. We also have to list employment relationships and retirement accounts of immediate family members.

    2. DCGirl*

      There was a letter on this site from a woman whose husband was balking at providing that information.

    3. snowflake*

      I just started in public accounting and this process has been such a pain. It will be easier when everything is in the approved accounts but I’m still trying to transfer them.

  42. ali*

    Back in the late 90s, as a web designer (for the government, no less), we’d go surf porn sites all day – those were the most popular sites on the internet, so we assumed that was the type of design people were looking for and we’d try to emulate them even though our content was scientific instead.

    1. The IT Manager*

      so we assumed that was the type of design people were looking for

      Oh no! That’s just so incorrect.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          That it was scientists coming up with this theory makes it even more hilarious.

          “We want people to read our site on global warming.”
          “Okay, what sites do people visit a lot?”
          “Ooh, I know! Porn!”
          “Good idea! What sort of font size do they use?”

          1. ali*

            that was exactly it. and it was in fact a site about global warming ;)
            to be fair, back then, their version of porn was just playboy. we also looked at big successful companies like nike and coke at the time.

      2. ali*

        there weren’t many good examples of successful website layout back then. when you worked for an entity like the government that wasn’t big on innovation and doing anything new, you had to look at what was available. Universities, big companies, and porn were the best layout examples and porn usually had the best code for all of them because they could hire the people who were actually good at it!

        I can’t tell you how many times I accidentally typed “.com” instead of “.gov” after “whitehouse” back then too, which was, of course, a porn site.

    3. SarahTheEntwife*

      0.o

      So much about the weird government document formatting in the 90s makes sense now…

      (An inventory project has given me the utterly useless but mildly entertaining skill of being able to tell the age of a US government publication within about five years purely by design and typography. The 90s were…not the government’s best years, layout-wise.)

    4. Anonymous 40*

      The idea that it was the design of porn sites that brought people in really cracks me up!

      1. Jessica*

        As someone who started designing in 1996…like what even! This must have been a government thing because I can definitely say that NOBODY was looking to porn for design ideas in my slice of the private sector.

        1. Anonymous 40*

          “I browse porn for the web design” must be a 90s equivalent of “I read Playboy for the articles.”

          1. Saturnalia*

            Welp, anonymous 40, it’s official: you have won the internet.

            Now to cleanse my immediate vicinity of snorted coffee…

  43. Kara*

    Not my industry, but my husband is in construction, specifically in concrete. I’m an HR/Business Development consultant and could never, ever work at his company. The crude language, racism, ageism, sexism, and horrid management practices – all seen as humorous to anyone who works there – would drive me crazy. Smh.

    1. Objects don't argue back*

      I have friends who work on tugboats who say it’s the same there — open racism and sexism are basically expected.

    2. Anonymoose*

      The oil and gas industry is very much the same. The ageism may not quite be as bad as construction , but I’d say the sexism is even worse. I can count the number of women I’ve seen on an oil rig over the last 20 years without using my second hand. Also, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t another industry outside Hollywood where cocaine use is as common and tolerated as it is here.

  44. sharpshooter*

    Checking each other for ticks and asking how long it’s been since your coworkers have peed.
    (Field biology)

    1. Dust Bunny*

      My brother is an archaeologist, so . . . yeah.

      He’s also had some law-enforcement scares. As in, people thinking he’s law enforcement (drives a truck with a seal on the door). None of the people he’s startled have been doing anything illegal, but the possibility that he might one day run across one who was is always sort of in the back of his mind.

      1. sharpshooter*

        Oh yeah, I’ve had training on what to do WHEN you come across illegal activity on federal lands.

    2. Nea*

      I shouldn’t be giggling because the context makes perfect sense, but this is the entry that made me laugh out loud at the office.

    3. smokey*

      Or the guy (almost always a guy) who just turns and pees while standing two feet away from the group.

      1. sharpshooter*

        Seriously! I know we’re close bud but I don’t want to be close enough to feel your backsplash! I’ve worked in some great plains areas where there are no trees for miles. That’s when you really have to announce that you’re “going behind the truck” or “no one turn around for a few minutes”

        1. JaneB*

          A former boss used to announce that he was “just gonna contribute to the hydrology” – he was unreasonably snarky if newbies didn’t get it

          1. Katie*

            My favourite expression is ‘just checking out the stone work’ as you step behind a rock on a hike. ‘Contribute to the hydrology’ is my new favourite.

        2. Floundering Mander*

          That’s definitely a “behind the truck| situation. I once had to deal with horrible diarrhea on an open hillside, with no cover, while on a survey. It was too far to walk back to the truck and there were no bushes. Fortunately I had a trowel so I was able to dig a decent hole, but still. I just had to trust that my colleagues carried on (and of course had to thoroughly check the immediate area for artifacts. It would have been really, really bad to have chosen that place and then realized I was looking at a Clovis point or something…).

  45. HankyPanky*

    Libraries — the places where bodily fluids are routinely found on/in/near items (on purpose!) and staff are required to have conversations with patrons about vermin in their homes (since the critters come with them to the library). I’ve cleaned too many poop/vomit explosions for any workplace outside a health care center. Also, training on identifying a mental health crisis is necessary when dealing with the public. It’s not unusual to go from talking with one patron or staff member about academic subjects and triaging a mental health crisis or body fluid crisis the next. I still love my job, but it is exhausting at times.

    1. Dust Bunny*

      Yeah, I don’t think most people have any idea how rough being a librarian can be. I work for a private (academic) library and even we get incidents like this, despite having card-keys and a gate to let people in.

      1. JustaTech*

        I once had a grad student attempt to hand me her baby/toddler when she was told that no children were allowed in the stacks (and she just needed one book). The librarian nixed that so I went and got her book for her.
        (The no-babies thing was a new rule.)

    2. (Different) Rebecca*

      …so those books that occasionally look/smell like someone vomited in them…?

    4. Figment*

      As far as cleaning up bodily fluids, retail also had a lot of this. I worked in a bookstore and the amount of times I had to clean up things armed with only rubber gloves and Clorox spray was outrageous.

    5. Miso*

      I’m so glad I didn’t really have any problems with this yet. The worst was a girl peeing in her pants (and dripping on the floor…) in front of the lending desk.
      I assume it’s worse in bigger cities though. One big city around here has the public library directly at the main station. They have those blue lights in the bathrooms…

  46. So anon for this one*

    Large organization not in North America. It’s well known that several governments have listening devices in our workplace and we have to assume that no conversation is private.
    There are certain issues on which we are not even allowed to take handwritten notes in case we lose them, and they are found by external parties or the media.
    There are members of staff who are well known to be spies and meet with staff members of their embassies to hand over documents.

      1. Don't turn this name into a hyperlink*

        Yeah, this sounds like the premise for a really dark British sitcom about The Government At Work.

  47. cataloger*

    I have watched porn at my desk, because I’m a cataloging librarian and we were adding it to the collection.

    2. kitryan*

      I sometimes run background checks (just on publicly available material) and I have, once or twice, run across the odd porn when searching. Thus far it has always been for some person or company with the same name as what I’ve been searching but clearly not the same person/company. I am not sure whether I’m looking forward to or dreading the day when I have to submit porn as part of my report because it actually is the person we’re searching for.

  48. AthenaC*

    According to some people I’ve talked to recently, meeting one-on-one with a coworker of the opposite sex for dinner or drinks is shocking. ;)

  49. all aboard the anon train*

    From fiction publishing: Having a conversation about a book idea that’s “a cross between Flowers in the Attic and a zombie apocalypse. Also other very weird conversations and research topics, such as researching how much someone can poop in one day, googling sex positions to make sure body parts were in correct positions, and having to come up with unique ways of describing and mentioning products or items that we can’t name due to copyright.

    Also having authors request limos for a 5 minute ride down the street. Also having famous and beloved authors turn out to be misogynistic creeps. Also having authors hold their manuscript hostage and delay their books for years meaning that everyone in the department who was counting on the book to make profit loses out on raises and bonuses.

    From academic publishing: Colleges (yes, colleges) requesting we rewrite history books…aka they wanted a history book about white straight Christian men. More colleges requesting we remove “urban youths” from stock photos. More colleges requesting we remove literary pieces from anyone who wasn’t a white straight man from the Western world (Eastern Europe was removed entirely).

    The colleges are worse at removing content than high schools, as most of the high schools just want state specific history books instead of rewritten history.

    1. Lore*

      I have not succeeded in bleaching from my brain the time I spent with a coworker researching sexting emojis.

    2. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

      I write, and completely freaked out a med-student friend with my weird book-research questions, below:

      1. Is it physically possible to surgically fix a non-compound limb fracture using only local anesthetic and painkillers (not general), or would that kill or cripple your patient?

      2. How long can a person survive and still be able to physically move without water/food/sleep?

      3. Are defibrilators useful if someone is seizing and the heart is beating but out of rhythm? If so, can their application burn the person you use it on?

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Hahaha, I’ve done this too. Once I called the medical examiner’s office to see if you can rip someone’s head off with your bare hands. (Spoiler: you can’t.)

        It helps if you identify yourself first and explain why you want to know. Most people are fairly accommodating once they know you’re not asking for some nefarious or perverted purpose. I was very up front with the FBI when asking about bank robbery procedures. Both the local office and the media office in Washington (they have one specifically for these kinds of inquiries from film production companies, etc.) were incredibly helpful. Though I’m probably on a list somewhere because of this and my weirdo Google history.

        1. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

          I am wondering if there’s some Bones-esque office I can ask about my “survival medicine” questions to? My friend’s answers were:

          1. Yes, it’s physically possible, but it will REALLY REALLY REALLY hurt (and if the person is bleeding badly and/or panicking, you do risk death from blood loss, since stress/pain/panic = more blood).

          2. No idea; rule of thumb is three days without water, though.

          3. Yes, and probably.

          I’m sure a doctor could give me a lot more detail though.

    3. Damn it, Hardison!*

      “Having a conversation about a book idea that’s “a cross between Flowers in the Attic and a zombie apocalypse.”

      Please tell me this is happening.

    4. Chinook*

      “googling sex positions to make sure body parts were in correct positions, ”

      As a reader of some bad fanfic and poorly written published stuff, I thank you for your hard work. Nothing is more distracting then reading something and then having to reread it because I am pretty sure that the human body doesn’t bend that way. I have stopped reading some authors as a result.

    5. TiffIf*

      Oh boy–my roommate and I are both writers–she’s published, I am not–but some of the research you end up doing for writing is downright weird.

      – The precise details of legalized prostitution in Nevada (I discovered the name and address of the licensed brothel closest to the Strip)
      – What type of wound would kill eventually but not immediately
      – What would happen if you illegally entered Canada from the US and got caught shoplifting
      – How to roast Swan

    6. Tris Prior*

      Wow. I’ve been in K-12 publishing for some time, but have never done college, and that last bit is just appalling. I mean, sure, I have a whole list of things we’ve been asked to do by red states’ educational boards – like remove language that might imply that evolution happened, photoshopping out udders on cows and visible genitalia on dogs – and in general textbooks need to be more diverse, but no one’s asked us to rewrite a book to make it more white and straight. Yikes.

    7. Zoe Karvounopsina*

      “a cross between Flowers in the Attic and a zombie apocalypse”

      ….I think I know that book!

    8. Specialk9*

      That’s awful. Like our history doesn’t over-emphasize white makes enough. Argh.

  50. Florals For Spring*

    Maybe the amount of job hopping that’s considered normal? I’m in publishing, and it’s considered really normal to have to make diagonal moves across companies in order to get promoted. Especially early on in their careers, people will often stay only 1-2 years somewhere before making a jump. And since there’s only a small handful of major companies in the industry, everyone knows someone at their old job/new job, or frequently returns to a company after a stint somewhere else but now is a couple levels higher than they were before.

    Tied to all of this is the massive amount of industry gossip that occurs, though I think this probably happens in other tiny industries as well.

    1. Elizabeth*

      YEP. I’m at the biggest of the Big 5, and so many coworkers have left, gone to other publishers, and come back again. Unfortunately one of the only reliable ways to get promotions/significant pay raises. Only downside I guess is you can’t count past years toward earning a sabbatical.

    2. Sup Sup Sup*

      I used to work in publishing and this is totally on the mark. When I started I was told almost immediately the only way to get ahead was to leave. I jumped around a few times and then tried to move into a different area (i.e. kids books to adult) and got nowhere, they refused to believe that my experience could translate. When I realized that I would forever be pigeonholed in my niche area, I left the industry.

    3. Nea*

      I know government contractors, where red flags don’t go up until they’ve worked for *more* than 6 companies in 3 years.

    4. KarenT*

      Yes! Publishing industry gossip is pretty epic–both in being a bit scandalous and also that everyone knows everything.

  51. miss_chevious*

    All the fucking swearing. Seriously, in every legal job I’ve ever had, firm or in-house, we swear all the fucking time. Not at each other (unless you’re a terrible person), but just in conversation amongst ourselves.

    1. Mary, Not Rhoda*

      Haha yes! Same in my experience as well. Not so much the support staff but definitely all of the attorneys

      1. Jennifer Walters*

        100%. I remember my first day at my new firm, I heard something fall and heard my boss swearing down the hall with fervor and thought “Ah, I’m home.”

    3. JeanB in NC*

      I miss being able to swear at work – I work for a private school now and I try not to say even things like crap or hell. Fortunately I don’t work directly with the kids but there’s always a chance that one may be right around the corner.

    5. bridget (better screen name to follow)*

      Agreed. I’ve become so used to it that I have to be careful not to swear in front of my religious mother or children (before I was a lawyer, this sort of mistake would have seemed unthinkable).

    6. Anon attorney*

      I now work in the only firm on the planet where swearing is Not Done. I’ve heard the managing partner swear exactly once (when she realized she was about to miss a filing deadline at 4.55pm on a Friday). As a recovering curser, I frequently slip up. My biggest fear is that when I nutter imprecations at a client or opposing attorney after hanging up the phone, that I haven’t actually hung up…

  52. FCJ*

    I’m in academia, so All The Things. Blatant nepotism, free labor (I mean, “publications”), squishy or nonexistent professional/personal boundaries, conference drinking, etc.

    I absolutely love it, but man. Not normal.

    2. Manders*

      My parents and most of my friends’ parents were professors. Learning professional norms from that crowd was… not ideal.

        1. SQL Coder Cat*

          Another academic brat high-five here. Did you refer to your friends’ parents as Dr. Mr. Lastname and Dr. Mrs. Firstname too?

          1. Tau*

            The culture I was in was more first-names-for-adults, IIRC, so I didn’t. I am however pretty sure I made it to teenage years before I realised it was possible to go to university and not do a PhD. Also, we moved three times before I turned twelve, and it was across the Atlantic each time.

  53. cwethan*

    Sharing hotel rooms! Working in the non-profit world can mean you are lucky if you get even partial funding to attend professional development events or conferences, and if you DO you’d better believe you’re sharing a hotel room with as many coworkers are they can fit in there.

    (This isn’t the same everywhere, natch. I now work at a non-profit that is lucky enough to be able to get us each our own hotel room, but when I was first hired here & went to a conference I assumed I’d be sharing with a coworker because that’s what every other place I’d worked had done. The coworker was horrified that I even suggested it & I had a big “we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment. But if I’d asked about getting my own room at previous jobs, I would have been laughed out of the room.)

    1. KatieKate*

      I’m at a huge nonprofit and it’s a privilege if we get to have our own room at conferences. Anytime I see people freak out about sharing a room I think about a co worker who lived with a stranger’s bird for a few days.

    2. SL #2*

      I’ve never had to share a room with a coworker in any of the non-profits I worked for. But I’ve also been lucky to work for non-profits that are extremely well-funded and past their “young, scrappy, and hungry” days.

    3. FCJ*

      Same in academia, at least for grad students and adjuncts. You start asking around about roommates six months before the big annual conference.

      1. Marie*

        And it you are the only one of your lab going, sharing with a complete stranger, sometimes of the opposite sex.

      2. Anxa*

        My boyfriend is postdoc with a younger female intern and she was awarded registration funds to go to a (long) conference in the last fw weeks before the event. It felt like our entire week was consumed with scouring his friend network for other female attendees with no luck until maybe 2 days before the flight.

        We both really didn’t want them to room together (it could hurt either of their reputations), but once it got to the point where she’d have to miss the conference if she didn’t go, I started to feel like that was hurting more than helping her. Plus I was tired of the constant phone checking.

    4. HR Bee*

      +1. When I worked at a small non-profit, I had to share a room with my boss on a business trip. Luckily, we both liked each other and had similar schedules/habits, so it was fine, but I could imagine it being Super Awkward if we weren’t already pretty close.

      Honestly though, since this was my first professional job, I had no idea it wasn’t the norm until I saw it on here.

    5. WPH*

      Lord yes. My first job after a non-profit I was legitimately surprised that I got my own room…and reimbursements!

    6. tiny temping teapot*

      I worked for a largish non-profit and unfortunately lived in the city where many national trainings happened so of course people slept on our floor and our couches. Because why pay for a hotel when employees have floor space? Many of the “guests” were just out of college and not great at staying with other people. My roommate and I both worked for the organization in different branches but after one of our “guests” let my indoor cat out by just leaving the door half open for a few hours in the middle of the night, we stopped taking new staff in. (The cat came back in the morning, thank goodness.) We would only let people we knew stay with us or ones who’d been on staff for over 3 or 4 years.

  54. MommaCat*

    Theatre tech here. When I was mic dressing, I got to put my hands down people’s shirts all the time (not as fun as it sounds; kinda gross, actually). There were also all the NSFW jokes about the non-lubricated condoms we used to keep the mic transmitters dry. I know far more about what brand condoms hold together the best than most people do. We practiced safe sound, y’all.

    2. Red Two*

      The stage manager I worked with most often in college was always so gleeful about expense condoms to the college budget for shows, haha.

      1. kitryan*

        I was in costumes at a state school and I used to joke that I bought socks for the government (I bought a lot of other things too, but somehow I always seemed to need more socks).

    4. ali*

      haha, my sound designer and hair stylist used to fight over which one got to me first. hair always won because she convinced him the heat from her curling iron would be a problem on his mic. It was just always so much easier to get me mic’d before she made my hair unmoveable. He’d put condoms over the actual mic itself as well as the transmitter until the show started to protect from things like hairspray, so we’re all walking around with condom tips hanging on our foreheads.

      1. MommaCat*

        Even though mic dressing isn’t my main thing anymore, I’m still really good at weaving mics through actors’ hair, lol.

  55. Camellia*

    IT resumes – once you have a few years experience you are expected to list pretty much everything you’ve done or had experience with. A two-page resume is called ‘pretty thin’; a seven page resume is happily accepted.

    1. Connie-Lynne*

      Hm, not in my experience. Me and other hiring managers regularly have “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!” conversations around giganto resumes and it’s not uncommon for us to reject a candidate over that. When we coach younger people around resumes, there’s a lot of “get rid of these extra four pages.”

    2. Anonymous Educator*

      Camellia, can I ask what area of IT you work in? My experience has been similar to Connie-Lynne’s—two pages is fine, and I’ve definitely communally laughed at a few résumés that listed everything for pages (including a whole separate page of “skills”).

    3. Anonymous 40*

      Agreed with the others. Most people I know in IT see a long resume as a sign that the candidate didn’t bother to tailor it to the position and/or they never remove anything.

    4. Jessica*

      Agree with others, especially since technology has changed dramatically within the last 10 years. I can’t imagine anyone’s going to care what tools I used in 2004.

  56. bikes*

    We have an indoor rock climbing wall where I work and the area where I sit is littered with bikes. It’s a veritible bike graveyard and I have to push by them to reach my desk at peak times. That being said, I get to wear casual clothes and no one is mean so I’ll take it.

  57. SuspectedDragon*

    Work for a promotional products distributor. Nothing too crazy, but coming in from the banking industry was a culture shock (in a good way!). More people have visible tattoos and piercings than not (myself included). My “uniform” these days almost exclusively revolves around ankle boots, skinny jeans, and a graphic tee. I knew I was in the right place when I met our HR director, and she had purple hair :-)

  58. cricket*

    Mmm, specific to my team — it’s not terribly unusual to have the entire team over to your house for a barbecue or informal party. It happens only once or twice a year, but everyone really enjoys it. It works because of the relationships we have with each other, but it would be completely weird in most circumstances. I’m actually debating whether to continue the tradition, as we have a new team member who I suspect would be fairly horrified by the idea.

  59. Anonny*

    I work with a taxing authority that collects BILLIONS each year. The amounts that people see as trifling is funny. Mention $7 M in a meeting and people yawn. Even something that brings in $300 M is seen as NBD.

  60. Amber Rose*

    Manufacturing: Super. Casual. There was like, a 15 minute conversation about nipples in the lobby the other day. One coworkers suggested using his… anatomy to measure out 11 inches of tubing. There’s a naked fireman calendar in the ladies’ bathroom. No particular restrictions with clothing as long as it’s within the bounds of safety, which is why my supervisor is wearing a Rainbow Dash t-shirt and one of the workers has one of those stick man porn star tees on.

    In terms of my specific job, all I can say is I spend more time than is 100% healthy watching gruesome videos and reading fatality reports. Canada has the most disturbing commercials. WTF Canada.

    2. JustaTech*

      OMG, Canada has the most terrifying safety ads/PSAs/whatever ever!
      Yes, yes, very effective, now I’m scarred for life and will never touch another ladder ever, thank you.

      1. Chinook*

        As a Canadian, I have to ask – which PSAs and safety ads are you guys seeing? I have been racking my brain and can’t think of one that is scary.

        1. Amber Rose*

          Look up The Chef WSIB workplace safety ad.

          “I was going to have an awesome life… But I’m going to have a workplace accident.” *Trips, dumps boiling oil all over herself and screams horribly.*

          The other WSIB ads were as bad if not worse. D:

          1. Another Canuck*

            That actually happened to a kid I used to work with. We were both HS students, working in a diner after school and on weekends. We both worked the Sat & Sun opening shifts, where 90% of the orders involved eggs and bacon or sausages. We cooked the bacon and sausages in bulk, on cookie trays.

            We had three ovens, but one of them was mounted above a busser’s station and high enough that we had to use a step-stool to reach it. Because bacon and sausages are greasy, we had to open the oven, take out the trays, and drain off the grease a few times for each tray. It was the stupidest kitchen design ever, because even the tallest of us had to reach over our heads to pull out shallow trays full of boiling fat. Adding to the problem, right in front of this busser station and oven was the only door in or out of the kitchen, and servers and busboys were constantly rushing in and out. The building was old, and never intended to be a restaurant, so equipment was shoehorned in wherever it could be wedged.

            One very busy Sunday morning, I had been sent downstairs to get more supplies out of the big walk-in fridge, and as I came up the stairs, I heard screaming. A horrible, high-pitched, agonized keening that just seemed to go on and on. I raced up the stairs and into the kitchen, where I found our dish kid, Brian, on the floor, with horrible blisters all over his scalp (he had a buzz cut), face, chest, and abdomen. Our cook had already cut away his t-shirt… and sheets of his skin came off with it. It was horrific. He’d been up on that damned step stool, draining those stupid bacon trays, and someone had rushed through the door behind him and accidentally bumped him. The tray tilted. All the boiling fat cascaded down over his head and body.

            Brian was in the hospital for months, and had severe visible scarring that effected his life hugely. He faced years of surgeries, social isolation, bullying, chronic pain, and a host of physical problems that the scarring caused.

            So yeah…. kitchen work is fucking hard core. And those WSIB ads are bang on.

  61. Emma*

    When I was a teacher, I would spend literally hundreds of dollars of my own money for office supplies each year. It was a revelation to join an office job where your pens, paper, etc are covered, and they’ll even order you more/different types if you ask!

    1. Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler*

      Oh my God. I once received a box containing two pairs of scissors and four markers for a program serving 200 children daily. I ended up having to surf Craigslist and beg for donations from retiring teachers.

      1. Miso*

        I always wanted to ask this: Do I actually understand that right that teachers in the US have to buy pens and paper etc for the children they teach?
        Like… Why? Why in the world don’t they buy that stuff themselves?

        1. Jessica*

          They do, but not everyone can afford to. What’s the statistic, 1 in 5 kids currently in poverty? Hell, the political BS around giving students free/discounted school lunch is enough to make one want to punch people. There are an awful lot of folks who want to shame the heck out of kids who can’t afford food, clothes or supplies.

        2. The OG Anonsie*

          Large proportion of kids’ families can’t afford them or are unengaged enough to just not bother or both.

  62. thunderbird*

    Office job in health/fitness/sport. Beyond the variations of dress any given day (business to workout clothes), was all of the in office challenges (planks, handstands, etc.); weight goal challenge (lose/gain depending on goal) and taking off layers of clothes for weigh in (some dudes went down to boxers if wearing jeans); followed by awkward stretching while having conversations (standing and putting your foot on someone’s desk to stretch your leg, etc.)

  63. Kate the Intern*

    Plagiarism! Everybody in my field borrows heavily from eachother’s documents. It’s not even necessary to ask first. It’s usually taken as a compliment. I think it’s because we are a branch of civil service, so we all have the same goals and aren’t competing.

    1. AthenaC*

      Public accounting as well – anything we create is the intellectual property of the firm, so we regularly share memos, notes, presentations … everything.

    2. LizB*

      I worked in a school for a bit, and learned very quickly that you rarely make your own worksheets unless it’s a super specific activity or topic. Whatever you’re trying to teach, someone has already put together a lesson and put it up on the internet, usually for free, so just google, print, and go. If you have the budget for something from Teachers Pay Teachers, great, but nobody bats an eye if you don’t.

  64. Sour Grapes*

    During August – November, always being sticky and having one’s hands stained a nice purple color plus going home and finding things like crushed grapes and sticks in your hair. (Winemaking is fun!)

  65. Still teaching*

    Public Education
    I used to work for a school principal who believed that any time you disagreed with him was insubordination. I hate to say how many foolish despots there are in education.

    1. Julianne*

      Hmm, I wouldn’t say that’s a norm! I can only speak anecdotally, but none of the principals I’ve worked for in a decade in public education fit this description. Of course, some are more effective than others, or more well suited for certain types of schools or school cultures, but I think that’s something that could be said of managers in any field!

  67. peachie*

    Oh boy. I’m an actor, so there’s a lot.

    – Kissing/fighting/touching coworkers all the damn time
    – Also thinking nothing of undressing in front of coworkers or seeing them undress
    – Generally, just a lot of hands-on-ness (not inappropriate, in my experience–more like tucking in tags or fixing zippers, helping wipe the stage blood off your cast mate, and of course, the acting part)
    – Friendliness and camaraderie is more important than in any other job I’ve had
    – Having to be VERY aware of people’s superstitions
    – Expecting my friends & family to publicly view my work and tell me what they think of it
    – Not being allowed to change hair style, etc. without talking to my boss

    There are probably a lot more… Theater is weird!

    1. Discordia Angel Jones*

      +1 to that, and it even carries over to the front of house staff! (I used to work foh at a London West End theatre)

      1. chnellociraptor*

        Oh my gosh, yes. I had one FOH gig where I had an office adjacent to the green room and spent several weeks in close company with the cast. One actor hugged me every. single. morning. when we arrived. As well as everyone else in the cast.

    2. Al Lo*

      Sure is. Man, I love the theatre.

      All of those things are a part of my job, and I really love each and every one of them, as weird as they are.

  68. Kylo Pen*

    I’m in Special Education and can’t wear anything I’m not okay with being destroyed. Almost all of our students exhibit highly aggressive behaviors (kicking, hitting, spitting, biting, scratching, etc.) as well as self-injurious behaviors. Most of my time is spent helping staff navigate these behaviors to keep themselves and the students safe, while trying to determine the function of the behavior. I’ve learned that most people don’t expect to come home from work bruised with torn clothes :) It’s the best job in the world though!!

    1. Caligirl*

      I do this and people always assume that the scratches on my hands and arms are from my cats. I don’t have the heart to tell them that they are from a young child and that my boss would rather buy band-aids than manage the behavior. But you are right that it is the most rewarding job I’ve had!

  69. Backroads*

    My boss had to examine a client regarding his testicle, client being kicked so hard by another client who was subsequently removed for a few days.

    Yeah, 2nd grade teacher. My field also deals is closer proximity to potty breaks and minor injuries than other fields.

    We are also silently judged if we don’t use overly cutesy fonts.

  70. AthenaC*

    Military: Living with your coworkers, changing together, watching each other pee (mandatory drug tests – yay!), showering together.

  71. Wineo*

    Well I came here to be all, in the wine industry we sometimes drink at lunch! But I read through earlier comments and apparently everyone drinks at work so nevermind. :)

    One thing not necessarily unique to us but good to know for newbies entering my industry, is everyone knows everyone. I’m currently at a company where I’ve worked closely with a few current coworkers before two companies ago, my husband currently works with someone who just left my dept of my company a year or so ago, etc. etc. This is in part because we are mostly land-bound to northern CA so people work and live out in our various valleys and in SF.

    1. Wineo*

      Oh wait, here’s one more. If you’re in production or sales, you usually do formal wine tastings of new lineups or blends, and that is always in the early AM because taste buds work best in the morning. We swirl and spit, of course, but when you’re working through 20 big cabs you are definitely walking away with a buzz.

  72. Online Community Management*

    My team and I look at and share pornography (and worse) links via chat all the time, though I’m not in the porn industry. I’ve also had to have more than a few interesting conversations with execs regarding sexual kinks, including one where I had to explain that consensual non-consent was a thing that exists.

    The joke is that for us nothing online is not safe for work, rather it’s not safe for working in coffee shops.

  73. Lora*

    -Discussion of super personal medical issues. It’s pharma, it’s our job to know all the clinically relevant details of STI transmission and evolution, side effects of drugs.

    -STEM skews heavily male, and I’m often the only woman or one of two women in a room full of men. You get used to being described as “the girl in (department)” or greeted as “hey lady” or similar. As a manager I’m assigned to be the moral compass of the men (and boys, ugh) just like in Victorian times. The Old Boys Clubs are commonplace and it’s not unusual for the men to go out to a whiskey bar followed by a strip club, or golfing, and women are pointedly left out. Women are routinely underpaid and overlooked in this industry. For example, a colleague from a previous job was just hired where I work – and he’s a level up in the hierarchy from me and getting paid about $30-40k more, even though we literally have the same education (we went to the same grad school paid for by our previous employer) and I have two more years of experience and some broader experience than he does.

    -Regulatory is not quite as bad as the DoE audits of nuclear power, but…pretty close. People who come into this industry from somewhere that is less regulated either quit or go through a painful adjustment period when they learn how frequently they will be audited and by whom and the detail of that audit.

    -The dress code is inverted. If you are dressed in comfy old jeans and a faded college t-shirt, it’s probably because you’re a CTO or something: the message is, “I was hired for my brains, not to look pretty”. People dressed in business clothes are either at an interview or in Finance. The smarter you are, the weirder/sloppier you are allowed to dress.

    -There is a ranking of presentation style, and “chalk talks” where you speak without notes and sketch all your pictures on a chalkboard or marker board is considered the very best. If you must have a slide deck, show only images of your data, with attributions to collaborators at the bottom of the slide. Giving the more usual text-heavy presentations with the occasional clip art induces eye-rolling and phone-checking.

    -Contrary to popular belief, the people who actually cure cancer do not make much money. The people who are working in Logistics who figure out which batch of drug with which bar codes will go to which distribution center and what anti theft devices will be in place and whether it will go by truck or airplane and work with CVS to figure out the delivery schedule, are the ones who make pretty decent money. Boring yet meticulous jobs pay better than exciting ones that will save humanity, because everyone wants to be a hero but nobody wants to do boring things that require a lot of details.

    1. Lora*

      Also, we have drugs, obviously. Lots of them. Had a broken foot and told the orthopedic doc, “can’t you just put (employer’s drug) in it? It’ll be fixed in two weeks with a soft cast, then I don’t need to do physical therapy!” He stared at me and replied, we don’t usually use that for this sort of thing, because it’s really expensive – and insurance won’t cover it. I said, “oh that’s OK, I have tons in the freezer, I can just grab a vial.” One vial was about 200 doses, and each dose cost $4000. I had a box of 80 vials…he still made me do the hard cast and physical therapy.

    2. Hermione Lovegood*

      I used to work in pharma; now I work for the animal health division of a top-15 company. It’s not unusual to carry on conversations with colleagues almost entirely in acronyms. Way too many TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms)!

    3. JustaTech*

      Yes to all this! And trying to explain to someone from academia that GMP means “no, you can’t change anything in the process without approval, and I mean *anything*.”

    4. Anxa*

      Yep on the money front. I think a lot more people would stick with biomed research if it just paid a living wage.

  74. Mike C.*

    Hmm, I’ll think of some more later, but 20 minute walks from the parking lot to your desk, walking a half mile for a meeting, and areas were pedestrians don’t have the right of way.

      1. fposte*

        Heh. I didn’t even think of that for you, Mike. I guess it’s the week for the figurative to become literal.

        1. Mike C.*

          So just consider for scale that the 787-10 is replacing the “small” 777-200LR (there’s a -300 as well!).

          Also note that the circumference of the 737 fuselage is about the same as the circumference of the engines for a 777.

          My personal sense of scale and distance is completely shot, incidentally.

      6. Anonymous Coward*

        I barely restrained myself from responding with a link to flying penises, which is what flew (or still flies!) in my former industry. You’re welcome.

    3. Turtle Candle*

      I think I toured where you work, or someplace very like it, many years ago when I was in high school, and the guide joked that on-the-job exercise was a perk because everyone had to walk a jillion miles just to get anywhere. :D

        1. Free Meerkats (formerly Gene)*

          My Fitbit stats for the days I do inspections there are only topped by setup and teardown days at major science fiction conventions.

          Say Hi to Joe for me. I’m sure you know Joe, he works in one of the buildings there. :-)

  75. Kate, Short for Bob*

    Around thirty years ago, working for a videographics house, I helped win a contract for a broadcast series.

    I was on the phone cold-calling a potential client, TV guys on the other side of the open studio, half-trained 80 pound guard dog runs in having escaped from its cage. I grabbed his collar as he passed me, carried on talking on the phone (it’s always the conversations you want to end quickly that just keep going) and finally hung up. Turned round to haul the dog away and 3 execs just staring at me, boss talking about the product like nothing’s happening.

    Director told me afterwards that that incident decided them that we could probably handle whatever came up ;-)

  76. Jessen*

    One of the weird things I hit in academia was the “who dressed you?” outfits. Not just that they were casual, but just…weird. Like a male presenter wearing a button-down, with the sleeves left long and unbuttoned, and sort of half tucked in. Or a female presenter wearing a nice skirt and top and barefoot.

    1. Treecat*

      My advisor came to my master’s thesis defense in a shirt with a huge ink stain on it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    2. Manders*

      My dad is a professor and had left the house multiple times without noticing that his polo shirt is inside out and backwards. He also wears velcro shoes, not because he has any mobility issues, but because he almost never remembers to tie his shoes.

      1. Treecat*

        My dad is also a professor and he has lost so many jackets/coats/bags in the backs of taxis in various foreign countries. The absent minded professor stereotype is often so true it hurts.

        1. Manders*

          What is it with losing clothing? My dad once made a ceremony out of presenting his colleague with a pair of pants he’d left behind at a conference. And they didn’t work on the same continent, so this involved a very long wait until they met again at another conference.

    3. Courtney W*

      This summer I legitimately thought one of my professors was a student when he entered the room. Wrinkled college t shirt, shorts, sandals, sunglasses on his head, backpack, shoulder length hair….definitely threw me for a loop when I realized he was actually the prof!

    4. Kay*

      Work in Academia. Can confirm that this is pretty typical with faculty. I saw a post on Facebook a long time ago that asked you to decide whether a picture showed a homeless person or a faculty member.

    5. Cleo*

      Oh yeah. I just finished a short term contract at a university that involved taking A Lot of meetings with faculty, staff and administrators that I didn’t know. I got pretty good at mentally identifying someone’s role based on clothing – business professional = administrator (or support staff in a meeting with their boss), business causal = staff, and super casual / hippy / ethnic / I just rolled out of bed = professor

    6. Mickey, like the mouse*

      Yes! It is so hard to focus on a professor with a request instead of interrupting to ask how he has arrived in our building in Gold-Toe dress socks but no shoes.

  77. Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler*

    When I was a teacher, we all had to refer to each other by last names, since we didn’t want to use first names around the kids. Years later, I’m still friends with old colleagues, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used their given names, even if we’re at a bar or just out somewhere. Sometimes I even forget what they are. :P

    1. Teach*

      It was in the staff manual at one place I taught. You could get written up for using anything other than Mr/Ms LastName in front of students, parents, or in general at school.

  78. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Young lawyer, worked for private, government, and nonprofits.

    God forbid your mental health isn’t perfect! On becoming licensed, moving states, or getting into any government work, you often have to disclose whether you have any of those issues- my state recently had to narrow its health question on the bar application due to a suit alleging that asking about mental health broadly violated the ADA. You can literally get called up in front of a board of people to explain your problem/responses if you answer yes to that question.

    I got government work once, and had to state the timeframes I had seen a therapist in, and then GO BACK AND GET AFFIDAVITS(!!!) from them saying that my judgement and reliability was good and I could do the job.

    Worst part? I only went to therapy because I was queer, and obviously very anxious about it because my family and others didn’t accept me at the time. So do I look crazy, or out myself? Some choice!

    1. 2e*

      Ah yes, nothing adds to the fun of a government background check like calling up every mental health professional you’ve ever seen and asking them to write you that letter! Especially because I found doctors unfamiliar with this practice were very uncomfortable writing about a patient they hadn’t seen in a very long time.

      This is one reason I’m reluctant to change doctors unless there’s a real problem.

      1. Feo Takahari*

        My first psychiatrist died in a motorcycle crash. Does that mean I can’t work in government?

  79. A Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    I work on a Trading floor and dropping *F-bombs*, *S-bombs* and *GD-bombs* very loudly is the norm around here. I’ve worked in other industries and this would be frowned upon and taken up with HR.

    1. Recruit-o-Rama*

      Ha! We must have been typing at the same time! It’s just so normal for me too, doesn’t even phase me anymore!

  80. Recruit-o-Rama*

    F bombs in the interviews by both hiring managers and candidates is seen as totally normal. I work in a heavy industry transportation related environment and the language used on the regular would be downright scandalous in any other work environment I’ve been in. This suits me just fine, but it did take me by surprise when I first came onboard here.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      I was warned about this when I got a job with an environmental remediation company. They asked me if I had any aversion to cursing, as it was kind of common among the field techs. I think I answered the question, “Hell no.” :)

      1. Recruit-o-Rama*

        At my office it would def been “fuck no!” The f word is like a comma here, lol.

  81. Catabodua*

    Research at big university.

    The idea that faculty members can ignore federal regulations and the university will twist itself in a knot figuring out how to make what they are doing not against the regulation. This is usually only for the superstars, the ones who are bringing millions of federal research funding in to the university, but it’s still surprising.

      1. Catabodua*

        But of course. They are actually working on important things and have no time for administration.

      2. Anxa*

        And professional admin staff can completely ignore external deadlines with no consequences (well, for them).

    2. Susan the BA*

      Yep, well-funded faculty being allowed to ignore any/all regulations, rules, standards of common decency… oh, you threw a printer at a staff member? Well, try not to do that again if it’s not too much trouble. No such thing as “mandatory” for faculty at a private institution.

      1. JustaTech*

        At BigStateU they had a researcher come to the Sexual Harassment team because he had been hauled across a conference table by his tie by another researcher. “That’s not sexual harassment.” “I know, but there’s no regular harassment team.”
        So they made a general harassment team. No idea if it helped.

    3. The OG Anonsie*

      IME they’ll even do this for the little guys if they think acknowledging it will open them up to liability.

      I was in academic medicine for a long time, and boy you’d think the accountability level would be high because of the oversight and potential to harm is also high but… You would be wrong.

  82. MadGrad*

    My agency apparently once had an adult toy vendor as a client. Boxes of samples and products were left in break rooms for the taking.

    I am very sad to say they are no longer a client.

  83. Anon formerly of Miami*

    I had a second job in a vintage clothing store and we wore the clothes as salespeople. Also, I worked in a law office where cocaine and hookers were the norm. Hey, it was the ’80s!

    1. NaoNao*

      I did too! I worked for a delightfully eccentric older woman who could NOT say no to purchasing trunkloads of clothing from estate sales. She had a shop in a renovated warehouse that, at the time, was pretty sleepy and kind of a funky/artsy/punky downtown mall. (It’s now a hipster gentrification zone).
      We wore head to toe punk rock looks (chains, more than one ring on each hand, teased out glam rock hair, the works), vintage playsuits (what we would call rompers today) and ball gowns or tutus to work. A *tame* day would be a simple vintage day dress and slip on shoes.
      I miss that place every day!

  84. Kathlynn*

    I think retail must be one of the few jobs where you get strange looks from customers if you actually use PPE (personal protective equipement). I’m having a really bad asthma flare up atm, due to bad quality, and all the bad customer “humor” and derisive remarks/questions about the mask I need to wear to breath are getting really really annoying (I also have to use the mask while cleaning outside of this flare, and should also have proper gloves and safety goggles provided for me, but aren’t). Like people don’t understand that we are required to use potentially harmful chemicals to clean equipment. They assume that if I’m wearing a mask I’m contagious with a highly dangerous illness. When it’s just me preventing (worse) asthma attacks and keeping my lungs healthier. It was the same thing at my last job, where people would look at me weirdly for wearing PPE while washing the pumps or convection oven. which both required very strong chemicals that could hurt my skin and/or trigger my asthma.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        My mother-in-law lived in the deep south and kept several on the back porch for chopping poison ivy vines. It was normal to grab one if you were heading out anywhere on the property.

      3. AW*

        My current employer does work in construction, civil engineering, power, and environmental remediation. A significant number of the employees at my current employer work in the field. A co-worker was talking about making sure our sub-contractors were following safety rules on a project and cited an example of a sub-contractor bringing a machete on-site.

        He accidentally struck another employee in the back of the head with it because he wasn’t using a safety lanyard with it either. He was cutting through plants and it flew out of his hands.

      4. smokey*

        Useful for any outdoor survey-type work, but some employers don’t want the machetes at your desk- they stay in the equipment shed. Others don’t care.

        1. Land Sir Veyer*

          Absolutely. I used to have a full box of them. Gave them out like pencils when crew broke theirs or wore them down sharpening. We actually had a guy forget he had a machete on his belt and he went into the bank to get some money. THAT was a fun day!

    2. Bruce H.*

      Because it is better to have a machete and never need it than to need a machete and not have it.

  86. CMart*

    Restaurant industry: sexual harassment like craaaaaaazy of men and women alike, from coworkers and managers specifically. Harassment from customers is frowned upon a lot more, though often allowed to happen by spineless management.

    Some of it is BAD, like “even the people in this industry would support you filing a complaint/police report”, but a lot of it is… not benign, certainly, but generally fun and games for most* people involved.

    *it’s an unwritten but oft spoken rule that if you can’t handle it then this isn’t the industry for you, so the people who remain are the ones who think ass-grabbing, overt and disgusting flirting, and name calling are fun-ish.

    1. Preppy6917*

      I came to say the same thing. It was always harassment as a way of blowing off steam and building camaraderie. Also, as a gay man growing up and living in the deep south, being able to tell dirty jokes and have a sense of humor about myself helped me “win over” a number of lifetime friends who’d never before been exposed to LGBT folks.

      It was a difficult adjustment to corporate America.

  87. Midwest Maven*

    I work in Trust and Safety. We have a lot of conversations around ‘Is this image pornography?’ and/or ‘What body part is that?’

  88. ArtsAdmin4Life*

    The overt racism and sexism in our product that we choose not to correct, address, or apologize for. I work at an opera company.

  89. asfjkl*

    I used to work in the outdoor/bicycle industry. Lots of group workouts and rides together. I’ve seen almost all of my past colleagues in spandex. We would all be in the locker room showering at the same time after our lunch workouts, so I definitely have seen all of my managers naked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  90. Turtle Candle*

    Tech writer in a software company: the hours are suuuuuuper flexible. (For the development team, which I’m on. Not so for Sales or Marketing or etc.) Unless you have a meeting, nobody cares when you roll in and when you roll out as long as you make your 40 hours and are promptly responsive to email if your hours are especially weird. One guy who had no morning meetings regularly showed up at lunch and then worked until 8 or 9pm. On the flip side, a couple of times for various reasons I’d work from 3am to 11am. And if you end up short on hours, you can come in on Saturday to make them up, if you want. You can also take an extra long lunch if you like, or duck out in the middle of the day, so long as the hours get made up elsewhere. Advance permission is only necessary if you take a whole day off or need to miss a meeting.

    This is at a company where work/life balance is taken seriously, so this isn’t just an excuse to make everyone work 60 hours a week; I almost never have to work over 40 and when I do I get OT. It’s really nice.

  91. Chinook*

    DH’s job in the national police force means we know where the next transfer will take us but not when. Literally, it doesn’t go into affect until we sell the house and we have two years to sell. We are lucky because no one else is in this transfer chain. There are stories of 5 or 6 transfers being held up because they can’t move someone until the person who will be replacing them sells their home, thus holding up others who either need their new slot to open up or wait around for the person to replace them. It can get so bad that members will swap houses/sell houses to each other just to get the transfer to go through and take the loss.

    The force won’t buy homes that don’t sell and just recently agreed to compensate for any losses up to a certain dollar amount. And Force owned housing only occurs in areas where there is literally nothing to physically buy or rent because everything is owned by the government. But, if you get one of those, you can get kicked out if someone with a bigger family gets transferred there.

    On the plus side, they don’t require you to work in remote areas two postings in a row unless you want to.

  92. MsMaryMary*

    My mom taught elementary school for nearly 40 years. When my brother and I were school age, we attended the same school where she taught. Before and after school, we just kinda hung out in her classroom. Several other teachers with school aged children did the same thing, for a while there was a group of 5-6. My first job was babysitting another teacher’s six year old when I was in eighth grade (she needed a little more attention than an average six year old). Granted, elementary school teachers tend to be comfortable with children, but there arent a lot of other workplaces where your kids could stay in the workplace for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

    1. Sparkly Librarian*

      Huh, I totally did this in my mom’s classroom and did not register that it was odd until just now. She wasn’t teaching, after all — it wasn’t the same to me as “working” even though she was obviously getting work done.

  93. Lolli*

    I worked in the restaurant industry in my 20’s. There was nothing odd about walking behind someone and sliding your hand along their lower back. It was a way to let them know you are there so they wouldn’t quickly turn around and cause a collision. That would be so odd to do in my IT job now.

  94. Snork Maiden*

    I have several knives and a razor blade on my desk, and I use them frequently and with gusto…to open boxes and cut materials.

    1. Snork Maiden*

      I grew up with multiple swiss army knives and Leatherman tools thanks to my parents (practical rural types) and in my current job it’s very common for all of us here to carry around boxcutters/xacto knives. Sometimes I will have a boxcutter and a swiss army knife in my purse – I’ve gotten some looks for whipping out my xacto knife among casual company. They’re just so handy, dang it – I can’t go back to tearing things open with the edge of a key! I’m guessing it conflicts with my appearance – I look very soccer mom when I’m out and about.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I was doing some research and learned that a spec ops guy who carries a knife probably carries… a Leatherman. Or a Swiss Army knife. For McGyvering things in the field. Almost never the fighting knife advertised in catalogues, and there was quite a bit of virtual eye-rolling at those.

        1. Snork Maiden*

          The fighting knives are ridiculous. My dad has a few of that sort (although not weapons grade, just a similar style) – they’re good for slicing the twine off bales in winter when you need a big rigid knife with a handle, and not much else. My spouse was into knifey stuff when he was younger and we have a crappy machete and assortment of other weird implements. I use a double-bladed one as a letter opener, it works quite well.

          1. Stone Satellite*

            My machete is for yard work. There’s not much flat area and a lot of brush, so machete plus weed whacker is the only way to go.

        2. Chinook*

          The gift I am happiest DH gave me was a swiss army knife he bought from the Swiss Army canteen at an international military even. It is the most useful thing ever and the corkscrew works better than some of the ones you can buy. I swear I could saw down a small tree and build myself a lean-to in which to drink a nice glass of wine with that thing.

    2. Beancounter Eric*

      Within close reach, regular size Swiss Army Knife, 2 small SAK’s, Leatherman and Gerber multi-tools, Buck and Gerber lockblades, and a Swiss-card in my phone case. Oh, and sharpening tools.

      Just a few of the tools of a well-equipped accountant.

  95. Not today*

    Formerly worked maintenance/custodian/purchasing at a Nevada brothel. Ordering 12 different brands of condoms by the gross. Getting bulk discounts on lube. Women is various stages of (in)dress ranging from cocktail wear to thing and pasties around all the time. Asking around to find out who ordered the floggers. Having to be out of sight when customers came in. So much more.

    I really miss that job. Most of the ladies were sweethearts and management cared about the employees.

  96. Sunshine Brite*

    Social work working in Mental Health
    – All the jokes, there’s a sometimes sick sense of humor needed to last awhile
    – All the companies who want the licensure without paying for it or continuing ed opportunities
    – All the discussion about EVERY bodily function and way to self-harm imaginable
    – Skewed sense of “normal”
    – Spending about 4x as much time on paperworking/navigating local/state/federal/etc systems than direct client work in almost any setting

    1. H.C.*

      Also in mental health, in an administrative capacity, I’d also add this is a field where wearing ties is actively discouraged (possibility of choke hazard when interacting with clients.)

      1. Sunshine Brite*

        Oo yes, dressing to avoid strangulation is something I don’t even think to include sometimes until someone’s like …wtf. Currently working in a high security placement so lots of random you can’t wear/have that rules and strict no personal info boundaries.

    2. therapist*

      Yes. Just went back to hospice after multiple years of working acute psych, and I will co-sign on all of these, plus add having to fairly regularly avoid or help co-workers avoid assaults. And the skewed sense of normal is totally true- it was easy to forget that my friends and family not working in mental health weren’t used to all of the things we heard about or had to deal with that were just part of the job.

      1. Librarianne*

        My ex-husband was a mental health social worker long enough that his ability to know what was normal was COMPLETELY screwed up. He ended up with a substance abuse problem and his own mental health issues, but always thought he was fine because he was better off than his clients. It’s such a hard job and vicarious trauma can really damage people.

  97. Dankar*

    Academia–entirety of the building ups and leaves for vacation at the same time (summer) whether they’re faculty or staff. Right now, I’m the only one here. It gets lax for about three months every year.

    My favorite example is from my previous university, though:

    Housing: “We’re no longer answering calls today.”
    Me: “But it’s 4:00pm. You’re open for another hour.”
    Housing: “It’s been quiet, so we’re all going home now. Call back tomorrow, but not after 3.”
    Me: “Your department hours are the same as mine!”
    Housing: *hangs up*

    In retrospect, I’m kind of impressed.

    1. The OG Anonsie*

      In the city I used to live in, I once called the city animal control at ~4:45pm when they were supposed to be open until 7pm. The guy was like, yeah, we close soon so we’re not sending out any more people today. I pointed out that they had over two hours before then and he was quiet for a long time waiting for me to elaborate on why I thought that mattered. I think he eventually said something like “two hours isn’t a long time.”

  98. Preppy6917*

    I worked in the service industry for over ten years and…well….sexual behavior (in the joking sense, not actual sex) and harassment is simply part of the culture in a LOT of bars and restaurants.

  99. NaoNao*

    I work in the office/training part of a field that is 95% men on the front line technical work and I was in for the shock of my life when I did a field assignment and my partner chewed tobacco. I assumed it was just a one-off. Nope. My boyfriend works for the same company I do and came up through the front lines; he chewed for years before quitting (thankfully before he met me). A trainer at a seminar for front line employees joked about “dippin’ and teachin’ ” and then was like “seriously guys if you need help quitting, ask me for my hypnotists’ number. Saved my life.”
    So…yeah. Dipping or chewing tobacco! Something I thought went out circa 1865 or so!

    1. N.J.*

      Apparently, you’ve never spent much time in Appalachia….I had a coworker within the past few years who would walk around in an office job with it tucked in his lip then spit into a pop can periodically.

  100. Tobias Funke*

    Small outpatient mental health setting: I am currently sitting at my desk in denim capris with hearts on them, a “nevertheless she persisted” t shirt, and white Keds with baseball stitching on them. This… would not fly any other setting I’ve ever worked in. The other clinicians are equally casual. It’s awesome.

  101. Doktor Professor*

    Academic here. Academics are regularly expected to work for free or for the experience or the line on the CV. And once you’ve published an article in a journal, the journal is behind a pay wall so others have to pay to read what you were not paid to write.

    1. Kate*

      My spouse’ parents are both academics, and they fully expected him not to tasks our very generous parental leave when our daughter was born.

      Once they finally “accepted” it, they strongly *suggested* he volunteer his time back to his workplace while he was on leave, because that’s how academia works!

      1. Dr. Doll*

        Especially for men. Did you see that study about economics departments? Turns out that in universities who try to even up the playing field by mandating parental leave for both men and women, male economists use that time to publish more papers. Female economists use that time to, you know, take care of the new baby. Thus doth very well intentioned equity policy result in *even more inequity*, oops.

        (I don’t know what the ultimate solution is — maybe stop this stupid publish or perish or at least be picked on ethos?)

    2. AcademiaNut*

      In my subject, we have to pay the journals to publish (aka page charges, from grants), and then the institute pays the journals for access. For the major journals, it’s about $100 USD per page, extra for colour.

      1. Molly's Reach*

        That’s one of the things I do at my job at an academic library – pay the open access invoices so that the articles get published.

  102. paul*

    We can be incredibly anal about how we’re publicly perceived; not as bad as teachers thank goodness but bad enough. I won’t wear a company branded shirt to a bar or liquor store for instance.

    There’s intense push to buy into “the mission”.

    We have to bite our tongues when we see news stories focusing on clients/former clients because of confidentiality issues (no, we didn’t kick you out because you’re Hispanic/white/woman/man/single/married/atheist/Christian; we kicked you out because you tried to stab one of us/were dealing drugs in our waiting room/attacked another client/!).

  103. Falling Diphthong*

    Peace Corps in West Africa: part of the exit orientation seminar was explicitly “In the US, you should not discuss the fascinating color, texture, and odor of your last bowel movement. Yes, that has come to be a thing people do competitively with other volunteers, especially while sitting around the medical office, but it is actually off-putting as soon as you leave this very specific sub-culture.”

    1. fposte*

      It is hilarious that this follows paul’s comment about working at a job that’s “anal.”

  104. bluesbelle*

    Arts non-profit, though some of this could be just my company:

    – Everything is decided upon by committee, regardless of expertise. We have multiple meetings a week with “different departments,” except everyone in the office is there. We effectively have 3 staff meetings per week. It’s infuriating.
    – Board meddling and over involvement.
    – Most hiring is done based on personal relationships, often going against the requirements of the funding we’ve received for the position.
    – Work is meant to be your life. There’s a competition around who loves the mission the most and who sacrifices the most for the mission.
    – Ancient computers and all other tech.
    – We’re the cleaners.
    – Props and costumes EVERYWHERE. I currently have a mask and fake plastic fruit on my desk. There’s a set piece hanging from the ceiling.
    – Your job description really is just a very vague outline. Expect to do the weirdest things.
    – You often have to put business expenses on your personal credit card and then wait to be reimbursed.
    – You need to be able to do everything, or at least learn it. You are now the videographer, photographer, designer, etc.

  105. De Minimis*

    I worked for the federal government for a few years [and I experienced nothing shocking there] but now I work for a federal grantee non-profit and it surprises me that things that would be absolutely forbidden to spend federal funds as a federal agency are allowed as a grantee organization, so long as the expenses are reported and accounted for, down to the penny.

    Federal agencies aren’t allowed to spend money on things like food for employees, water delivery services, but it’s totally okay apparently to do this if you’re a grantee. I guess it’s because grantees aren’t considered public servants?
    About the only thing that doesn’t fly is alcohol and late/penalty fees of any kind.

    1. paul*

      We were told starting this year that wasn’t allowable with any grant money from the state ourselves; no food, drink, no swag (think pens and pencils and cups with our logo for booths at community fairs).

      1. heatherskib*

        Depends on the project. The one that I worked with allowed no swag, no food, no drinks, no consumables, no marketing materials, etc.

        1. De Minimis*

          I forgot, no advertising materials either, though it only comes up a few times a year. My boss has me compose the memo line to where it makes no reference of advertising, but that’s what it is.

          My employer’s work involves organizing multiple events and workshops throughout the year, so I guess it’s allowable because the expenses are part of the events—or when there’s a meeting in our offices to conduct program business the lunch is usually charged to the grant. But all of our offices supplies, bottled water, etc. are charged as indirect costs to our main federal grant, and then everything get allocated to the federal and non-federal grants at year-end.

  106. Unexpected Dragon*

    I once got into a very careful analysis of whether or not nipples were showing in a video I was cataloging. One of my fellow catalogers said there were nipples; I didn’t see them. It got loud, and we kept calling more people in. It was work related, as the presence of exposed nipples changed how it needed to be cataloged in our system.

      1. Unexpected Dragon*

        I think we would treat fake nipples like real nipples. Gotta protect those young children from body parts that all they have.

  107. JarofBees*

    Government:
    Expecting gigantic application packages and no limit on resume length. (In general, people with twenty page resumes score better on the rankings because the HR grunts can check every single box verifying 100% of their experience, and give them more points. It’s not unusual for applicants to include PDF’s of every award and certificate they ever earned, and since many are military veterans, that could be another 4o pages of physical fitness certificates and marksman awards).

    Making major policy decisions/ recommendations that impact millions of people with less than one day to research because an emergency Congressional hearing has been called and they demand a decision on the spot.

    Virtual/ Scattered Work Team:
    It’s not unusual for me to go at least 12 months without seeing a single co-worker face-to-face, and I maybe set foot in an office once a year. I’ve had coworkers onboard, work, and leave that I’ve never met and couldn’t identify if they knocked on my front door.

    1. De Minimis*

      I have one co-worker that I only see twice a year, generally. We have one big meeting each year that everyone has to attend, and then he attends a meeting at year end where he goes over his employee evaluation.

      There’s another guy I only see at the one big meeting each year, his work never requires him to come in to the main office, and his supervisor works at his location.

  108. DAH*

    I work in higher ed/Title IX where we spend our time discussing sexual assault, sexual violence, drugs, triggering events, trauma and its impact. It is incredible how these topics, while so painful and vile, are part of the daily conversation. The best week of my year is spending time with other people doing this work; no one has to preface conversations. We all get it.

  109. CCgal*

    I’m a television closed captionist and need to be on standby for urgent orders for the entire length of my work day. This also means that when we’re not busy, there literally is NOTHING to do. So management is totally fine with us tooling around online to pass the time. Social media, Netflix, Reddit, YouTube – anything. Short of porn (though there was a time where we were captioning porn too!), they don’t care what we look at as long as we’re available immediately once an order comes in.

    1. SL #2*

      I have a friend who is a teleprompter operator. She’ll text me pretty consistently through the whole shift, unless there’s a broadcast going on, and then she goes dark for a couple hours.

  110. AVP*

    The idea that people will do insane amounts of work for free, or work crazy overnights and overtime hours for no additional money. All of our clients seem to expect it and are shocked when I point out that we’re freelancers so adding five unfunded days onto a project with no notice is not good.

    TBF I think it’s because our clients are mostly exempt salaried employees of big agencies so they have no idea what it’s like to not have benefits or to work on a day-to-day basis.

    I work in film/advertising.

      1. Jessica*

        Sure is!

        Honestly, I’ve seen so many instances of people failing to understand that making a thing takes time no matter when you ask for it or how urgently you need it, that it must just be a human failing. It doesn’t matter if they want a graphic, a spreadsheet, a refund, or a pizza. People just don’t get it.

  111. Chinook*

    As for my industry – pipeline integrity in the middle of nowhere – we have the best excuses for delays in getting a job done (which we have to explain to the regulator) or cost overrun. The ones I have seen include: snail migratory season (they move slow), bear foot prints on pipe (which is usually underground but was exposed the day before for inspection), landowner met us with shotgun and dog, and, when a request was made for why a job cost 5x what was budgeted, I sent them a photos of the pipe resting on bedrock and of the “spider excavator” (there are 5 on this side of the country – ask me how I know) clinging to the side of the mountain, digging up said pipe (we still don’t know how the heck they installed it 60 years ago).

    1. paul*

      Oh, my dad’s made his living on the regulatory side of the pipeline industry since before I was born. Mostly the southwest/high plains, but his last employer was Canadian based.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      For my Peace Corps West Africa job, we were once in the middle of a frog migration. I wasn’t rural–I had an office in a large town, and one day everything in the office was just carpeted with frogs making their way from Point A to Point B, unconcerned that the regional education offices were in their migration path.

      I now live in New England and it was like that day the pine trees all pollinate, but with frogs.

      1. Jules the First*

        I’m not allowed to side-gig, freelance, consult, or have a part-time job. All of my extra-curricular activities (volunteering, sports teams, music groups, etc) have to be disclosed, plus I have to get written permission from my employer if I spend more than three hours a week doing it (yes, that’s outside working hours!). Oh yes, and when I start a new relationship they need to know that I’m dating and where my date works (though thankfully not gender or name!).

        All super normal for my industry, but makes other peoples’ eyes bug out when you tell them that.

        1. Jules the First*

          Whoops…wrong spot! This has nothing to do with frogs!

          (Frogs are cool, tho…)

          1. Jules the First*

            I’m a procurement/client relations expert for high end design firms – so a lot of my job involves handling highly confidential stuff either because the project I’m dealing with is high profile (like an Olympic venue or a major international airport) or the people I’m working with are VVIP (my last two bosses were knights and the current one is a lord…). I often have to solemnly swear I have no connections with this or that organisation and I once got paid not to come to work for a week because we had a client in our office who was a client of mine when I worked at a different company. I did have security clearance for a while when I was working on some government buildings, but it was a huge nuisance and I’m glad to be rid of it!

    3. MissMaple*

      I had to look up spider excavator, and they are pretty much as awesome looking as I hoped! Thanks for making the day of this mechanical engineer :)

      1. Just J.*

        Miss Maple’s post caused me to look up spider excavator. As a mechanical engineer, I had to see what was intriguing to another ME.

        Those are damn cool.

      2. Jessica*

        Oh, wow, I’m so glad for these additional comments. I was interpreting this as a person whose job it is to, somehow, excavate spiders, and … yikes.

    4. NomadiCat*

      HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT SPIDER EXCAVATORS BEFORE THIS? Oh my, you have absolutely made my *week*. I’ve spent the last 10 minutes simply agog at photos of these puppies on Google. So cool!

  112. Anon for this thread*

    I’m in an industry that’s makes money by being conservative. (In the sense of “we don’t change our business unless there’s an overwhelming reason to”, rather than politically. But they tend to go hand-in-hand.)

    -Extreme resistance to change. They replace 30-year-old, 8’x6′ cube furniture with brand new 9’x5′ cube furniture and everyone loses their minds. They update the UI on our intranet from ~15 years old to ~5 years old, everyone loses their minds. They update the OI from Windows XP to Windows 7 (when Microsoft was ending support for XP), but they retain as much of the XP interface as possible; everyone loses their minds.

    -Casual xenophobia/sexism. This place is 90% white, and most people believe that the reason POC aren’t getting hired or promoted is just because they’re not as competent. There are emails about “lunchroom smells” in response to South Asian leftovers. Women are presumed to be called a diminutive of their names and must request (often repeatedly) their preferred name from pretty much every new person they meet. If anyone mentioned their pronouns, they would be heartily mocked. You can be gay, but if you put a family picture at your desk, you’re “flaunting your lifestyle”.

    This is an aging industry, and I’m a millennial. It’s like fighting a wall to change this culture.

    1. Anon 4 Dis*

      I feel so bad for you with the sexism, racism, not-straight-phobia, and xenophobia. That must be hard to deal with as a Woke Person. My old supervisor had some out dated norms acceptable language, not knowing how things can be offensive, and so on but thankfully he took the advice of all the young people in his office when we would say, “Oh that’s considered racist now. This is the best not offensive term to use.” Or “This is really the best way to be a respectful ally to a nonbinary person in the office.” Or ect. I can relate to the resistance to change hard core seeing as we were a municipal government in a small town. We also not only had our council members to worry about keeping happy but random citizens who decided they needed reasoning for our decisions or wanted to input their ideas into our projects (we were a support department, not a public service or the DPW or something, but ok??).

    2. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

      I feel you. Lawyer here, so it’s definitely aging and can be conservative- but I’ve always been out at work. I guess it helps for everyone involved to know what exactly is legal and illegal, and for my city and state to have strong legal protections. It makes people more careful of what they say and how they treat you.

      I’d get a whole lot of “huh? But you look female, and is it professional to rock the boat,” if I asked for my pronouns at work though. (“They” at home, among friends, and with colleagues and classmates my age, “she” at work in general).

      1. Anon for this thread*

        It’s an industry related to law, but most employees aren’t lawyers, so they don’t realize that ANYTHING they’re doing is illegal. I’ve had multiple managers tell me it’s against company policy to share compensation data. (Luckily, because of the aforementioned conservatism, lawyers rule the C-suite, so the actual policies are clear that that IS within policy to share your own compensation information.)

        A signature including pronouns would be incredibly helpful, as I’m often dealing internationally and it’s not intuitive to me how to refer to Suja or Bogdan or Xiaofeng. Nor is my name common enough in international English media for others to be clear on my gender, much less any nonbinary options. We’re required to conform to a rigid standard for signatures, and pronouns aren’t on the template.

  113. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Being clawed/swatted/pooped/puked/given birth on by customers. Cleaning up customer bodily fluids. Then, trying to get rid of customers after a few weeks or months, by literally selling them.

    (I volunteer as a cat foster parent).

  114. Giselle*

    When I first started down my admin career I was a receptionist at few hair salons. It was normal for your boss or coworkers to walk by occasionally and start fluffing or petting your hair, not affectionately but as an assessment/consultation. I remember on my first day of the first salon the owner just started running his hands through my hair and I was like “UM…?” but it’s just part of the onboarding process. It took me a minute to get used to. I can’t even imagine if I started doing that to someone at my corporate office now. HA!

  115. Capt. Dunkirk*

    The company I work for is in a big warehouse, where about 20% of it is office space, and about 10% a production floor. Because of this we have all manner of dress code depending on which department you’re in; especially in the warehouse where it gets really hot or cold depending on the season, and warehouse employees dress for comfort.
    It’s not uncommon for there to be a company wide meeting held and see executives in formal business wear, people in business casual, and people in graphic tees and jean shorts all standing together.

  116. Gwen*

    Spending the day at the Zoo. Having to go hang out at the VIP area of a festival (with food and open bar). Y’know, for work.

      1. Gwen*

        That’s actually not unrealistic! I have actually been to private VIP events at the Zoo…very exclusive animals ;)

  117. Tau*

    My (old) company rather than my field – living with coworkers.

    The way this works is that we generally worked full-time at a fixed remote location, coming back to our actual town for weekends if that, and would stay at a single location for a long period of time. Instead of putting us all up in hotels, they’d rent several-bedroom flats for the people at that site to share.

    It worked out surprisingly well – I imagine the fact that they tried to ensure cleaners, dishwashes, and one bathroom per person helped with this – but it’s the #1 thing at that job where I figured a lot of AAM readers would recoil. It’s also probably no surprise that professional boundaries were… a lot more tenuous than frequently recommended here.

    1. heatherskib*

      I did this when I worked for the phone book. We were on assignment in another city 6 mos of the year, so the company just funded condos for our use during that period.

  118. Laura (Needs to Change Her Name)*

    I’m a college professor and I once sent an email to a researcher, after a long discussion with my undergraduate class about the results of a paper, to ask him to clarify if “mutual masturbation” meant partners masturbating one another (as in, touching their partner’s genitals with their hands) or if it meant partners masturbating in the presence of one another (touching their own genitals with their hands).

    My life is like this a lot.

  119. In the genealogy industry no longer*

    Used to work for the big-name genealogy/DNA web company. It was always so weird to me that it was acceptable to ask about ethnicity, origin, race – especially when I noticed the questions were mostly directed at anyone without blond hair and blue eyes.

    On the genealogy side, people (dudes) would recognize your surname from their own genealogy research and ask “oh which [surname] did you marry?” …this is the surname I was born with, thanks? Somehow totally culturally accepted there.

    Changing my usual handle, because I’ve talked a fair amount about other toxic experiences there and will continue to do so as I try to process/move on.

    2. Treecat*

      On the flip side of this, a friend of mine was working with a local gov’t agency where employees were supposed to ask customers questions about things like race/ethnicity/disability/income/etc. because it pertained to various kinds of assistance they might be eligible for from the city or county–and half the employees refused to do it because they thought it was too impolite. We both had mini meltdowns when we realized that rather than deal with the temporary discomfort, these (almost entirely white) employees were just letting poor/sick/marginalized people not get the help that was available to them.

      1. In the genealogy industry no longer*

        That’s pretty much awful :-(

        I wish our coworkers had the opposite sensibilities on this topic!

  120. anon for this*

    I worked for a company that auctioned totaled cars for insurance companies. I worked in receiving, so I had to clean the cars, image them, and enter the information into the system. We had to check all the cars for blood because we didn’t have to clean those cars out. So conversations about blood and “someone died in there” were pretty normal and while it was super sad looking in a car and knowing someone had their last thought in there, you inventoried the car and moved on.

    One day we had a car with bullet holes in it and blood down the inside of the door. I wasn’t sure how to classify the damage and my supervisor was at lunch so I went inside to ask our office manager what he thought. As we were having a perfectly casual conversation (yeah well someone probably just got shot and bled everywhere so you should classify the damage as X not Y) I noticed the one customer service rep turn around and stare at us in horror. I didn’t realize how terrible of human beings we sounded like and how not normal the topic was until I saw her face.

    1. Snark*

      It’s also fun times watching the effect that a casual workplace conversation between EMTs can have on eavesdroppers.

  121. Professor Ronny*

    I teach at a large state university. My manager knows where I am when I am in the classroom. Otherwise, no clue. Some of us do not not even have offices. I typically teach mostly online classes so I’m in the classroom less than six hours a week. I can schedule the rest of my time as I see fit.

  122. S*

    I work for a ginormous multi-national company. It’s very normal, once or twice a year, for rumors of layoffs to spread. Then a couple of weeks later, you’ll hear “it’s today.” And you start looking people up on the corporate directory to see if they’re still there. If people are feeling nervous, they might exchange personal email addresses. If you know someone who got laid off, you might reach out and say something supportive… and then… it’s back to business as usual. A shrug.

  123. lill*

    I’m a management consultant in Europe.

    There is a stereotype of us sleeping with each other on projects. It’s an exaggeration of course, many colleagues are married and we are reliable adults, so no, no fooling around with the married ones.

    But it’s true that the chemistry among the single consultants is sometimes extremely strong. I mean, you travel and meet somewhere far away for a few days a week… You spend nights in hotels. It’s clear that sometimes you meet someone you fancy. I’m currently to take the decision whether to “go or it” for the first time. And yes, I’m single.

    1. Jules the First*

      One of my colleagues early in my career fell in love with his interior designer while they were working on a project abroad. It was super awkward when we had to explain to the client that we only needed one hotel room now…

      (They are now happily married – I’ve got no idea how they live together, travel together, and work together without killing eachother, but hey…)

      1. lill*

        “It was super awkward when we had to explain to the client that we only needed one hotel room now…”

        Given to what extent my company tries to save money, if two consultants decided to share a room they would probably be praised in plenum as an example for everybody else. Two months later a new policy would be introduced – from then on we would have to share rooms.

  124. Alex the Alchemist*

    I have bright pink hair (which has also been purple, teal, blue, and basically every other color), lip rings, and tattoos. I work for a church office. This surprisingly flies because I easily come off as a “cool youth pastor,” I suppose.

  125. Falling Diphthong*

    This is a volunteer example, but: When I ran the school science fairs, I had to be careful to make sure each volunteer reviewer (who had about 6 projects per round to review) only had one baking soda volcano per round. Children love baking soda volcanoes.

    This actually became part of my pre-show presentation to classes. “You guys realize that volcanoes do not explode because they contain baking soda and vinegar, and magma is totally unrelated to acid-base reactions, right?” It did not appear to make a dent.

  126. Mazzy*

    Accounting/Billing – Losing $$$$. It’s almost expected that some new employees will make a mistake. A tiny mistake can cost $10K, the size of the action almost never corresponds to the $ amount.

    We always have to fix things in the customers’ favor but rarely get to fix it when it is in our favor, unfortunately.

    So we don’t discipline tiny things. No point in caring if someone comes in 5 minutes late or does a report a little wrong, much more important is that they catch billing errors before bills go out and accounting periods close.

  127. SCORM Hacker*

    I work for an engineering firm, and every employee (whether someone working out in the field or working a desk job) is required to back into their parking spaces at the office. We all try to get to the office to get the spots where we can just pull through instead of backing in. The company says it is a safer way to drive in a parking lot, but seems a bit overkill to most of us!

    1. TeapotSweaterCrocheter*

      I used to work for an energy utility (read: safety-focused) and we had the same rule! Not only did we have to be “first move forward” when at the office, but you had to park that way any time you were on company business no matter where you were.

      At my current job, people drive in the opposite direction of the arrows in the parking lots and nobody seems to care.

  128. Temperance*

    In my industry, we talk about politics all the time, with a decidedly liberal bent. I work in law firm pro bono. The current administration’s policies absolutely impact our work, but it’s shocking.

    1. Anne*

      Same! I’m at a legal aid nonprofit, and while most of my friends have to tiptoe around politics at work, here we all freely yell about it with the expectation that no one would work here if they weren’t already pretty liberal. It’s great.

  129. Surrogate Tongue Pop*

    Retail industry – IT Department. When our developers are testing new changes to the website, for SOME REASON, they always want to use the apparel category of products in test environments…specifically…bras.

    1. Undine*

      In fairness, there’s probably more complexity to bras than other apparel, because they have two size settings, not just one.

      1. Surrogate Tongue Pop*

        Ahaha…that’s not what they’re testing. It’s more like…are the images loading in the grid properly. Are the variants there in color, and apparently, most importantly, THE IMAGES. They could load shoes. Or jeans. Or jackets. But no! Oh no no no no! Heh.

  130. Anne*

    Working at an international nonprofit, it’s totally normal to have Skype meetings scheduled at all hours of the day (6am, 1am, whatever).

    Which would be why I am currently transitioning out of international work…

  131. Snark*

    I’m an environmental consultant and do field work quite often, so it’s not uncommon for me to be in business casual one day and to look like I’m off for a hike the next, or even kind of a hybrid mashup of field and office attire where the chinos and button-down are also wicking technical clothing.

    1. Clever Name*

      Me too! I joke to myself that I’m like “fieldwork into office” Barbie on dome days.

  132. Nicki Name*

    The possibility of immediate termination for bringing alcohol onto company property.

    It was a manufacturing facility. We also had random drug tests.

    I now work in a different industry and it still feels a bit wrong to see people drinking at lunch.

  133. New Bee*

    I’m in public education in a large ueban school district: 1) hugging is definitely a thing and 2) everyone’s friends on Facebook. In fact, FB can be a good way to get a new teaching job.

    Interestingly, I’ve only worked in Title I schools and have never needed to purchase my own supplies. Funding from the state (and I’m in one that is at the bottom of relative spending per pupil) provided everything–I only spent my own money on extras like fancy pencils and erasers as gifts.

    1. Julianne*

      Interesting, I also work in public education in a large, urban district and none of those things are true for me! We don’t hug, nobody is Facebook friends, and I don’t even want to calculate how much money I spent on my classroom last year.

      As with most fields, professional connections are obviously important when job hunting. I’d say that attending grad school or ongoing PD is where I see a lot of those connections being made. I helped a classmate from grad school get a job at my old school, and there are several people who work in my building now who were referred by other staff who they knew from some sort of continuing education.

  134. Bloo*

    I work in a medical laboratory. It’s pretty difficult to gross out an MT because we work with other people’s bodily fluids all day. We often talk about really gross stuff all day, including at lunch while eating. I sometimes forgot that talking about urine crystals and infected sputum during a meal isn’t normal.

    There’s also a lot of dark/gallows type humor and a lot of cursing in the lab.

    1. Magenta Sky*

      A friend of mine being treated for brain cancer managed to gross out the nurse at the radiology lab with the comment “I wasn’t really worried about the surgery until the surgeon came into the OR with the ice cream scoop and the bottle of chocolate.” (She immediately had to tell all the other nurses. They adored him.)

  135. Anne*

    I do development and comms for a criminal legal aid nonprofit, and our ED has been pushing for us to get more sympathetic stories from the field. So it’s not uncommon to hear a conversation between me and the program staff along the lines of – “hey check this out, this teen girl client was arrested for running away from home to escape an arranged marriage and frequents beatings!” “PERFECT!”

  136. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

    Lots and lots of feelings talk/work style analysis/etc. I work in leadership development, and we support participants/clients in this kind of work, and apply the same tools to ourselves and each other.

  137. AppleCheez*

    One employee here likes to date his assistants. It would be okay if it were discrete… and didn’t bring his (work) child with him here 80% of the time.

  138. Venus Supreme*

    Our company moved buildings and the new building is on a farm. A stark difference from being in the heart of the city… Now it’s normal to talk about when the cows are out, the best times to feed the horses, and giving directions based on landmarks like “Swing a right when you see the pigpen.”

    1. Venus Supreme*

      Oh also, our logo is called a G-Spot. I’m not even kidding. So that phrase pops up in regular conversation. “Should I make the G-Spot bigger in this document?” “Can you make the G-Spot more transparent?” etc.

  139. Emi.*

    Most people at my workplace believe that there is probably life on another planet somewhere. We just haven’t found it yet.

  140. Girasol*

    Office pseudonyms. I worked in a personnel agency some time ago. Ostensibly “to keep eager job seekers from contacting our employees at home” we were given office pseudonyms. On my first day I was handed a half-full box of business cards from the office supply closet and was told, “There. You’re Sandi Scott now.” I even won a mug with my name – “Sandi” – on it for a particularly productive month. The fact that I was re-using the pseudonym of a previous employee had its awkward moments when occasionally I would meet people who knew Sandi Scott but didn’t know me.

    1. Bloo*

      My Aunt was on the radio and used a pseudonym professionally. Lots of people knew her pseudonym from the air and would call her by that name in real life

    2. Connie-Lynne*

      When I worked for a virtual world company, we all got pseudonyms with the same surname across the board. My husband joked that it was like joining a cult.

    3. AstronautPants*

      I’m pretty sure my salon does this with the apprentice program they have. One forgot her pseudonym once and told me her real name. I have a friend in customer service who had his home vandalized by an angry customer. I know he wished he had a pseudonym!

    4. Bryce*

      A friend of mine was a GM for an online game. I know his GM name but at least while he was working for them I was in no way allowed to link that name with his RL name or normal internet handle in any form online. RL was fine (which is how he told me in the first place) but they *really* wanted to keep the professional separation.

    1. Girasol*

      That was my first thought! Surely no one would ever accept…oh. Yes. Yes they would.

  142. Magenta Sky*

    I once got paid for several hours of cruising porn web sites. (As the IT guy, I was tasked with documenting what a particular employee had been doing on a company computer. Most of the URLs in the logs were obviously porn, but I was told to be very thorough, and many of them, I had to look at to be sure. In the end, I had 15 pages of very small print, one line per web site. I only went back two weeks.)

    He also liked to print it out – in black and white. Till we closed that location, the bottom drawer of the file cabinet was referred to as “the porn drawer.”

    1. Admin of Sys*

      Been there. We had a higher up who kept asking for reports on what sites were consuming our bandwidth so we’d present the list in the next meeting – which were mostly porn videos he’d watch in his office. But he was the top bandwidth user, so every month, I’d have to go through and confirm the top 5 sites were porn streaming.

      1. Magenta Sky*

        A friend worked at a place where the boss refused to let him install any kind of proxy or firewall because it would log his porn browsing. Said boss also regularly crashed the mail server emailing huge porn videos to all employees.

        He quit when he found out the company had put in a bid to sell air liquification equipment (i.e., rocket fuel manufacturing) to Saddam Hussein.

  143. Learn Champ*

    I work in corporate learning. We often send our work for peer review to look for visible nipples, unacceptable props and missed dirty references in the images we choose. Also – and I love my company for this – we’ve had work delayed because there wasn’t enough LGBT representation.

  144. legionseagle*

    The former senior partner of a law firm at which I used to work (before I worked there) put the entire reception in mourning on hearing of the death of Freddie Mercury. When asked if anyone objected, he said, “Probably, but I was the senior partner, so who cares?”

  145. I just want lunch*

    I work in Environmental Education, and it’s not uncommon for me to open the work freezer to get my lunch out and discover a dead animal in there that someone has donated but that hasn’t been taken to taxidermy yet. Totally freaked me out the first few times. Fortunately they usually small birds rather than, say, raccoons.

    1. H.C.*

      O_o In my bio-related internships and research assistance jobs, there was always a separate freezer/fridge for non-food items.

    2. Anxa*

      I think this may be a your place, not your industry thing.

      When two fridges are burdensome financially, usually the food fridge will be a mini fridge or something. I’ve never been in a lab or environmental ed facility that shared them. Even the grossest labs kept them separate.

    2. Hard Boiled*

      Corporate communications: I recently attended an hour-long, 5-person meeting about capitalization policies. That sounds excruciating to some, but we were relieved. Finally some hard and fast rules and no more gray areas! Okay, fewer gray areas.

      1. Chinook*

        ooohhhh….I am jealous. We are currently working on standardizing all our standards and procedures and those in charge don’t think it is important to give us a stylebook. Considering some of our abbreviations are not even standards within the company and the use of commas is often random, I would kill for someone to lay down the law and tell us “do it this way.”

  147. Pet sitter*

    Last week, two adolescent males sat on me. One pulled my hair. The other stared deep into my eyes while drooling.

    Neither was clothed at the time, but they both wore collars.

  148. West end of nowhere*

    Quality testing and compliance. I spend a lot of time intentionally breaking things. With no context, a layperson would probably view most of my daily behavior as a frighteningly calm and well-documented tantrum.

    1. LadyKelvin*

      Man I would be so good at your job. It seems like if there is a million to one chance of something breaking a certain way, I am the one to do it. I’m not usually trying, but goodness, imagine if I was…

      1. Anonymous 40*

        I work in a similar field and we probably could use some people with that talent. Sometimes understanding the technical side of a system is a hindrance because you can’t imagine what a regular person’s going to do that breaks the thing on go-live day.

  149. chnellociraptor*

    This is a less fun one, but I work in theatre in a major North American city, and Facebook-friending your coworkers/colleagues is so the norm. I would even say it’s a detriment if you don’t use Facebook, as there is so much professional networking there. I have LinkedIn but barely use it because no one in my area/field uses it.

    1. Ashie*

      Same with animal welfare, small rescues in particular. I have no idea how these groups operated before Facebook existed.

    2. HR Bee*

      My father is a community theater director in a major Midwestern city, and his colleagues basically pulled him onto Facebook kicking and screaming. He hates it, but he had no choice – too many people were trying to contact him there and then giving up when they couldn’t find him.

      1. SL #2*

        I had to pull my ED onto LinkedIn kicking and screaming for the same reasons. Finally I just sat down with her and explained that she didn’t have to spend too much time on it on a daily basis, but the ED of a multi-million dollar initiative needs to have a public LinkedIn presence.

        The kicker now is that she actually spends more time on it than I do, responding to requests and messages, and she actually enjoys it. But I still ghost-write her industry posts for her.

  150. Ashie*

    Oh my gosh, your pet is sick?? Of COURSE you have to take the rest of the day off to watch him! Do you need tomorrow off too??? – Animal shelter life

    2. Hamilton Reference*

      Also asking for the day off because it’s your dog’s birthday /gotcha day.

  151. phil*

    I haven’t read all the comments but I’m pretty sure that the open drug use that flies in my workplace-I was a sound mixer making records-is pretty unique.

    1. anonymouse*

      I had a friend who used to work in the library of a music college. Drug use amongst the student workers was so common and unremarked upon that they didn’t even always bother to go to the bathroom to snort coke–she actually saw a student worker at the checkout desk just duck under the desk long enough to do a line, once.

      Nobody besides my friend thought this was strange.

  152. Anonny-nonny*

    I feel like mine aren’t so bad now.
    I’m in medicine so there’s a lot of gallows humor and discussing the specific disease we treat.
    Because of being in medicine and my employer being super concerned about privacy if I see someone I know from outside work come into the clinic I cannot acknowledge that I know they unless they they acknowledge that they know me first, and the same if I see them outside work. I also can’t ask someone I know why they are there, employer considers that a violation of privacy.
    Lots of looking at pictures of diseased body parts, the best one was when a physician pulled me out of meeting with a vendor to ask if we could treat this lady’s neck with a specific type of treatment. The lady’s neck looked like she was made of wax and someone has pointed a heat gun at her neck.

    Probably the only strange one is shipping and receiving packages, because I have to ship radioactive material I have to physically receive the package from the driver and physically hand the package (and paperwork to the driver). Discussing if the driver needs to placard his vehicle or not in the middle of the lobby get you some strange looks.

    Oh and regularly having a single piece of equipment in my car that is worth 3-4x my car.

  153. Zona the Great*

    Former ski resort transit manager here: gotten undressed to my undies in front of every co-worker and manager as we shared one open locker room and dressed out often for ski breaks. Have seen VP in her thong bent over with no bra. Hot hot hot.

  154. Objects don't argue back*

    Emerging collections care and conservation jobs (and sometimes not so emerging): the expectation is that you’re willing to up and move hundreds of miles away for a short contract, on the hopes that it will pan out into something longer. Settling down and starting a family is difficult to impossible for the first decade or so of your career. (Although with a vast pool of applicants vying for very few jobs, ’emerging’ can sometimes linger, and I get the sense a lot of people leave the sector.)

    The bonus is that you often get quite good benefits, especially things like lots of vacation time, discounted meals, etc .

  155. Not a vet tech*

    I used to work at an emergency veterinary clinic. Doing 12-14 hour overnight shifts with the same small team leads to some INTERESTING BEHAVIORS.

    – eating food while discussing the grossest abscess we’ve ever seen
    – leaving a 12 hour shift and going for breakfast margaritas
    – lots of coping with humor around dead animals, especially when nights were busy enough that there were dog corpses everywhere because we didn’t have time to put them in the freezer
    – once the guys didn’t believe me that boobs were a hassle so I showed them the raw skin under my bra’s underwire. the look of horror on their faces was PRICELESS and one of them went home and apologized to his girlfriend
    – lots of showing each other weird rashes or wounds and asking for opinions
    – running x-rays on ourselves for fun and/or to see if we broke something
    – commenting on how cute someone’s bra or underwear or tattoo is while 3 people try to hold a dog down for a procedure, because scrub shirts gape at the top and fall down your ass. I definitely always knew what type of underwear my coworkers were wearing.
    – getting up close and personal/plastering your body against someone else’s when you try to hold a dog and clean a wound
    – showing off medical trophies (like weird tumors or gall bladder stones)
    – hanging out at work on your night off because who else is awake at 3am when you’re bored

  156. GymRat9*

    OH BOY I feel like I have been waiting for this. I work at a martial arts gym (part-time, in addition to a more standard office job). Most of the things we do here as a matter of course would never, ever fly anywhere else on earth.

    Greet people by (gently) punching each other in the gut? You bet. The generally accepted theory is if you weren’t paying attention and didn’t block it, just chalk it up to a lesson in situational awareness. There’s also a lot of grabbing people you know from behind in a (light) chokehold or headlock as a way of saying hi.

    Our curriculum includes weapon training, and pretty much everyone carries some sort of weapon (knives or collapsible batons, mostly). It’s fairly common for people to pull out a knife and work some drills while they’re chatting. I cannot tell you how many polite, professional conversations I’ve had with someone who’s simultaneously waving a knife about.

    I have also been way closer to certain parts of my coworkers’ anatomy than is normal. I have been the practice dummy for a particularly athletic leg hold that involved my face getting very close to about a dozen groins at least twice. And usually about once a month I’ll end up in a situation where I have to ask, “Do you have a cup on? Because this is about to get personal.”

    That said, we have our own brand of professionalism and our own set of boundaries that are not crossed, too. We never use gendered insults, we never touch someone without prior permission, and we always check in to make sure everyone involved is okay with the amount of physical contact and violence that is occurring. Respect is a big part of the art, so there’s also a lot of emphasis on being polite and kind to everyone, and helping everyone stay safe.

    1. Amber Rose*

      Ha! I hadn’t even thought of that. I am on the board of our martial arts organization, and as a senior student I teach a lot of newbies, so it’s more or less a part time job. We are only weapons training so there’s not a lot of up close and personal unless we’re doing jujitsu. But it’s rare to go a class without hearing “don’t stop, kill him!” I’ve also invited several teachers to watch my chest during a move to see if they can help me avoid cutting a boob in half.

      And of course, the annual pumpkin slaughter. I can’t imagine what other office would allow me to host a party in which 20 people use three foot razor blades to attack pumpkins with silly faces drawn on them in sharpie.

      We have the same standards though, more or less. No insults, no contact without permission, lots of built in pauses and checking in with people and LOTS of rules about safety around three foot long razor blades. In some ways, probably more respectful than any full time job I’ve had.

      1. GymRat9*

        Oh, yeah! I forgot about the whole watching-the-chest thing. I’m so used to it, it didn’t even occur to me. We tell people to stare at their partner/opponent’s chest area so they can use their peripheral vision to pick up attacks, and after a while it gets to be a habit to just look there all the time. Especially with our tendency to surprise-punch each other.

        All of the staff and instructors do warn new students about it, especially women. I have to consciously remind myself to look new people in the eye because I’m sure it makes them uncomfortable to have everyone staring at their chest all the time.

    2. Manders*

      Almost every person I’ve met who does martial arts, both hobbyists and professionals, is very respectful about asking before touching in social situations. It’s made me aware of how weird it is that I can’t expect that kind of treatment from everyone.

  157. LadyKelvin*

    Marine biologist here: I see all of my colleagues/bosses in bathing suits on a regular basis. Even speedos. It was uncomfortable being around my first boss (he was old! and in a speedo! and wearing his wetsuit backwards!) when I first started in the field, but at some point you just have to realize that its normal and you have work to do. It makes surfing/diving/snorkeling recreationally together much less awkward though.

    1. LadyKelvin*

      Also, and this is really specific to our team: we talk about food, a lot. When someone new joins our team we warn them that our lunch conversations revolve around eating and cooking and that if they don’t already watch the great british bake off, they should probably watch a couple of episodes just so that they have cursory knowledge of what we are talking about. Of course we talk about other things, but some of us like to cook and some of us are learning to cook (and several of us are obsessed with GBBO) so we talk about food frequently.

  158. Elizasaurus*

    Natural history museum, so you never know what’s in the break room freezer! Openly talking about religion w/coworkers is pretty normal too, as is taking a shot of really really expensive scotch on the night of your biggest fundraiser because a board member gave it to you.

    I once bought a body bag with museum money. EMTs leave really detailed Amazon reviews!

    1. sometimeswhy*

      My side gig is in a natural history museum. I love… No: I LIVE FOR the, “oh hey there, mammoth tusk just chillin’ on the office table” days.

  159. Not Karen*

    Well my therapist was shocked that lunch time doesn’t count towards our work hours… I work in a grant-funded industry so we have to track and bill our work time.

      1. Not Karen*

        I’ve seen lots of people say they work 35 or 37.5 hours per week but are considered as full-time/having worked a 40-hour work week.

  160. Sled Dog Mama*

    My husband and I used to be outdoor guides.
    So I’ve squatted back to back with a co-worker while taking care of bodily functions (bear country it was dangerous to be alone), peed in front of co-workers, changes clothes in front of co-workers, all of there might include a normal conversation. It was totally normal and encouraged to discuss bowel movements in order to normalize pooping in the woods for clients. Had one co-worker who had to ask us all to turn out the lights because the opening in the cave he was squeezing through was taking off his shorts, so was in a room with him naked.
    Had more conversations about (female) clients sex lives that I’d ever care to (well yeah since you’ve had sex there is a chance your abdominal pain is an ectopic pregnancy not gas/bloating/cramps so we’ve gotta go see a doctor).

    And my favorite on very cold trips (like dog-sledding) it’s desirable to not have to leave the shelter to pee in the middle of the night (but you definitely want to get up to pee because that just useless liquid to keep warm and it costs a lot of energy to keep it warm) so most people will have a water bottle that they can pee into inside the tent at night then empty outside in the morning, it’s pretty normal (and IMO gross) for guides to have one bottle to fulfill both jobs. So hearing the conversation “Hey is this your water bottle, I’m out, will you share?” “No, I haven’t emptied it yet.” in the morning was disturbingly common.

    1. Chinook*

      I remember when teaching on a reserve, during the field trip from hell, when the kids asked if we could stop and use the bathroom even though we were 50 km from anywhere. We ended up stopping on the side of the road near some trees and they were confused, asking where the bathroom is. I then gave 10 teenage girls instructions on how to squat without getting your pants wet and then joked that the white lady shouldn’t be the one teaching the bush Indians how to use the facilities outside.

  161. anon designer*

    I work as an architectural designer and have bounced around between a few different niches in the industry. In residential architecture, I was surprised to find out just how much we were expected to act as the client’s marriage counselor/friend/personal cheerleader.

    I’m currently in justice architecture (courthouses, jails) and we have to keep worst-case scenario inmate behavior in mind when we’re designing various spaces. This leads to casual remarks like:

    “Well, if someone wants to jump [off the mezzanine level], they’ll find a way.”

    “We need more visibility in that corner, that could easily be a PREA issue [Prison Rape Elimination Act].”

    “This should be a security ceiling, you don’t want people stashing hooch up there.”

    “This office door should have [this type of security lock and panic button] in case there’s an event and a staff member needs to barricade themselves inside.”

    It’s been eye-opening and a little depressing. I’m moving back into what I know – schools!

  162. Connie-Lynne*

    When I worked for an adult novelty manufacturer, we would send employees home with new items and the question them about how much or little they enjoyed them, as well as details of use.

  163. annoynon*

    This will probably change due to a merger but my company was very much known for a suuuuper casual dress code + permissive use of cussing + flat hierarchy + lots of weird perks. And we are in client services/accounting.

  164. Bryce*

    I used to work at a national laboratory with government contracts. Armed security was the norm, and when there were visiting suits (diplomats, senators trying to look smart, et cetera) it would sometimes get upgraded to military uniforms and rifles. Looking back it’s weird how they just faded into the scenery and prompted thoughts of “oh neat, I wonder who’s here” rather than alarm. I bet folks at military bases have similar reactions.

  165. Avocado Toast*

    I freelance as a theatre stage manager when I can, and I’ve had many cases where I knocked on a dressing room door and ended up having a work-related conversation with someone….while they were in their underwear.

    1. Horatio*

      I work as a stage director and YUP. Nudity used to freak me out, but there’s only so many times naked boobs can shock a person before you learn to get over it.

  166. girl defective*

    Front-line fundraiser for a symphony orchestra. My donors were old and died a lot; I went to a number of strange funerals. Along the same lines, ALWAYS calling a donor who sent a second gift to make sure they really intended to send a second gift and didn’t just forget they’d already sent one (they had almost always just forgotten). I also had someone fall and break her hip once.

    1. MKC*

      Not my workplace: while I was training my replacement for a job that also involved many elderly members/donors, it came up that at their previous job at a performance space, they had a well-established procedure for handling sudden deaths of elderly audience members during performances, and a very good working relationship with the nearest fire station/first responders who would be as discreet and non-disruptive as possible.

  167. Beezus*

    When I worked retail, if you were close enough w/your coworkers, you’d often see them in their underwear by sharing a changing room to try on new product together. A lot of us would also fit each other for bras. There was a ton of bad language in the back rooms too.

  168. Optimistic Prime*

    Not unusual to walk by someone’s office/desk and see them playing a video game, sometimes for several hours. Of course, I work in a video game company, so we have to play the games :D

    (Sometimes it’s not even necessarily the game you’re working on: part of the industry is keeping up with what’s going on in the industry, especially competitor titles, so we spend a lot of time playing and talking about video games in general, and it’s not uncommon for us to gather around the giant TV in our common area and wail on each other in some competitive game).

  169. Security SemiPro*

    The burnout rate in InfoSec is so high – on par with EMTs, hospice workers and active duty military. One of the things that my team does successfully is pay attention to and support mental health. Which means there’s a lot more open and frank discussions about health in my office than ‘normal’.

    We also ship people out for way more time off of work than is US normal. But I can’t have a team of stably high performing staff without them taking a significant amount of time off a year. I take 30-40 days off a year and have been told to take more.

    1. Amber Rose*

      If you don’t mind my asking, why is the burn out rate so high? It sounds rough.

  170. Elizabeth West*

    The only place I worked where we did crazy things was a tiny materials testing lab. Pranks were the rule of the day.
    Someone who used to work there had left a six-foot-tall cardboard cutout of Frankenstein’s monster behind, and we used to put it in odd places to try and scare each other. They got me in the bathroom once–it was behind the door that opened inward and I didn’t see it until I turned around. I got the metallurgy guy when I sneaked it into his darkroom. He was SO MAD, but we laughed until we cried.

    Someone had given one of the chemists a cute little stuffed duck. We named him Bertram and put his picture on the org chart. I constructed a tiny desk out of cardboard for him to sit at and he had a wardrobe (a felt coat and a little pair of glasses made out of a paper clip). I got him when the lab closed; I think I still have his desk around here somewhere. There was also a giant black squeaky rat someone had brought in as a Halloween decoration. We would put it inside the fridge on top of people’s lunch. I have that too–it’s on my bookshelf. :)

    Also we liked to squash various items in the hydraulic press in the metallurgy lab. And we would regularly close up the office and walk up to a bar across the street at the corner for lunch. It was a total hellhole but had great sandwiches.

    God, I LOVED that job. So, so much.

    1. Nicole*

      My sister has a raven on her desk (I think he’s named Poe), leftover from Halloween decorations of their office. He gets dressed for the seasons. :-)

  171. Volunteer Enforcer*

    My charity does support work, appropriate physical contact with clients isn’t uncommon and is accepted but probably wouldn’t fly in any other fields that are wildly different.

  172. Cute Li'l UFO*

    Design/Advertising/Agency/Tech umbrella here. Co-signing the booze. See also: company sponsored Irish coffees on St. Patrick’s Day, bartender in on what I think was employee appreciation something-or-other, the office beer fridge, the office kegerator, the “working lunch” that turns into martinis and tequila…

    that and loudly shouting choice expletives when Photoshop/Illustrator/Indesign crashes.

    Even when I was at a call center for a luxury leather goods company all the supervisors wheeled around a cart of Champagne (or alternative if you didn’t drink alcohol) around Christmas. It was a really nice touch and really appreciated.

  173. AstronautPants*

    My favorite thing about working for a non-profit is knowing about our constituents’ private lives. I don’t consider myself a gossip, because I get no joy from relaying the very interesting things I’ve learned about people, but I love to know them. I sometimes think of a donor’s motivation to give as a puzzle, and the way they live their lives as clues to their giving behavior. It leads to some unusual strategy conversations and great friendships with donors.

  174. lionheart2601*

    Everyone is married in international teaching. The majority of schools prefer to hire couples because they get “two teachers for the relocation price of one”. Many spouses who accompany their partners for the international adventure end up doing their teacher qualifications online and working in the same school. Single teachers tend to date teachers from the same school. It’s all really common and I didn’t realise it was quite so shocking until I started following this blog.
    I personally was married to a fellow teacher, and am now engaged to a non-teacher. I LOVE the fact that my fiance and I have two completely independent professional lives. A lot of people are shocked though, and sympathetic – as though it’s a terrible thing to be apart from your partner for eight hours a day. It does make vacations tough….. I get 12 weeks a year to travel and he gets 2!

  175. AnonAcademic*

    In large part due to how governmental grants are structured, academic science research is basically a giant pyramid scheme/cult in which the unpaid or underpaid labor of many “trainees” is required for the success of one lab or faculty member at the top of the pyramid. Many internships are illegal, many entry level jobs are misclassified as exempt to avoid having to pay overtime, grad school is basically indentured servitude. Colleges are incentivized to allow huge numbers of undergrads to major in subjects that require graduate study to work in that field, but hide this fact from them because all that tuition pays for more graduate students to do more cheap work for professors. Students then graduate unprepared to compete on the actual job market with just a BS degree – so many of them go to grad school to ‘fix’ this – and then they become the next round of cheap labor at the bottom of the pyramid. I know plenty of people with MAs with six digit debt and jobs that pay $30-40k a year in this position.

    The worst part is that having come up in this system I’m ok with some aspects of it (I know this is Stockholm syndrome). However I believe that trainees should be treated fairly and learn something from their work, and the work should produce valuable scientific knowledge that benefits society. The problem is that often trainees are not treated fairly and a lot of research goes nowhere. I’m very lucky most of my mentors treated me well and encouraged my professional development, but I’ve seen plenty of others chew up and spit out trainee after trainee with no repercussions.

  176. Piano Girl*

    My husband is a high school theater teacher. When he does a show, everything in our house is up for grabs, including the kitchen table. We have a sword closet. There are helmets, masks, props, and costumes crowded into every corner of our house. I had to get my food service provider license so I could cook for an annual Shakespeare festival. And oh, the write-offs we take on our taxes every year……

    1. Chameleon*

      Ha! My husband is also a high school theater teacher, and we have a bucket of swords ourselves. Plus the amount of times per year he has to go skirt shopping at Goodwill.

    2. peachie*

      Ha! That’s great. (It’s also, incidentally, what running a small professional theater company is like. I had a life-sized dummy and a bag of swords in my car for like a month this year.)

      1. Piano Girl*

        Our life-sized dummy is currently in the front room. I’m used to him now, but he terrifies visitors. ;)

  177. Admin of Sys*

    Back in the early tech-boom days, I got to download and install viruses and malware to see what they did. That job also had nerf-gun battle fights and beanbag chairs in the conference rooms.

    1. Ramona Flowers*

      “I got to download and install viruses and malware to see what they did.”

      Love it.

  178. RadManCF*

    I formerly worked in industrial construction as a millwright, before starting law school last fall. Among many contractors, there is a great deal of tolerance for outrageous behavior from workers who are effective. Probably one of the best examples was a man who had multiple DUIs, and didn’t understand why he hadn’t been given a company truck (Because all these guys who had started after him had been given company trucks). Until one day, when, for some inexplicable reason, the company gave him one. Which he then got a DUI in. This person also once became angry at a scissor lift, and smashed the control box to smithereens.
    Another example was a new apprentice, of about 24. This apprentice was full of himself, being far too confidant for his level of experience. I worked a two-week job with him once, that culminated with him being told off for texting and driving. His response was to beat up the worker who told him off, all the while shouting that “texting and driving’s illegal in [state] and I’ll do it as much as I f***ing want!” While that apprentice never became a key worker for that contractor, they do still employ him from time to time.
    Besides these gems, I dealt with plenty of garden-variety racists, misogynists, and opponents of DUI enforcement.
    I’m glad I decided to go to law school…

  179. Vaca*

    It is perfectly normal in my industry to curse somebody out after working an all-nighter for not working hard enough or not being smart enough.

  180. Chameleon*

    Anatomy & Physiology professor: it is not unusual for me to be carrying around buckets of eyes, brains, hearts, kidneys; and the words “be careful not to cut the penis off” actually have come out of my mouth more than once.

  181. Echosparks*

    I work in healthcare. In my experience, when you spend all day talking about other people’s health, you end up pretty comfortable talking about your own. I’ve participated in many conversations with co-workers about their health, my health, a family member’s health. The conversations always have a clinical/professional curiosity feel to them, which makes them seem like not a big deal. Plus, your co-workers are actually qualified to give you advice. I imagine if I worked in a different field I wouldn’t know all of the details of my coworkers’ surgeries.

  182. Clever Name*

    This may not be so much industry-specific as it is office-specific, but I’m a little concerned my son is getting a very skewed picture of what working in an office is like because my office is kind of unusual. I work in environmental consulting at a dog-friendly workplace, so things are already pretty casual. Very occasionally I’ll bring my son to the office. The last time I brought him in because I had a team meeting and had just picked him up from day camp. At our team meeting a coworker brought in shakes for everyone (paid for by the company), so he sat in a meeting where all the grown-ups had shakes. And my team is pretty tight-knit, so there is always laughter and a fair bit of good-natured ribbing, which really isn’t typical for most business meetings.

  183. sometimeswhy*

    I once worked in a facility where we had to carry our personal belongings in clear bags, we had bag searches going in and out for our shifts, we had random drug tests, and there were cameras covering every inch of the facility aside from the bathrooms.

    It took me less than a week to utterly forget the cameras where there. Like, dance-around-singing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs-when-on-an-overnight-shift level forgetting.

  184. Nolan*

    Geek conventions – nearly all are volunteer-run (though there are some notable exceptions like ECCC), the majority are also volunteer-organized.
    If you sign up for a free hotel room provided by the con, you’ll be sharing, sometimes with complete strangers. Usually 4 to a room, so you’re either sharing a bed, or if that weirds you out, coming up with a complicated workaround.
    And because there’s a bunch of geeks, managers are always harping on about the 5-2-1 rule (5 hrs sleep each night, 2 meals a day, 1 shower a day) though the managers usually don’t adhere to the 5 or 2 part themselves.
    If you’re high ranking enough to get a radio, you curse it because it’s uncomfortable and people ask stupid questions on them, sit on the buttons, try to have actual conversations on them, etc.
    Though there are thousands of events in the US alone, it’s a fairly small industry and word gets around. If you piss off a well established con (or just one with lots of connections), you can easily get blacklisted from entire regions without ever visiting them. But nobody has an actual, physical list, it’s all word of mouth. Which will be interesting when I leave my current role and take my connections and decade of institutional knowledge with me hahahahahahaha

    1. H.C.*

      Ha, and reminds me of the cons’ the “hospitality services” (i.e. meals & snacks) for the volunteers, which often gets deemed to as “hostility services” as supplies and tempers run short.

      1. Free Meerkats (formerly Gene)*

        The amount of drama in and around the Con Suite/Staff Lounge can be amazing. I usually arrive a day or two early and work MIMO so I can get enough volunteer hours in to count as staff. I can remember the figurative stampede to the staff lounge when someone announced “Wings in the lounge” on the radio.

        And let’s not get started on artists and the Art Show. Or Dealers. And the surest way to have your preconceptions about Famous Author dashed (for many of them) is to run into them at a con. Though having Robert Asprin offer me to Gordy Dickson as a servant was enjoyable.

  185. Wilbur*

    I’m willing to say the amount of beige at my work would be unacceptable anywhere else. Beige and fake wood desks, beige cube walls, beige walls, beige ceiling…The only thing that isn’t beige is the floor, and I cannot describe it’s color. It feels like I’m in the Matrix.

  186. SacherTorte*

    I’ve been working in kitchens for almost a decade and I really don’t know where to start.

    In my time in kitchens I’ve dealt with sexism in literally every single workplace. When I’m lucky it’s the subversive ‘women are crazy so we don’t take you seriously’ kind, when I’m not it’s straight to attempts to grab/touch/’seduce’ me. One day I’ll work somewhere and I won’t have a coworker try to kiss me.

    Most kitchen people have substance abuse problems; alcohol after work to calm yourself down, weed in the morning for the hangover, cocaine before service so you can get through your shift. Wash, rinse, repeat. One place the chef (aka the manager) would cut lines on the prep table in the back to share with his favourites.

    Cocaine + stress + poorly adjusted young men = violence. I’ve seen two fist fights on the line during dinner service and innumerable altercations outside of the line. Pulling knives on each other, knocking each other out… No one gets fired or reprimanded, it’s treated as normal.

    Working through injuries and illness is expected, I’ve had my entire left forearm covered in second and third degree burns and just slapped on some stuff from the first aid kit and continued. I once saw a dude accidentally cut his pinky off most of the way and rather than going to the hospital he used his paring knife to cut the last bit of skin that was holding it on, chuck it on ice, then finish service.

    Outside of all the extreme examples we do other stuff like swear all the time, use gross sexual humor, call direction instead of manners (if you’re going behind someone you yell “Behind!” so they know you’re there. I’m personally fond of yelling “Beep beep motherfuckers” to part a sea of cooks).

    Oh and you typically don’t get paid for anything over eight hours, even though you’re there for 12-15 hours most days.

    And if you’re reading this thinking “That’s illegal!” you’re right, but if you try to seek legal help you will be blackballed in the industry for being weak and a tattletale.

    I love my job but kitchen culture needs a complete overhaul.

  187. Mahkara*

    When I worked in mining, people would often poop on the floor (of the mine).

    (To be fair, the porta potties were really gross + shifts were 12 hours long, but still ewww.)

  188. LNZ*

    I don’t know if it so much flies as is a normal safety precaution but when i was working in the arctic circle the college campus i was at had polar bear alerts. The campus was right next to the beach so we got bears wondering through all the time. There were two yellow lights on either end of the compound that would flash if a bear was on/near campus and an email alert would go out letting us know where the bear was and to be careful.
    Hilariously the emails tended to just let people know where to go looking for the bears if they wanted to take pictures.
    We also got fox alert emails just cause they can be rabies carriers but that was more of a low key thing.

    1. paul*

      and foxes are as bad as raccoons for making a mess. Cute, but annoying!

      My brother’s FIL worked on an oilfield in Alaska for a while; he says it was pretty stand to have a few people on the field with high powered rifles (think 300WMG or 338WMG) or 12 gauges loaded with slugs as a “just in case” type of thing.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Other second-hand polar bear stories:

        Paleontologists looking for fossils in the Arctic. A white animal appears on the horizon! A bear! Not a bear? Bear?! Eventually they figured out that it was a bunny, but with absolutely nothing in the barren rock landscape to give you a scale it was hard to tell.

        Meteorologists at a remote Arctic station (critically, without any high-powered rifles) and the sea ice melted early. A bunch of hungry polar bears surrounded the station and settled in to wait the hairless seals out.

  189. ThursdaysGeek*

    My spouse is a radiochemist in a research laboratory, so he regularly handles nuclear materials that can be very hot. If there is a spill or you step in something, they will take away any clothing items that got contaminated. I don’t recall that he’s ever had to come home without pants, but he did get a chunk of sole cut out of fairly new shoes once. (There are disposable booties, pants, etc for when people do lose clothing.)

  190. EA Games*

    After years working in art studios and robotics classrooms, I’m temping in corporate. I keep finding myself looking in vain for a pair of pliers or a utility knife or a roll of duct tape on my desk.

  191. Typhoid Mary*

    Um, basically any time anybody here is shocked by the lack of accountability in leadership. I’m just kind of like “Wow, it must be cool to work in an industry+state that has regulations!”

  192. rosieflower*

    I worked in the Assisted Living industry for many years and kept a (clean) bedside commode (aka toilet) in my office because very often, a resident would become ill and need one quickly. I also kept adult incontinence supplies, extra sheets, crutches, canes, walkers and wheelchairs in my office. If someone died and the family didnt want the items, I could not in good conscience allow them to be thrown away knowing they could save another elderly person money in the near future.

  193. HeatherKan*

    Wedding photographer here. Other than all the typical perks and challenges of being self employed (I get to sleep till 11am and wear PJs all day, but who knows if I’ll have a paycheck coming in 5 months or not! *shrug*), there’s a few industry-specific things, like:

    * I have seen an incredible amount of groomsman butts and bridesmaid boobs. I’ve helped to dress both sexes and frequently have to climb under the bride’s gown to help with the corset, arrange the garter, or help pick a wedgie.
    * I get to yell fun things like: “YEAHHHHH kiss her!! Make it a sloopy one! Yessss” or “Good, now move your hand a bit to the left- actually, just go ahead and put it right on his butt so it’s out of the way. YES, perfect.” (gets a genuine laugh, if you’re wondering why)
    * I get to put in my contract that the couple needs to feed me (I often work 10 hours without time to stop and catch a breath, much less run to my car to get a bagged meal or something)
    * I’ve worked 12+ hours without the time or opportunity to pee
    * I routinely make clients cry (happy tears)- one particular time that I recall is when a bride’s grandfather passed a few days after the wedding, and I turned around the 20 or so images I had of him that same day and sent over the files and some prints- they were so thrilled and grateful)
    * I’ve been given cool gifts from clients, such as jewelry and board games and gift cards to coffee shops in large amounts ($250 one time! Whoooo!)

    (I actually run a humor tumblr for wedding photographers that addresses a lot of the odd things about this job: http://whatshouldwecallweddingphoto.tumblr.com)

    There’s also the “unfortunate things that SHOULDN’T happen in this industry, but do”, like:
    * “Photographers” (I use the term loosely) not showing up, or not telling the couple they’ll be sending an employee instead of coming personally
    * New photographers who don’t have the skill or equipment to create good work, so they steal other people’s images and use them to advertise their work, which is obviously illegal and morally wrong. (it’s actually funny when they’re caught because it’s ALWAYS their “web designer” who is at fault *eyeroll* More reading on this here: http://stopstealingphotos.com/)
    * “Photographers” who don’t back up images and loose them purely due to negligence
    * Sexual harassment, especially from drunk folks (no, I do NOT want to dance, uncle Joe. Let go of my arm.)
    * Sexism- in many cases, when a female photographer has male staff (like an assistant or second shooter), everyone will constantly assume HE is the team lead and ignore her completely, which is, as you can imagine, very grating

    It’s a weird job, but at least I get to eat cake and make clients look gorgeous! <3

    1. Insurance Geek*

      You sound awesome as a photographer. I had the wedding photographer from hell (our entire wedding party hated her) and over a year later, I still cannot look at our wedding pictures without getting angry.

    2. Kasia*

      The work stealing seems particularly crazy. My husband used to photograph weddings. He started as someone’s assistant so he had plenty of his own photos to use when he wanted to branch out on his own. I would assume that was how most people did it. Otherwise how do you learn how to do the job?

    3. Cleo*

      My husband’s in the wedding biz and some of his stories are amazing.

      Like the couple who wanted to have their two dogs be the ring bearers – at the rehearsal, one of the dogs got scared and peed on the rug, so the venue refused to let them have the dogs for the ceremony. (The couple was apparently ok with it and it was a lovely ceremony).

  194. LotsofHats*

    Government Contracting/Bidding- 10 hour days were the “easy” days, not uncommon to see someone crying in the office, lots of yelling at computers, pretty tight-knit/open office since we basically lived together.
    Professional Sports-I’ve been drenched in other peoples sweat/bodily fluids and it doesn’t even phase me anymore. I’ve touched hundreds of peoples groins while securing equipment and helped strangers get dressed. There is no personal space.
    Modeling/Fashion Industry-You really don’t understand just how thin a lot of the high fashion models are until you see it in person. I was a size 2 and was way, way to big for most of the clothing. You will see a lot of people naked and it is normal to be around all genders in some state of undress. At least in my experience they talked about your body/flaws in front of you frequently-not in a rude way though, just while they were planning where you would walk, or who to photograph you with. My first job they were like well, she’s way too big to walk the runway, but we can use her over in this area.

  195. Jolie*

    So I’m at a work meeting, wearing a flowing hippie skirt and a T-shirt with a possibly clashing pattern, because that’s what I feel like this morning. Next to me is a Bangladeshi woman in traditional Muslim dress, complete with sparkly sequining. Next to her sits the campiest guy you’ve ever seen, in a T-shirt and cargo shorts, with blue hair, tattooed arms and five piercings.
    Dress code? What dress code? Welcome to the world of small community nonprofits!

  196. 574Girl*

    I used to to work in a special collection library where we had a huge amount of pornographic materials, extreme political materials and materials relating to the production of drugs. So, we found ourselves discussing openly everything from underground homosexual porn to Nazi produced fine art printing.

    For a long time we had a “Craziest Title I Saw on A Pamphlet” board where we write done some of odder ones. The ones I remember were, “The Menace of Hawaiian Statehood”and “Uncle Fester’s Guide to Making Methamphetamines.”

    I sometimes look back on our daily work related discussion and think, “Well, this wouldn’t fly in most offices.”

    1. SubbyP*

      I’m ultra-late to this thread, but I work in a comic store specializing in vintage, and I have a similar experience. Quirks in the history of the medium mean that a lot of lurid stuff is of historical and collecting interest, to the point where we have jargon about specific artistic approaches to depicting breasts. It’s also not unknown for me to handle comics worth a few thousand dollars, which is kind of terrifying.

  197. 2 Cents*

    My dad worked in banking and my mom was a nurse, so the idea that I (in advertising and in publishing in NYC) get early dismissal every Friday in the summer, plus every Friday before a holiday weekend / every day before a holiday, plus the day after major holidays (Black Friday, week between Christmas and New Year’s) is just astounding to them. My dad usually only had 2 weeks’ vacation, and my mom had to claim any time at the winter holidays the year before or else she was out of luck.

  198. The Other Katie*

    Freelance research/writing here. Absolute, total lack of adherence to any sort of schedule, even a circadian rhythm. I’m not always even in the same timezone as people expect me to be, and unless I’m actually shutting down I don’t bother to tell clients I’ll be in Japan for a week or whatever. I also don’t take phone calls. Ever. (I love my job, even with the hustle.)

  199. Sibley*

    Former job, the software earned us funny (or horrified) looks sometimes. We would have a “parent” copy, and would make “child” copies from the parent. You could also continue making child copies from the children, so we’d get into grandparents, etc. Even better, depending on the situation, sometimes we’d be using uncle/aunt/cousin terms.

    That would get us odd looks, and we’d maybe notice and laugh and explain.

    Horrified looks would happen when we were discussing that we “lost the child”, “wiped out the child/grandchild/etc”, “discarded”. We tended to keep those conversations a little quieter, and made an effort to notice people around who didn’t know about the software.

  200. Black Bellamy*

    Publishing.

    Sometimes both of my 27″ screens are filled with dildos. Galleries of dildos. You can just keep clicking, a new dildo on every page.

    Women walk by, they don’t bat an eye. That’s because they’re off to write a story about what type of anal sex is the best, how you should shave your private parts, or does this nipple ring look cool or what.

  201. Seb*

    I work in retail. I’ve been there for over a year now. 90% of my shifts, I’ve had to stay 30-40 minutes past the “official” finishing time, which is 10.20pm. I haven’t been paid a penny for that extra time.

    2. HR Bee*

      if you’re in the US and you’re hourly, that is illegal. Start tracking it now – dates & times that are unpaid – and consider saying something or reporting it to the DOL, if you are comfortable. I think Alison has recommended some scripts for how to approach this with management in the past.

  202. Mediabuyer*

    Digital media – suppliers will provide the cocaine for a night out + they take groups of their favourite clients to their offices to partake.

    Additionally you get taken on holiday that are perceived as ‘summits’/’conferences’ that are actually just holidays you take without having to take annual leave.

    Plus free nights out/festival tickets/everyone sleeping with everyone – including in the office. We recently had one leaver who announced in their leaving speech they’d had a threesome in the office!

  203. Gadget Hackwrench*

    IT: We all have mouths like drunk sailors. It’s acceptable to watch Youtube or Netflix in one window while working in another, as long as you are getting the job done correctly and on time. No one is on dress code. There is one, but IT are terrible about following it. Try telling IT guys they can’t wear polo shirts or sneakers. I’ll wait. If you’re in a 24/7 support operation and are working on an off-shift (evenings, overnights, weekends) bringing in a travel neck pillow, crossword puzzles, your own laptop, gameboy or lately your Nintendo switch, because there’s huge amounts of overnight… I want to say downtime, but if it were downtime T would be working!!!! (Monday-Fri day-shift doesn’t get that perk, even if they are on a 24/7 team.) “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” actually works most of the time.

    Unfortunately there’s also a lot of tolerating the jerk-ass genius, and people like that make us all look horrible, and we can’t get rid of them till they hit terminal jerk, dig in their heels and become such experts at passive aggression that they are no longer doing any work, at which point their lack of productivity becomes their undoing since they were only kept around in the first place for their skills.

  204. Retoucher*

    I work in fashion/celebrity photography as a photo editor/retoucher.

    I have sent emails that have had lines such as “Is the nipple a problem? Should I take that out?” Discussing someone’s cleavage is pretty common.

    I’ve received emails saying “We need to reduce the bulge in his pants.”

  205. Cereal Killer*

    I’m an industrial (consumer products) designer and part of our job is to be an expert on the user of our products. This has put me in many weird situations, but the one that stands out was when I was designing bath fixtures. We were required to keep a bathing suit at work in order to try out prototypes and competitor products. If you were really lucky someone from human factors would take pictures of you while using said products for size comparison purposes. And if you were really, really lucky someone would dig them up and print them out for some meeting and forget to pick them up from the printer, and they would be sitting there for days.

  207. The TheatRE*

    I’ve worked in theatres, both community and professional, for almost 20 years and they’re all very similar. Everyone is very touchy-feely and there is a lot of sex and nudity behind the scenes. In fact the professional theatres I’ve worked at were probably worse in this fashion. Cast members sleeping with other cast members, or crew making out backstage. Or hearing about a person who’s married with kids, but has had multiple affairs with cast members, including two in the current cast – oh the dynamics of that production! And then the nudity. Costume changes when you can’t wear a bra with your outfits, or men who don’t know about dance belts showing it all to the world. I’ve seen it all…

    1. kitryan*

      I would partially disagree – I put in about 15 yrs in theater, costumes specifically, and while there’s necessarily a lot of exposure with quick changes and similar, the environments I’ve worked in generally were not as sexual as I think they’re stereotyped as. We would keep our actors as covered as was feasible and always talked out anything we were going to do regarding nudity, quick changes, and any other sensitive topics so that everyone was as comfortable as possible. Doesn’t mean that we weren’t in weird situations, like when I had to rig up an actor so that he could ‘pee’ on demand, but if you walked around backstage on virtually all of the shows I worked, you’d have to work hard to see anything normally covered by a bikini/speedo – unless the play contained nudity itself, which isn’t very frequent. Also, I wouldn’t say there were many more torrid affairs than in other high pressure workplaces. The odd hookup and real relationship came out of shows but in the theater I spent the most time at (6 yrs) there were only 2 incidents that I thought were actually inappropriate in that way. A director(also high level at the theater) starting a relationship with the lead in the show they were currently directing (turned into a long term relationship, I think they’re married now) and an incident where a temp crew person was causing drama with an inappropriate crush on an actor.
      I found the tasks I had to do much more interesting than the relationships/nudity. Finding the best earplugs for on stage gunfire (you’ve got to hear the dialogue but not the shot and you can’t be able to see the earplug from the house), simulating urination and bleeding – everyone cracked up when the in stage blood pool rig ended up *fountaining* blood! I got on so many odd email lists.

    2. Gadget Hackwrench*

      Might be the community theatre part that’s skewing things. I never did pro, but I did acting, scenic painting and stage managing in college and community theatre and they could get somewhat brothelicious, with the exception of outdoor theatre where everyone’s too busy trying not to die of mosquitoes, heat stroke, or the potential of electrical ‘incidents’ in case of inclement weather. Outdoor theatre was generally quite well behaved.

      1. kitryan*

        Possibly – that’s not an area I spent much time in, though I did theater through college and grad school (it’s what my degree’s in). I just feel as if it’s not inherently more brothelicious (love that) than similar high pressure environments with a lot of young people would be. Of course college age people are going to hook up all over the place! Anyway, I love working on shows because everyone cares. There’s burnout of course, but everyone wants a great show and everyone takes it seriously. It has actually messed me up for ‘the real world’ since I have a lot of trouble treating anything more casually, even when it’s warranted.

  208. Dread Pirate Roberts*

    Another non-profit fundraiser here, checking in!

    It’s always horrifying to new hires when we start talking casually about dead people. And dying people. And surviving family members. And segmenting donor stewardship/outreach by age group because, yanno, certain age ranges are more focused on estate planning than others. Gallows humor is strictly verboten, and we honor every gift that comes in, but it’s an inescapable fact that a good chunk of our money only comes in when some kind person, somewhere out there, has kicked the bucket.

    Working here you get 1) way less sentimental about death real quick and 2) totally on top of your own will/advanced medical directive/ finances because it only takes seeing one family ripped apart by probate to make you run screaming for your own lawyer.

    2. JustaTech*

      My mom was in that field before she retired and her first section of the newspaper was always the obits to keep track of which donors had moved over to “estate” and which she could keep contacting in person.

  209. Mafalda*

    I recently started a role in a government agency. What surprised me is the level of direct insubordination that’s considered acceptable.

    Example of an overheard conversation from yesterday:
    Agency Director: “I’d like for receptionist to ask the name and business of people asking for me at the front desk before she just tells them I’m available.”
    Office Manager Who Supervises Receptionist: “Oh, well that’s just how she does things. That’s not going to change.”

    Also – overly casual dress (e.g. denim, tank top and flip flops on coworkers in public facing roles… on a monday), knitting in meetings (and other totally inappropriate meeting distractions, like cell phone games), and the fact that everyone produces terrible quality work at the slowest possible pace.

    1. SomeoneLikeAnon*

      One of my favorite observed government wasting acitivities is reading the paper at their desk or watching CNN/news all day, and considering it a succesful day to get nearly nothing completed.

    2. waterbaby*

      Also in government. What shocks me is the number of, well, weird folks who have landed jobs here and make a career of it and stay forever. They’re really strict about ADA protections so that keeps a lot of people in place if they have mental issues, and the amount of behavioral weirdness and awkwardness that gets tolerated is surprising, especially when someone’s been around a while. I mean, it’s good that the lady who always has conversations with an invisible person in the elevator is employed I guess?

      It’s also super hard, given the recent political climate, to re-hire a position where someone’s been let go so it’s usually better to have a person working at 50% than have an empty position until we get a budget (lol).

      OTOH, the high performers here are just amazing– they work because the agency’s mission is their life’s mission, not because of pay or benefits or prestige. I’m always amazed by the number of rock stars we have and the work they do.

  210. GMN*

    The extremely close relationships between people, including coworkers, managers, competitors and vendors. I regularly go out drinking with my boss and we have been on weekend trips together (as a group of friends, not just the two of us). I have coworkers who are godparents to their boss’ children, and who manages their own siblings or children. I also regularly get business info through informal channels like beers with competitors or clients.

    So obviously the q/a’s here about some people not even wanting to add their boss on Facebook seem strange to me! That would definitely be seen as very weird here.

  211. S. Ninja*

    Financial transcription- the office deals with a fair amount of confidential information and thus does not allow smartphones in the building. I’ve had no reason to switch from my now-fairly-ancient flip phone and get weird looks every time I go into the Verizon office to pay my bill.

  212. Michael*

    1) 90-100 hour work weeks
    2) No vacation days/weekends
    3) Jobs only last 1-2 years at most
    4) 2-3 months of almost guaranteed unemployment every other year
    5) Yelling
    6) Dating/sleeping with other employees who you work with daily (usually this doesn’t apply to supervisory relationships, thank god)
    7) Aggressively advocating for your own opinions/strategic proposals way beyond what managers in most fields would accept
    8) This might be a stretch, but it’s also more common to have age/years of experience be totally unrelated to job title/rank than any other field I’ve ever come across, except maybe tech startups.

    10 points for anyone who can guess what I do for a living!

    1. Michael*

      Oh, and:

      11) drinking in the office
      12) The strictest NDAs of any field I know of, outside of R&D and intelligence. You can and will be fired for talking to close friends and family about details of your work.

    4. Michael*

      Good guesses! Managing/working on political campaigns (specifically Senate/gubernatorials, downballot races are a bit less insane).

      1. Lynne879*

        My first thought was political campaigns, but what you listed so easily applies to the video game industry too.

  213. Senior Accountant*

    In my industry you can expect to get 4 weeks of vacation in your first full year. You are required to take two weeks in a row at some point during the year. My friends with their two- and three-week vacation accruals are a little jealous.

    As an officer of a Federally regulated bank, these requirements are imposed upon us. The assumption is that if an employee is running some sort of financial trickery, it will fall apart while they are gone.

    1. An Anon*

      It’s nice that even the most hard charging worker has to take vacation at some point! Our requirement is one week, which I imagine is a lot easier to deal with than planning a two week vacation every year.

  214. tiny temping teapot*

    At my office now we get wholesalers coming in twice a day 3 or 4 days a week. They almost always (99% of the time) bring food. It’s typically from the same catering place (please more of those sandwiches and weird breakfast pastries, bleh, or Panera), but there are some fun ones. One company sets up an omelet bar, we’ve had local pizza, and my favorite was the one who brought breakfast burritos. (I really love breakfast burritos, okay??) The food is generally supposed to be only for the people being sold to, but we admin support often pounce the minute the selling is done to get the leftovers. (We deal in finance so I always joke that when I have the kind of job that lets me get a 401(k), I’m making all my investment decisions based on the quality of the food they brought in.)

  215. Sneed12*

    I’m a management consultant, at the level just below partner. Our expense policy is basically “if it’s less than $1000 don’t bother me.” Makes for interesting discussions sometimes.

  216. Ophelia Bumblesmoop*

    I worked for a professional sports team, assisting the AVP of facility operations. Name an athlete in that sport; I’ve seen him butt naked. And I can tell you which ones have the best “I’m naked and the ladies can see!” dance. And this is not in the locker rooms the media has access to.

    I can also tell you which musical artists have the most RIDICULOUS riders, all in a hope of tricking the facility into missing something important. Because preparing for 20,000 people to descend on our facility isn’t enough; we also have to make sure we only serve grape flavored drinks with less than 15mg sodium per serving and NO artificial colors.

      1. Rick Tq*

        Read the story about Van Halen’s No Brown M&Ms clause in their rider and why it was there.

        TL/DR: They were transporting one of the heaviest and most complex shows of the time with lots of pitfalls for the unwary venue. If there were no Brown M&Ms the crew could assume the rest of the contract was reviewed as carefully and followed. Brown M&Ms meant start looking over every part of the setup to see what other problems were there…

        1. Ophelia Bumblesmoop*

          This exactly. It’s a test mostly, to make sure the contract is being inspected closely. One artist had a very expensive set for their show and a previous venue in the beginning of the tour had a failure that led to an injury to crew. The new rider wanted additional safety tape and extra safety labeling. We had a lot of fun with that one. That’s where I had the joyful pleasure of applying glow in the dark paint everywhere.

      2. Nea*

        It actually has a name: “Canary Clause.” As in, that ridiculous clause is the canary in the contract coal mine.

  217. Casanova Frankenstein*

    I’ve worked at tons of small companies in the fashion industry. A lot of these places are started by founders with design sensibility and creative vision but almost no other practical or management skills so what’s acceptable or not is determined by the founder’s individual quirks/shortcomings/biases. There’s a lot of emphasis on being “flexible,” which does make sense due to the unpredictable nature of the business, but sometimes just seems like an excuse for poor management.

    Thus, things that I have witnessed at multiple small fashion companies that would be totally unacceptable in other industries include:
    –Sexist and racist comments
    –Bringing pets to work, Continuing to bring them after they bite people
    –Hiring family members and directly managing them
    –Frequent profanity
    –Yelling and abusive language
    –Super casual dress (I don’t mind this, but sometimes it’s too much when coworkers have body parts hanging out…)
    –TMI about colleagues’ personal lives and pressure to share similar
    –Social pressure to drink and party at client events and trade show after parties

    These are some of the reasons I am actively looking for a job at a large corporation with a formal HR dept and is more likely to be run by seasoned managers…

    On a lighter note, I’ve worked on charity events for clients that required calling sex shops looking for a leather bra for us to embellish for a breast cancer auction and sourced hundreds of black condoms to make a dress for HIV/AIDS awareness.

    I do love the industry overall, but often when I tell my partner who is a manager in biotech about sketchy things that happen at work, he’ll be like, “No, that would never happen in my industry. What is wrong with you people?”

  218. Insurance Account Exec*

    Insurance Account Exec:
    What I can put on my corporate card as an expense floors me. I came from the non profit world where everything was accounted for three times over and it would take an act of the Lord to get any type of spending approved.

    The drinking-liquid lunches and cigar bars are still alive in order to attract new business and keep current business.

    The golfing-im on a course at least two times a week during the golf season. A lot of business gets sold and closed on the golf course.

  219. Lady in Pink*

    I’m a massage therapist. In my industry, a normal job interview includes giving your prospective boss a massage to demonstrate your skills!

  220. Pam*

    I spent several years as a ‘dog person’- running kennels, working with show dogs, etc. Talking about roundworms while eating spaghetti- no problem!

  221. The OG Anonsie*

    Every white collar job I’ve ever had was casual dress, though many of them didn’t allow blue jeans but were ok with literally anything else. I’ve gone from nonprofits to tech. Whenever I see comments (not here specifically, but in general) that xyz casual clothing isn’t work appropriate due to formality level, full stop, I find it kind of frustrating. Especially when the person showing the clothing specifies that their office is casual and the replies are “even if it’s casual, this is your job and it’s unprofessional to not be at minimum business casual.”

    If I walked around at any of my jobs wearing dress shoes and slacks I would have stood out as tone deaf of the culture. As much as it’s important to be aware of and conform to formality level when it’s high, it’s also important to be matching formality level when it’s low.

    Double annoying is when you work in a hospital and talk about wearing ugly orthopedic shoes like Dansko clogs and people try to argue with you that you should just wear flats because the orthopedic shoes are too ugly and will stand out poorly. Or that tennis shoes aren’t ok unless they’re ~*~fashion~*~ tennis shoes with no actual support. The day leather flats are as functional as Danskos I will meet you for a snowball fight in hell.

    1. veggiewolf*

      ” The day leather flats are as functional as Danskos I will meet you for a snowball fight in hell. ”

      +1

  222. Editorial Combatant*

    In our post production house, we review content that is “too hot for TV” and decide where to place filters or cut content. It is super normal for us to have conversations about genitalia and suggestive dialogue

  223. Tom*

    I work in the airline industry, and we sometimes have meetings in completely random places because everyone can just fly in for free – recently one team decided to hold their quarterly meeting in Alaska, purely because they felt like going to Alaska. (Nobody on the team was based in Alaska. It was very inconvenient. They still got to hold their meeting in Alaska.)

  224. Sarah*

    I work in Child Protection/Social work, including government. There is a real gallows humour where people joke about abuse, domestic violence, addiction and such.

    1. Anon for this.*

      My spouse has worked as a law enforcement liaison to a social agency that handles child abuse, rape, sexual abuse, SIDS, etc. They had the utmost compassion toward victims, but the dark humor about perps/chi-mos/ bad guys was … unnerving!

  225. Serin*

    Multinational tech giant: Outside the doors, it’s a small Catholic city in a very white part of the Midwest. Inside the doors: co-workers of many nations speaking many languages, an empty office set aside for employees who prayed at set times of day, multiple openly gay co-workers; in my first week on the job, I heard someone make a joke about a foreign name and be immediately and icily shut down by his entire team.

    My previous job was in a church office, and it was legit to bring your kids to work, commandeer gathering rooms for staff birthday celebrations, and borrow the giant industrial kitchen to make cookies.

      1. Serin*

        It was amazing. You could do a quadruple batch of cookies in their industrial KitchenAid mixer and then fit them all on two baking sheets and bake them in one oven.

  226. Former Broadcast & Print Reporter*

    Broadcast: foul language, sex in the office, booze at work, harassment, groupies.

    Print: Favoritism, foul language, kids and dogs in the office.

  227. Macedon*

    Current journalist:
    – alcohol stash in the newsroom
    – legal weapons ( pepper spray, etc ) on person
    – never really off the clock / holidays frequently cancelled and rescheduled with little notice/ regularly working three-four hours on top of your office schedule
    – most people keep a suit + dress shoes at the office to Clark Kent your way into when you need to see a contact and the newsroom’s slum chic doesn’t cut the fashion bill
    – producing a written guarantee from your employer that you will not be covering news on your voyage, when you’re trying to get a visa for a leisure trip in certain countries
    – pretty rampant verbal abuse / profanity from your editors (it’s really rarely personal)
    – pre-writing obits (this is creepy).

    1. Ramona Flowers*

      Former journalist, wanting to add:
      -working to insanely short deadlines including tracking down people to interview
      -asking people really awkward follow-up questions
      -death knocks

  228. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

    Investment broker-

    I’m working on getting out of debt, and before I could start my job, I had to hand in a list of all my credit card statements along with a notarized plan for getting current on my payments (… I had been out of a job…) and a timeline for getting my credit score to a certain level, along with a commitment that I wouldn’t incur any further negative items on my credit report.

  229. Jimbo*

    It was a big shock to me that in the BINGO (big NGO) nonprofit world, it is possible for people with zero experience or skills on Teapot Making to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in foundation grants to build Teapots. Yes, I am trying my best to get out.

  230. Anonymooose*

    I used to work for a search company — many years ago (before they became a very large company)…

    To recruit engineers, they handed out boxer shorts at events which said “I’m feeling lucky!” on the rear.

    The once had a valentines day party, where there were fishbowls of condoms sitting out, and each condom said “I’m feeling lucky!” on the wrapper.

  231. Kate*

    Public health – lots of talk about poop, contraception, sex, etc. (depending on what we’re working on).
    Deadlines are constantly blown, often by months or more, because we’re grant funded (and under-funded) and everyone is working on about twice as many studies as they actually have time for.
    I have slept in schools and health centers when in the field in areas without lodging. Taken outdoor showers and peed in many fields when we were somewhere without showers/latrines.
    Giving 3+ months notice (often more like 6 months) is routine. 2 weeks would be frowned upon.

  232. Vir for Emperor*

    Impromptu singing, doing arts and crafts at your desk, reading picture books, shaking your butt in front of preschoolers and encouraging them to also shake their butts.

    Yeaaaaaa children’s librarianship!

    2. Cleo*

      My mom’s a recently retired children’s librarian – we used to have serious conversations about felt boards and collecting the perfect props for preschool story time. And she really is a sort of local celebrity – sometimes when she’s out, a kid will just stop and stare at her because they recognize their “story lady.”

      Oh, and can I say, I was pretty appalled by her holiday sweaters until I visited her library and realized that she was downright subdued compared to some of her colleagues.

  233. KV*

    All I can say is, if you’ve worked in Japan, you probably know aaaaall about how hard people go at an enkai (let us not even speak of a nijikai). If you’re not knocking back drink after drink you’re not really participating in the spirit of things.

  234. Autumn Leaves*

    Federal Government – the openness that we talk about each other’s salary/levels. Since we are on the GS-scale and our pay is literally public, conversations about “oh you’ll get that 13 promotion next time!” (And the big pay raise that comes with it!) are common. Kinda nice that there is no question about whether someone makes more because of their gender/race/etc.

    1. The IT Manager*

      Great one. I love this, but it has skewed my view of normal because every time this topic comes up AAM I always advocate for sharing instead of secrecy. I just don’t GET why other people want to keep it secret. My salary has always been public knowledge my whole adult life.

      I was in the military first and that even made it easier because salaries were based on rank which people wore on their uniform (plus time in service and whether or not someone had dependents or not). At least in the GS system you have to know a bit more to know a person’s GS-level, bit nobody hides that info.

    2. Somebody that I used to know*

      That’s why I looove union contracts.

      Sure, you might not know where exactly on the scale your coworkers are, but you know that people doing the same work are paid (almost) the same (in my union contract the nuances within pay grades are based on seniority and performance-based promotions within the pay grade, but the differences aren’t too big).

      Of course there is a possibility to get a contract outside the union scheme, which is usually done for upper and sometimes middle management, so you can get paid more, but it’s hard to get such a contract for people outside management, which can be a problem when you want to attract international research talent to your business.

  235. Anonicat*

    I used to work on a lab that often used fresh immune organs of mice in the experiments. No-one enjoyed killing a mouse though, plus they’re expensive, so it was common to email the whole floor to see if someone was already planning to kill a mouse for a different organ than the one you needed. The new EA, who came from a law firm, was pretty startled to get an email on her first day saying “Does anyone have a spleen to share tomorrow?”

    1. Former Employee*

      Poor mousies.

      At the same time, the idea of someone seeing an email asking about sharing a spleen…well, I’m surprised she didn’t make a run for it.

    2. Cedrus Libani*

      Heh. I once dropped a vial in a lab hallway, and the new admin found it. She sent an email to the floor, to the effect of “I found something [next to the BSL3 containment facility], it’s in a coffee cup on my desk.” By the time I claimed it, the poor admin had been told what goes on behind that particular door…the vial wasn’t infectious material, and was bare-fingers safe, but I’m pretty sure she never used that coffee cup again.

  236. BackAgain*

    Working in Government, I CRINGE anytime someone cuts corners, doesn’t care if task at hand isn’t completed precisely by the book and proclaims, “Whelp, Good Enough For Government Work!”.

    I feel just the opposite of that. We should have the highest standards and be the example. We shouldn’t be aiming for the lowest passing score.

  237. Chickaletta*

    Stealing. And many people, good, honest citizens – perhaps you who are reading this – who would never walk into a store and take $100, $500, worth of merchandise, have stolen this thing and didn’t even know they’re doing it. What did they take? Fonts. Stock photos. Graphics they found on the web. Someone’s website design. As a graphic designer, I see it all. the. time. A client asking for my fonts, or sending an image they right-clicked off a website to place in their sales ad, or using free copy-cat version of someone else’s work. It’s so common, you get used to it and start to think it’s normal. A lot of people will make excuses for why it’s ok too.

    1. Somebody that I used to know*

      I think there is still too little education about these things. I mean, there are tons of fonts and pictures under permissive licenses that can be used, but many people aren’t even aware of such a thing as licenses and copyright for “stuff on the internet”. Imho this and other how to use the internet stuff should be a required course in middle school.

      But I also think some content creators could do a better job about showing licensing information or who to ask for a quote in case you want to use their material, because sometimes it’s impossible (or really hard) to find.

  238. Lab Worker*

    I work in a medical lab, and our standards of normal are all pretty off. Everyone comes to work in extremely casual clothing and changes together in communal areas. Almost everyone will get something out someone else’s chest or back pocket/fix their hair/adjust someone’s neckline/scratch their itch. How much you need to use the bathroom while unable to is a common conversation.

    We’re also just kind of desensitized to everything. We have a communal music playlist with some extremely explicit songs on it, so it’s not at all uncommon to be looking at traumatic injuries or asking a coworker to look up how someone died while in the background, some musician sings about their preferred sex positions in great detail. No one bats an eye at this.

    In my significant other’s field of work (IT involving physical servers), opening up porn websites to see if they’re working correctly is completely normal, and some of them do so on their personal computers. Their biggest customers all host porn sites. Apparently the niche sites do the best. Because it’s such a normal thing, most of them don’t bother with incognito mode or anything of the like; type in a random letter on their address bar, and hundreds of porn sites will come up in the suggestions.

  239. Clewgarnet*

    I did a work experience placement that involved masturbating horses.

    There are two options, and it wasn’t porn!

    1. Mrs. Fenris*

      Ha! I’m a veterinarian and my undergrad degree was in animal science (which refers to food animals, by the way, not companion animals). I’ve seen…a lot of semen collection. A lot.

  240. Night auditor*

    I work night audit at an upscale hotel. Some of our nicest, most laid backs guests have been celebrities. People tend to think they’re all demanding at hotels and while some have been others could teach etiquette classes in how to be a model hotel guest.

    1. Anastasia Beaverhausen*

      I worked in audit for a resort hotel many many years ago with a showroom that featured popular singers/bands usually booked for one week at a time. The resort was privately owned at the time and the owner had a blanket policy that the entertainer plus entourage had full comp privileges on the property including the shops. We could tell a lot about the entertainer by how they exercised this privilege. Most were very reasonable and normal, but a few were scandalous. A particular country western star was plain greedy, signing for many cartons of cigarettes a day as though he were stockpiling for the next year. An R&B star’s entourage not only enjoyed lavish food and alcohol at every opportunity, upon leaving they took with them everything from the two floors of the hotel they occupied that wasn’t bolted down, including much of the furnishings.

      A top 40 duo at the time was anticipated with much excitement by the staff – only to realize they were a couple of asshats who were insulting and ordered staff around like they were personal servants.

      But, that was one of my first jobs and I loved it. Mostly just because when people are on vacation they are happy and it seeped into the general environment of the place.

  241. boop the first*

    retail/restaurants

    Butt slapping
    Swearing
    sexist/racist/ableist jokes, even if you refuse to laugh at them and just walk away – THEY JUST KEEP COMING
    shit-talking/gossip
    an alarming level of physical horseplay
    sexual harrassment
    And management is usually the worst offender.

  242. Kristobel*

    I work in media research, and I watch TV at my desk all day while I work. Whenever I mention binge watching a show at work, I get wide eyes and “you’re so lucky” from my friends. We also get summer Fridays (early dismissal every Friday from Memorial Day to Labor Day).

  243. Churches be crazy*

    I work in a church, in a specific denomination that ordains men and women.

    If you just had a kid, it’s expected that they’ll come to work with you for at least 4 months, maybe more. If your kids are on summer break, they’ll also often accompany you to the office. I have babysat on the clock more than once. In between editing copy for a program I had to run down to the nursery and tell a child to stop drawing on the walls. I had to clean my pastor’s baby’s spit up off my blouse the other day.

    (I get WHY, pay isn’t great and it’s good to support families, especially women in faith leadership. But I am annoyed about the amount of childcare duties I’ve suddenly had as a professional services employee. )

  244. Typhon Worker Bee*

    I have various “Biology is Gross” moments that wouldn’t happen anywhere else:

    – “Hey Cath, there’s a guy downstairs with some baboon guts, says he’s looking for you”
    – “Hey Cath, have Bob’s sperm samples arrived yet? (“Bob” being a collaborator, not a donor)
    – “I don’t know why I keep getting these damn yeast infections! I wear gloves, I spray everything with ethanol, I don’t get it!” (my friend, loudly, in a pub, during grad school. She was talking about her problems with tissue culture, but got a lot of funny looks from the muggles in the bar)
    – “What’s new this week?” “Three brain tumours, a new spruce species, and some tadpole livers”

    2. JustaTech*

      “Hey David, your HSV2 HIV rectal biopsy sample is here!”
      Always, always wait until *after* the cabbie has left to announce what they just delivered.

  245. Jellybean*

    When I was a camp counselor, I did things that are very weird even to other people I know who grew up attending and working at summer camps: trained mini horses, threw horse poop at friends while rodeo clowning, went 3 months being called “Jellybean” instead of my given name, wrote a picture book about pooping in the woods and invented a game to go along with it (like “Simon Says,” but it’s called “Doctor Poop” and you act out different ways of pooping in the woods: log hang, reverse buddy squat, flying monkey, etc.)

    1. Zahra*

      My son’s going to a day camp this summer and the counselors all have fake names (i.e. daycare before and after camp is with “Banana” and activities during the day are with “Cinderella”).

      Why do summer camps do that?

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Huh. This is so common as to have special websites devoted to coming up with good names.

        Apparently one reason is that it lets you have a special designation less formal than Mr/Ms, but still distinct from the first names the (often only barely younger) campers use.

        1. Jellybean*

          That’s exactly why! Other reasons: it’s fun, and it’s special when kids start on the leadership track (around age 14) that they get to pick a camp name, since they’ve spent the last 7 or so years dreaming about getting one. What’s funny about the whole thing is that you can be super close to another counselor and barely remember their real name, because you end up using camp names everywhere: the Starbucks down the mountain, the local lunch counter on breaks, your parents’ house when you bring other counselors home for the weekend. My camp staff gets together once a year or so during the off season and still use camp names.

  246. Mrs. Fenris*

    I’m a veterinarian. A colleague got this text from his veterinary technician during lunch: “OMG. I’m in line at Subway and there’s a cat testicle on my shirt.”

  247. JulieBulie*

    I know I’m way late on this, but at my job, there’s a lot of talk about slaves and masters. (Official terminology in certain communication protocols.) Makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit every time I hear it.

  248. IANAL (I Argue Nightly About Llamas)*

    I’m a law student, and so many things I joke about with my classmates would never fly outside of the profession.

    -We have a very dark sense of humor. Like, jokes about violence pretty common and not particularly serious.
    -All our vices come to a head, and it becomes pretty obvious very quickly who smokes, who drinks, and who eats all the ice cream when stressed.
    -We’re cliquey AF. You know the scene in Legally Blonde where Elle isn’t allowed into the study group? Yeah, that’s the realest part of the movie. Well, that, and the expectation that you’ve done 50 pages of reading on day 1.
    -Law students and lawyers have the foulest mouths. So many 4-letter words (and I LOVE swearing).

  249. throwaway665*

    I used to work for a big-five publisher, and now I am an agented writer. Publishing is the only industry I can think of where it’s okay to take a year to respond to an email submission. So frustrating. Also big drinking culture, pretty lax inter-office dating policies, etc.

  250. Pixalottle*

    I know I’m a bit late to this but commercial science. Lots of alcohol involved, sometimes at work, but the most surprising is the helium! Last Christmas party all of the balloons were gone within an hour and there were many videos of people trying to discuss serious scientific topics with squeaky voices.

  251. Godzilla the Kitty*

    Manager-sanctioned drinking on the job during shift work! This was when I worked at a bar (in the UK – no idea if this was just the bar I worked at or normal for the UK in general). If you were working an evening shift, at some point your manager would come up to you individually and ask if you wanted a shot. Then you’d go to the managers office and get to choose between, say, tequila and Jaeger, and they’d pour you what was usually a double. Then you’d get back to work!
    It was my very first bar job, so when I got asked this on my very first evening shift, I thought it was a trick question and turned it down! Then I learned otherwise

    1. Godzilla the Kitty*

      Oh, and if it was especially quiet, you’d just crouch under the bar to take your shot.

    2. Typhon Worker Bee*

      When I worked in a pub in the UK, we’d occasionally drink on the job too. It was usually a half pint out in the open, while working on a busy night – when we were obviously swamped, a regular would sometimes order a round then say “oh and have one yourself”. (Brits don’t tip bartenders, but they do buy them drinks!)

      That was my all-time favourite casual job. So much fun. The bar staff joined in on karaoke nights, and we always had our own team on trivia night too.

  252. Kalila*

    1) My boss making racist and sexist jokes (and she is a woman)
    2) Employees getting credit for work that they didn’t do because my boss wants to give everyone a chance
    3) Middle management telling an employee “you need to do this because I got dinged on my performance evaluation last year.”
    4) All of the team leads doing the work of supervisor including enforcing policy and procedure when they are not authorized or trained to do so.

  253. Vancouver*

    Haha, this is the best question ever!

    I’m with all he biologists/veterinarians on here who go for lunch with [insert bodily fluid here] on their shirts. I went out for dinner last week and one of the servers asked “do you smell fish?”… I had to admit it was me.

    Right now I’m working at a wildlife rescue centre and going to the beach for six hours to watch a baby seal to see if mom comes back is completely normal. (Mom did, if you’re wondering.) We also get really comfortable talking about gross things and death and so forth – when I heard that a patient was herniating organs through her belly button my first reaction was “cool – can I see?” Oh, and getting bitten – I can’t think of another workplace where getting bitten three times a day is considered normal!

  254. Ophelia*

    This is more country/company specific but total disinterest in what you are wearing, which means I can wear pink frilly dresses, bows, quirky prints, mermaid prints, and lots of cute items that would make anybody in any other company judge me for being unprofessional. But nobody in my company cares and I also got promoted, so I will continue to wear crazy Harajuku fashion and enjoy myself :)

  255. The MOJ*

    I work in social services/nonprofits, and one of the things that would never fly in any other industry I have encountered so far is complete lack of responsiveness to emails and phone calls — with few consequences. Of course, not everyone in the field does this: but I’ve had several experiences like this where people just don’t reply and think it’s ok to take weeks upon weeks to respond. A friend who came from corporate America to this field recently told me that he tried for three weeks to reach someone he was supervising via phone and email and then finally said to that person, “If you don’t come into the office within 48 hours, I will assume you no longer work here.” That seemed to work. I’m sure some people would be upset that I said this, but this is what I have found to me true.

  256. Manduca*

    My typical job interview attire: business casual, with gym shorts and dry-fit under because I will probably have to disprove during the interview.

  257. FormerSpaManager*

    I used to manage a spa. Interviews involved me stripping naked for a massage from the candidate. I always had them work on my glutes to make sure they knew how to properly drape (arrange the linens) and wouldn’t scandalize clients… So yes, I interviewed people by having them rub my butt.

  258. ConstantLurker*

    It is not uncommon to see coworkers in sweatpants, and I personally wear jeans and a hoodie almost every day. Still in an office setting though! But then, our CEO consistently wears jeans, so it’s not too weird.

  259. GRDS Girl*

    I’m a graphic designer and every company I’ve worked for has had what i like to call a “mornings are hard” policy where if you made it in within the hour of when you were supposed to start you were on time.

    Also when i worked in agencies all of them had random drug testing that was never enforced. I thought that was how every company was until i moved to my current in-house position at a major manufacturing company and since all the plant workers get randomly tested corporate complies with that policy as well. Wasn’t a problem for me but i had several coworkers from previous jobs that would have been screwed haha.

  260. Dz*

    Worked at Planned Parenthood. We sold sex ed kits to local schools which contained “woodies”–wooden penis models to demonstrate proper condom use. Woodies were also painted sparkly pink and given to employees as awards for a job well done.

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