March 2023

can an intern refuse to do menial office tasks?

A reader writes: I work at a company with the general rule that any work you don’t want to do can be delegated to an intern. (Our interns are all paid and students.) Interns often find themselves assigned random menial tasks, like reformatting a PDF for a manager who can’t be bothered. On the reverse […]

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the CEO makes us rank our personal lives at team meetings

A reader writes: The CEO of the company I work for likes to be very involved in everyone’s lives and has stated that by being vulnerable and open about what’s going on outside of work, we will perform better on the job. At company meetings, she makes the whole team rank both our work and […]

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is it reasonable for our office to go so fragrance-free that we have to change every product we use at home?

A reader writes: I work in a government office which is currently almost exclusively remote. We recently received an invitation to a not-quite-mandatory large (~50 person) in-person event which came with a note: This is a fragrance-free meeting: Please help us to accommodate our coworkers who are chemically sensitive to products with fragrance (scented). Thank […]

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update: my boss and coworkers are constantly at my house

Remember the letter-writer whose boss and coworkers were constantly at her house — storing equipment there, holding meetings there, and even stopping by to use her bathroom? Here’s the update. First off, I want to thank you and the commenters for the advice. I hadn’t realized how ridiculous my situation had become, probably because small-town […]

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how can I hire good people to work in a dysfunctional organization?

A reader writes: My small organization is currently in transition. We have had significant staff turnover in the last two years, and the result has pushed the organization into a level of dysfunction that I know will drive many good quality candidates away. However, I still have to hire people (I have two positions currently […]

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I’m a public employee and the governor pushes religion at work

A reader writes: Unlike the bulk of your letters, I’m going to name my employer for two reasons: (1) I technically work for an elected official so it’s not a standard boss/employee relationship and (2) multiple reporters covered and recorded the behavior in question because these were public events. You can find it online everywhere. […]

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