employee made a racist comment, my senior coworkers think I earn too much, and more

by Alison Green on August 22, 2024

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

1. Employee made a racist comment to her office-mate

I work in a fairly small office. We have about 12-15 people in the office. Recently, our company hired two new CSR’s. “Anne” is white and in her late fifties/early sixties. “Leah” is Black and probably in her thirties.

Anne and Leah share an office and were getting along great. You could hear chatter and laughter throughout the day coming from their office. Then yesterday, Anne made a comment to Leah about “those colored folk.” Leah told her that was inappropriate and offensive. Anne immediately got defensive and claimed that she didn’t say anything hateful.

I heard their direct manager make the comment to someone else in the office that Anne is from an era where that kind of talk was acceptable. This is raising alarm bells for me. Also, Leah is currently the only Black employee we have.

I feel like this is being mishandled. They are talking about separating them to keep the peace. What do you think should be done in this situation? I don’t manage these people, but I’m curious what your take would be.

If Anne is in her late 50s or early 60s, she’s not from an era where that phrase was acceptable. But even if she were, it doesn’t matter; she’s had decades to catch up with the times. Moreover, not only was her language not acceptable, but neither was her reaction when Leah let her know that. The right response was, “I didn’t realize, thank you for telling me, I apologize.”

As for what should be done, someone in authority needs to talk to Anne and explain that. I don’t believe in making adults apologize, but someone should have the sort of conversation with Anne that makes her want to apologize of her own volition. From there, wait and see how things go. Meanwhile, someone should also check in with Leah and see how she is and whether she’d prefer to have a different office-mate at this point.

Read an update to this letter. 

2. I’ve heard my senior coworkers think I earn too much

I work a job that is often considered entry-level in my field (think paralegal or medical scribe), but most of the folks on my team are quite seasoned and have been doing it for a decade-plus because we enjoy the work and have never been in a financial situation to afford additional degrees.

I am quite close with some of the junior professionals in our office, and I often hear from them that two of the high-up professionals who I’m often assigned to assist, Sasha and Erin, have a lot of disdain for our team and spend a lot of time badmouthing us at work lunches. They complain about how uneducated and unqualified we are and how easy our work is compared to theirs — that we are lazy and “basically do nothing all day.” One comment I heard that they made at a recent work lunch really ground my gears, though: They complained that we are overpaid. Specifically, they said our work “is basically intern work” and so we should “be paid like interns.”

Since hearing this, I haven’t been able to get this comment out of my head whenever I have to assist Sasha and Erin (who are, of course, perfectly nice to my face). Clearly Sasha and Erin don’t know this, but I make minimum wage, as does pretty much everyone who holds our position: We could not legally make less than we do. Fortunately we are not in a high cost of living area so the money is not a problem, but I still feel so angry working with these two people who have this opinion about me (and who certainly make way, way more than I do).

Is this comment, which I heard secondhand, a reasonable justification for me to ask not to have to assist Sasha and Erin anymore? If not, any suggestions for how to cope with this frustration?

Hearing that secondhand is not enough justification to ask not to assist Sasha and Erin.

It’s possible Sasha and Erin didn’t even say those things, or didn’t say them about you, or that the people passing it along to you are pursuing their own agenda in some way. In fact, in your shoes I’d be concerned about why the colleagues telling you about it are telling you about it so often; it’s one thing to give you a heads-up, but hearing it from them often sounds like they’re trying to stir the pot, and I’d be wary of that — and would consider telling them to stop (“I’d rather not hear this; I need to work with them and it’s easier if I’m not hearing a steady stream of this stuff”).

Focus on how Sasha and Erin actually treat you.

3. My employee works long hours even though I’ve told her to stop

I am a manager of a small department, where I have one full-time employee and one part-time employee who I share with another department.

My part-time employee has horrible work-life balance. She will not stop answering emails from home or when she is on PTO. She will come into work when she is sick or on work-from-home days. She is non-exempt and I know she’s not tracking this time.

I have forced her to turn off notifications before she leaves for the weekend. I have had conversations about it being okay for people to wait, or that it is hurting the rest of the department when we do not reply after-hours and people get mad. Despite her complaining about the workload, she will not take steps to help herself.

Despite being on the same page with me, the other manager seems content to tell her to work less and leave it at that. Ideally, I don’t want to escalate this to HR — she would fail the PIP or hide her actions, which would be worse. She is a wonderful person and I hold her in high regard. There may be nothing I can do, and I definitely to not want her fired. Do you have any other suggestions for ways I might be able to encourage her to sign off and stay off?

Because she’s non-exempt, you’re required by federal law to ensure that she’s not working during her off hours or that she’s paid when she does (including time and a half if she’s ever over 40 hours in a week). Legally, you don’t have the option of just encouraging her to set boundaries; legally you need to require it.

Sit down with her and let her know that your past conversations about not working in her off hours are no longer suggestions; they’re requirements of her job. Explain that she’s opening the company to legal liability by not reporting those hours, that you personally could get in trouble for allowing it, and that effective immediately it cannot happen — and if you see it’s continuing to, you’ll need to treat it as a disciplinary issue. Ask if she foresees any problems sticking to that; if she does, you want her to raise it now so that can get worked out.

From there, you need to enforce it. If you can’t do that on your own, then you do need to alert HR; again, this is a legal liability for the company, and it’s a big deal that you’re not letting them know. (In fact, you should loop them in regardless, because it sounds like your company owes your employee for unpaid hours.) You mentioned you’re worried the employee would fail a PIP, but this isn’t PIP territory; it’s a clear warning, maybe two, and that’s it. If you really think she’d ignore a clear, unambiguous warning about federal law, I think you’ve got to revisit the regard you’re holding her in.

Related:
my staff keeps working unauthorized overtime even though I told them to stop

4. Is it unprofessional to raise issues with your coworkers?

Over the last month, our team has had some major and minor changes to management, policy, and procedures. These changes have varied in inconvenience for the team, ranging from an extra few minutes to major team staffing changes with no previous notice.

I brought up in a team chat that it is concerning for these changes to be made with no real chance to voice our opinions, and was told that I was being “unprofessional.” This is my second time in the same month receiving the “unprofessional” feedback for voicing concerns. A coworker told me that I should save my opinions for 1:1s with my manager.

Previous to this job, I worked on a close team where we were encouraged to discuss team issues in a team setting. So now I am wondering if my previous team got me used to an unprofessional norm. Is it “unprofessional” to discuss concerns with your fellow employees? I’ve been proud to be a resource that some of my fellow employees have come to regarding topics such as wage disparity, benefits, and how to address issues with management, but maybe I’ve been giving bad advice based on unusual job experience.

I’m now waiting for my next 1:1 to get some additional feedback on how to increase my professionalism, but thought I would get some feedback from a neutral third party whose advice has served me well.

It’s not unprofessional to raise issues that affect your team within that team.

It can be problematic if you’re aggressive to the point of rudeness about the way you do it, or if you keep pushing when it’s clear the conversation needs to move on, or when it’s more venting than action-oriented. Even in those situations, though, it’s not necessarily unprofessional; it might be more impolitic than unprofessional. And sometimes issues need to be raised even when it’s impolitic, and sometimes “rude” really means “you’re making people uncomfortable, but you’re not wrong.”

Of course, you need to read the room. If the culture of your team or organization is that dissent is frowned upon … well, it still wouldn’t be unprofessional to raise issues, but you’d want to include that in your calculus so you can decide how much capital you’re willing to spend. (Also, that would be the sign of a tremendously unhealthy organization. Good managers want to hear about issues affecting their teams.)

But I’m curious who’s telling you that you were unprofessional. It sounds like at least once it was a coworker. Was it ever your manager? If you’re hearing it from multiple sources, there’s still important info here — either about your approach or about your team’s culture — but I’d consider the source(s).

Also: under federal law, you have the legal right to discuss wages and working conditions with coworkers. It can be to your employer’s advantage to make you feel weird about doing that. So factor that in too.

5. Asking for a raise based on a job title you don’t officially have

Asking a question on behalf of a friend, who I am encouraging to ask for a raise.

The friend joined a company two years ago as a temp with very little experience, and was hired full-time onto a newsletter marketing team. It turns out that even though the company is big and important in its field, the software and workflows for sending out the newsletters are counterintuitive, annoying, and really out of date.

My friend was so bored and annoyed that they taught themself how to code and automated the most annoying tasks. Now, they’re currently spending most of their time working with their manager and the web team to code programs and extensions to make their systems work better, which has already improved a lot of the process.

However, their title is still something like “newsletter assistant,” even though the work they’re doing now is much closer to “software developer.” Can they ask for a raise that references the market rate for a software developer, or would it be better to just list their achievements, even if they fall far outside their job description?

They should ask for a raise and a title change, framing it as “I was brought on to do X, but my role has become Y, and I’d like my title and salary to reflect the work I’m doing.”

That said, “software developer” might not be the appropriate title or pay rate; it sounds like their work has a fairly narrow focus that doesn’t necessarily match up with the way “software developer” is normally used, and if that’s the case, asking to be paid for that job’s market rate will come across as out-of-touch. But there’s a case for some sort of title change and raise.

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{ 344 comments }

{ 344 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    A note that it’s not helpful or necessary to the topic to post bigoted comments you’ve heard, transcribed verbatim, and I’ve removed it where I’ve seen that.

  2. RedinSC*

    LW 5, sounds like your friend is more of an app developer.

    I hope they get their raise and title change!

    1. Bambue*

      I think either app or software developer would both be reasonable titles. It would translate to a junior role in a more complex environment.

      It is also possible that something like Business Systems Administrator might be more relevant if it is closer to managing set up of existing tools, but if they are writing custom code most of the day, developer is a correct title

    2. AcademiaNut*

      App developer would imply that her primary job is developing apps for smart phones and tablets, working in iOs and/or Android software development systems.

      Software developer would imply that her primary job is writing code for other people to use. If I saw that, I’d expect her to be fluent in one or more major programming languages, and to be familiar with things like git (or other version management software) as well as proper testing and validation of code, debugging and profiling tools and best practices for documentation.

      The description in the letter sounds more like she figured out how to automate some of the tasks she was doing to make the process of producing the newsletter more efficient. That would definitely call for a raise, and would be very useful on a resume, but is a long way from applying for jobs as software developer.

      1. RedinSC*

        Ah, I guess my time in local government has changed the way I think about this. That’s the title for someone who is working on data bases, automating things and generally making things run, setting up apps to work, etc.

        1. Cabbagepants*

          There is a difference is that automation was never the friend’s job. They did it on their own and they may never do it again (at least within this job).

          1. Fae Kamen*

            The point of the question is that the nature of their job has shifted to this kind of work, they are continuing to do it regularly, and they want to know what to call it.

      2. Digital marketer*

        I agree.

        I suspect your friend is implementing automation functions within your organisation’s EDM software and/or selecting settings on CMS modules, not coding in PHP or whatever.

        Now what she’s doing is great and should be rewarded with a title bump, but she’s not a software or web developer.

        ‘Digital marketer’ would cover those skills in my view.

        1. Been There*

          It’s fascinating how the interpretation of titles differs, because to me a digital marketer is something completely different. I would interpret that as someone who sets up and monitors online marketing campaigns.

          1. Digital marketer*

            Yes, and that should, and does, involve extensive automation.

            That’s what the digital marketers outise my office door do every day.

        3. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

          We have roles like this on my team that we call “email production” (associate, coordinator, etc. depending on level).” These roles are entirely focused on the technical operation of the program, and are distinguished from content development. They pay slightly better than the content roles at the same level to account for the technical expertise. But they are definitely not software developer roles, and using our automation tools, even with some custom coding, fits within the scope of our entry-level or one-step-up-from-entry-level positions.

          Definitely worth asking for a raise since it is a significant value-add. Possibly worth a title change if this has changed how they’re spending their time – if they were building emails individually and they started using an automation tool instead, but 50% of their time is spent building emails either way, that may not be enough to get a new title. But if it went from 20% of their time building emails to 70% of their time building emails, that would justify a change in title. Or if the efficiencies they’ve gained from using automation tools allows them to spend a bunch of time on other higher-level work, that would justify a title change.

        4. Yubsie*

          It sounds like some of what I do with the title “Process Improvement Coordinator”. I joke that it means no one is actually sure what my job is and after I had to translate my job description (for me specifically it includes ad hoc translation requests) when they were looking for my mat leave coverage I was no longer sure either!

      3. yay*

        Yep, she’s a script kiddie, most likely (maybe she’s a genius who loves reading the most tedious tech material, you never know). Which is a great start! She’s found something lucrative that she likes and is good at! But there’s a lot more that goes into being a professional developer than self-taught people tend to learn on their own.

      4. software developer*

        There are also many many professional software developers that are self-thought. And conversely, many professional software developers with a degree from prestigious universities who have never worked with git. Really surprised to see the comment about that here because new hires (with fancy degrees) not even knowing basic things like that is so common in tech that I would expect everyone to know that.

        Times have changed. Languages like Python are easy to learn, and in two years you can absolutely be proficient enough for a junior level job. And yes, I know, someone will now “explain” that “real developers” do not use Python, or not only Python, or some other gatekeeping thing, but they can safely be ignored.

        I mean, we don’t know what this person does exactly, but I’m taking LW on their word, and the assumption that of course you cannot be a “real” software developer after two years is baseless, and I wouldn’t be surprised if for some people sexism plays a role there too. If it’s a man that does the same people will in general be much more likely to believe that of course you can learn this yourself, and wow this is really impressive.

        2. Worldwalker*

          I need to learn Python. I’m a programmer with pet snakes (including a ball python) so it’s a bit embarrassing that I don’t know it.

          1. Nonanon*

            Interviewer: Do you know Python?
            Worldwalker: Why yes I do! *holds up ball python*
            Ball python: *sticks tongue out*

        3. yay*

          Times have changed- it used to be easy to break into software development jobs, but that is no longer the case. You can be self taught but you better have 30 years of experience to back it up or you’re going to be very limited in your opportunities.

          Just to give you some context: I am a relatively new dev myself. I graduated in 2020. Before I went to school, I was also self taught. I went to school thinking it would give me a piece of paper confirming my existing skills. Ie was wrong- like many people here, I thought development was just writing code and I learned so many new skills and ideas that I rely on every day. In my job, that I was only able to get because I do have that piece of paper.

        4. Tau*

          I really didn’t read AcademiaNut’s comment as about gatekeeping based on degrees or being “self-taught” (which – OK, so I don’t have a CS degree either but judging by my colleagues who do: is anyone out there programming just using the stuff they learned in college?) Instead, I read it as pointing out that there are things important to professional software development which you don’t generally need for projects like the one described (projects just for you, or you + small group of people you work closely together with, where you’re the only developer on it). Maybe it’s just because I’ve been suffering through audit season here, but there is so much stuff that’s part of my job that is not in any way related to making the code do what I want it to do and that would be hilariously excessive overkill in the setup OP describes, that is nonetheless important when creating software as a product in a team.

          I would personally be delighted to hire someone doing what OP mentioned as a junior developer, because she’s clearly got what I view as one of the single most important software developer skills – the one where you go and just *teach yourself* the things you need to know to do what you need. I think she could go far! I would probably be more cautious about hiring her as mid-level, though, because that involves a greater degree of autonomy and that’s where those missing professional-setting-only skills could come back to bite and bite hard. That said, it really does depend on the details.

          1. AcademiaNut*

            I’m looking at it from the perspective of someone whose last formal CS course was in (checks calendar) in the early 90s, spent years learning various coding stuff for my own research and then moved into a software development position, leaning a *lot* about the non-algorithmic/coding parts of software development from others as I went along.

            A lot of scientists have quite a lot of programming experience, sometimes quite complicated, but it tends to be used to analyze their own data, which is quite different from working as a software developer and writing code that’s going to be used by other people.

      5. Roland*

        > App developer would imply that her primary job is developing apps for smart phones and tablets, working in iOs and/or Android software development systems.

        With that kind of app development I generally only see job ads for specifically “ios developer” or “android developer”, not just”app developer”. So if they’re developing business apps t might be fine. Different field in any case.

        1. DivergentStitches*

          There are also web apps that are built for regular ol’ computers so it doesn’t always just equal phone apps.

      6. Caramel & Cheddar*

        Agreed, this is not a software developer role the friend is doing. I wonder if they could call it an Application Specialist or Systems Integration Specialist role because it sounds like the friend has tons of expertise in the finer details of making systems talk to each other and speeding things up. I’m thinking of stuff like building and maintaining automations using Power Automate in the Microsoft ecosystem (or equivalent tools) that let you connect bits and pieces, can include coding if you want to get past the limitations of WYSIWYG options, and do require a bit of effort to maintain.

      1. Digital marketer*

        I’d be OK with that, but if one of my staff pitched it to me I’d tell them to add ‘Digital’ to the front, ie: Digital Marketing Operations Associate.

        It’s not only accurate, but it’s a keyword that people like me look for.

        ‘Marketing operations’ could be handing out flyers, after all.

      2. cleo*

        I was thinking this sounded like marketing operations too.

        Or digital communications associate / specialist.

    4. yay*

      I was like OP5 (or rather their friend).
      Hired for one role and shoved myself into dev work. I did get the recognition for it, but a small (non-tech) org is not a good place to learn to be a good dev and I only ever made peanuts there (a place without a budget for a developer doesn’t suddenly pay you market rates, and you don’t have anyone to nitpick your code to make you better). I took a two year program to really flesh out what I was missing, now I’m making almost triple what I did then.

      My advice to them would be to spend *no more* than 2 years exploring this and developing their skills here before moving on. Meanwhile, see if there’s any opportunity for local networking, and find out what you can about education opportunities. If it’s feasible, go to school, learn the fundamentals and the ways of working together with other programmers. If it’s not feasible, I guess look at curriculum to see what you might be missing, read about agile, and look into building a GitHub portfolio of open source work? but there’s a lot of CS grads out there and you won’t be nearly as competitive without a professional education.

      1. blueberry muffin*

        I think this is a really good observation. Sometimes when the scope of your duties increase (for whatever reason) you want compensation to increase accordingly. This is a good reminder that this doesn’t always happen. Companies more often than not only pay you for what they hired you for not what extra duties you volunteered for.

        And please, before folks start jumping all over me, I am not saying anyone is the “bad guy” her, just offering an observation.

      2. Grumpy Tech Lead*

        I think yay’s advice is great and I sign on 100%! I want to add (to the OP’s friend or anyone in a similar situation) that you should not listen to people claiming it takes more than developing software to be a “software developer.” It does not! The range of actual abilities in this field is *very* wide, and many positions do have a “narrow focus” wherein most of the tools and technologies have already been pre-defined. I have worked with fantastic professionals who can do a lot with very little, and also people with CS master’s degrees who have to be coached through every task step by step for months. If you identify the business need and write the code to meet it, congrats, you are a software developer, and DO NOT listen to people calling you a “code monkey” or whatever term of art is currently in fashion to devalue you. Be realistic about your skill set and your current role & company when you ask for a well deserved title and pay bump, and seek education to improve your skills and marketability as a developer, but do not let dudebros convince you that you are not a “real” software developer. Keep learning!

  3. Anon tonight*

    Nominating Alison’s answer to Q2 as the answer most likely to shock a person just entering the workplace (purposely not using a generational title here but lordy as a first-time manager am I thinking it). Thank you to Alison for the wonderful illustration of the difference between professionalism and courtesy/civility. In a personal context, OP2 could reasonably and politely limit contact with Sasha and Erin, but at work, asking to do so would be unprofessional. (Because at work, we’re not here to make sure we are appropriately respected and esteemed, we are here to get the work done. Lack of respect only affects that if it, you know, actually affects that. I seriously want to circulate this at my 600-person office that despite the many degrees we require appears to be partly staffed by small babies.)

    1. GythaOgden*

      Indeed. There’s one customer representative I think half of my team would rather not work with, but it’s not our job to /refuse/ to work with her. It’s our job to manage her expectations and not necessarily /appease/ her (because she does join calls where she’s not actually supposed to be on and raise far too many jobs in our maintenance system that make it look like she’s trying to either waste our time or prove us incompetent or something like that) but work to make sure she doesn’t get in the way of good relationships with the customer involved — who is basically essential to our public healthcare business and our main regional client.

      Work is always about navigating difficult people at times, whether they’re colleagues, management, clients, service users or customers. It can actually be quite satisfying when someone you have a prickly relationship with gets easier to work with. The really nice thing someone said to me six months or so in to my reception job was that my supervisor — known to be quite demanding and who I would describe as Rosie the Riveter made flesh — had spoken highly of me to other people, and she very rarely said that about anyone. If someone does give me negative feedback I work hard to prove them wrong or change the bad habits. It’s not my place to refuse to work with them because they expressed criticism of me.

      Getting along with people despite their opinions of you is what happens at work. You won’t ever get on 100% with everyone you work with. I know people may say things about me from time to time which are going to be negative — no-one’s perfect. The answer is to examine whether I’ve actually done something wrong and to make an effort to respond to the feedback, but also to accept that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and the working relationship will require me to work with people I don’t like and who may not like me and to accept that as ok.

    2. Rebecca*

      I agree this was a great answer! I recently saw a tiktok of a woman saying that people telling you that a person is talking about you is not your problem, that’s none of your business. It only becomes a problem if the person says something directly to you or treats you a certain way. If nothing is being done to you directly, not your problem. I wish more people would operate like this!

      1. I've Escaped Cubicle Land*

        This. Once worked at a very gossipy place. I tended to read a book at break times and stick to myself instead of joining in the gossip. Had a girl approach me with “they said” stories. I shut her down mid sentence. “What they are saying about me to others doesn’t matter. I’ll address it if and when ‘they’ come say it to me”.

        1. TeaCoziesRUs*

          Ehhh… yes, to a certain extent… but not if it could impact you professionally. If someone is spreading a “they said” that I’m spreading confidential information, sleeping with the boss, embezzling funds, etc, I’ll be shutting that poo down REAL quick. If it’s “tee hee, they say you’re a pain to work with,” that’s when I’d tend to respond, “I’ll believe it when they have the courage to say it to my face.” But, then, I don’t mind stirring the pot by calling gossips cowards. YMMV.

      2. Bossy*

        Ha ha this reminds me of a time waaay back when when a friend of a friend got mad at me for being unwilling to get out of bed and come pick her up in the middle of the night as her car was broken down. We’re talking 2/3am. She was a stripper which is great and all but I had an office job I needed to be at so, um no plus yeah, girl call an actual friend not a friend of friend who hung out with you once? Well she was pissed off and decided to tell me all about how my bf was into her etc and I needed to dump him! I was great when I find out about it I’ll dump him. Also if it’s all that ya shoulda called him for a ride. She was like I just told you about it. I was like you seem like an unreliable source. She was even more mad, it was so hilarious. I literally had to say Why would I make any decisions based on info from some rando I don’t even know who’s giving me info because she’s mad? Like who the F are you? Of course she was more pissed, vowed revenge, etc. and I was like no one has even done anything to you, you are bat-s crazy. So pissed cuz I didn’t start crying over whatever she said lol. Dumb girls are so dang dumb. I’m a very nice person and have been complimented as such, but I will not suffer assholes.

  4. Data Bear*

    Re LW1: late 50s / early 60s is right at the beginning of GenX. We grew up in the 80s. The term “colored folk” is language that my *grandmother* used, and definitely not something that would have flown when I was in elementary school, let alone four or five decades later.

    So yeah, we’re not “from an era where that was acceptable.”

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      Honestly, my parents are in their 80s and have never used language like that. People in their 50s and 60s have no excuse.

      1. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

        People of any age have no excuse. But we also had an acquaintance in her 50s who referred to Oprah Winfrey as “the coloured girl with a TV show”.

          1. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

            Or that *their* parents and grandparents used it all the time (because it was the more socially acceptable alternative) and they’re just set in their ways, darn it!

            It’s still not okay. We’ve had several decades of other terms that members of the affected community would prefer be used instead. Google exists for goodness’ sake. Anne doesn’t like that she got called out for being racist AND that she doesn’t even really have the paper-thin “excuse” of “oh I’m just from a different generation tee hee.”
            Well deal with it, Anne. There are lots of things happening that none of us like. You ain’t special.

            1. Observer*

              It’s still not okay. We’ve had several decades of other terms that members of the affected community would prefer be used instead

              This 100%

              I think that at this point the discussion about how someone settled into this kind of language is a distraction. These are supposedly competent adults who have not been living under a rack for the last 30 years. And we routinely expect people to use technologies, and work in ways that were not even possible 30 years ago. If they can learn those things they can learn how to talk (or not talk) in the workplace!

            2. I Have RBF*

              Yeah, “coloured” went out of style when I was a kid in the 60s. Maybe some regions went later, but I don’t know of any. Then again, my grandparents used the “n” word regularly.

              But it is not hard to refer to people the way they would like to be referred to. In the case of Anne’s coworker, that term is “Black”, not “coloured”.

          2. But Of Course*

            Why not that they’re racist? Because they are. If you cannot care enough to work out polite terms of address decades after the one you’re using disappeared, your excuse is that you’re racist.

            We do not need to spend any time whatsoever coming up with plausible excuses for racism.

            1. Worldwalker*

              I agree that one should keep up with the current euphemisms, as a matter of politeness, but consider:

              I have a pattern of speech that involves leaving out “to be” in some uses. For example, I’ll say “my car needs washed” instead of the grammatically correct “my car needs to be washed.” There are geographical areas where that is common, and I’m from one of them. I phrase it that way because it’s ingrained in my brain, even though I haven’t lived anywhere that uses that construction for most of my life. It’s a different thing to the extent that it’s not only neutral but I doubt that anyone cares — much different in that way than learning the currently polite term for “person with a dark skin” — but it’s still something embedded deep in my language learning that would be difficult to dig out if I tried. (Oddly, I don’t generally write that way; just talk)

              This is all fairly theoretical. If I’d been told for decades that my speech pattern was socially unacceptable and I had to get that “to be” in there, I would have gotten into the habit of it by now; it persists because nobody cares. You call people what they want to be called (“people” is a good default) because it’s the polite thing to do. But that doesn’t make whatever word the current one pushed off the euphemism treadmill inherently vile in some way; it’s just the word that used to be the polite replacement for someone previous words.

              1. Nodramalama*

                I am confused why you’ve couched not using offensive and racist terms as “politeness” and “euphemisms”.

                2. But Of Course*

                  Occam’s Razor?

                  I’m not Black, but I am queer, and I am very, very interested in why someone might want to make the argument that people should be allowed to refer to my partner (13 years this week!) as “your ‘friend’.” Because it seems to me that that’s the same kind of thing as describing using offensive terms as using euphemisms. First of all, euphemism for what, the n word? Second, we are talking about people, actual people who have the capacity to be hurt by language, why wouldn’t someone want to get it right???

                3. Florence Reece*

                  And why they’ve suggested that those offensive terms used to be polite, and have only stopped being polite because of the neverending treadmill of (taking a small step in logic here) “wokeness.” A treadmill that, gosh darnit, some folks just cannot keep up with no matter how they try! And surely they try!

                  We don’t need to defend outdated, offensive, racist language. Especially not for someone who wasn’t alive when it was widely used. And double-especially not for someone who hears that it’s outdated language and doubles down on it. There are fascinating, neutral analyses of how our biased language has shifted over time, but this is really not the place for it. We’re discussing a specific person being harmed, we don’t need some philosophical take on why it’s actually not the offender’s fault.

              2. A Library Person*

                I agree that it can be really difficult to excise stuff from your natural way of speaking, but the difference here is that a quirk in verb usage doesn’t actively harm people, whereas racist (sexist, homophobic, etc.) language does. It’s something you *need* to get right, and if you don’t, you need to apologize immediately. The bar is higher, as it should be.

              3. spiriferida*

                Regional dialect and grammar are a very different thing from using outdated and offensive terminology. And from getting defensive when you’re told that you’ve done something to offend someone.

                There’s a difference between not knowing something like the current commonly used term is BIPOC and using terminology that was most common during the /segregation era/. And that difference is seventy years, give or take.

              4. Deborah Vance, Vance Refrigeration*

                Out of habit, I sometimes use an outdated (though not offensive) term for the LGBTQIAPN+ community. When people call me out on it, I apologize and do my best not to say it again. I do NOT get defensive about it, that’s the difference.

              5. But Of Course*

                First of all, people who speak dialect don’t generally write it because written language is taught and reinforced in a completely different way than spoken language is acquired.

                Second of all, why are you defending using a term that fell out of favor when Martin Luther King Jr was alive as a “preferred” term for Black people by discussing your use of a living, grammatically-incorrect regionalism? Leaving out “to be” from a sentence makes me absolutely bananas, but BOY HOWDY is it not the same as telling another human being that you think they are less than you, which is what using offensive, racist terms is entirely and completely about.

                There is a difference between someone who uses African-American, a term recently in correct use, and someone who uses a term last in current use before she was alive, and neither of them are what you’re talking about with your regionalism example. We absolutely, essentially, need to care and keep up with what people like to be called.

              6. Kotow*

                I think the difference is that omitting “to be” (and that was so confusing to me when I came out to Pittsburgh because seemingly everyone spoke that way) and using terms that are outdated at best and considered racist at worst, is that nobody finds a grammatical oddity offensive. If the impacted group has across the board decided and agreed that a certain term is offensive, you **need** to unlearn it, even if it’s not natural and takes a lot of effort to do so. I’ve found myself having to do this with a lot of the terminology related to the LBGTQ community; because what first learned never used to be considered offensive and the language has changed a lot over the last 10 years. It’s on me to learn the correct terminology, even if it feels unnatural.

              7. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

                It’s not about keeping up with “current euphemisms” — it’s about treating people with respect and using their preferred terminology to convey that respect.

                I take issue with “But that doesn’t make whatever word the current one pushed off the euphemism treadmill inherently vile.” Words become vile because of their social context and history. A euphemism is usually “pushed off” specifically because of that social context and history. That is certainly the case with the word “colored,” which is not as vile as a racial slur, but is nonetheless inappropriate and laden with pejorative and violent history.

                Literally the only possibly “benign” context in which I can imagine someone in their 50s/60s using the term “colored” and it not being objectively racist is (1) the person is an immigrant and non-native English speaker, (2) “colored” is a translation of a socially appropriate term in the culture in which that person was raised, and (3) their immigration is recent enough that they may still be adjusting to appropriate English terminology. Even then it would be a stretch. Managers are dropping the ball, here.

          3. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

            Pretty unlikely in the age range we’re talking about. For sure it’s possible for someone in their 50s to have dementia; there are certainly early-onset cases, and other health problems that can cause dementia in people of any age (thankfully often temporary). Making racist remarks — at any age, but particularly in someone under 60 — sounds more like a “case” of racism or ignorance (or both!) than dementia.

        2. Venus*

          I had an older boss make a sexist comment and I asked him not to. He responded that he was older and couldn’t change. I didn’t think of it until after, but I wanted to point out that I know plenty of people his age who don’t make sexist comments, and I’ve met young people who make them, so logically it isn’t about age but rather that he thinks sexism is okay.

          Thankfully he retired shortly after the comment.

          1. Worldwalker*

            He’s older. Right.

            My mother is older than scheduled air travel (not counting that seaplane service in Florida), older than TV, older than a lot of things. She’s 99. Being older than the technology does not stop her from, say, watching TV, and she periodically calls me with questions about her iPhone.

            Too many people accept age as an excuse of “I can’t” when it’s really “I dont want to.”

            1. Observer*

              Being older than the technology does not stop her from, say, watching TV, and she periodically calls me with questions about her iPhone.

              That’s a perfect pair of examples.

              Too many people accept age as an excuse of “I can’t” when it’s really “I dont want to.”

              This! x 1,000

              It makes me so crazy. If anyone said “Oh, we can’t hire anyone who didn’t grow up with email because the ‘can’t’ use it” everyone would be all over them for being ageist and stupid. And they would be right! Why then do some people accept that line when people do something offensive and then *double down* when called on it?

              1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

                At 50 I just had a job interview where I was asked if I knew how to use the Google suite and things like Outlook. It may have been a standard question, but it was delivered in such a slow, condescending, pitying tone by the late-20s questioner that it really hit home for me that I’m considered an “older” candidate and not trusted around technology. Which is HILARIOUS because I had an Apple computer 15 years before these folks were born and put up with all the fledgling silliness as computers and the internet became standard for use by all. If you haven’t heard that modem whining as it connects with AOL, don’t question my tech knowledge. We beta tested that crap for y’all!

                1. Texan In Exile*

                  OMG. I feel like asking those kids if they have every done a program on punch cards and if not to shut up because clearly they have no experience.

                2. Ancient*

                  Awww… I still hear the sound every now and then… particularly because I still use AOL as my primary email. :)

                  Why, yes, I’m a fossil. You just don’t understand that I’m a cool one.

                3. I Have RBF*

                  This. I learned Fortran on punch cards, and Basic on a TTY. I’m 63 – my generation essentially invented the internet, and I was a fairly early adopter. I’ve been working with PCs since they came out in the 80s.

                  When I get the “are you sure you know how to use email” crap, I point out that I used Pine on a dial-up shell host to read my email in the mid-90s, and I have about 25 years under my belt as a Unix/Linux sysadmin.

                  Google office makes me laugh – it’s not advanced at all. I know at least three different office suites, FFS, one of which doesn’t exist any more (WordStar, DataStar, ReportStar, IIRC.)

            2. Florence Reece*

              I find it interesting that you’ve defended using “colored” twice (that I’ve seen) in this thread as a holdover from your childhood, but react this way to vague undefined sexism. Are there any sexist remarks — sorry, any “euphemisms” for women being inferior to men — that are okay because you grew up with them? I can think of a lot in the 60s that were commonly accepted but would be balked at now, apparently including by you.

          2. ferrina*

            Age is a very silly reason, and the logic doesn’t track.
            “I’m old, therefor incapable of independent thought and action, and I must rely purely on my habitual ingrained actions.”

            If that were true, we’d start banning older folks from holding high powered jobs or making major decisions.

            I, er, may have started making this logical argument to a relative once. They wandered away very quickly.

            1. BikeWalkBarb*

              Relying on habitual ingrained actions is what keeps some people driving well past when they’ve become unsafe to themselves and others.

          3. Learn ALL the things*

            I hate “they’re from a different time” as an excuse, because no they’re not.

            Anne is not a time traveler from the 1860s. She’s from our time where we live right now. And she seems to have made a series of life choices that isolate her from information about people who aren’t white. Having isolated herself and never bothered to care about people who are different from herself is what caused this.

            She’s insisting she’s not a bad person because she didn’t mean it maliciously, but what she did was careless, and it’s extremely unprofessional to be careless about the way you treat your coworkers.

            1. Learn ALL the things*

              To clarify: what Anne said was racist, full stop. But one of the most common pushback tactics for being accused of racism is to say it’s not racist if you didn’t mean it in a mean spirited way. I would like my fellow white people to start acknowledging that it’s still racism even if you said it out of carelessness and not with malicious intent.

              1. NotRealAnonForThis*

                Exactly – someone can be sorry for stepping on my foot, but it doesn’t change that my toes are broken (possible analogy). Intent isn’t the whole of it.

        3. LaFramboise, academic librarian*

          The only plausible *reason* is racism. There is no excuse for her language.

    2. TheBunny*

      Is she from the South?

      Not saying anything negative about the South specifically…but I’ve got a couple of friends from there and some of the things their grandparents or older aunts and uncles say sometimes give me pause.

      1. Aggretsuko*

        I would bet she is from the South.

        Seriously though, nobody’s said “colored folk” in decades. Did she time travel in from the past?

      2. RIP Pillowfort*

        As someone from the Deep South- yeah I’ve heard people say this. It’s definitely known to be an outdated term and disrespectful to people though. So Anne has no excuse.

        Most of my aunts and uncles were born from 1930-1949 for perspective. So I heard a lot of outdated things that my parents had to explain. We didn’t see them often and most of them were not nice people.

      3. MsM*

        My 70-something MIL is from the Northeast, and I’ve had to call out certain turns of phrase to her as problematic a few times. In her case, I think it’s just a function of her not having a very diverse social circle or having done much reading on the subject, since she didn’t get defensive about being corrected.

      4. RagingADHD*

        I live and work in the South and am Gen X.

        The mainstream terminology trip ups in the South from people who are speaking in good faith would be using “African-American” instead of Black, or not capitalizing Black when it should be.

        Nobody who is intelligent and coherent enough to be employable is under the impression that “colored” is an innocuous or totally inoffensive term. Nobody has thought that since the 1970s, no matter how small a town they are from, or what rock they have been living under. At a minimum, they recognize it as a “fighting word.”

        Even people who use it daily at home know better than to use that term to a Black person’s face, or in places where they need be on their “best behavior.”

        If Anne was not intending to be offensive, then she forgot herself and showed how she thinks and acts among those she believes are “like-minded.”

        The only people who think it’s okay to say at work are those in toxic organizations full of racism apologists. Not because they think the word is appropriate, but because they believe they can get away with it.

        I hope that does not turn out to be true here.

    3. RedinSC*

      I am Anne’s age, and “colored” is not anything that was part of the language of the time.

      Anne, I suspect grew up with and around people who were casually racist and she never challenged that. But it’s not common language, and I hope the managers at that office step up and make some changes to make it clear that racist language is unacceptable in their office.

      1. kitto*

        i think you’re right here – casual racism that maybe Anne thought she could get away with. i worked with a woman in her 40s who when speaking to a group of other white coworkers referred to people who she’d seen on tv as “coloured”. when she realised that i’d walked into the room (i am black) she looked peturbed, so she knew the word is racist, but the atmosphere within the group seemed jovial. it wouldn’t surprise me if Anne has been similarly unchallenged by people that she knows/uses this type of language outside of work

        i hope that OP’s coworker’s managers actually do something about this to make sure Leah and other people of colour in the office don’t have to deal with this. even if it were a generational thing (it isn’t), that’s not an excuse not to address it

        1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          Casual racism in that its not seen as racism. Well its better than what they were called, so it can’t be offensive. Besides what does NAACP stand for. They usually come back with that one.

          Look its not acceptable anymore, so stop using it. Don’t double down and claim its okay.

        2. Observer*

          to make sure Leah and other people of colour in the office don’t have to deal with this.

          Well, that’s the other red flag here. There ARE not other people of color in the office! In an office with 12-15 *one* POC is a bit of a red flag all on its own. In this context?

          OP, your instincts are spot on. Something is wrong here.

    4. 1LFTW*

      I was gonna say, my grandfather used that word because it was the polite term when he was young. He would be 108 these days.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Yeah, my dad, who would be about 90 now, used it, but well, Ireland didn’t really have significant minorities until the turn of the millennium and he certainly didn’t use it the way it sounds in the letter. It was more “that…erm…coloured girl was very nice,” like he was trying to think “which is the current term?” and landed on the wrong one. I know the comment online is out of context, but…it really doesn’t seem like somebody just using the wrong word.

        And he certainly wouldn’t have become defensive had somebody said it was offensive to them. He would have been extremely apologetic.

        1. jane's nemesis*

          this is exactly how my 93-year-old grandma used to use it. Like she was searching for the appropriate word and couldn’t remember what the current preferred term was so landed on what she used in her youth. But even she figured it out sometime in her 80s and now says African American or Black!

      2. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

        lol that’s what I was thinking too. The youngest living person I know who still uses this as an adjective for people is a relative who’s in her (early?) 80s now. Multiple family members, including my mom (72) and me (39), have explained why this really isn’t the done thing anymore.
        And then the next time, boom there it is. There are other health issues that make me suspect (for my relative at least) that maybe some memory loss is happening, but my relative has always had that word in her back pocket as the “better” term to use. And I do sort of think that she is a bit on the young side for using the “but that was the generation I’m from!!” excuse :-/

      3. Great Frogs of Literature*

        Yeah, the last time I remember hearing it was at least 20 years ago, from a woman who would have been in her 80s at the time. (And, honestly, I probably only remember the conversation because I was a bit horrified at how racist she was being.)

        1. Worldwalker*

          Was there something else she was saying that was horrifyingly racist?

          Because when I was a kid (60’s) “colored” was the polite term (replacing “negro”). I remember thinking that it referred to the clothes people wore! “Black” was fighting words. Literally, in the school my father taught in — he had to break up more than one fight about it. (Back then, before the school-to-prison pipeline was established, they broke up fights and sent the kids to the principal’s office, not called the cops and had 6th-graders arrested)

          1. Learn ALL the things*

            You and Anne are not children anymore. It is not the 1960s anymore. She has had several decades of adulthood to learn about people and the terminology that is respectful to use when referring to them. She has made the choice not to do that, and the result of her choice is that she said something racist, hurt someone very deeply, and is refusing to apologize for it.

            You are all over these comments trying to minimize what Anne did. What you are doing is aiding and abetting racism, and it is not okay. Stop it.

          2. Broadway Duchess*

            You’re doing so much reaching to excuse Anne (and potentially, yourself) from racist language and I’m baffled.

            You haven’t been a kid in awhile. There’s no excuse for this.

          3. Panhandlerann*

            Goodness, where are you from? I’m in my sixties, and from the South, and when I was a kid, I was fully aware that “colored” was NOT the “polite term” any longer.

          4. umami*

            Twenty years ago was – 2004. The 1960s were 60 years ago. There is no logical excuse for that phrase still being in use in the 21st century.

      4. doreen*

        My grandfather used it , too. He would be 114. I’ve never heard my 83 year old mother use it. I’m around Anne’s age and it wouldn’t have been generally acceptable at any point in her memory .

        1. ijustworkhere*

          I also am around Anne’s age and remember telling my grandmother that using that word to refer to a black person was long considered inappropriate. My grandmother really thought it was polite, and I gave her some grace, but corrected her. And she didn’t get defensives–she said, OK, I didn’t know.

          And she didn’t use it again.

      5. UKDancer*

        Yeah my grandfather did as well. He was about the same vintage (would be 107 if he were still alive but made it to 96) and in his youth that was the polite term. He also lived in a small, not very diverse northern town. So he had 2 continence nurses visiting and he described them as “Esther the coloured lass” and “Olga the foreign lass”.

        Having met her, I pointed out that Esther would probably prefer to be described as Black nowadays because that was the current preference. He never quite understood why but he changed his description of her accordingly. So once he learnt better he did better. If he could learn this in his 90s then someone much younger has no excuse.

    5. CityMouse*

      My grandparents would be over 100 if still alive and my grandmother grew up in a poor white family in segregated sharecropping Arkansas and nope, she did not say stuff like that. There is no excuse for saying that.

      1. Freddy*

        My grandparents would be 100 years old if alive today, and I remember people from that generation using the word “colored.” We’re from the Northeast. But Gen X? No.

        1. CityMouse*

          I’m sure back before, but by the 90s my grandparents had shifted their language. There’s lots of terms I learned as a kid in the 90s that I’ve removed from my vocabulary.

        2. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          Mine as well, and I never heard them refer to people as colored during my lifetime. And, if they used the phrase before, they maybe would have used it as a descriptor. They wouldn’t have said “those colored folks,” which lumps a ton of people together based on skin color, and seems to be saying something negative about all of them, although we don’t have the full context here. The word is bad enough, but complaining about Black people as a monolith — to a Black person — makes it vanishingly unlikely that Anne’s problem is anything but racism.

    6. MK*

      Speaking as a non-US outsider, it seems to me that people equating “boomer” with “older person” has resulted in them having a very hazy idea of the eras said older people were born and raised. Or, it is a more universal phenomenon of younger people conflating anyone over a certain age into a single generation; especially now, since human life-spans have expanded and it’s more to get persons who are decades apart in actual age have similar lifestyles.

    7. Star Trek Nutcase*

      We each have different experiences with this. I (68+) never used that terminology. And while not common in my Florida city, it is NOT uncommon for someone Anne’s age in the rural areas around here. Where I worked before retiring, there were 1800 employees – evenly split between White & Black, with 90% of the Whites from the rural areas. When I started there 12 yrs ago, I was shocked by the archaic language & behavior – despite living here for 50 yrs. Regardless, as Alison indicates, doesn’t matter why, Anne needs corrected.

    8. Richard Hershberger*

      This. I am “Anne’s” age. I grew up understanding perfectly well about racial language. Language about sex and gender was more a work in progress, but race? We knew what sort of person used that language.

      For that matter, my mother had a story about when she was a child and used the “N” word in her mother’s hearing. My grandmother was raised a proper Southern lady. She slapped my mother down (probably not literally, though one never knows) for using the word. The claim that this was simply the normal neutral word is an outright lie.

      1. Gray Lady*

        I am fascinated by the way many people under a certain age think everyone over a certain age grew up in the 40s or before. I sort of understand reflexively thinking “they’re older, that’s how it was back then” but to be thinking it through at the level required to deal with a situation like this and then sit down and write a letter based on that assumption is wild. There’s no way LW would actually think that “colored” was an acceptable term in the 80s if LW thought about it.

        1. Fern*

          OP here! I just want to clarify that I have never assumed that using language like that was ever acceptable in Anne’s era. :) I wanted to know Alison’s thoughts because I do feel this has been mishandled by management and whole heartedly disagree with Anne’s managers comment.

          Anne is my mom’s age. I have never heard my mom use language like that. My grandmother, however would be almost 100 now and is from a very small southern town. She would use wording like that from time to time and I remember my mom immediately correcting her every single time. I completely agree that the only time the reasoning of “That language was acceptable in her era” would only be valid (still not an excuse) if she was over the age of 80.

        2. Fieldpoppy*

          That is fascinating to me too. I mean, 50 years ago was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, not Amos and Andy. I’m an old gen X and I can assure you that my grandparents (born before WWI) *might* have used the term “colored folk” in their youth but they never used it in my childhood! (Although my grandfather, a madmen era auto exec, did refer to their (white) cleaner as “the girl” :-|).

        3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          LW didn’t say it was acceptable. It was another manager saying well that’s just the way it was then — without thinking it through. LW gets it. Everyone else at the company does not.

          And come on, in 2024 only one black employee? Methinks this kinda of thinking has become entrenched in the company.

          1. Fern (OP #1)*

            We are in the construction industry, and while we don’t have very many people in the office we actually have about 60 employees. We do have employees of multiple ethnicities and backgrounds. The area we are in is culturally diverse, but doesn’t have a large black population, if that makes sense?

            This is also a local company that has been owned by the same people for 20 years, and pretty much the same people have worked here since the start. I came on 2 years ago and replaced someone who passed away. And I was the start of people retiring and them hiring replacements. So as far as being ethnically diverse, they’re working on it. But it’s a slow process with such a low turnover rate.

            1. Fern (OP #1)*

              Also, this manager is new. He is not my favorite person here, that’s for sure. But this is really the first major issue he has had to deal with, so I don’t think his views are consistent with the entire company. :)

    9. ScruffyInternHerder*

      Cosigning.

      My Grandfather was capable of figuring this out, learning, and doing better, in the EARLY eighties. In the late nineties, he read his (second, not my Grandma) wife the riot act over her use of this terminology.

      1. ScruffyInternHerder*

        (He’d be over 100 now, were he still alive. And knowing him, probably still correcting folks who insist “but this is just the word we used”. He lived by “know better do better”.)

    10. Hyaline*

      An aside: Bizarrely, I’ve seen “colored people” show up increasingly in student work for the past few years. It’s a completely innocent mistake—not intended as a racist remark—and spans ages and even racial backgrounds. I’m lucky in that I have the very easy fallback of approaching the issue from “academically acceptable/appropriate language” and students have responded in totally appropriate ways. I’ve wondered if they’re trying to fold “people of color” into their writing and fail. At any rate, I’d advise approaching people using outdated or insensitive language with the assumption they did not know the term’s origin or connotation unless they’ve shown otherwise that their intentions are harmful.

      2. katydid*

        I’ve encountered this as well. I am nearly 100% sure it is that they are misunderstanding “people of color” as another way of saying “colored people” (and/or vice versa). I remember a conversation with someone my own age (early 40s) about 10 years ago where they said “and now they’re trying to bring ‘colored people’ back as the PC term?!” and I was like “do you mean people of color?” They assumed it was the same thing. This is NOT me defending Anne! But it is possible that’s what’s going on with her.

      1. Fieldpoppy*

        ha ha ha I just said almost the identical thing about Mary Tyler Moore vis a vis Amos and Andy lol

    12. AnonInCanada*

      Seconded. I’m also of that era, and it wasn’t acceptable in the 70s either. Maybe the 1870s. Not anytime in this century, or at least the last half of the last one, either.

      1. Richard Hershberger*

        Not even in the 1870s, in polite society. I read a lot of newspapers from this era in my research. The N word could be used in public and in print, but read closely and it was deliberately rude and racist. “Colored” was the neutral term.

    14. jasmine*

      I really don’t think it matters. There’s too many comments focusing on whether the coworker can claim plausible deniability. I see no reason to assume that the coworker was trying to be racist on purpose (few are).

      The real problem is that she doubled down instead of apologizing. Whether or not she didn’t know is neither here nor there. Her behavior is the issue.

      1. RVA Cat*

        This! She *chose* to use that word *at* Leah and then doubled down. F*** that noise.

        On top of everything else, Anne was hired for customer service so there’s another level of unacceptable – is she going to be racist towards your Black customers?

        FFS, Anne came of age in the 80s when racism was unacceptable. Homophobia was rampart, but we’ve learned to do better in the past 40 years too.

      2. CityMouse*

        This. If she’d apologized, totally different situation. She didn’t.

        Everyone messes up, fine. I know I learned phrases in the 90s as a kid I’ve had to unlearn. How you react to being called out on it matters.

        1. Observer*

          This is exactly the core of the issue.

          The fact that management is handling it the way they are is the other really big problem.

        2. Learn ALL the things*

          Exactly this. Everybody messes up. The true signal of someone’s character is how they react to being informed that they have messed up.

          For example. Rick Riordan, children’s fantasy author, has said or written problematic things a handful of times. But each time it’s been pointed out to him, he’s apologized, removed the problematic content from future printings of his books, and committed to doing better. As a result, he’s pretty beloved by the bookish community. It’s not because he never does anything wrong, it’s because he’s willing to acknowledge when he’s done something wrong and do the work of making it right.

    15. Jeanine*

      Agreed. I am the same age as Ann and my mother (who was old enough to be my grandmother to be honest) was the one who used that language and was the one I learned some other really disgusting terms for black people from. She was the worst kind of racist, the one who claimed to not be racist because she was sort of friends with a black man. What Ann said was unacceptable and goes way beyond hurtful, it’s disgusting and needs to stop.

    16. 59 years old*

      Haven’t read all the comments, but yeah, I’m 59 and I completely agree- “colored” is a term that my grandparents used. Not my parents, not anyone my age. This employee needs to know that term is not at all acceptable and, honestly, never was.

      1. aarti*

        As a person of color I hate the term person of color. I would have been fine with colored person. I refer to myself as a brown person all the time. I would never call it person of brown or some such.

        But people of color seemingly don’t actually get to call the shots. Other people tell us what we need to be called. Take Latinx, which all of the latino people I know, hate.

        1. Broadway Duchess*

          If I may, “brown” and “black” are 2 terms under “people of color” and are treated very, very differently. You are fine with “colored people,” but the chances that an angry mob terrorized your parent with that phrase is pretty low.

        2. SunbeamNaps=winning*

          The very Latino dean of cultural studies at my university is the one pushing “Latinx” here, so obviously this too varies by person and possibly region.

    17. tina turner*

      I’m curiious what she EXPECTED when she used this term. Sometimes we get too comfortable joking around and feel like part of the minority group we’re friendly with. But it can backfire. When Leah objected, a sincere apology was required.

      We have to be very close to someone to joke around, if this is what it was. And it might not have been a joke. This term is so quaint and out of date, too.

    18. Not Acceptable in MY Lifetime*

      Late 50s or early 60s? I’m older than that, and “colored” was not standard usage when I was growing up. (Midwest, mostly white suburb, late baby boomer)

      I do vaguely remember when “Black” became the term of choice, not from having heard “colored” much, but from all the insistence on the new term. Then, I remember “African-American” replacing “Black”. Yeah, OK, that’s a mouthful, but if it’s what African-Americans want to be called, sure.

      BIPOC is both more inclusive and shorter, though I admit it comes more easily to me in writing than speaking. So I mostly use “people” or, you know, call people by their names. Because, unless you’re trying to describe someone’s appearance, how often is their race actually relevant?

      Her age is no excuse for this bigot.

    19. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      Close, but no. The official baby boom was 1946 to 1964, which includes me and my sister, and it shows in how many elementary schools our city had at that time. However, the cultural baby boom was more for the first half of that time, and I’ve seen references to people born in the 60’s as “the lost generation”. Which feels about right, because we truly aren’t boomers (culturally) and we were too old to be Gen-X’ers.

      Personally, I think that you’re a cultural boomer if you watched 50’s tv in its first run, or if you had a parent who was an adult during WW2. Both of these things affected the culture you grew up in a lot. Me, I remember when color tv was coming in. People born in 1965 (thru about 1980) are the Gen-X’ers.

      Me, I’m getting sick of each “generation” getting a name. I have to stop and interpret them, and probably get it wrong, and it takes forever. I wish we could just say “born in the 80’s” or what have you.

    20. goddessoftransitory*

      Yep. The second I saw Anne’s age I was NO. I’m 52, GenX, and have known that language was unacceptable all my life (and I did not grow up in some progressive bastion, believe me.)

      1. Former Admin Turned PM*

        I’m 53 next week, and even my bigoted grandparents had stopped using the term when I was growing up. There was still a lot of “…*those* people…”, which made my bratty tween self just innocently ask “What people? I don’t understand” just to try to make them squirm. It didn’t work, since they’d just elaborate about those Black people or those “Orientals” or whatever, but I tried.

    21. Unions Are Good, Actually*

      My 90-year-old grandmother, born in the 1930s, doesn’t say that. Someone born in the 60s or 70s has no excuse.

    22. learnedthehardway*

      It sounds to me that the individual from LW1’s post should be sent for some remedial training on sensitivity (aka “how to not be an asshole at work” training).

      I see the term “colored folk” as outdated. My father still uses that term, as that was what was polite (and drilled into him) when he was young (he’s in his 80s now). It’s not appropriate for my or a more recent generation. We’ve pointed that out to my Dad, but it was so much the polite way to refer to people who are Black when he was a kid, that he still slips up on it.

      However, the really offensive thing – much more than the term “colored” – is the “othering” of a group of people. And that’s a lot more difficult to explain, especially when you’re dealing with a person who didn’t mean to be racist. (I will assume for the sake of argument that the individual really did not mean to be offensive. I could be wrong, but it’s usually better to assume ignorance than maliciousness. Ignorance can be remediated.)

      Anyway, I think the worker should be sent for remedial training so they can understand how their comment affected their Black coworker.

  5. New Jack Karyn*

    Anne is not the biggest problem in that workplace.

    Has anyone looped in HR? Or is the manager just winging it, and doing a really lousy job of it?

    1. KateM*

      If I understand it correctly, Anne is someone who works with customers. You really don’t want to have a racist person there, do you?

      1. Observer*

        It’s worse than that.

        Even is she is genuinely confused and not intending to be racist, this is a job which is almost completely about working with people – and more so, people who are already not so happy. The *last* thing any effective organization should accept in that kind of situation is someone who is likely to say offensive things and, worse, refuses to back off when its pointed out to them.

        And it’s not just that she used the term “colored”. She did it to a member of that group – and in a *clearly* pejorative way. “those colored folk” takes it out of plausible deniability for me. Think about this – how would anyone react if she were speaking to an Italian customer and said “those Italian folk”? I think everyone would recognize that she has some opinions about “Italian folk” as a group.

        As a customer service manager, that should be *really* worrying the manager. But maybe they think that just like they don’t employ Black people, they don’t sell to Black people.

    2. Fern*

      OP here! I technically am not involved in this situation so I only know bits and pieces. Anne and Leah’s manager is notorious for dragging his feet on pretty much everything. From what I have gathered, HR was looped in yesterday at the end of the day. Our company is smaller and HR is one person who wears many hats. (I work in accounting and this person is my direct manager) And unfortunately is off the rest of the week. I don’t think it should take this long to handle something like this, but nevertheless I hope it’s handled properly next week.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        Glad HR is in on it now! It can be so tough to be on the sidelines of something like this. Good luck OP

    3. Observer*

      Anne is not the biggest problem in that workplace

      Yes. People make mistakes. And sometimes are too stupid, self-righteous, arrogant and/or insecure to back down when called on it. And that’s bad. But the way management is handling it is beyond bad. But also, probably part of a pattern. So, yeah. This is more of a management problem than a coworker problem.

    4. Festively Dressed Earl*

      I’m wondering if Leah’s been subject to other macro and micro aggressions in this workplace that her manager brushed off.

  6. Myrin*

    #2, I’m in total agreement with Alison here – I 100% understand feeling dejected and hurt by the comments you’re hearing and if indeed that’s how Sasha and Erin view you guys, that’s hugely offensive and really problematic on both a human and a professional level.

    BUT it doesn’t sound like you yourself have heard this from them even once. In fact, what I’m missing from your letter is your relationship with Sasha and Erin independently from these comments – you say they’re “perfectly nice” to your face, but that’s it. Do you so readily believe the junior professionals’ words because there’s always been something off about how Sasha and Erin have treated you? Or would you have never even thought an attitude like this would be possible on their end before you heard what the juniors told you?

    I’d also think about what you know about these junior professionals and what your relationship with them is like. Do they gain anything from pitting you worker bees against the higher ups? Are they unprofessional in other areas? Gossipy, maybe? Or are they perfectly lovely and really seem to want to help you guys out about being aware how the professionals see you? That’s possible, but I don’t see any gain from that, honestly – if they think these stories might give you ammunition to IDK complain to the big boss or stand up to Sasha and Erin or similar, well, they really don’t because literally all of them seem to be coming to you second-hand and you can’t really act on them because you’ve got nothing concrete to lean on.

    So yeah, I fully agree that you should focus on how you’re actually being treated.

    1. LW2*

      Yeah, the junior professionals and I are all part of a tight-knit group of women that’s around the same age, gets along quite well, and spends a lot of time together outside of work (the rest of the office is quite male and quite a bit older).

      While I can’t fully rule it out, I honestly don’t think they are trying to pit anyone against anyone — they just are really upset by Sasha and Erin’s grumpy attitudes and constant complaining, and they hate having to put up with it all day long, so they often will vent to each other about them and the various things they say while I happen to be there.

      1. Aardvark*

        A group like this is often likely to feed into each other’s minor gripes in a way that grows them into problems that appear far bigger than they really are.

        I have seen more than once a group of younger staff get worked up about a senior person assigning them work, or critiquing their work, even if the older person is in a hierarchical position where that is literally their job. A bad case of ‘I don’t like being told what to do’ is instead talked about as if the senior person is mean or overstepping. Sadly, but not surprisingly, this occurs more if the senior person is female.

        Are Sasha and Erin really constantly complaining, or are the junior staff not doing the job sufficiently well and are rightly getting called out on it? Be careful accepting the views of the junior staff as objective truth, particularly if you have not witnessed the same yourself.

        1. LW2*

          No, these are not junior staff. Let me clarify here.

          I’m a medical scribe (not quite but it’s very similar) — I am very low on the food chain in this office. The rest of the people (Sasha and Erin, as well as the other people in this group of women I’m referring to) are all doctors. Sasha and Erin do not manage this group and are not officially senior to them in any way, they are just much older. Sorry if that was confusing. These people are all doctors who work together and I am on the team that supports them.

          The team Sasha and Erin are complaining about is the medical scribes, which includes me and nobody else in that social group. The things they say about us, as far as I hear, are largely not to do with our performance, which as far as I know they don’t know much about or have much insight into, so much as our comparative lack of education and lack of credentials compared to them (many of us are immigrants and English as second language speakers, though I’m neither, but as a team we don’t have many US degrees or credentials to speak of) and how they feel we don’t have “real jobs” and our work takes no skill.

          I’m not trying to argue against the advice given here, which I think is super fair! Just want to make sure the situation here is clear.

          1. LW2*

            (I should clarify again that we’re not exactly medical scribes/doctors but it’s quite similar to that — it’s just that the thing we actually are is so specific that i worry it could identify me if any of my cowokers read this blog haha)

            1. Great Frogs of Literature*

              With this additional context, if I were going to say anything (and I’m not sure I would), I think it would be to ask my friends among the doctors if they’d be willing to stand up for me when Sasha and Erin are being obnoxious. Because right now, your friends are complaining to you, the target, when they’re the ones who potentially have the standing to say, in the moment, “Hey, the medical scribes do a lot of good work and are only paid minimum wage; could you knock it off?”

              1. Anonym*

                Yeah, the friends are kind of putting you in a tough spot by sharing this but not (apparently) doing anything about it. And if they’re peers to Sasha and Erin, they should be able to shut it down or defend you all without much repercussion beyond mild social discomfort (which Sasha and Erin are apparently generating an absolute firehose of anyway). I hope they’re willing to stand up for you all, or at least improve their own discomfort by refusing to be an audience for this nonsense.

                1. OP2*

                  Oh yeah, many of them definitely do defend us, but I get the sense that Sasha and Erin aren’t particularly swayed by anything they have to say.

                2. OP2*

                  (I also get the sense that very large age gap plays a role in making these two people not really feel like “peers” to my friends, despite the fact that they officially are.

                  That said, I certainly will admit to some frustration myself that they are complaining about these people quietly when I wish they would aggressively shut them down—but I have tried to mentally acknowledge the possibility that I’m an outsider to how power dynamics work in their profession.

              2. Hell in a Handbasket*

                Yes! I was assuming the “juniors” were not in a position to push back — but given the way you’ve described it, LW, I think it’s pretty crappy that they’re choosing to vent/pass this info on to you rather than directly addressing Sasha and Erin. They could do this very professionally and politely in any number of ways.

          2. Myrin*

            For what it’s worth, OP, that’s how I understood the “hierarchy”/roles from your letter, so I don’t think you were particularly unclear, but it’s still very helpful of you to clarify and elaborate!

            And man, that stinks. If I undestand correctly, though, the juniors aren’t directly telling you or your colleagues these things but they just vent among themselves and you guys happen to overhear, right?

            In that case, I would honestly approach them about it and say that it’s really stressing you out and you’d much prefer not to hear anything about it at all so could they please be mindful of whether one of you ist around?

            And on the Sasha and Erin front, I really do think that there’s nothing actionable for you to do here until they’re either saying these things to you guys’ faces or let their attitude show through their behaviour towards you.

            However, personally – and that’s just because I’m petty as heck and it drives me crazy knowing such thoughts are floating around near me – I would absolutely find a way to sneak the information that I’m making minimum wage in there somewhere or how I needed to learn Complicated, Advanced Programme to do my work. It might not help any – they sound quite prejudiced and set in their ways – but it would make me personally feel better. But of course that depends a lot on your personality and attitude and whether you even have conversations with the senior people at all.

            1. Irish Teacher.*

              Yeah, that’s how I understood it too and I was thinking of it as something similar to teachers and SNAs (Special Needs Assistants). And honestly, SNAs may not have the same level of qualifications, but they do fantastic work and have skills that not all teachers have.

            2. allx*

              This last paragraph. I would frankly ask Sasha and/or Erin outright if they are aware that the scribe group makes minimum wage. Or if they are aware that it has become common knowledge that they are griping about the scribe group.

              Also, it seems like the comments about “lazy, uneducated, overpaid” are general comments towards the group and not to LW specifically, so Allison’s advice seems sound–look at how they treat you specifically.

              But still, I personally would ask them if they know their unfounded, inaccurate gripes have trickled out to the staff.

          3. Ellis Bell*

            I know exactly what you mean; my team is older and more experienced than a lot of the high tier professionals. Unfortunately,an attitude of snobbery can happen occasionally with high tier professionals. In my experience, when this happens, they’re not the highest performing and they put far more emphasis on status than actual productivity. Whenever I encounter this attitude, I take Sun Tzu’s advice and do nothing; “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.” This is because their attitude says more about their own understanding of the work than yours, and this type of pride precedes a fall. It has come true so often that whenever I encounter this attitude, I’m almost compassionate and moved to help; this is how sure I am that they’re headed for disaster.

          4. MK*

            It doesn’t really make much sense that they are complaining about you either way. Or, in fact, what exactly they are complaining about exactly. I mean, even if they do think your job doesn’t require skill, surely they understand that someone has to do it? And if it doesn’t require skill, it’s normal that the people hired to do it wouldn’t have degrees or other qualifications? And if they don’t know how much you make, why do they think you are overpaid? What would they want, for your position to be eliminated, for people with degrees to get hired, for you to be paid less? Complaining that the people who do supposedly unskilled labour aren’t qualified is a contradiction.
            The only think that occurs to me that might explain this is that they asked for a raise and were told there is no room in the budget because of the overhead the company has, including your wages, and have interpreted this as “we are getting paid peanuts and the less qualified people are overpaid”.

            1. blah*

              People who make these kinds of complaints aren’t doing it in a logical way, they’re being snobs and looking down on those they deem beneath them.

              1. Myrin*

                Yeah, it’s all one big way they can belittle one group of workers and isn’t connected to a desire for things to change at all. It has nothing to do with “our medical scribes should have degrees” or anything like that, it’s simple, mean-spirited “medical scribing (scripture?) is a job for idiots as you can clearly tell from all the idiots doing it here in our practice”.

          5. Nicosloanica*

            Ugh, this stinks, but it doesn’t sound like Erin/Sasha are in a position to affect your pay, and they may not even know you’re already making the least it’s legal for your employer to offer you, so in your position I’d just keep repeating “like water off a duck’s back” to myself and getting done what you need to. Charitably, maybe Erin/Sasha struggle with errors in the coder’s work and their thoughtless griping is just a way to deal with that. Don’t let other people’s complaining bring you down if you enjoy the work and the rest of your coworkers (and do encourage the other people in your group stop repeating unkind things they hear about your type of work; it’s unkind and not helpful to you).

          6. Ms. Eleanous*

            I really hope that when you say minimum wage, that is at least a state minimum wage of around $15 an hour, and not the federal minimum wage. (shudder).

            1. My Useless Two Cents*

              Let the “doctors” talk smack about your education, if you’ve been there ten years without a single raise (not caused by a minimum wage increase) that is what you need to be focused on. That is not okay. If you haven’t been getting even minimum merit or cola raises then you are most likely making less that what you were when you were hired (that’s with time-adjusted “average” inflation rates, not current higher inflation rates).

              Band together, go to management, and get y’all some raises!
              I’m sure the commentary on Friday’s open discussion board could help brainstorm some kick-ass arguments to take to management :)

        2. learnedthehardway*

          This is a good point – I know myself that when really irritated with one of my clients, I had to watch myself to not see everything they said as negative. It was a kind of BEC situation. Had to give myself a good talking to to admit they had a point, and that while I disagreed with some of what they were saying, I really needed to acknowledge that they had a right to expect me to do things a certain way (even if I found it really irritating).

      2. jasmine*

        Thanks for clarifying LW. My read of the letter was also that y’all were on the same team, so it makes sense for information to be shared amongst y’all.

        There still doesn’t seem to be anything you can do here, but your coworkers could speak up when they overhear the comments.

    2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Also, don’t forget that there is a not-insignificant slice of the population of lawyers, MDs, etc who have a chip on their shoulder about their degrees. They were told over and over as young people that getting that status automatically makes them smarter, special, more important, etc. and they internalized it. So if they feel they aren’t shown sufficient deference, they build up resentment.

      I want to stress that we have no idea if that applies to Sasha and Erin. And that Alison’s advice is correct, to judge them on their actions. But it may help OP mentally approach the situation with grace by understanding that if this attitude is real, it quite often reflects a flaw in those professionals’ personal psyches and moral compasses.

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        When I practiced law, I was baffled by how badly some of the partners treated the paralegals/admins. Not because I expected them to be nice — as a young associate, I had plenty of experiences with their micromanagement and yelling — but the idea that they were “better” than the non-attorney staff permeated every interaction. It was gross, but also stupid — the support team had tons of knowledge about details that the partners, with their high-flown degrees and massive unearned egos, could easily miss. My admin literally saved my job once by letting me know that a certain court would only take pleadings in a particular type of binder, and I sang her praises to the skies! (And had the partners telling me they couldn’t give a “secretary” a raise because she saved me from my own error.)

      2. Hroethvitnir*

        Heh, that’s how the letter sounded to me, and even more with further details from the LW.

        Someone who thinks like that earns no “grace” (for being such a small person they bought the idea of their superiority hook, line and sinker?) but rather deep contempt. Displayed only by being extra polite and friendly and doing them zero favours.

  7. Nodramalama*

    For LW1 in the future, considering other people could hear them chatting, that comment by Anne should be called out AT THE TIME by someone other than Leah.

    I recently did a seminar on workplace safety and bullying, and what was made clear was that silence in response to racism or any other form or ism or unacceptable behaviour is not a good response. Leah shouldn’t have to be the one responsible for pulling up Anne because she is Black. Everyone knows it was inappropriate.

    1. Aggretsuko*

      My impression reading it was that (probably) Anne and Leah were alone together in the office. Maybe nobody else was around to hear.

      1. Nodramalama*

        They said it was a small office, they could be heard chatting and laughing and the conversation was repeated. That to me indicates someone else heard the conversation.

        1. Fern*

          I referred to it as a small office in contrast to a large corporation. We have around 15-20 people who work in the office and all of the offices are fairly spread out. For example, Anne and Leah’s office is the only one down a particular hallway. Sound carries in our building, so we could hear that they were laughing and chatting. But we can’t necessarily make out the words that are being said.

          1. Dust Bunny*

            This was my interpretation.

            My department is a small office in the sense that there are currently only four of us in it, even though all of our individual offices are pretty good size. Because of walls, doors, and background noise from the HVAC, I can’t hear what is said in any of the other individual offices unless the speaker is deliberately raising their voice.

      2. Leslie Santiago*

        It’d be weird to get up and walk into an office where two people were having a private conversation that you happened to overhear, to chastise someone for saying something racist wouldn’t it? Particularly since by the time you got there, Leah would have already responded herself. I totally agree with the sentiment of course, and if Anne complained to me later I would be very clear about how I agreed with Leah for example. But in that moment I’m not sure it would have been appropriate to do anything?

        1. bamcheeks*

          I think for me it would depend whether this is an open office where two people are talking to each other all within the same room and you can could turn around without getting off your chair and say, “Wow, Ann, did you really just say that?” or whether they were audible but sufficiently far away that you’d have to get up off your chair and walk to another part of the room to say it. The second would feel weird.

          But if it was the second, I would check in with Leah as soon as I could and say, “Look, I heard that comment and I thought it was weird and gross, and I am going to speak to HR about it. Let me know if you want me to do something different.”

          1. jasmine*

            Yeah I think this would be the better approach.

            We also learned about calling out vs calling in as a part of DEI, and I think privately speaking to Anne later would be another great option (in addition to checking in with Leah), especially for someone who’s white or someone who does not fear Anne’s racism being turned on them.

        2. Nodramalama*

          No, I don’t think thats weird. And I don’t think chastise is the right word for telling someone racism is not acceptable.

    2. kitto*

      i *wish* people would do this! maybe it’s just me but when i’ve had racist comments directed at me/said in my presence in the past it’s been so rotten being met with silence by everyone else in the room. great advice from your training and good on you for passing on the knowledge

      1. Nicosloanica*

        Also, it’s very uncommon for people to react to being corrected in the moment with “thank you for telling me, I apologize.” That’s what we all *think* we’d do but I’ve never seen it happen. Even if they actually do hear you and resolve to do better, that’s rarely the in-moment reaction to being corrected, and that sucks for Leah to have to deal with.

      2. Nodramalama*

        Yeah I thought it was a really good point! They also made the point that people will often be silent because they feel awkward but that people need to push through that feeling and make it clear that the behaviour is not acceptable when it’s happening.

      4. I Have RBF*

        IME, the silence is a shocked silence, as in “I can’t believe they just said that!” shocked silence. Pushing back on *-ist language in the moment is hard, because your initial reaction is shocked silence. Everything goes out of your brain as you try to parse the garbage coming out of the mouth of someone that you deal with regularly.

        Yes, I know that we need to work past that, and call it out in the moment, but that means getting over the shocked part.

        1. kitto*

          i understand that that may be the case, but we don’t know that to be true for all or most people in the room. rarely (if ever?) has that been confirmed by someone afterwards, and i don’t think anyone has ever stepped in to say something to the commenter when the fog might’ve cleared.

          although i take your point that it’s hard to say something in the moment (it’s extremely uncomfortable for me too!), comments like this seem to be doing a lot to defend the bystanders, which feels minimising to my experience

  8. Nodramalama*

    LW4 If I read this right, you’re airing grievances in a group chat. I suspect that might be why people think it’s unprofessional. I air my grievances or complain about work with colleagues, but I definitely feel their vibe out before doing so. I wouldn’t do it with anyone, and I definitely wouldn’t do it in a group.

    1. Elsa*

      Yes, I agree with this. The group chat is a terrible place to bring up sensitive issues. In most workplaces it would be fine to bring up the issues in a team meeting.

      1. anon here*

        I think the group chat is a terrible place to complain, honestly! We don’t have one (thank the lord) but I only put complaints in writing when I’m very, very, very sure (i.e. I have legal reasons). Complaints affect people’s opinion of you at work and need to be sparing; I don’t like to put them in writing and on the record for that reason. Questions are better but can have similar effects. Tread more carefully, imo, LW4.

    2. Dear Liza dear liza*

      Right? I’ve never seen a group chat resolve a conflict but I’ve seen plenty get inflamed.

    3. Snow Globe*

      This question reminded me of a recent letter where someone was frustrated with a coworker who was constantly complaining about the job, while that LW actually liked their job. I have to wonder whether today’s LW is accurately reading the room as far as how the coworkers view the recent changes. Maybe the others aren’t that upset and it is coming off like the LW is trying to get them to be as outraged as the LW is?

      1. Union Rep*

        I posted below that it’s better to talk about these issues with your coworkers someplace that’s not the company chat before being public with a concern. This is one of the reasons that’s a more effective route. Obviously, some things might be so egregious that LW4 should speak up even if they know for sure that nobody else agrees with them. But the organizing rule of thumb is that you want to prioritize issues that are “widely felt and deeply felt” – lots of people agree with you and also feel strongly. If you’re going to publicly confront your employer about something, it’s smart to make sure your issue falls in that area.

    4. ecnaseener*

      I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with using group chat for a message like “Wow, big news about X, I wish they’d looped us in earlier!” But if it was more of a long screed about the larger pattern, then yeah that feels off.

    5. Nicosloanica*

      This one was an interesting letter to me. I feel like we need a little more information. “Unprofessional” to me is rarely about *what you do*, so much as *how you do it* – there are professional/unprofessional ways to push back against customers, advocate for your needs as an employee, push for departmental change etc. That said, if the coworkers (or managers?) just want OP to stop complaining maybe they used the term in a weird way.

      1. Nodramalama*

        Really? I think complaining to your coworkers a lot, when it’s not reciprocated, would often be considered unprofessional

        1. sparkle emoji*

          Amount of complaining factors into the “how” part though. A complaint can be made professionally. If LW doubled down and kept going after it when they weren’t getting signals that coworkers saw their complaint as an issue, then maybe it becomes unprofessional. But we don’t know details about how things went, and so we’re back to the reflection Nicosloanica suggested to the LW.

          1. Nodramalama*

            We are probably getting very pedantic, but I would distinguish making a complaint to complaining. Making a complaint to someone like a manager that can make an action in response is professional. While we might all do it, complaining as in griping to your coworkers I would argue is not very professional.

            1. spiriferida*

              LW4, it’s possible that you’re being told you’re unprofessional simply because you’re making reasonable criticisms, and not because your message is unprofessional. In that case, you might just be dealing with bad management! but if that is the case, that’s all the more reason to be cautious about what you say and where. Not necessarily because it shouldn’t be said, but because saying it is going to earn you a more outsized negative reaction in this environment than in your previous one.

              It might also be that the part that was objected to was the desire to express your opinion on all these decisions. There are some environments where the hierarchy means that you won’t have advance input on things handed down to you from a certain level above you, so you might be able to reason with your direct boss, but wouldn’t necessarily have a say in things that their boss dictates. You mention that a lot of the trouble has come from lack of communication, so I wonder if you might see better results if you focus on getting clear directives and consistent communication on upcoming changes, instead of on getting input on those decisions – but if the problem is indeed bad management, this might not help you shed the ‘unprofessional’ label.

      2. I Have RBF*

        IMO, “unprofessional” is often used as a bludgeon when what they really mean is “you uttered a truth that I don’t want to deal with”, as well as tone policing. You know, the same way you have to use the right “tone” to tell someone they are being a jerk, or that no, they really don’t get to have an opinion on your sexuality, or that no, bringing up real issues as a woman is not being “aggressive”.

    6. Hyaline*

      My thought, too. It might not be the topic but the venue of conversation that the coworker considered “unprofessional.” Where I’ve worked, the group Slack or other chat was for logistics and quick work-related checkins, not personal messages or longer work-related grievances or conversations. Read the room not only about what’s cool to discuss, but where.

    7. Pinta Bean*

      It’s so dependent on individuals and on the culture of the department, too! I can *easily* think of two different staff members on my team who could say pretty much the same thing, and with one of them I would read it as “making an observation about recent changes” and the other would have me rolling my eyes because I would know it was the start of a series of complaints thinly veiled as observations.

      I’m really curious about how exactly the observation was worded. When I see something about no real chance to voice opinions, it sounds like the decisions have already been made and implemented so I’m not clear on what the OP was hoping to discuss in the group chat, other than maybe people saying “yeah, that sucks.” Also, what is the purpose of the team chat — is it to work through a specific agenda, or forum for team members to ask and answer work-related questions, or more of a general chat for peers to connect on work issues — this would make a big difference to me in how unprofessional (or not) the comment might have come across.

  9. Annie*

    #3 It’s worth looking into additional measures to block access to work stuff outside of an employee’s working hours, e.g. all logins blocked before shift is supposed to start, frequent reminders to wrap up then clock out and logoff after shift is supposed to end, phone calls automatically go to voicemail outside of working hours, etc.

    It’s also worth looking into why the part-timer is working off the clock. Reasons may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Escape from issues outside of work, attempt to prove she’s qualified for a better position, guilt from not doing enough during scheduled hours, bad habits inherited from retail/food service/other industry where “get the job done” and “follow the law” are in frequent conflict, etc.

    1. niknik*

      LW3 is also silent on that employees general output. Are her hours reflecting her productivity ? Or does she need 60 hours to complete a 40 hour job ?

      2. Anonym*

        Related, it would be good to evaluate whether the job’s expectations can be met in the hours she’s supposed to be working. She could be a slow worker, but the organization’s expectations for the role could also be off the mark.

        I have the feeling that the employee might be the anxious type who has trouble separating from work – been there, done that – and that neither of the above is the case, but it’s worth considering before discussing with the employee.

        1. LW 3*

          Her work is exceptional, and her hours are reflective of the work. I do not expect or want her to work off the clock, but she continues to do what she can from home – answer emails, verify information – that can easily wait. I have done her job and am familiar with the work load, it is one that can be left at the door when the hours are done. But I have no complaints or concerns with her actual work.

          1. Observer*

            The best thing you can do here, I think, is to block her access. She can’t have email on her phone, her remote access is blocked, etc.

            If the DOL comes after you, this is the only kind of thing that can help you. You need to make it clear that you REALLY did *not* “allow* her to work. Not just that you told her not to, but that you took action to actually prevent her from doing this stuff.

            And make sure that no one calls or messages her when she’s out of the office.

          2. Troubadour*

            Yeah, I think you need to just have that blunt conversation that it’s not just a case that you don’t require her to work off the clock, but you actively require her to not work off the clock.

            Similarly with her coming in to work while sick. This may be more complex if available sick leave is limited, but generally you should be clear with people that if they’re sick then their job is now to stay home, not infect anyone else, and get better. Some people need this repeated more often than others and different explanations may get through to different people: some may be more amenable to “recover fully now so you’re back to 100% asap”, some may be more amenable to “set a good example for the rest of the team”. When people insist they’re not actually sick, they’re just run down and they can totally work through the sore throat and the headache, then as a last resort I tell them they can work from home if they really must but they *are* going home (and then a day later to my complete un-surprise they test positive for Covid…)

    2. Nicosloanica*

      I was salaried part time at an old job. I would have been eligible for overtime if I worked over 40 hours, but not if I worked over my PT hours (20 hours). So at least you probably don’t owe this employee money unless she’s hourly. If you need to address the legality and she doesn’t want to change, perhaps salaried part time is a better option. INAL.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        Just wondering – did this go well? Was it actually around 20 hours a week? I’ve never had a specifically PT gig that I could stay in the limited hours agreed upon completing the work agreed upon, but they’ve always been volunteer so pay wasn’t a consideration. PT salaried job actually appeals to me but I just wonder if it’s a unicorn costume on a low paid FT job donkey instead :)

        1. Nicosloanica**

          Depends on the role, definitely. When I took the job, my mentor warned me “in nonprofits there are no part time jobs, only part time salaries.” However, I’m pretty ruthless about cutting it off (and I also work pretty fast). If you can get set hours and stick to them, and you’re enough of an independent contributor that you’re not dragged into everyone else’s stuff all the time, it *can* work. But now I look for 4-day-workweeks instead of PT.

          1. Anonym*

            Just want to call this out: “you’re enough of an independent contributor that you’re not dragged into everyone else’s stuff all the time”

            Such an important aspect of a role to consider, I wish it was discussed more. It affects so much about your day to day. Thanks for pointing it out.

        2. Emmy Noether*

          I’m not Nicosloanica, but I currently have a part-time salaried job, and it’s great.

          The thing about my job is that I work very independently, I have a lot of flexibility, and I can delegate or outsource things if it’s too much. I track my hours and watch that I don’t accumulate a lot of overtime (I do accumulate some, which I can take as extra days off). Some weeks have more work, and the next I’ll just take an extra afternoon off, or take extra breaks.

          It’s also easier if it’s not 5 half days a week, but rather at least one fixed day completely off. I also have to go pick up the kids at a set time, so that’s a hard cutoff to my workday.

          So, I guess you need very favourable conditions, and good work-life boundaries for it to work. But it can!

          1. Sloanicota*

            Could not agree more with at least one day completely off. In my sector, nonprofits will try to offer “part time” as like, 10-3 M-F. This is not a good model (for you). It’s much easier to cheerfully block whole days off your calendar forever.

      2. Jackalope*

        The letter specifically said that she’s non-exempt, though, so they do owe her for those hours. And the law is pretty specific about who can be made salaried, and while we don’t have a lot of details I’m guessing that this position doesn’t meet the requirements.

        1. doreen*

          The law is specific about which jobs are non-exempt , not which jobs can be salaried. They are often, but not always the same. The law doesn’t prevent an employer from paying a flat salary for up to 40 hours of work as long as it works out to at least minimum wage. But that would mean paying the same salary for 20 hours of work, so it doesn’t really happen for part-time jobs. However, it’s not uncommon for jobs with a normal workweek of 35 or 37.5 hours.

        2. Nicosloanica**

          So I may not be understanding, but I’m saying I’m pretty sure that means non exempt from the requirement to be paid for all hours worked over 40 hours. IIRC, there’s no special carve out for part time people who aren’t supposed to be working more than some other hourly cut off. Actually if I’m wrong I should shut up, perhaps Alison or fposte can weigh in on this.

          1. B*

            Doreen’s explanation is correct, at least as a matter of U.S. federal law. All the FLSA requires for non-exempt employees is that they are paid at least the minimum wage and, for hours over 40, 1.5 times their regular rate of pay. An employee can be non-exempt and salaried, so you could pay someone, for example, $400 per week and generally expect them to work 20 hours. That employee could work up to 40 hours without the employer violating the FLSA because at 40 hours, their hourly wage would work out to $10/hour, which is above the federal minimum wage. However, as soon as they work >40 hours, they must get paid time and a half for the time over 40.

    3. ferrina*

      I was also wondering if there was a way to block access when the employee is supposed to be off the clock. If the employee already isn’t listening to their manager’s direct order to stop working, I don’t think anything will change with explaining the legalities (though explaining legalities is still a good idea).

    4. Hyaline*

      Yeah, LW identifies poor work/life separation for the employee, which may be true, but I would take the time to ask the employee WHY she’s doing this. It may be that there are actual workflow related reasons that could be addressed and mitigated. Like–if she’s answering emails at home, LW may see that as a simple fix of “answer them first thing when you come in.” But the employee may have a task list for first thing that is required she complete–but then emails go unanswered until later, which may not acceptable to the senders if it’s time-sensitive. Stuff like that–it’s worth asking why the employee is doing this, or why she’s choosing to pick up particular tasks at off-hours. Yes, come down hard on the employee staying within the law, but also listen about possible issues with completing the work efficiently and effectively.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, some people are like this because of external stuff (“I’m going through a divorce, I have untreated anxiety, this is the only source of meaning in my life”) and it’s reasonable for OP to tell the employee they need to find a way to handle this that does not violate labor standards. But it’s definitely worth checking first to see if the real struggles are coming from the workload.

      2. LW 3*

        I have spoken with her about why, and for her it appears to be a combination of not wanting to leave people waiting for a reply, and that she finds it easier to not come in to surprises. Which I can understand to an extent, but not to the level she puts in. No one in her direct line of command wants her to work extra time or for her to put in extra effort. Her extra work makes things flow smoother, but it’s not worth the effort or extra time.

        I will be looking into limiting her access after hours.

        1. umami*

          Would it be possible to let her do work in a rhythm that works for her by flexing her hours instead of requiring her to do her work during set hours? If the real issue is tracking her time, that could easily be done by setting some core hours and then allowing for flexibility for the rest of her work time. Just a thought!

        2. M*

          My former supervisor was telling our boss that she didn’t want me working late at night. In reality she had an undisclosed 2nd job and was leaving that extra work to me to cover for her lack of availability in a small department. Our boss always believed her that she wasn’t initiating the unpaid overtime until legal got involved.

  10. Goody*

    I feel like the conversation with Anne (#1) is fairly straight-forward. “Lumping people together based solely on their skin color is the absolute definition of racism and it will not be tolerated.” Her response to that would color my decision regarding next steps.

    1. ecnaseener*

      That’s kind of a confusing way to frame it, because then referring to someone as Black would be the same as referring to them as “colored,” which is not true. The problem is that “colored” specifically is a disrespectful term, not that it’s inherently offensive to acknowledge the existence of race or skin color.

      1. ThatOtherClare*

        Sometimes you need to lump people together, for example:

        “Please bring me the 2 latest polls of the voting intentions of Black voters nationwide.”

        , but there’s no need to insult the group while you do so.

    2. Jennifer @unchartedworlds*

      That isn’t a useful definition of racism. It skips all the power dynamics, material elements and history.

    3. Hyaline*

      Well, we don’t know that she was doing that? We have no idea what the comment was–“Those colored folks are all like XYZ” which would speak to your point, or “Those colored folks in the lobby have been waiting way long, the receptionist needs to pay attention to them as quickly as she does white folks” or “Mr. Smith seems to have a problem with the shipping department, but I’ve never had a problem, and I think he’s singling out the colored folks down there,” in which the real problem is the use of an outdated and inappropriate term (though the wisdom of delineating which people one is referring to by race is debatable, it may sometimes be unavoidable).

  11. Persephone*

    LW #1 – I suspect it will need to be named why what Anne said is racist. “Those coloured folk” is a statement that /others/ people of colour, separating them from white people and opening them up to dehumanisation. Therefore, it is racist. By dismissing this because of Anne’s age, the manager is saying that being racist is okay if the racist meets certain conditions.

    LW #2 – Everyone’s already said everything about the validity of the information you’ve heard, but I’d just like to throw out that this could be a good opportunity to discuss pay with Sasha and Erin. If they do think you’re being paid too much, then chances are it’s because they feel they aren’t paid enough by comparison. Talking about pay is important; this is how you know you’re being underpaid. Discussing this with them could give them the info they need to get a raise—whether the info you’ve gotten is true or not.

    LW #3 – Just want to bring up that if, after explicitly telling her to stop, your employee keeps doing this, then that will be insubordination. You can’t just ignore your boss’s directions, so that would be another thing to consider when thinking about how good of an employee she is.

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      It sounds like LW2 is in a very different role to Sasha and Erin. She gives the example in a comment of them being doctors and her being a medical scribe, so I’m not sure that telling them she is earning minimum wage would really help them in getting a raise, as it sounds like her work is completely different from theirs and not comparable.

      How much less she earns than them probably isn’t really relevant information for their role.

    2. Tuckerman*

      Yes, I think the piece missing in these discussions is often exactly what you point out- that the terminology “others” people. It’s as if white people are the default, and anything else is an exception. In other words “white” is synonymous with “people”.

  12. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP3 (part timer working off hours) and similar letters, this issue is always interesting to me as it raises the question of how the company can ‘know’ this is occurring, for legal reasons. How these situations usually go is that the person answers emails or whatever out of hours, doesn’t log those hours on their time sheet etc, maybe denies to the manager that they have worked them by saying something like “I scheduled that email in advance” and the manager can’t prove it. So how much ‘forensic’ work is expected from a manager/company in order for the company to “know” or pass the test of “ought to have known” that this was occurring. To me if the person submits a time sheet etc saying they worked x hours … that is what the company “knows”, as there’s a reasonable expectation that the time sheet is true rather than fraudulent.

    As for why she’s doing it … my guess is she feels like as a part-timer there’s pressure to prove that she’s just as good (needed, useful, competent, etc) as the full timer. It sounds like it is just the two of them (and OP) so the full time person is her only “comparator”.

    It can be a strange dynamic when you have part time mixed with full time for the same role, or even people doing different hours. The standard in my company is 9 to 5, but some people agree hours like 8 to 4 etc. In order for that to be meaningful, they do actually stop work at 4. But the people who finish at 5, it isn’t a hard stop but rather 5 is a proxy for “as late as needed to get the job done”. I do think in OPs case the enforced rigidity of part time isn’t helping. Is the full time person non-exempt as well?

    1. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

      Yeah, but if the role is part time (or the budget is) then she needs to stop. I think the lie abo it scheduling email responses won’t fly because these are people emailing her outside of working hours and she responds outside of working hours. So there’s nothing to schedule. But even if there was I would tell her not to, because why would she need to do that instead of responding to a customer immediately, and also while there’s scrutiny on her hours she needs to also not do anything that creates the appearance of working extra.

      Just because people could lie doesn’t make you stuck.

    2. ecnaseener*

      Emails wouldn’t be the only evidence though, you could also look at login timestamps etc. So I do think the onus is on the employer to do more than throw up their hands and say “well, she says she didn’t work those hours so I guess we’ll never know!” If you don’t put any responsibility for that on the employer, then you create an incentive for them to subtly pressure employees to under-report their hours.

    3. Antilles*

      I expect in most real world cases, it’s pretty obvious. We could certainly craft a theoretical scenario where the employee is actively trying to hide their extra work, is careful about not leaving a trail, very carefully pre-schedules emails in a way that can’t be tracked, never offhandedly mentions it, etc, but that seems wildly unlikely. Especially since the mere fact we’re getting these letters clearly indicates there’s enough to be suspicious.
      Also, not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it doesn’t actually matter whether the company knew/should have known. You’re still required to pay the worker for the time either way. Even if you don’t find out until after-the-fact, you still need to square things.

      1. doreen*

        Regarding obvious- I supervised someone who was working off the clock for I don’t know how long before she ( I assume accidentally ) copied me on an email sent hours after she was supposed to leave work. I’m pretty sure the only reason she didn’t claim to have prescheduled the emails is because she didn’t know it was possible. She never mentioned staying at work that late to me or anyone else and she worked a different schedule than everyone else ( she was scheduled 10-6 M-F by her own request) , so that even if she stayed an hour late on Tuesday people would have just assumed she left an hour early on Monday.

        In the end , I ended up having to change her hours because she wouldn’t/couldn’t stop and the only way I could keep her from working unpaid , unreported overtime was to have her work the official hours. Which probably caused her some sort of difficulty, because there was a reason she asked to work 10-6 instead of the official office hours of 8:30-4:30.

        1. LW 3*

          I know she’s working hours she shouldn’t because she will respond to things in real time (emails that come in while she’s off, teams messages to the group chat that are not to her directly, her texting me about an email I just receive to the group email with information on how to resolve the problem).

          Ultimately I cannot prove how much extra time she is doing, but she is certainly working when she should not be. She is an excellent employee, and has been coached on the legalities. I’ve been trying to avoid the PIP route, simply because she is a wonderful person, but that might be where we land soon.

  13. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP2 (seniors complain that OP is paid too much but they’re actually paid minimum wage) – I have a hunch here that this is originating from the juniors. I would not be surprised if their aim is to make OP wonder about this, and think “are the other juniors being paid a lot more than me then???”. In fact is it possible that they are being paid more and not minimum wage as you thought?

    1. KateM*

      I understand that OP2’s job is not the same as the one of “junior professionals”. As in, OP is a paralegal and the others are junior attorneys.

    2. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

      One of the best comments I heard about minimum wage is that if the employer could pay you less, they would. Minimum wage isn’t a reflection of a person’s worth. The attitude that some people don’t even deserve the mandated minimum wage is very disheartening.

      1. Lisa*

        Yes. It says something very not favorable about an employer that they will only do the bare minimum legally required.

        In discussions of minimum wage people always focus on “minimum wage should be higher” when the real problem is “too many jobs/employers only pay minimum wage”.

  14. Cedrus Libani*

    As someone who spent their early career as LW#5’s friend did, it’s worth a shot, but I’d be less than optimistic. My guess is that nobody who’s anywhere near them in the org chart has the authority or the budget.

    Being the resident tech evangelist in a setting where people just don’t think about using tech to solve problems is a great starting point, but it’s a hard place to stay for a career. You’re paid like the other newsletter assistants, and evaluated based on the same metrics, no matter what else you’re doing. When you apply for another job, people scratch their heads. Nobody hires for this stuff. They want a faster horse, and you’re a car.

    It’s likely a better option to ask for a transfer to the web team they’re already working with. Or take the experience and look for an actual tech job elsewhere.

  15. Dog momma*

    Umm, maybe I’m just old fashioned, nut I never talked about my salary with anyone outside my husband. Its nobody’s business. Will I discuss salary in general with a co worker..say if there’s an open position were discussing? yes I knew someone that tried for years to get me to tell her how much I made per year…we were on the same team. Never did it, even though she kept pressing. She was all about the money.

    1. RabbitRabbit*

      Generally speaking, wage discussions help you and your coworkers.

      In this case, however, a higher level of professionals (OP #2 compared it to junior doctors versus medical scribes) is sneering about the compensation level of the employees that are doing more ‘menial’ work. OP #2 is hurt because they actually make minimum wage. So question 2 isn’t really about a wage discussion, it’s about feeling like you’re being treated like dirt via both gossip and wages.

    2. Insert Clever Name Here*

      And see, a conversation about salaries led my new teammate to realize she was being underpaid by a significant amount — she asked our manager about it and HR had made a freaking clerical error that meant she was being underpaid by like $40k (they resolved the issue and also gave her the pay she should have received).

      But yeah, only discuss it with your husband if you want, I guess.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        Holy shit. This is what I mean when I say staying silent about your wage/benefits/experience at a company is NOT to the employee’s benefit!

    3. A Girl Named Fred*

      As Alison said, feeling this way is exactly what the companies want because then you can never find discrepancies among your coworkers at the same level (including along lines like race or sex) and you’re also far less likely to organize a union if you’ve been conditioned to think of people who care about the salary they’re receiving in exchange for their work as “all about the money.” I am indeed at work for the money, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

      So yes, with all respect, I’d say you’re old fashioned about this and it would be great if you’d reconsider your position.

      1. I Have RBF*

        Seriously.

        If I wasn’t “all about the money”, I wouldn’t be working for a wage. Yes, I enjoy my job, but if I won the lottery with enough money to live on into retirement? I would not be working for a wage.

    4. Nodramalama*

      This kind of mentality is one that has been perpetuated by employers to avoid open conversations of who is being paid what. It shouldnt be private

    6. WellRed*

      Well yes, people work for money. Not discussing money keeps wages low and allows for unequal treatment.

    7. allathian*

      Companies count on employees not talking salary with each other. That’s how they can pay a Black woman half the salary of a white man for doing the same job at the same performance level. If privileged people are willing to share their salaries with less-privileged coworkers, it may give them a better position or an incentive to look elsewhere.

      I work for the government so my salary is public information, everyone hired with my pay band would have the same starting salary. We also have a performance-based salary that can be up to 45 percent of the basic salary but is generally much less than that, and I’ve noticed that people are much less comfortable sharing their performance percentage. So am I, for that matter.

    8. Reba*

      Yes, in some communities there is a strong social norm that discussing what we earn or wealth etc. is impolite. It does feel awkward! But in general talking with coworkers about pay helps fellow workers and maybe you too. Knowledge is power!

      1. ferrina*

        Yes, I was also raised with the expectation that I shouldn’t discuss my salary. But that ended up hurting me- I didn’t realize how badly I was underpaid until I started discussing salaries with others. It was also helpful to see people being horrified by how my boss compensated me, and encouraged me to look for other work (the compensation wasn’t the only problem with that boss).

        I don’t think that anyone should be pressured into sharing their salary if they don’t want to. And no one should ever share someone else’s compensation without that person’s express permission. But there are tremendous advantages to having open conversations about compensation.

      2. Dancing Otter*

        SOCIALLY. One does not talk about money SOCIALLY.

        Rules of politeness are different between work and social situations in some respects. Your boss isn’t being rude when they tell you to do something; the guy who tells you to hurry up so he can have your parking place is. Salaries/wages are not off limits for discussion with colleagues the way they are at a social event.

    9. Rebecca*

      This is old fashioned. How do we know what market value for a job is if we don’t talk about it? This is how I found out that the private school I was working for was the lowest paying one in the city I had just moved to.

      Salaries should be public information.

    10. Not your trauma bucket*

      When a colleague was looking for a new job, I told her my salary because I knew she was selling herself short. Based on what I was making (and had been making at previous jobs), she pushed for and got the higher salary she deserved. That’s why we share.

    11. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      The National Labor Relations Act is from 1935. So I guess you’re a Victorian time traveler. Do you work for free? If not, you are also “all about the money”. Did you ever ask her why she wanted to know? Just because you are uncomfortable doesn’t make her wrong.

      Do you think Alison is “all about the money” when she posts the annual salary survey? Do you think it’s wrong of Alison to encourage letter writers to talk about salary so they are not underpaid compared to their peers? Do you think women should be paid less than men? How would they know if they don’t talk about salary?

      Think about who benefits from this taboo.

    12. doreen*

      There’s a difference between not discussing money with family or friends and not discussing it with coworker. How else will anyone every find out that the members of one group are being paid more than the member of another group in the same job?

    13. Texas Teacher*

      I think encouraging more general transparency in fields can also help, so people who don’t feel comfortable outright answering that question can still contribute information. Surveys like Alison’s, posting in company and and field forums, talking openly about going rates advertised for jobs, and alluding to your salary as compared to what you’ve seen in those places all help.

    14. Broadway Duchess*

      I think you might be a bit old-fashioned on this. The only entity who benefits from refraining from salary transparency is the company. Companies rely on us to keep this information to ourselves.

    15. Cordelia*

      why wouldn’t you tell her? Who did that benefit? If you were paid more than her for the same work, she might be able to negotiate for more money for herself, that would be only fair so why wouldn’t you want that? And if she was paid more than you, why wouldn’t you want to know that so you can do something about it? Keeping quiet didn’t help either of you, it only helped your bosses.

  16. Knope Knope Knope*

    OP2 – see the letter this week about someone who spread a rumor that the lw spit in their coffee. People say weird things. Don’t just believe them.

  17. DJ Abbott*

    #1, I am white and grew up in Kansas. If my officemate said something like “oh, those hillbillies” or ”oh those country people”, I would be upset and distracted by wondering what other judgments they’re making of me.
    I think it would be good not just to check in with Leah, but to offer her an opportunity to change offices for a neutral reason, in case she doesn’t want to discuss her feelings about this.

    1. Paint N Drip*

      Or stay in her original office, since it sounds like Leah has been an employee longer. In these situations it MUST be awkward and fraught to be the Leah, and I hate when I see these folks have to deal with the emotional and possible career impacts of the situation AND the change to ‘solve the problem’ is net negative for them (worse office, weird temporary hallway cubicle, change lunch hour, etc.).

      1. DJ Abbott*

        That’s a good point but on the other hand, she might have feelings about staying in the office and want to move. Her needs should be put first, and whatever she wants should be done.

      1. Observer*

        I have no idea in general. But in general when someone prefaces the identity of a group with “those”, it’s generally meant pejoratively, even when the identity is typically neutral.

      2. Hroethvitnir*

        Bigotry (classism) against people from rural areas is huge, so yeah, a sentence starting “those country people” is likely to be bigoted.

    3. Coyote girl*

      Say what? Your example about hillbillies is not nearly as offensive as outright the outright racism that Anne displayed. And “protecting” Leah by moving her to a different office instead of confronting Anne is not the way to handle this. Wow.

      1. Aquamarine*

        No one said the example was supposed to be as bad as what was described in the letter. And the suggestion wasn’t to “move Leah” but to give her the options. Whether or not that’s the right move, it’s hardly “wow” worthy.

      2. Broadway Duchess*

        Not nearly as offensive isn’t the litmus test and I don’t think DJ Abbott was insinuating that it’s as bad as what Anne said. In the US, “country” is often shorthand for dumb, ignorant, or slow, which is why it’s offensive. YMMV.

        1. DJ Abbott*

          Yes. A lot of it is tone and context.
          People are so reactive these days, projecting all kinds of things whenever I say anything. This is why I don’t do activism. Thanks to you and @Aquamarine for keeping it real. :)

  18. bamcheeks*

    LW2, I don’t know exactly what you’re doing, but my immediate instinct is that if you’ve been doing it for 10 years and you’re on minimum wage, you’re underpaid. The point of minimum wage should be that it’s a minimum: IMO there is no labour in the world that is not worth more than the bare minimum when it’s being performed by someone with 10 years’ experience. I was a medical secretary for a year and we were paid minimum wage x 1.25, and the experienced secretaries I worked with were managing relationships with their doctors, understanding handwritten notes, catching discrepancies in prescribing and confirming them with doctors, following up test results, liaising with other departments, never mind being able to spell “discoid lupus erythematosis” without looking it up online. The subject matter knowledge, relationships, knowledge of the wider organisation and technical knowledge that you’ve gained over ten years is valuable and should be paid as such.

    This probably isn’t helpful to you if that’s the wage structure, but I just want to say IT SUCKS.

    Even if the junior professionals are sharing their feelings about Sasha and Erin in a wholly indignant, “And I can’t believe they said this about YOU!” and you are 100% sure they intend to be supportive of you, it’s absolutely OK to set that boundary and tell them you don’t want to hear this because it’s affecting your relationships with them. That’s really OK and a smart thing to do. And then, set it in the context of the organisation generally devaluing your work and Sasha and Erin in particular being grumpy people who like to project their bitterness onto other people, and try not to take it personally. I realise that’s easier said than done, but some people are Like That.

    1. heather*

      I was thinking the same. I work in the medical field, and the parallel for us (in terms of being entry-level but also a job that people may do for their whole career) would be a medical tech or aide. And yes, there are places where those jobs earn minimum wage, but a career aide who has done it for 10 years certainly earns much more than that, at least in my area.

    2. Union Rep*

      There are several states where the minimum wage hasn’t risen in the last 10 years. If LW2 is in one of those states, her loyalty to this employer has been “rewarded” with a sizable effective pay cut.

    3. Kate*

      Glad someone called this out because I was coming here to say the same thing! Especially in this labor market, even if you start at minimum wage you should quickly be moving beyond it as you gain experience, and it sounds like LW2 has plenty.

  19. Irish Teacher.*

    LW2, if it is the same junior professionals who are saying this all the time, I wonder if it is could be they who think it and they are attributing it to Sasha and Erin. My grandmother used apparently do this a lot when my mother was young. “Mrs. Murphey nextdoor said that skirt you were wearing out to the dance last night was much too short.”

    Not that I think you should necessarily assume they are the ones thinking it either, just that it is another possibility and it is sometimes younger, entry-level professionals who resent more experienced staff who are lower in the heirarchy but still know more about the job than they do.

    Whoever said it, it is utterly ridiculous. Support staff are just as important as “professionals” and often have good qualifications, albeit different ones to the professionals. And they are often undervalued and underpaid. I don’t know what you do, but either of the examples you gave of similar professions definitely deserve far more than minimum wage, especially after a number of years in the field.

  20. El l*

    OP3: Can you make her exempt? (Could is not should, she’ll still do things you tell her emphatically not to do. But do have an answer to that question)

    Then, be even mote blunt: “When you work off the clock, I am breaking the law. It is non-negotiable that you not answer emails etc outside hours. If you do this again, I will fire you. Do you understand? And if you can’t do this, we can honorably part ways. What’s your decision?”

    (have the exempt answer in your back pocket in case she brainstorms)

    1. HonorBox*

      Can you make a part-time employee exempt? Even at full-time, there are quite a few stipulations that make someone exempt. I don’t think I’d consider this option because it probably opens more of a Pandora’s box than simply shutting the whole thing down.

      I agree with your second paragraph entirely. It needs to be a very clear conversation and OP needs to be extremely blunt and direct.

      1. ecnaseener*

        I don’t think there’s a legal reason you can’t make a part-time employee exempt just because they’re part-time, but they would need to meet the pay threshold, $684 a week. Could be the case, if for example she’s making $23 an hour and (supposed to be) working 30 hours a week.

        1. HonorBox*

          A lot of it depends on what their tasks are too. And whether legal or not, I think that opens up more problems than it solves. Clearly telling this employee to not do work outside of their scheduled hours seems like an easier solution in my mind.

      2. Lily Potter*

        I have been an exempt, part-time employee. It’s legal, and it makes sense when you’re in a job that a) has wild, seasonal ups & downs (some weeks I worked 40+ hours a week and some weeks hardly at all), b) you’re a seasoned professional who knows what needs getting done and will “just do it” (unled Jared from yesterday) and most of all c) have a supervisor that’s aware of how much you’re working and tries hard to keep you in the realm of “normal” most of the time – my supervisor always had a mental tally of when I was overshooting and undershooting the 28 hours/week that my salary was based upon.

        I’ve also done essentially the same job part-time, non-exempt/hourly. Bonus is that you get paid for every moment you’re working. Bad news: timesheets.

  21. HonorBox*

    OP3 – Your employee is putting you in a very precarious position legally. There may be instances that require someone who is part-time and/or non-exempt to do some work outside of normal business hours, that situation is more of an outlier. Like you have a last-minute change to a meeting schedule that needs to be sent out to stakeholders. And that’s something that could probably be communicated first with a phone call or text, giving the employee a heads up that they’re needed outside of their hours. But that’s also a situation in which they’re being directed by someone to work outside of their hours, not something they’re choosing to do on their own.

    OP, you need to be extremely clear with this employee that this situation cannot continue. They’re putting you in legal peril. Tell them that. And clearly tell them that they need to stop. And then tell them that the consequence of not following this direction will result in them being terminated. That isn’t going too far. This is not a situation that is fixed with a PIP or escalating discipline. This is a specific directive that they cannot choose to not follow.

    1. B*

      Yes, important to distinguish between performance and conduct. Performance can be coached, conduct needs to be corrected or disciplined. This is a conduct issue.

  22. Lurking Tom*

    OP #5 – for what it’s worth, at my org this role is an actual thing specifically hired for and the title is “Marketing Automation Specialist” and the compensation range is $73k to $101k on a distributed fully remote team. Hope that helps your friend earn what they’re worth!

  23. Lynn A*

    Regarding the racist comment. I’m 61, Lebanese American woman. and I have learned and adapted through the years to truly appreciate diversity and that there’s something I can learn from everyone. About 15 years ago, in a conversation with some cube mates, I referred to an Asian employee as Oriental. One of the younger women explained that that term is now considered racist, and that Asian is the correct description. She told me this kindly, and I knew she was telling me for my own benefit. I thanked her. You don’t know until you know.

    1. Hyaline*

      Great point. I think that the real issue isn’t that Anne said something offensive (which any of us could do by mistake even if we know better than to use this particular term!), but that she doubled down and got defensive. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea. Thank you for telling me” is the correct response to being told you said something hurtful or harmful.

      1. bamcheeks*

        AND that HR decided to dismiss this rather than prioritising Leah’s safety and wellbeing at work.

        1. Fern*

          Anne and Leah’s manager is notorious for dragging his feet on just about everything. It is absolutely infuriating at times. (Including now)

          From what I have been able to gather from the outside (technically not involved in this situation) HR was *finally* looped in at the end of the day yesterday. We have one HR person who unfortunately is off the rest of the week. They have a track record of being good about addressing things, so I am hopeful that it will be addressed next week. I’m disappointed that this manager didn’t take this seriously enough to loop HR in immediately.

          1. bamcheeks*

            Ahh sorry, I thought it was HR who had made the “from an era” comment, but I see it was Ann and Leah’s manager. Good to hear that you have reliable HR.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        Yes, I read somewhere that what determines whether you are a good person or not isn’t if you mess up, because we all do. It’s not even how badly you mess up because so many things can effect that (such as being from a different culture and not being familiar with the norms of the one you are living in or being raised by people who were racist (or sexist or homophobic or whatever) and needing to unlearn a lot that other people don’t have to or access to education and so on) and many of those are unrelated to whether or not you are a decent person.

        That what shows if you are a decent person or not is how you react when you are told you’ve messed up. A decent person who accidentally hurts somebody else will apologise and try to do better in the future.

    2. Nodramalama*

      But Anne does know, because Leah told her she shouldn’t use it and she got defensive instead of apologising.

  24. Former Lab Rat*

    For LW#2: Agree with above post that if you’ve worked for 10 years you should be making more than minimum wage. But I’d like to say also NEVER undervalue what you contribute to your office. I was a tech (bench research lab) with a BS and decades of experience – on the job education. I contributed the raw data my lab chief used to publish papers (and I helped write them). He could not have done his job without my input. I could never have done my job without the support staff of dishwashers, delivery people, cleaning people, repair people etc. You are a critical part of your office and should be paid a decent wage. Please don’t let an unfounded rumor sour you on your job.

  25. Dust Bunny*

    No, Anne is a racist jerk who needs to be disciplined. She’s not that old. Very few people are that old any more. Even my grandparents knew to at least not say that out loud (although all four of them were, in fact, pretty racist) and they were all born before World War I.

  26. Union Rep*

    LW4 – Assuming that your chat message was professional in tone and not a big diatribe, you didn’t do anything wrong. But now you’ve seen how your company reacts when its employees want a reasonable amount of voice in changes to their working conditions. Consider unionizing ;) Whether or not you and your coworkers want to go that route, you should also think about protecting yourselves if this is how your employer reacts to your input. You’ll be more firmly protected and more likely to get what you want if you present a collective opinion rather than raising concerns as individuals. Get the discussion out of the company Slack, sort out the group’s position, and pick a time and venue to all present it at once.

    If things are otherwise good at this job, it may feel like an over-reaction to start thinking like this. I have a lot of sad stories from people who thought their management would react reasonably to a reasonable request for some say in changes. Not necessarily for things to go workers’ way, just a chance to know an appropriate amount of management reasoning and weigh in before the decision was made. In my experience, a lot of otherwise pleasant employers hoard total control over the enterprise even more tightly than money, and people who threaten that control, even if it’s in a perfectly professional manner, can be made to regret it unless they protect themselves.

  27. Been there… sort of*

    LW 2 – please take the word of those other junior professionals with a massive grain of salt. What were they even hoping to achieve by telling you this?
    Years ago when I was entry level, I was friends with a low level manager. I did not know her very well at the time and honestly, the entire basis of our friendship was that we were the only two women in a male dominated office. One day while we were taking a walk at lunchtime, started telling me how in a meeting two other more senior managers were trash talking my work and saying lots of disparaging comments about me. I was very upset because I had never received any feedback that lined up with what she was saying. When I tried to get more details from her about how this even came up she shut down and got sort of defensive. I was very upset and later that day, I actually spoke to my manager about it. I was very fortunate that I had a kind and approachable manager. He was livid when he heard what she had told me. Without going into too much detail, he basically said that early on in the meeting she had tuned out because something didn’t go her way. Then the conversation shifted to another person who was not performing well. My name had come up briefly in that conversation as a point of comparison because this other employee and I had started around the same time. He said it was obvious to others in the meeting that she wasn’t paying attention, and clearly she had just misunderstood what was being said.

    I distanced myself from this woman after that and I am glad I did because as I got more settled into the company, I realized how toxic she was.

    I am not saying this is what happened in your office. Your circumstances are different also, so I’m not really advocating that you go and talk to Sasha and Erin about it . Point is, once I spoke to someone else there a more possible explanation for the story. Maybe that is the case for you.

    In hindsight, I have absolutely no doubt that my so-called friend was just a troublemaker who was pissed off and wanted someone else to be pissed off with her.

    1. Miracle*

      I think a lot of us immediately had this instinct too. If these women are really your friends who respect you professionally, why wouldn’t they says something when these other women started trashing you? Either to counter their gossip or to say–I’d prefer not to hear this kind of talk about others. And why are they bringing you the updates? They know its hurtful and it seems like its really bothering you.

      Add to it, it seems like your friends are now talking badly about these older colleagues now. It sounds toxic.

      Honestly, I might bring this up with your manager and say you are hearing about gossip and nasty talk around the office without getting too specific. At a minimum the leaders of the organization could do some training about civility.

  28. sgfhgfjhghj*

    #1 Contact HR again so that the issue is handled. Derogatory racial comments in the workplace are never acceptable.

  29. Overthinking It*

    to OP 1: It would probably be helpful to include in the discussion with defensive Anne that “hateful” and “offensive” are not the same thing, a distinction she doesn’t seem to recogni,e. She says her comment “wasn’t hateful” probably meaning it wasn’t said with ill-will, but Leah was offended (* as many wuuld have been), and therefore it was “offensive.” And she must avoid using offensive language, however good her intentions. But as a separate issue you need to review the content of her comment – was it something really ignorant and negative about intelligence or morality (completely bad and she has to know better) or some more seemingly benign observation (perhaps about music, or customs, or hair care, etc) which is harder to address. In which case she still needs to be made to understand that generalization are offensive overall snd that she should apologize.

    * the fact that a comment offends one individual doesn’t put it into the category of “offensive” of course – some people are ready to be offended by anything. It whether it would offend a “reasonable person” (and this would).

  30. Observer*

    #1 – Racism in your office.

    Alison says that “If Anne is in her late 50s or early 60s, she’s not from an era where that phrase was acceptable. “ I disagree – I’m in that age bracket, and it was a common and acceptable usage.

    I also think that it’s a mistake to frame it that way, regardless. She could be 100 years old. I think your focus needs to be that “it doesn’t matter; she’s had decades to catch up with the times. Moreover, not only was her language not acceptable, but neither was her reaction when Leah let her know that. ”

    She’s not a child who time traveled into the present. She’s a supposedly competent adult. And giving her a pass *today* because 20-30 years some may have been acceptable is both ageist and distracts from the *real* conversation that needs to be had.

    What Ann needs to hear is that this kind of comment is not acceptable. Absolutely *no* discussion of “back in the day” or “when I was growing up” or anything like it. These are the norms, and you cannot say that stuff.

    What *HR* needs to hear is that they *cannot* “resolve” the issue by reassigning Leah in any way that would make her job less good. Recent court rulings make it clear that even just giving someone a less desirable schedule or less desirable office can be considered retaliation. The other thing is that they have to treat this like *NOT* and “interpersonal disagreement”, which is what it sounds like they are doing, but Ann doing something inappropriate that needs to be checked.

    1. Broadway Duchess*

      My Black mother is in that age bracket — it may have been common, but it was not acceptable to many of the people ot was intended to describe.

  31. Crencestre*

    LW1: Speaking as a 74 year old, I can tell you that NOBODY in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s is unaware that racist language is wrong unless that person has spent their entire life living under an ice floe in Antarctica (which would be awfully difficult to do…)

    As a Boomer, I’m quite used to hearing seniors blamed for everything but the extinction of the dinosaurs, but this is ridiculous. It’s insulting and ignorant to assume that everyone older than you are is unaware that racism is wrong! Oh, and giving people of ANY age a pass to spew racist language is guaranteed to enable them to go right on doing just that – the exact opposite of what you want in your company.

  32. Hyaline*

    LW5, I think the best bet is, if the friend’s manager has vision as well as some clout, to approach it as more than just a title change for *this employee* but a title change of the position for the department. As in “We did not need this position formerly, but we need it now, Susan is doing it now, and [key point] we will continue to need it even if Susan moves on.” Early in my career I was in a job with a terribly outdated position title and job description compared not only to what I did but to what, long-term, the department needed. The boss approached the upper folks and HR that way (not “I want to reward Hyaline for doing a good job” but “We need this skillset formally integrated into our department”) and it was an easy win (and I got a raise).

  33. Star Singer*

    LW2: The junior professionals who are telling LW2 that Sasha and Erin have been badmouthing LW2 sound more like junior high school (middle school) mean kids than professionals of ANY stripe!

    The first questions that LW2 should ask themself are: WHY are those people telling me this? What do they hope to gain by telling me something upsetting when it’s not something that I can solve or ameliorate? And since Sasha and Erin have always been pleasant to me, why isn’t their supposed disdain for me reflected in their behavior (it’s impossible for most people to totally conceal contempt and disrespect on a daily basis)? If I were LW2, I’d be quite wary of people who kept telling me gossip about others that’s never reflected in those other people’s behavior – and I’d wonder if those junior professionals were trying to undermine Sasha and Erin for their own purposes. In short, there’s an excellent chance that Sasha and Erin never said any such thing about LW2!

    And then LW2 should take Alison’s advice and tell those junior professionals to stop passing on those remarks. Because there’s a very good chance that Sasha and Erin never made them in the first place!

  34. AnonToday*

    OP4:

    “I brought up in a team chat that it is concerning for these changes to be made with no real chance to voice our opinions.”

    I see two issues here (or that would be issues in the offices I’ve worked in). First, it is better to bring up concerns in conversation, not in a chat, so people can read your tone of voice better and you can have a real discussion about it. That could be a 1-on-1 (personally, I agree with your coworker that a 1-on-1 would be best) or it could be a team meeting.

    Second, your concern was that people didn’t have a chance to voice their opinions. This is not a professional norm anywhere I’ve worked. Where I’ve worked, I’ve been welcome to proactively bring up concerns to my manager, and if my manager likes my work/respects my input, they’ll start to ask for my opinion. But hearing voices just for the sake of it, from everyone regardless of how much they know about the topic, has never been a norm wherever I’ve worked. Your manager wants to hear about concrete specific concerns you have like “Changing procedure XYZ will cause the work to take 2x as long, how will we compensate for that going forward? Has that been factored into our projections of how long the project will take?” And usually, yes, it’s good to bring it up in a solution-oriented way, with questions showing you’re thinking about how it will impact the work. But without more specifics about what was the impact of people’s voices not being heard, this comes across as just complaining about feeling left out. And it does come across as very immature to focus on feelings.

    I had to go anon for this one because it reminds me so much of my coworker who is very immature and has major Dunning-Kruger syndrome lol. But my coworker is not a bad person and just needs to get a little more experience and listen more to others. OP, I think you just need to focus on getting to know your company culture and team a bit more before you begin to contribute in this way again. If you get a chance to talk to coworkers, ask them how they feel about the changes, and really be open to their opinions.

  35. spiriferida*

    LW4, it’s possible that you’re being told you’re unprofessional simply because you’re making reasonable criticisms, and not because your message is unprofessional. In that case, you might just be dealing with bad management! but if that is the case, that’s all the more reason to be cautious about what you say and where. Not necessarily because it shouldn’t be said, but because saying it is going to earn you a more outsized negative reaction in this environment than in your previous one.

    It might also be that the part that was objected to was the desire to express your opinion on all these decisions. There are some environments where the hierarchy means that you won’t have advance input on things handed down to you from a certain level above you, so you might be able to reason with your direct boss, but wouldn’t necessarily have a say in things that their boss dictates. You mention that a lot of the trouble has come from lack of communication, so I wonder if you might see better results if you focus on getting clear directives and consistent communication on upcoming changes, instead of on getting input on those decisions – but if the problem is indeed bad management, this might not help you shed the ‘unprofessional’ label.

  36. DivergentStitches*

    I once complained to a coworker that I didn’t have enough work to do and was bored, so I was looking outside the company for other opportunities.

    She reported me to HR, who called me “unethical” and wrote me up.

  37. RVA Cat*

    I addressed this in a nested comment but it belongs here. LW1, Anne 100% knows better and chose to use her grandmother’s racist words, and she’s saying them *at* Leah. The “other time” excuse wouldn’t even apply if Anne was throwing around the casual homophobia of her Reagan-era youth at the one LGBTQ+ employee. She is a bigot and is using ageism to try to get away with it.

  38. Kara*

    OP1:
    I am a white woman from the South in my mid 50s. I promise you, “those colored people” is NOT appropriate and we all know it, even people a few years older than I am. (I got a full on ‘ick’ just typing that phrase.)

    I think at this point I’d be more concerned with Leah than with Anne at this point. If it were my team, I’d talk to Leah and ask her if she’s still comfortable sharing an office with Anne or if she’d prefer to be moved elsewhere or if she would prefer that everyone just stop talking about it.

    Anne needs to be given some remedial diversity training ASAP.

    2. Salty Caramel*

      Echoing this from my time living in the south and spending not a little time in Georgia. That is not a phrase in use. I’m on the elder end of GenX, age is no excuse.

      Neither is upbringing. While some people have trouble picking up social cues, in my experience, those that are told they said something offensive don’t double down.

      Anne doesn’t get to decide what’s offensive here.

  39. Czech Mate*

    LW 1 – long term, it could be beneficial to do some DEI training. What Anne said was not okay, but also, it’s true that she may come from a background where those things were just thrown around and she’s literally never been told that it isn’t okay. Proactively having trainings about the ways we talk to and treat one another in the workplace could be something to consider going forward.

    1. Czech Mate*

      adding also that when I say “a background where those things were just thrown around” ≠ the South in general or the 1970s/80s. Still, I have seen things like that happen in, say, super rural Oregon. It’s still not okay, and most people who have been in the workplace should know better, but yeah someone needs to tell her “You may think that what you did is okay, but it’s not.”

      Also echoing what some other folks have said that you should prioritize making sure Leah is okay.

      1. Boof*

        Yea; I don’t think it has to be a huge offence, to me the bad part was that Anne doubled down rather than just saying “sorry!” and/or something to the effect of acknowledging Leigh didn’t like it and Leigh is kind of obviously the one who’s opinion on that matters most.
        Some good DEI training can be super helpful in laying out a few groundrules about this stuff to avoid committing common microaggressions.

    2. Observer*

      it’s true that she may come from a background where those things were just thrown around and she’s literally never been told that it isn’t okay

      That’s seriously hard to believe. She’s been in the workforce for *decades*. How would it even be *possible* that she doesn’t know, even if no one said this to her explicitly? Keep in mind also that once she was called on it, she did NOT apologize or commit to not doing it again. *That* would be the response one would expect if someone *really* “didn’t know”.

      The person who needs DEI trainingi is the manager.

  40. ijustworkhere*

    Even giving Anne the benefit of the doubt, her doubling down on her comment after being told it wasn’t OK should be grounds for escalating this issue. The first time somebody does something like that I tend to extend a little grace, and explain why what they did wasn’t OK.

    Once they double down on the mistake, it’s an issue. I like Allison’s response.

  41. Cosmo*

    LW4 sounds like some folks I work with.

    It depends on how you raise it, the scope of “team”, and team culture.

    Bringing up that you are frustrated with the constant change in a meeting with your manager and your peers, especially one where discussion was invited, that’s almost certainly fine?

    Bringing it up in a staff meeting about another topic? Depends on the team culture. But it could be considered rude and unprofessional if it takes away from the purpose of the meeting.

    Also the phrasing matters a lot. “Folks are frustrated that we’re not being consulted on organizational and policy changes. Why do you keep doing this to us?” has a very different tone than “There’s been a lot of changes recently, large and small, do you know when the change will slow down? Is there a way you’d like to receive feedback on how this is impacting our ability to achieve our goals?” Or “there’s been a lot of changes recently , where are these changes leading? How will they help us ?”

    Also, this could have been written by at least two different folks on a team I’m on. So I’ll add this: Yep, its been tough. Its been tough on everyone to make so many changes. But also, the people making changes wouldn’t be making them if it wasn’t necessary to ensure we were “future proofed” and have the funding we need to get the important things done in the future. I promise that there’s little or no “changing stuff for the sake of changing it” going on.

  42. Moose*

    There’s a lot of hearsay and eavesdropping in these letters. I think at least 2 of the LWs would benefit from either talking directly with people or deciding that they don’t have the whole story and moving on. I get that a little gossip is fun but nothing good comes from taking overheard or second-hand statements too seriously. Either get more information or move on, IMO.

  43. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

    It’s not just that age is a red herring, although it is: I’m her age, and my parents left me with a babysitter so they could march on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr.

    The problem isn’t just the word “colored”– the phrasing “those Black folk” wouldn’t be much better, because she’s casually lumping Black people together as “not like us,” probably in negative ways. Leah didn’t say “Annie, that word is out of date and can be offensive, please call us Black.” She called Annie’s statement “inappropriate and offensive,” and _Annie_ got defensive, rather than saying something like “sorry” or “I didn’t mean to hurt you” and changing the subject, or “oh, sorry, anyway, did you know they stopped selling hot dogs at the beach?”

  44. Teachers Kid*

    LW2, a helpful phrase that my grandma used to use: don’t tell me what they said about me, tell me why they felt comfortable saying it to you.

    When people repeat gossip like this, I find it best to question their motives and their response. “Oh, so Jan said that I’m paid too much? Well Jim, what did you say to defend me?” That would be my response the first time. The second time, I might say “Wow Dwight, it sounds like you’re really concerned about this issue. What are you personally doing to change their perception of staff contributions?”

    FWIW, I am a lawyer, and if anyone ever talked about my paralegal or assistant as being overpaid in front of me (or any member of my staff, court staff, or hell, even someone else’s paralegal) I would go full mean-lawyer on them. My staff isn’t paid great, because it’s government and none of us are paid great, but they are the most dedicated, wonderful professionals, and I do everything I can to make sure they know how much they are appreciated. I hope that the people you work with can give you that same kindness, because the only difference between a lawyer and a paralegal imho is that one of us was overly willing to incur student loans. Bless you for all you do.

  45. Boof*

    LW1:
    — I believe that it’s more productive to focus on behavior and how to address it than have a big referendum on whether something or someone is “racist”, because behavior is easy to modify and really that’s probably what we need most right now
    — I do think it’s true that “colored” is a word that changes meaning a lot depending on exactly how/when/who uses it; it’s not like some other words that are pretty much originally meant to be derogatory and always will be
    — that being said, when the person of said group says it isn’t right the correct response is “ooo I’m sorry!” or “oh I didn’t know!” (and if you think they should have known, just let it slide unless they do it again) and then incorporate that going forward. Same as if one was mispronouncing (or forgot) a coworkers name, etc. Ideally Anne’s manager would have told her “I hear you say you didn’t know it was an offensive turn, but I need you to accept Leigh is the authority on what terms are appropriate for her and let her know you want her to feel welcome and heard”. Since you are a coworker but not as directly connected, I’m not as sure how it’s best for YOU to handle the situation, unless you feel up for pulling Anne aside and saying something like “I overheard ____. I really think if Leigh says something like that bothers her, you should take that to heart and let her know you didn’t realize and will try to remember it, rather than dismissing her concerns.”

  46. Tilly Tambo*

    Quick side note: as a nine year paralegal, I gotta say, my job is specialized and no longer entry level. It can be a solid, well paying career! :)

    1. Ccbac*

      I was also confused about the paralegal comparison! I know not all paralegals are well compensated, but many many many are.

      1. Boof*

        I gotta say as a doc I would love a medical scribe so much and if one was reliable, good, long term that would be worth gold to me haha would be worth way more than min wage so I’m really wondering why senior folks would would be dishing on people that they probably rely hard on to do stuff they really don’t want to do, and in fact are being paid min wage??? LW i have to agree with allison here it’s confusing enough that I am giving some sideye to the people who are passing this along to you

        1. Nightengale*

          that’s funny, as a doc they keep trying to throw a scribe at me to solve a problem that a scribe would not solve. You can have mine!

  47. Kotow*

    LW1: I agree that in the 60s that term **was** considered the correct term (my parents are in their upper 60s/early 70s and have said as much). Regardless, it hasn’t been the polite term for at least the last 30 years because I don’t remember ever hearing that it was neutral. It was always seen as being impolite or “people used to say this, but it’s considered hurtful now.” This was in the late 80s/early 90s so it’s not a new convention. Anne has had plenty of time to learn this.

    The only way I could **possibly** see “I wasn’t aware” or “that’s just how I learned it” is if there’s truly a dementia issue or if there were a language issue where the person plausibly could not have known the significance or even forgot the correct term and used what they first thought of (it does happen). In the case of the latter, the proper response is “I didn’t know, thank you for telling me.” It’s not okay if it involves the former case but then there are other issues at play (and a “reasonable accommodation” would not be allowing her to use a known offensive term). Anne is wrong, and her excuse doesn’t hold up at all.

  48. Apple maker*

    Are you sure she used the phrase “colored folk” verbatim? Why I’m asking: I’ve had older relatives who are genuinely trying to be respectful get the phrase “People of Color” confused with “colored people”. They get embarrassed and very flustered when you explain the difference between those two phrases.

    Only OP and those who overheard can determine whether this is what happened, or if Anne is just ignorant. The manager is 100% wrong though, it doesn’t matter what era you come from: offensive language is offensive and not appropriate period.

  49. EA*

    LW 4 – I think the medium you chose was not the right one. Chats and written texts are susceptible to misunderstandings in tone. Also, it sounds like the people who made these decisions were the higher ups, not your team. I can see why it would be frustrating for management, and even for the other team members, to have you complaining about those changes in the group chat, instead of bringing your concerns to the decision maker.

    I think you’re taking this way too far – it’s not “never talk about issues with your coworkers,” but rather think carefully about how, through what medium (in this case, in person is better), and to whom to raise the issues.

  50. M*

    LW3 should take a look at the manager and full timer. Despite what they may be saying to LW3, it’s possible they are actually dumping work onto the part-time, putting her into coverage situations (she works less than they do and many take the attitude they junior employees with fewer hours “owe” time). Who should be doing the tasks that the part timer is taking on during her off time, why aren’t they doing it and why isn’t the manager managing both sides of that situation?

    1. Annie*

      If the others are piling their work onto the part-timer, that’s even more reason to block employees’ access to work stuff outside of scheduled work times and educate on granular do-not-disturb settings where outright blocking access isn’t practical. LW3 has already tried the latter with seemingly no effectiveness.

  51. Dana*

    LW #3– I was your employee, once! Not literally, of course, but my first job real job out of college I thought working long hours and answering emails from home meant I was dedicated and passionate. I was horrified when my boss met with me to gently explain that I was, in fact, putting my workplace in a bad spot legally as a non-exempt employee frequently working over 40 hrs/week. I felt terrible and stopped immediately. So she might not know it’s causing you issues! I certainly didn’t. I’m still grateful to my boss at the time for being so kind and helpful about the situation.

  52. BekaRosselinMetadi*

    It’s not so much that she said “colored folk”-although I’m in the same age range and have never used it and the only person I ever heard use was my grandfather who was born in 1899 and it is racist and it’s offensive to lump all people of whatever group together-it’s that when this was pointed out, she went on the defensive instead of apologizing and saying she didn’t know. That’s the issue. Can she be made to apologize or does she genuinely believe she didn’t say anything wrong?

  53. Texas Teacher*

    About L1 – It doesn’t matter when someone was born – they lived through history and know good and well bigotry is not acceptable – full stop.

    My parents were Silent Generation and Dad was born and raised in Houston.
    When I was 5 we moved to a new house and had a house warming party. At the party some kids got in a spat about who was going to go first. One of the new neighbor Moms told us to just do eeny meeny miney moe. My cousins, sister, and friends from old neighborhood looked at her like she just told us to curse out our Moms.

    Dad stepped in and said “That rhyme is racist and not allowed on my property.” He ended up having to explain the original rhyme ended in the N or K slur. That monkey and tiger were substitutions for those slurs because monkey is used to insult people of African or Jewish heritage an tiger is a near rhyme for the N slur. (especially the way people would say it when he was growing up). Most of our new neighbors were not from the south and Dad often educated them on coded language that was racist. (Mom was Canadian so didn’t grow up with this knowledge). I remember Dad’s Mom, older sister, his aunts/uncles, and cousins also calling out these types of things. Dad would have been 88 earlier this month. He grew up a white child/man in Jim Crow. He knew those things were wrong and as language evolved he went with it because he knew right from wrong.

    Unless someone is a time traveler – the “they are from a different time does NOT fly with me.”

  54. Feeling Feline*

    #3
    It’s entirely possible that I’m reading too much into this via my own lens, just to say as a minor I used to hover at my school all the time, the hover at after school work, precisely because home was extraordinarily dangerous place for me.

  55. LW4*

    A little late to the party, but I thought I would give some context, and the resolution.

    First some background that I realize now was missing:

    1. My team is hybrid, and there are almost no mandatory in office days. That translates to almost every meeting or discussion taking place over either a video call or chat. A lot of big announcements or procedure changes go out over chat so the chat tends to have discussion/questions on these announcements.

    2. The first person to say that I was being unprofessional was a coworker when I mentioned that it can be demotivating to a team when changes are sprung on the people involved. The conversation was just between 2 coworkers and myself. My example was the fact that I was moved to 2 different managers within 6 weeks (and before people jump to conclusions, it was NOT based on issues). One manager moved to a different site, and the other one was given a promotion. (Remember when I said we had a LOT of changes?) I was told that I would be moving in front of the entire 40 person team. When they announce the change and not the context it can make you look bad which is why it can be demotivating. This person’s viewpoint was that it’s unprofessional to expect that you be informed of staffing changes until the management was ready to share them. I very much understand that management is not able to share a lot of strategic things, but not giving an individual an hour or so notice before announcing it publicly seems callous to me.

    3. The 2nd person to say I was being “unprofessional” was the new manager I was moved under. They took objection to the fact that I mentioned that the expectation of requiring people to wait 15-45 minutes (due to an agonizingly slow system) to be able to “punch in” was “ridiculous and illegal”. I only brought this up in the group chat because I was directly replying to the post echoing that expectation. The manager then messaged me separately and told me that I need to refrain from anymore unprofessional behavior. As I was surprised, I asked what they thought of an unprofessional so I would know what to refrain from in the future. They told me that it would require waiting for an in-person 1:1 to discuss (my next scheduled one wasn’t for almost 2 weeks, so during that time I reached out to Allison).

    As for the resolution:
    Our grandboss brought in both me and my new manager for chat, and very much downplayed the whole thing. They thanked me for being vocal about potential issues, and then told me how great I was doing. I politicked and expressed how I am always willing to accept feedback and make the requisite changes (I usually do like feedback, and am usually at least willing to hear it. I was startled by the response ). The grandboss then left the manager and me alone, and the manager told me that they also appreciate how I am “willing to address issues, and provide solutions” and that they would only suggest that I not call anyone “ridiculous” (which I really didn’t, I have the chat saved. I really only called out the expectation, but I can see why someone would feel personally attacked) and I promised (sincerely) that I would refrain from that word. I haven’t used the word ridiculous (at work) since, and one week later I got my mid year review which was “Exceeding expectations” in every category.

    PS. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts. I know it’s always hard to know what exactly to focus on when you only hear a synopsis of the story and you don’t know all the characters. I appreciate all the viewpoints, and suggestions! And, thank you Allison for your answer!

  56. Friday Hopeful*

    LW3 – take her after hours access to email away. She should not be accessing work email on a personal device anyway. This might help a little? Also could you have her sign something that says what her hours are and that she is not allowed to work from home or outside her scheduled hours?

  57. Orora*

    LW #3 We had a non-exempt employee in my office who would behave similarly. She thought she was being helpful doing work when she wasn’t paid to. Allison’s suggestion is right on point. I sat down with her and told her that we *had* to pay her for that time or we could get in legal trouble. While she may not mind doing it, the government does. We also told her that we want to pay her fairly for the work she does but that needs to be within the confines of her regular working hours except with prior permission. If she needs more hours to get her work done because it’s too much, we need to examine that.

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