asking to change desks because you don’t like someone, are typos in a draft a huge deal, and more

by Alison Green on November 12, 2024

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

1. Is it unprofessional to ask to change desks because you don’t like someone?

Two years ago I started a job as an engineer at my current company and was assigned a mentor, “Rob.” My cubicle is directly adjacent to his. For various reasons related to his behavior towards me, Rob will no longer be my mentor going forward. I’m not sure yet who management is going to assign as my mentor, but I’m confident they’ll be better than Rob, who has caused me a lot of stress over the last year.

Would it look unprofessional or immature to ask to move seats? Rob’s behavior has mostly consisted of giving me really bad feedback to the point of gaslighting, not anything like harassment, but I’d still like to move seats to make it a clean break.

Can you come up with a reason that’s not related to Rob? Ideally it would be something like there being less noise at the open desk down the hall, sitting closer to someone you collaborate with a lot, preferring not to sit right under a vent that blasts cold air, or so forth — not “I’d rather have a clean break from Rob.” The latter isn’t impossible to say, but there’s pretty high risk of it reading as more drama than you’d ideally want. Exceptions would be if (a) “for various reasons related to his behavior towards me, Rob will no longer be my mentor” means Rob behaved so egregiously toward you that anyone would understand the discomfort of remaining where you are, and/or (b) you have the kind of rapport with your manager where you could say, “The situation with Rob has been rough; any chance I could move into that open desk in the corner just to have a clean break?”

2. Are typos in a draft a huge deal?

I work at a not-for-profit that relies heavily on volunteers. I manage one staff member and around 30 volunteers across two sites. Recently, our on-site graphic artist designed a sign for one of my sites, and I sent it to one of the volunteers to get her thoughts on it, and also as a second pair of eyes as I was slammed.

This volunteer called me and went off about the design, saying it was sloppy and had two spelling errors (typos) in it. To me, typos in a draft are not a big deal — that’s why we check drafts before they go to the printer. Also, we are seriously understaffed and I know everyone is doing several people’s worth of work, so small things are bound to slip through the cracks (I have no power over staffing). I’ve been guilty of forgetting to do small things because I’m constantly trying to stop the sky from falling in, so I’m not going to criticize someone else for the same thing.

I told the volunteer this and it all seemed fine — but then I was telling the story to someone else, and they said any spelling errors/typos are unacceptable. I just don’t think they are a big deal unless, of course, they get printed.

Basically I’m looking for a third opinion! Are typos in a draft unacceptable, or are they not worth getting stressed about?

It’s a draft! In most contexts, typos in an early draft are not a big deal, as long as you have a reliable process in place for proofing and ensuring any errors (typos or otherwise) are caught before it’s finalized.

Did you proactively make it clear to your volunteer what stage things were at when you sent the draft and what kind of feedback you were looking for at that point in the process? It can help to say, for example, “This hasn’t been proofed yet and is in rough form but I wanted to get your thoughts on the content and overall framing.” Or, conversely, “This is close to being finalized so if you see anything we missed, please flag it.”

But also, any chance your volunteer was reacting to something more than this one draft — like that they feel there’s been a problematic amount of sloppiness overall and they’re getting fed up with the big picture, more than truly thinking typos in a not-yet-proofed draft are a big deal? That might explain what’s otherwise a pretty intense reaction.

3. Did I put my foot in it about my company’s post-election plans?

I work for a large consulting firm that mostly works in the U.S. We do a lot of work for all levels of government. People are tactful about not crossing professional lines about politics at work, but our office has a pretty relaxed and friendly culture, and lots of people do express their feelings to other like-minded people in indirect ways. As someone who at different points in my life has been in both major parties and has in both cases been at times a minority in the office, I appreciate the importance of maintaining a fairly neutral environment, though I believe some things are beyond the pale.

The morning after the election, our area manager, who I have have a very friendly relationship with, sent out a thoughtful and appropriate email acknowledging that this may be a stressful moment, reminding us that there are different views in our company, reiterating our commitment to being a client-centered company working to improve humanity, and inviting us to follow up with any questions. I thought this was a perfectly good precautionary email to send out, but I did reply directly to just my area manager to ask about how to get a better sense of what our leadership’s bright lines are for maintaining our commitment to both the client (the government) and our moral obligations. I have pretty mainstream politics, and there’s nothing specific worrying me about any of my company’s current work, but my concern is just to know that senior management has some sort of plan or internal moral standards to limit what kind of things we will work in support of, should the incoming administration go in a worst case scenario direction.

The response I got from my manager was very nice and replied to my questions in a way consistent with the original email — but on reading it, it immediately became apparent that she hadn’t actually answered any of them, and in fact the responses were so indirect that I now am worried that I am talking to the hand, and that maybe I put my foot in it and caused offense. I’m unsure how to follow up, because while I didn’t have any expectation that my concerns would actually come to fruition, the response’s lack of candor by absence of substance has now made me worried that I do have cause for concern. I’m curious about your take, and before you reply, yes, I am aware that I am an overthinker with an anxiety disorder.

You asked a question she couldn’t really answer, and you got a response consistent with that. They don’t know what’s going to happen yet, and they probably don’t know how they’ll respond when it does because the climate is shifting rapidly. Moreover, to the extent that they do have plans for worst-case scenarios or bright will-not-cross lines, they’re unlikely to put those in a casual email (and she may not be the right person to supply those answers anyway).

It sounds like you emailed her hoping for some general reassurance and you got … general reassurance, which is singularly unhelpful in a situation like this. What you really want to know is specifically how they will respond to specific individual events, but they’re probably not there yet — or since you didn’t ask about those specifics, they’re not getting into them, or the answers are ones you wouldn’t much like if they did.

You asked how to reply and I don’t think you necessarily need to; you asked a general question and she gave a general answer. I also don’t think you put your foot in it; she’s undoubtedly aware lots of people are feeling similar anxiety right now.

Depending on the nature of your concerns, it might make sense to refine them more narrowly with your colleagues and ask for strategy planning on those in particular, but that’s something bigger than a casual email exchange.

4. New manager wants me to travel and I can’t

I work fully remote, and it’s quite possibly the only thing that has allowed me to keep working. I am disabled, with chronic pain, poor mobility, and all of the fatigue that comes with that. I love being able to take a 30-minute nap at lunch! My whole team is remote, but most of them are concentrated in the same state, fairly close together.

I have a new manager, who has had one quarterly meeting and is planning the next one. For the first, he had all of the semi-local folks meet in person, with the five of us outside that area on Zoom. For this next meeting, he has gotten permission to fly all of us outliers in for the six-hour meeting. I just … can’t. Traveling is super hard for me, and flying in one day, the six-hour meeting the next, and flying home the next day may damn well kill me. The time to recover from this will be insane.

I tried gently bringing up that it would be difficult for me, but he brushed me off, saying how important it was to meet face-to-face. I’m facing the whole “not a team player” thing here, but I just can’t do it. How do I frame this and stay in his good graces?

“I have a medical condition that means I can’t do this sort of travel. Should I seek a formal accommodation with HR or is simply letting you know enough? I’m of course happy to attend over Zoom again.”

Depending on your sense of your manager and this company in general, it may make more sense to start with HR — but either way, that’s the framing you want. Since you’ve been doing your job successfully this entire time without traveling, it should be hard for your manager to argue that it’s an essential function of your position. (That doesn’t mean he won’t try, but that’s part of the legal framework around disabilities: can you successfully perform the essential duties of the job with or without accommodations?)

5. Charging extra to add a spouse to health insurance, if the spouse has insurance through their own job

My husband works for an insurance company (ironically) and it’s open enrollment season here in the U.S. for health insurance. I have good insurance through my own job and have my husband and our toddler as dependents. My husband was going to add both of us to his insurance as well, so we can have some double coverage as we’re planning to have another kid and we’ve had some health troubles recently.

Because I am employed and insured on my own, his company will charge him an extra fee each paycheck to add me to his insurance. It is not a small fee. It would significantly impact our monthly finances. If I was unemployed and/or uninsured, it wouldn’t cost him extra. Even with insurance, healthcare is freaking expensive in this country and double coverage can be life saving, and has been for us in the past. It feels like his company is essentially penalizing those employees who have families. Is this really allowed?

It’s legal, and it’s common. It’s called a “working spouse premium,” and it’s because employers don’t want spouses running up their costs if the person could instead get insurance through their own job, and they don’t want to make adding a spouse an attractive option if that person has other coverage available. (In fact, some employers won’t let you add spouses at all if the spouse has the option of being insured through their own job.)

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Hi all. We’ve had a recent increase in trolling here, and you can help me by NOT RESPONDING to it. Instead, please flag the comment for me (to do that, reply with a link, which will send your comment to moderation so I’ll see it) and I’ll take care of it. Thank you.

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  2. Nodramalama*

    Interesting answer for 2! Maybe it’s because the documents I am reviewing are fundamentally different in nature i.e briefs, legal advice to the example so I’m looking for different things when ‘proofing’, but I do not love being sent something with a lot of typos it in. A couple that have been overlooked? Sure. But I still expect the person who sends me a draft to have reviewed it first.

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    1. Katie Impact*

      I do think the kind of document matters, but a sign is actually one of the things where I’d expect extra caution to get it typo-free by the time it reaches the stage where a graphic designer is looking at it. Correcting typos on a sign often means the size and placement of the text will also have to be adjusted to keep it looking balanced, which means sending it back to the designer to do all that.

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      1. Martin Blackwood*

        Kinda seems like such a small operation that the graphic designer could be writing their own copy/copy pasting from an internal email that no one else is supposed to see and therefore has typos. A volunteer proofreading is probably a good idea! It does sound like it could be more than that, which i dont love. Indesign has spellcheck. Depending on how many typos, i might bring up spellcheck/rereading copy specifically. If its a couple easy to miss ones, eg. its vs it’s and everything gets multiple pairs of eyes I wouldnt bother

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        1. DaveDave*

          Graphic artists should never be responsible for spelling, any more than coders should be in charge of writing content for web pages.

          These are different skills, different process. In either, you are looking for different problems to solve and resolve, both require unique skill sets and head spaces. Plus, it’s easier for fresh eyes to see mistakes.

          When you set up a system to avoid mistakes, you want to build failsafes to prevent errors going forward, not spend energy not making mistakes.

          As someone who works on hundreds of public facing projects a year, the most important aspect of any asset we develop, is sharing ideas quickly, not perfectly. One reason for this is the more time a person or team spends on a draft or idea, the more attached they become: important considerations like does it work, will it connect, get lost.

          Also- Words are almost always the last piece of the puzzle.

          I think the volunteer either lacks relevant experience or is telling you how they manage projects and people. And just a side note – editing is not exclusively about finding errors, it’s about contributing and helping produce the best work possible with time, budget and talent. My experience with asking someone unfamiliar with the editing process to proofread is that it always takes sooooo much more time and aggravation it is never worth it. Never.

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          1. Miette*

            Came here to say exactly this–graphic designers should never be expected to proofread. If it’s not correct when you send it to them, then it’s on you to pay for whatever the required changes will cost (except when a certain number of edit rounds is included).

            I’ve been in marketing communications my entire career, and have managed that function for most of that time as well, and if something goes out with errors on it, then the buck for that stops with me. It’s also my responsibility to make sure that the person proofing something knows the parameters I expect them to apply to it. I will almost never ask such a person for feedback on the layout/design, so for your volunteer to have provided that without asking (not to mention going off on the design?) was a waste of their time at best and an overstep at worst.

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            1. Carit*

              This! It very much makes me think of Murder Must Advertise – responsibility for text was definitely with the copywriters. And this sure sounds like the weekly Nutrax…

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            2. wittyrepartee*

              I was thinking about how many graphic designers are probably dyslexic, since dyslexia and highly visual and spatial thinking are wrapped up in the same kind of neurodiversity.

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          2. ArtsNerd*

            And yet in multiple jobs at small orgs I’ve done all four of these — design, coding, copy, and proofing — on the same campaign/materials. Which is exactly why things went out with typos and errors occasionally. Even glaring ones, despite a layer of review from my coworkers and executive director.

            If the designer is the one putting together the text, which is not clarified in the letter but I think is likely, then it’s going to have a higher rate of errors because the designer is using a different part of their brain when looking it over than the volunteer is. It happens! This is why you get fresh eyes on it.

            On the other hand, if the designer is regularly introducing new typos into edited copy someone else has provided, then it’s worth bringing up and asking them to copy/paste the text into their design instead of retyping it. I’ve also done this (introducing new typos) because it was faster to retype certain things than digging up the email, pasting into a plain text editor to remove weird Microsoft artifacts, etc. It happened enough times once I started burning out that I realized taking the extra time was just a necessary part of the process even if it felt tedious.

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        2. Kit Kendrick*

          It depends on how the reviewer passes on the notes about the spelling errors. I would flag typos at any stage of review — why leave the error in place to be someone else’s problem? On the other hand, if the reviewer went off that the design team was utterly incompetent because a few typos made their way into a draft, that’s an overreaction. It’s a little hard to tell from the letter where on the scale the comments about sloppiness fell.

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      2. Delta Delta*

        This was also my thought. If the misspelling is one that requires adding or taking out letters, it might throw off the overall look of the sign, depending on the design.

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      3. Quinalla*

        I agree that I was somewhat surprised. A sign is actually something where typos matter a lot more as others have said because it does affect the layout/look. They still happen, that’s why you review, so I guess it depends how early draft this was.

        It does sound like the volunteer was reacting pretty strongly so I too wonder if they let some more general frustration bubble over. Also, since almost everyone is a volunteer here, I would give a LOT more slack.

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        1. Annie*

          Right. I don’t think pointing out the typos is a bad thing, but the volunteer being that frustrated over the typos is reacting too strongly.
          Just point out the typos (or correct them/redline them) and move on.

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      4. workingdayandnight*

        I work in advertising and it’s important to ensure there’s no typo on the first draft – because there’s a chance it could end up on the final draft. It has happened even after passing through the proofreading department and it has been costly. In those cases, the agency then pays for a second run without the typo.

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        1. Lacey*

          No one can make sure they don’t have typos in the first draft every time. They’re people.
          Typos WILL happen. That’s why we have proofers.

          Now, if you mean it’s important to get it proofed and make sure there are no typos before you hand it off to the designer? Yes. Absolutely. But that’s not the first draft.

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          1. workingdayandnight*

            I agree with what you’re saying. Maybe I read it wrong. I sensed that when it was shown to the first person, the letter writer was already aware that the typo was there. In my experience, if you know there’s a typo it’s best to get it fixed before it makes the rounds.

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    2. Coverage Associate*

      Except it was 2 spelling errors in a sign. Even the name partner I worked for who wanted “perfect” work product could probably accept 2 typos in a merits brief.

      But lots of signs have only one word or none at all, compared to the thousands of words in lawyers’ work product. I guess if this was like a banner or a menu? I’m trying to think of a sign with enough words that misspelling 2 wouldn’t be relevant to the graphic design. If it’s only a couple of words, a misspelling could change the word spacing or other factors relevant to the design.

      I am reminded of the times I have had to edit briefs after the tables have been run, and reassuring the admin I wouldn’t change any of the page numbering with my edits. If I am fixing spelling in a brief, that is unlikely to change the formatting, but if I am changing parties or headings…

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      1. Nodramalama*

        I guess I think, as you pointed out, that a typo on a sign should be easier to spot than a typo in a ten page document. And if it gets missed by the next person, when you have a sign that says LANCH PARTY

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          1. Another Kristin*

            I used to be in a band and once put up a few hundred posters for a show with the band’s name spelled wrong…the better you know something, the harder it is to see mistakes!

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        2. Serious Silly Putty*

          I once drafted something about the Large Hadron Collider. Thankfully my boss had been around long enough to have eagle eyes toward an unfortunate typo, the Large Hardon Collider.

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          2. Elitist Semicolon*

            I used to teach in a field in which “pubic” instead of “public” was a common error in student work. Pubic science and public science are two very different things.

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        3. Observer*

          when you have a sign that says LANCH PARTY

          LOL! I love it that you have a typo in this line! Which does actually highlight the issue that the context *matters*. Your typo really is not a big deal, and I would not have normally mentioned it. In fact, I might not have even noticed. (I’m talking about “when” instead of “then”, not LANCH, which I know was deliberate.)

          But also, I’m not sure it that’s better or worse that LUNCH PARTY instead of LAUNCH. Because LANCH *looks* worse, but most people understand what it means. LUNCH *looks* better, but could be confusing.

          And neither of these is that deeply embarrassing. What happens when you miss the “l” in Public, the “O” in Count, the “R” in shirt, etc. Of you accidentally switch in an “F” instead of the “B” in Buck, add an “N” to cut, etc.

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      2. BW*

        My parents used to run a small Mom & Pop department store. Really old style. Their ads in the local newspaper were cram packed with different items for sale, all with different fonts. Really awful design. I was sure nobody actually read them.

        Then one day the ad agency made a typo. Instead of a sale on “Knit Shirts”, they left the R out of “Shirts.”

        They had so many people coming in wanting to see the “Knit Sh*ts” that my parents said it was the best ad they ever ran.

        The ad agency measured the word “Sh*t” and only gave them a refund for the space of that one word, instead of a refund for the entire ad. Mom was pissed at that.

        My Dad handed me the ad and asked what was wrong with it. I did not see the offending word because my brain was sure it said “shirt.” People really were reading the ads.

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        1. VermiciousKnid*

          This is fantastic. I work for a giant company and I am the only editor on the marketing team. The general level of proofreading skills is abysmal. I once caught a typo in a leadership slide deck that misspelled “assess” as “asses.” I sometimes wish I had left it lol

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          1. Desk Dragon*

            My company does a lot of work in the public health space, and I couldn’t even begin to count how many times I’ve put that missing “l” back in. At one point we recruited a new director away from a competitor who was both surprised and grateful for my team (whose duties include copyediting, among other admin tasks), because Competitor apparently didn’t bother.

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            1. Teapot Librarian*

              This is why the first thing I do when I get a new computer is to add an autocorrect to my Office dictionary to make sure that “L” is never missed.

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              1. Falling Diphthong*

                I’ve heard of law offices removing “pubic” from the Office dictionary so it will get highlighted every time.

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                1. Desk Dragon*

                  The problem with our doing so is that, depending on the health condition we’re looking at, we might actually be using that word! See also my nightmare scenario, where patients are filling out a daily diary to track their dairy intake…

                3. mymotherwasahamster*

                  Ha. Mine is less entertaining, but I’ve set up my dictionary to automatically change „trail“ to „trial“.

                4. Cmdrshprd*

                  @desk dragon I can understand that, but I think the idea is that be removing it from the dictionary every time someone uses/spells “pubic” it will get flagged/marked with the red squiggly and as you to personally confirm it is being used correctly.

                  I think especially when using the word in something you might get people mixing up pubic and public. So 8 of them should be pubic, 1 or 2 of them should be public, but if people get used to pubic they might miss it.

          2. WillowSunstar*

            Don’t forget assortment. I work for a place were I have seen only the first 3 letters used as the abbreviation. Of course, I fixed it whenever I could.

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            1. amoeba*

              I’ve seen that for “associate”. Even better: “ass man” for associate manager. (No, we’re not native speakers, why do you ask?)

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        2. Nah*

          Very first ad from the local (expensive, chain) grocery store after moving here had a giant front page advertisement for “Live Cooked Lobsters” (what?!). I think I’ll pass on the zombie food, myself!

          (I think they had only ever had live lobsters rather than pre-cooked and just added the word instead of changing it? It was fixed the next go-around so I apparently wasn’t the only one questioning the wording, ha.)

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              3. fhqwhgads*

                “Killed by cooking, rather than in advance of cooking” lobsters
                The humane way is knife through the head, then boil.
                The inhumane and unfortunately common way is drop ’em in boiling water still alive.

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              4. N C Kiddle*

                Live-cooked to mean they were alive until the moment of cooking doesn’t seem too big a stretch. So the hyphen would make it OK.

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            2. Nah*

              I mean, ideally you cut through the brain first to be more humane but yes, many lobsters are boiled alive. Lydia is correct in the issue is then that they aren’t alive *after* cooking…. or at least you certainly hope not!

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          2. Coverage Associate*

            I was just reading an announcement from local law enforcement about friends “unsuccessfully located” a missing hiker, meaning that they didn’t find the hiker, but I am used to law enforcement writing being bad. (Cal Fire has a form, or what looks like a form, but it lets them enter “113 residents destroyed in fire, 0 fatalities,” instead of just filling in a numeral before “residences.”)

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        3. allx*

          I have two favorite ad-typo stories: (1) in a grocery store ad decades ago, someone doing the layout flipped the “b” in an advertisement for crab sticks so it said “crap sticks” and (2) about the early 2000s, my elderly mom called in shock to tell me a walmart-type store was advertising “Call-Girl Barbie” and I insisted that there could be no such thing, and if for some freak reason there was a Call-Girl Barbie, it would not be advertised in the bible belt. So I went over to look at the weekly circulars, and sure enough, the colored newsprint circular seemed actually to say “Call-Girl Barbie.” The Barbie shown was in a crop top and short shorts, making me think hmmm, okay, really? It was only on closer inspection that I realized that it actually said “Cali-Girl Barbie” but the red ink of the “i” had bled into a solid looking “l” letter.

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          1. Phony Genius*

            Sad thing is that in the Bible Belt, many people may not be willing to believe it was just the ink bleeding. Much like many people don’t believe it was an accident that the wrong website was printed on the boxes for the Wicked movie edition Barbie dolls that just came out.

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          2. wendelenn*

            Just this week, a typo in the box for the Wicked movie-themed Barbie dolls has sent buyers to an inappropriate website.

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              1. Phony Genius*

                Mattel has put out a statement that they don’t use AI for packaging design and that this was pure human error. However, I would not dismiss the possibility that an employee used AI on their own to help them complete their assignment on time. (Which does not explain why nobody else checked the website at any step during the process.)

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                1. Hroethvitnir*

                  Ha. This is wild, because two days ago Adobe published this article: “Barbie packaging powered by Adobe Firefly Generative AI hits store shelves this holiday season”

                  In July multiple outlets including Fast Company printed this article “How Mattel is using AI to bring your next Barbie box to life 27 Jun 2024 — Generative AI is helping the toy company’s designers brainstorm and fine-tune packaging.”

                  More recently, Fast Company published this:

                  ‘In an email to Fast Company, Mattel’s Barbie & Dolls director of global brand communications wrote, “I can confirm AI was not used on packaging for Mattel Wicked collection dolls.”’

                  Sure, they said “brainstorm” and “fine tune”, and it’s completely plausible it may not have been used for this specific package, but there’s also an awful lot of incentive to lie.

        4. Lacey*

          Wow! I used to work at a place that did these types of ads and we would have refunded the whole thing. Can’t blame your mom for being angry!

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        5. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

          When I was a youngster, a local (suburban) newspaper made a mistake – and my father told me – three times = READ THE AD FULLY.

          It said “Luxury Quality Dress S**ts”… I didn’t pick up on it right away.

          I was, maybe, ten or eleven. It was a teaching moment – review ANYTHING before you submit it.

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      3. Edwina*

        I edit documents all the time for my job, and now I will thank my lucky stars that I don’t ever need to worry about maintaining the proper text on the proper page numbers. @Coverage Associate, that is impressive!

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      4. Sarah in Boston*

        Just to share an example of both volunteer work and an example of typos not affecting the design – I do all the graphic design for my chorus (not a graphic design IRL). Among the many versions I make is a flyer and a sandwich board layout that have lots of concert info: dates, locations, blurb. There’s always a least one typo and it rarely impacts my layout.

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        1. Coverage Associate*

          Yes, I guess an event sign would have lots of information with organization, date, time, location, presenter, etc. I see those online (where I hate them because I want to be able to copy all those details into my calendar), but less so in hard copy.

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      1. Falling Diphthong*

        My reply downthread also has a typo!

        This is a good illustration of different norms for different contexts: typos are normal in blog comments. You usually can infer the meaning–adding a string of replies with the correct spellings is an urge I understand, but not actually helpful to smooth reading in most cases.

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    4. FavoRITA*

      I’ve worked in marketing/communications for a while, and typically, graphic designers focus on making things look good, while a copy editor makes sure the content is typo-free. These two roles have their areas of expertise and focus on those. I think it’s not a big deal that the designer sent a draft with typos or other written content errors (especially if they had to come up with the written part themselves), as long as the design was well done. The fact that it will go through a review before print eliminates the issue.

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      1. Nodramalama*

        I’m kind of surprised the text doesn’t get cleared before the graphic design is done though? This is obviously not my area of expertise but it seems like typos or formatting errors or whatever could then change the graphic design

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        1. ApollosTorso*

          Anything could change the design (graphic designer here) and often people change things at all stages. I’d be expecting at least three rounds of changes for most designs. And yep, lots of times everything gets reworked and everyone needs to review again every single time

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        2. M*

          It depends what you’re doing. Sometimes, you know exactly what the sign needs to say before it’s designed, sometimes, you know what space you have available and what set of messages you’d like to convey in that space, but won’t necessarily know how many of them you can fit in or in what form until you have a bit of a back-and-forth with an actual designer.

          For example, my company recently needed a design for a backwall graphic at a conference. We knew what the dimensions of the wall were, what objects we’d be placing in front of it (and roughly where), and had a list of information it would be good to fit into that space. We took that to our designer with some rough text to sketch it out, then removed a few things that didn’t fit well and finalised the text with those omissions in mind. Spending a lot of time proofreading something we knew would probably change, and possibly substantially, wasn’t a good use of time, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the original text had a bunch of typos in it – the important bit was that it was roughly the right *length*, so we could see if it fit readably in the space we had in mind.

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        3. Allonge*

          Ideally, yes, it does, but this is the case about 1% of the time – very much the exception rather than the rule.

          Precisely never have I worked with a graphic designer who did not expect that stuff will still be changing.

          Reply ↓
          1. skadhu*

            Expect, yeah. Also hate.

            Text should be final BEFORE it gets to the designer. The exception would be text that is short and will be copyfitted to specific dimensions, because obviously writers can’t predict how words will fit.

            One of my pet peeves after decades of design experience is that people often expect designers to edit for errors. Designers aren’t editors. In fact, except in cases requiring copyfitting as described above, I rarely actually read the text provided.

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            1. Carol the happy*

              When we used to send drafts with pictures and words, they went to different floors. The graphics people got drawings and spaces with ridiculous words just to test the fonts and hold the space. The proofreaders got words in the right size and font, but just circles and rectangles where the pictures would be.

              When they put them together on an X-ray light box on the wall, the representative items were traced and cut out, so together it was right.

              This was back when Noah was on the ark, and “cut and paste” meant Xacto knife and library glue….

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            2. iglwif*

              I have worked as both a professional editor and proofreader and as an amateur / volunteer graphic designer. In the latter case I have tried very hard to introduce workflows to keep text changes upstream … and have invariably been foiled by other volunteers who don’t know and don’t care about the process.

              You know and I know why it’s better to have the text finalized before the designer gets it. The client is never going to care.

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            3. ApollosTorso*

              Yeah, I also rarely read the text. Copy and paste. Our drafts are drafts like anyone else’s, so sure edit away.

              I always tell people to give me final copy and I’d rather wait than “save time” trying to do both editing and design at once. It does not save me time, since I either have to slowly edit the copy with their edits or paste in and re-format everything.

              That said, I will suggest copy edits for design reasons (ie. “could I use this text for an intro paragraph” or “this tense of the word fits better as a headline”) and do basic InDesign.

              Everyone proofreads better in the design. I’m only a great proofreader once the thing is done, printed, and it’s too late…

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        4. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          The text can be cleared, and the graphic designer can then introduce a mistake while copying the text rather than copying and pasting it. I have seen this happen time and again. I get the blame, as the translator, for all text translated into English, but I’ve sent in a pristine text and the graphic designer who *thinks* he can speak English then makes a mistake copying it. Or it auto-corrects into the French spelling of the word because his software is set up for French text. So now I always insist on them sending it back to me for my approval before sending it on to anyone else. We lost a huge client once at the agency because of the graphics guy not bothering to have me check his work.

          Reply ↓
          1. Not That Kind of Doctor*

            As one of the pre- and post-design folks, I also wondered about those responses! We proof and fact check text before it goes to Design and then have two separate proofing steps just to catch the new errors that they inevitably introduce.

            Reply ↓
          2. skadhu*

            Designer here.

            My guess is that the text you send was created in a program (looking at you, Word) that embeds formatting. You can’t just copy/paste that into a layout program, because when you do it messes everything up horribly, and can do so even if you tell the program to swap formatting from that assigned by Word to that assigned by the layout program.

            This is true at the best of times, but especially likely to cause problems if you are working with more than one language, because on top of the base problem there’s the issue of fonts—for many languages a designer will have to install a custom keyboard, and not all fonts have the same capabilities with regard to language, and, and…

            Word may make everything easy for a writer, but move text created in it out of that ecosystem and it’s a gong show. There ends up being a lot of backend work that designers need to do to get usable text. There are ways of dealing with these problems at the designer’s end, but they aren’t foolproof, and that’s why layouts should always go back for proofing. But essentially the fault is not the designer’s so much as it is the incompatibility of the software, and there is no way around that.

            Reply ↓
          3. ApollosTorso*

            Yeah, I do tell people that any time we touch a file, there’s a chance for a keystroke to add something. So people need to proofread it again. If they say “make the changes and just send it”, I still send it to them for approval too. Good that you won’t rely on the graphics guy work around that

            Reply ↓
          4. Lacey*

            At my job it’s English to Spanish, but we always have a Spanish speaker proof read it after, because none of us speak Spanish well enough to know if we’ve got it all correct.

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        5. L*

          At my organization, proofreading happens after the design stage, because the proofreaders aren’t just looking at spelling and grammar, they’re also looking out for formatting and layout issues, words breaking weirdly across lines, problems with any if the graphics, etc. They typically go back and forth with the designer a few times to make sure everything is found. We do have a copy-editing stage before design, but that’s mostly for content, phrasing and fact-checking.

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      2. ApollosTorso*

        Agreed, I’m a graphic designer 20 years into my career.

        Any company that I’ve work for that focused on having a system proofreaders and copy editors has prevented far more mistakes.

        Comparing to places that hope for meticulous proofreading from the original folks.

        I’m now in a nonprofit similar to the LW.

        Even for a sign, sometimes you’re doing 20 signs. So it’s not a matter of words on the sign necessarily.

        A lot of places I’ve worked discouraged me from trying to read it. Since anyone can do that and they want me to focus on the brand etc

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        1. D*

          As someone who was just a copy editor for years only for my workplace to be bought out by a company who insists the original agency do all the editing….sigh.

          Reply ↓
      3. Allonge*

        1. – this

        2. – for OP, especially – some people are constitutionally incapable of walking past a typo. To the level that even if they are specifically asked about content, formatting, concept, anything, they will still point out the typo simply because it bugs them so much that it just about stops them from interacting with the product on any other level. So it’s not just a question of it being a big issue, it’s a question of the personality of the reviewer.

        I learnt to take this as one of the fundamental rules of life, like gravity. Don’t fight it, it is what it is.

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        1. bamcheeks*

          I agree with this too, and I’ll add that whilst being good at spotting typos certainly CAN co-exist with being a good proof-reader and editor, sometimes it’s a sign that someone is a poor editor. For me, spotting typos, spelling mistakes, doubled words etc comes easily and I used to think that’s all I had to do: part of becoming a much better editor was learning to either ignore them or correct them quickly and spend the bulk of my time on flow, sense, logical arrangement of information, clarity, brevity, etc.

          I am not clear whether you got useful feedback from this volunteer in addition to the complaints about typos, but I would see this as a sign they’re not the best person for this job!

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          1. Allonge*

            Very good point.

            Obviously it’s super important to catch typos at some stage, so this is not dismissing the importance of that aspect, but indeed it’s also essential to be able to look beyond.

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          2. lanfy*

            Very much that.

            As a software technical writer, the number of times I’ve sent a draft to a developer for review, and they’ve come back to me with a few typos and (what they think are) grammar issues – and completely missed glaring technical inaccuracies.

            People point out typos because they’re easy and don’t require any thinking. That’s a problem in a reviewer.

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            1. confused*

              Always! I often ask for review on very early drafts just go get comments on level of technical detail, how content is organised etc before I spend too much time messing with the presentation that will have to be redone. It doesn’t matter how precisely I define the feedback I’m after, and what to ignore, I will inevitably get comments asbout typos, things not being centred on the page, etc.

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              1. Elle*

                I do the same. TW in genomics, which can include SW, instruments, or lab procedures. I have to be extremely specific and request technical feedback only. Otherwise I get creative rewrites and opinions on formatting. Surely, random software dev, you don’t think I, the writer, am having you read install instructions so you can work on the verbiage??

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            2. ECHM*

              I once worked as an editor/proofreader that often got hung up on typos, whereas my colleague was much more big picture. I often said if we had the sentence “the earth is falt” I would point out that flat was spelled wrong and she would point out that the earth was not flat. She and I made a great team.

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            3. JustaTech*

              I used to have a coworker who loved finding all the typos and minor grammar errors. She was also an excellent data auditor.
              If I sent her a document to review it would come back basically solid changes, mostly about commas, but *also* with some substantive comments about the content. (Like, so many comments that if it had been on paper the paper would have dissolved under the red ink.)

              Eventually I started prefacing all my review requests with “can you please just check this for content?” – which she was happy to do.

              Oh, but the smile on her face the day I sent her a 40 page report and said, “hey, I need you to go Full [Coworker] on this”!

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        2. sb51*

          Yeah, as someone who can get hung up on typos, I’d rather have lorem ipsum than typo-ridden text, at least now that my schoolday Latin classes are far enough in the past that lorem ipsum doesn’t also have “typos”.

          Reply ↓
        3. Freya*

          My family has an unofficial game at restaurants – who can find the typo in the menu first? Because there’s always at least one, and once it’s pointed out, we can get past it, but until it’s been shared, it bugs us!

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      4. rebelwithmouseyhair*

        yes, as a translator, in France, I send copy to graphic designers. I always work on the assumption that they don’t speak a word of English and ask them to send the design back to me to double check. When it’s only a couple of words, they often prefer to type it out instead of copy/paste, and that’s when error are introduced. And the blocks of few words are invariably titles or other stuff that’s printed bigger than usual, so they stand out that much more.

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    5. Ellis Bell*

      I think it depends 1) how many checks it’s going to get 2) how much errors are going to change the finished product, or affect spacing or design and 3) are the type of errors within the draftees’ specialism. When I was writing copy for a local newspaper, even one misspelling would have been a big deal, because of 3. Not “you’re fired”, but “Take more care with your spellings” and that’s in spite of it receiving two proof readings after it left the reporter.

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    6. Sloanicota*

      That was my exact thought. This must vary by individual. If someone sent me even a rough draft with typos, I would fix them immediately, because who knows, maybe they’ll get missed later (particularly if it’s a homophone/its/their type thing that spell check may not catch) so why would I leave an error that I notice, even in a draft? Maybe you can rephrase this – if you’re a math person, it wouldn’t ever seem okay to leave deliberately wrong additions in a “draft” right? You wouldn’t be like, “Okay this draft says that supplies will cost $100 and labor will cost $50 so the total is $110.”

      Reply ↓
      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Once say a chapter get quite far in production with a misspelling in the chapter title, because there was some complicated art on the page that kept getting adjusted, and that had sucked up all the review focus.

        Reply ↓
        1. Elle*

          This is always how it happens in technical documents, too. There will be a lot of discussion about including or excluding some random piece of info and a major error in a header or something on the next page will get noticed right as we’re finalizing. Gahh.

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      2. Allonge*

        Sure, but correcting typos and getting upset (to other people) about them are two different things. OP did not just get a document back with some comments and the typos pointed out, they got a call from someone calling this a sloppy product. That’s the issue.

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      3. fhqwhgads*

        I think “point out the typos in the review” = totally reasonable thing to do. Not in question.
        Be actively very upset at having found typos = overreaction.
        So if the volunteer had done the former, fine, OP probably wouldn’t have written in. But since the volunteer did the latter, and it seemed so out of proportion to what OP expected, led to the question of “who is the off-base person”.

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    7. Falling Diphthong*

      Publishing, and I would say the norm here is also to find typos off-putting, especially if it’s a recurring problem. Because you’re supposed to be looking at other things on the page (does the chapter title design allow enough space for the longer chapter titles? is the crux of the thing spelled out clearly, with the supporting examples easy to follow?), and getting hung up on the typos can waft fog over those.

      Also, it matters if the error is “Thurday” for “Thursday” vs “Tuesday” for “Thursday.”

      Publishing uses holding text (“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amor…”) for a reason.

      Reply ↓
        1. metadata minion*

          I use a template for certain types of cataloging records and I deliberately picked the most ridiculous (but not offensive or anything!) placeholder info I could think of, so that a) it’s easier for me to notice if I’ve left any template bits in and b) so that I can periodically search the catalog for things published by Hiro Protagonist to catch accidentally-published templates ;-)

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          1. obleighvious*

            Ahaha we have a placeholder template record, too, for ordering and the number of times I’ve found an 020 with the word “ISBN” as content….

            Does make it really easy to find and fix, though!

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        2. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          Thankfully this wasn’t something I did, but I once went to a fundraising conference where a funder was asked to describe the biggest mistake they’d seen from an applicant, and recalled opening a grant application where the answer for one question was BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT. Presumably this was both a placeholder and an expression of the writer’s opinion of the question, but let’s just say it didn’t lead to a funding award.

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        3. ApollosTorso*

          When I worked in newspapers in the late 00’s, we always used Xx’s for placeholder headlines. They said that they used to all write joke headlines instead. But then one of them got through. Xx’s don’t look like text at all. The copy editor would just write something to fit or come back to me if the space didn’t work

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    8. Katie*

      In my previous job, I reviewed an important file that was sent out monthly summarizing all transactions. It was a financial document but did require explanations throughout (very very standard stuff). I was the last person to review this thing and often found spelling errors. It drove me nuts! I was not their manager and the team argued spelling errors were not a big deal which in the scheme of the financial document weren’t but spell scheck should have caught it, reviewer 1 should have caught it, reviewer 2 should have caught it and it’s a published document going to our clients (who would have certainly seen it and complained).

      That stupid document was the worst and was so problematic but the arguments about spelling drove me so batty that it’s a sore spot with me.

      That being said the first time it happened, I didn’t blink.

      Reply ↓
      1. JustaTech*

        On the “spellcheck should have caught it”: I have discovered a truly obnoxious option in Word (that of course primarily impacts a document template) where you can turn off spell check and grammar check for a document.
        And it’s not obvious at all! It’s buried deep in the File – Options -Proofing -scroll all the way down to “exceptions”.

        The only reasons I ever realized it was it was a problem are 1) we use some brand names and technical terms that always get red squiggles and 2) I can’t spell (or type) for anything, so if I look at a document I’m writing and there are no errors, then there is something wrong with the error check. (Let’s not talk about how many errors I’ve made in this comment.)

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    9. WheresMyPen*

      I work in publishing and it depends really. We have a lot of different eyes on our products for various reasons. Early on in the process it’s normal to still have typos, but I would say to the person looking “this is at 1st proofs so there may still be some errors/changes made to copy”. At some point a proofreader will look at it and make comments, then after that if anyone spotted anything I’d like them to flag it. In this scenario with it just coming from the designer and it being an overstretched, volunteer-staffed organisation I wouldn’t be too outraged by errors in drafts but would want at least one proofread stage built into the process before things go to production, and make that clear to contributors.

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    10. Blue Pen*

      Well yeah, but I also think context matters a lot here. Of course no one wants typos or other errors, but I think there’s a big difference between receiving the close-to-final product of documentation that has been carefully planned and worked on for months by paid professionals in a non-stressful setting vs. overworked volunteers at a crazed nonprofit just trying to do their best. Either way, a draft is a draft, and the whole point of one is to see something presented at a moment in time while you can still make corrections or alterations.

      I work in communications, more specifically as a writer, and I can tell you that words look very differently in a designed product than they do in a Word document. They’re not even “errors” so much as weird line breaks or spacing issues or a word isn’t quite fitting on the page the way you want it to so another is needed—or something happens in the world where, all of a sudden, that word or image carries different tones now than it did even a week ago, or a million other variables. Again, that’s the whole point of a draft.

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    11. Ally McBeal*

      But the document was sent to a volunteer, who is lowest on the org chart and therefore a pretty good candidate for a first pass at proofreading. If LW2 had sent this to their manager instead of a volunteer, yeah, bad idea, but the org relies heavily on volunteers, probably for this exact sort of thing. I imagine the volunteer was just having an off day.

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      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        It depends a lot on the org. Volunteers can fulfill a lot of staff roles, like copyediting, especially in a place that relies on them heavily. I agree the reaction was outsized, but I would also expect a better first draft – even as a volunteer, especially if I saw how overwhelmed the people above me were and how unlikely it might feel that details might be missed.

        At small nonprofits I’ve dropped graphic designers over things like not providing drafts we could count on being basically proofread, specifically because we didn’t have the capacity to do several rounds of edits. If this has happened more than once the frustration could be warranted.

        Reply ↓
        1. skadhu*

          Uh… so you didn’t have people at any level available to proofread but you had money to pay designers to do the proofreading work though they might or might not be trained to do so ? I think you’d do better to hire a copy editor. (Designers are not prooreaders, and I can guarantee that any designer you hire will charge for those services, because they take time—not doing so would erode their business profitablity.)

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    12. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I’ve reviewed both the kinds of documents you’re describing, and graphic design proofs in my marketing days, and with a graphic I would consider a couple of typos to be a big deal. There are simply fewer words to get right, and each word matters more. I think especially in the context where people are slammed and things are more likely to be falling through the cracks, seeing that kind of error would drive me a little batty. How do I know it would have been caught if everyone is overextended? OP admits to things falling through the cracks.

      I dunno, I personally disagree with the advice on this one.

      Reply ↓
      1. ApollosTorso*

        Well, the question is if it’s a draft or a proof. Design drafts are drafts like everyone else’s. Designers can and expect to edit them. A proof is something that is about to be printed.

        Reply ↓
    13. LaminarFlow*

      Same! I have one very senior and well respected person who consistently uses the wrong homonym. She also makes plural nouns possessive. It is very distracting for me to read her docs.

      However, back to this LW. The person who is providing services is a volunteer. They aren’t being paid. There’s no big promotion waiting for them. So, LW can simply thank them for their contribution, or find someone else who is skilled & willing to provide these services for free.

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    14. MCMonkeybean*

      What confuses me about letter 2 is that it sounds like this essentially *was* the review, and exactly when typos should be caught. So I kind of think both parties sound a bit off base. Depending on what OP means by they “went off” it sounds like the volunteer overteacted a bit to finding typos, but I’m confused about why OP instead of being like “ok guess we should go fix the typos now,” went into defense mode, telling them that typos are fine and then going so far as to even write this letter? I really don’t get what the end game is here I guess.

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      1. Nah*

        My assumption is, instead of a note with the corrections pointing out the spelling mistakes, LW received a call ranting about spelling mistakes existing at all? Which of it happened to me does feel like a significant difference, maybe not enough to write to an advice column, but to question either myself or the volunteer’s baseline assumptions on QC.

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        1. Allonge*

          It’s a kindness to correct typos (although it may not be necessary / actually helpful at this stage to do that, but let’s ignore that for a sec). Sharing back a draft with ‘I like the concept, please see attached a version where I include some proposed language corrections’ is at least intended to be useful. Making a call about how bad typos are and how the product is sloppy is not in any way helpful. That is the difference.

          Plus, OP asked someone else and they agreed that typos are a Big Deal, so OP wanted to check with a neutral party.

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    15. NotAnotherManager!*

      I worked in the legal space for so long that I have a kneejerk negative reaction to the idea that typos are OK; however, reading the letter, it’s a different situation where it really doesn’t seem like that big a deal in their context.

      I also always send my presentations, emails going to groups of key stakeholders, and other important things to our department admin, who has some of the best attention to detail I’ve ever encountered. She has saved me, more than once, from sending out something that was not only wrong but hilariously wrong. Typos can be hard to catch – your brain sometimes autocorrects things for you.

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    16. Binky*

      Ugh, I find this attitude so frustrating. If I’m circulating an early brief to make sure we’re all happy with the basic arguments and organization, I do not want to feel the need to perfect the draft before it gets sent out. Why spend the time nitpicking (because a quick read through isn’t going to catch everything) if that entire section is getting cut or rewritten? Especially when you’re under a time crunch. There are some people it’s impossible to get early feedback from, because they can’t handle a “rough” draft being imperfect.

      Reply ↓
      1. Nodramalama*

        Ok. And I don’t want to feel like my job is a spell checker when i’m meant to be considering whether the position is legally sound and if I can follow the argument. But since my review is essentially a check box that the document is good to send out and I may not see another version, I can’t just ignore typos and hope the original writer will magically catch them. So I have to point it out.

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    17. The Rafters*

      Years ago, I had to quickly review a document checking for typos and a bit of grammar. It came from a different agency, not even my agency. I didn’t expect to have to verify 1/2 of it. The document included help-line telephone numbers, etc. Every hotline # was incorrect, never mind the horrific spelling. It wouldn’t have bothered me if I found a few typos, but the garbage that agency sent gave the impression that their staff were downright lazy.

      Reply ↓
  3. Archi-detect*

    the working spouse thing is wild to me but then again I only worked two full time jobs, obe that misclassified me as a contractor and one that just has you sign up for insurance with what the costs will be for single, single+ (which I have for my wife and I) and family. last time I looked I am paying $7 a check less for not having kids which is wild to me lol

    Reply ↓
    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      $7 a check less is a much smaller difference than a lot of people would see! It sounds like your company might have a decent deal for families.

      Reply ↓
    2. Polaris*

      I’ve seen this since approximately 2012. To add me, my spouse either needed to pay an extra $200 a month (on top of the family premium increase) or have a letter from my HR stating that health insurance was not available to employees. I happened to work for a very small company and my boss was more than happy to provide that letter as I was the only person he was furnishing insurance to.

      At my current job, I either have to certify that my spouse does not have insurance available, or I pay an additional $75 penalty per month for them to be added.

      Our friends though? She works for a “Catholic Hospital Org” and cannot, even for a penalty, add her husband to her insurance, because “he should be working and able to procure his own insurance”. I suspect foolery, as her job title has specific insurance limits that Drs, RN/BSN/etc, and Senior Admin do not have, and her job title seems to be only held by women within that org. I would be curious how THAT would go if brought up to a lawyer.

      Reply ↓
      1. Paint N Drip*

        She works for a “Catholic Hospital Org” and cannot, even for a penalty, add her husband to her insurance, because “he should be working and able to procure his own insurance”.
        THATS SO CRAZY
        the patriarchy hurts us all, y’all

        Reply ↓
      3. Susan*

        I have never heard of people having getting insurance both through their and their spouses insurance. Now I am wondering what opportunities I have lost over the years. How does it work when paying bills? It seems like each insurance company would be saying it was the other company’s duty to pay.

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        2. steliafidelis*

          It’s not terribly uncommon for people to have a primary and a secondary insurance. It’s slightly more often for one of them to be government related (ie, Medicare or a VA benefit) and the other to be commercial, but people sometimes do have two commercial nsurances. Generally if you have insurance for yourself and through your spouse, the one you hold is primary and the one through your spouse is secondary.

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        3. Lana Kane*

          There are rules around who pays first. My husband and I are double covered – we each have our own insurance, and also are dependents on each other’s. We do pay a premium for this monthly out of our paycheck, but it has saved us an enormous amount of money.

          Typically, your own insurance will be first in lline to pay, and overages sent to the next insurance in line (the spouse’s, where you’re a dependent). For child dependents, plans usually follow what’s called the birthday rule – whomever has the earliest birthday in the calendar year wil be the primary for the child. This means that it’s not by the subsciber’s age, but the month of the year they were born in – so if my birthday is in May and my husband’s is in June, our child will have my insurance pay first.

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    3. Hot Flash Gordon*

      My company eliminated double coverage, working spouse, and live-in benefits (if you were living with your partner) years ago to contain health care costs. For the time before same sex marriage was legal, couples could still carry their live in partner on their insurance, but that went away when marriage equality began. It has kept the cost of our premiums and deductibles way down.

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    4. Meep*

      I have BCBS, but the way it was set up (rather who it was set up by) was purposefully made to penalized families so it is $99/paycheck for me and $450/paycheck to add a spouse or kid.

      My husband’s is literally a difference of $5 to add me and $50 to add our kid. I think he is paying $150/month?

      It sucks, but it is life. At least he has Cigna, which is pretty good.

      Reply ↓
      1. So they all cheap ass rolled over and one fell out*

        People often confuse “penalize” with “don’t subsidize.”

        My current (and previous) employer covers 100% of my insurance premiums, but only 25% (previous employer convered 0!) of the premiums for a spouse and/or children. So it’s pretty expensive for me to add my family to my insurance, and if I did, my insurance would cost a lot more than a single person’s. this is true even though they are covering some of the premium, even though they don’t have to.

        Interestingly, for both my employer’s plans and my spouse’s, it’s cheaper to cover “2 or more children” than one spouse. even without the extra penalty for covering a spouse with access to their own insurance.

        Reply ↓
        1. Rosemary*

          THANK YOU. While I think it is great when companies do provide benefits for employees’ family members, they do so at (likely) significant cost. One could argue that those with families whose healthcare is subsidized are receiving a benefit that someone who is single does not receive. As a single person, should I argue that I am “penalized” for NOT having a family?

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          1. Joron Twiner*

            How else are unemployed family members supposed to get insurance though? Of course we should subsidize insurance for them, and single people are not losing anything if we do.

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            1. amoeba*

              In this case, it’s specifically about spouses who do actually have the possibility to be insured through their own work, so this doesn’t apply!

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        3. Freya*

          The American health insurance system baffles me, as an Australian – we have health insurance, and tax incentives for having it on top of our socialised health system once you earn more than a pittance, but it’s always chosen by the individual and never through employers (although employers CAN get their employees discounts, especially if they ARE the insurer).

          Our government has required that levels of extras and hospital cover be standardised, so they’re easy to compare. So my husband and I worked out that it would be cheaper for him to get his own insurance than to add him to mine, because I require a much much higher level of extras than he does, and I make use of them! I max out my physiotherapy and psychology coverage every year, and only the top level of cover contributes any to my prescriptions cost (whereas he has no daily medication needs at all – note that this is not a hardship here, as most medications are less than $50 a bottle, in fact most of mine are in the $10-15 per month range and it’s just the sheer number of them that drives my cost up).

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      2. Fun times*

        BCBS has been like that forever. Like 20 years ago we looked at adding me to my partner’s plan and it was going to go from around 180 a month to over a 1000 a month. The only options at the time were single payer or family plan, which allowed coverage for something like 8 children. It was wild.

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    5. The Engineer*

      I was so glad to see this question because I am experiencing this for the first time, and I’ve been working for over 15 years at non- and for-profits! Our spousal coverage is limited to non-working spouses or spouses that have no non-ACA coverage options available to them, and it is subsidized at what I can imagine is close to or 0%. It was some $400 per month to add my spouse when she was unemployed. Now that she is employed, she is booted from the insurance.

      I will say that my employer has what seems to be a nice benefit, in that they will pay all deductibles, copays, prescription costs, out of network expenses, etc. AND will subsidize the premium if it is higher than their (exorbitant) cost of hosting the spouse on the insurance, at zero cost to the employee/spouse. We’re testing it out now; if it works as they say it does, this will save us tons of money that we would have paid out of pocket if she stayed on my insurance (my wife has a lot of health goings-on right now). I’m skeptical only because it seems too good to be true.

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  4. Nameo*

    Re: #5 – Can someone explain how being double insured is helpful? Wouldn’t you have to pay two separate deductibles? Is it mostly beneficial when you have two, very different types of plans? I’ve been in the weeds on my own insurance options this week (US) and I can’t imagine needing/wanting two plans, so I’m concerned that I’m dumb.

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    1. HRlady*

      When I was married, I had double coverage through both my and my spouse’s employers. The simplified version is, what my primary policy didn’t cover, the secondary one picked up. I rarely had to pay anything out of pocket, even for major surgeries and office visit copays.

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      1. FavoRITA*

        Yes. this is the answer. Same for me when I was on my dad’s insurance (I was under 26 at the time) and had my own insurance. This was especially great for dental work I needed done too since dental plans have a max for the amount the carrier will pay instead of the amount the insured has to pay like medical plans.

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      2. Testing*

        Where I am (not the US), the main rule is that one insurance is always the primary one, and that if one insurance applies, another one doesn’t (but there are exceptions to this).

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      3. Beany*

        Still fuzzy on how this works. Does the secondary insurance kick in because (a) primary insurance has hit a monetary limit in its coverage, (b) primary insurance doesn’t cover treatments that secondary does cover, (c) something else?

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        1. Jay (no, the other one)*

          d) all of the above. And it depends on the insurance rules. Plus if the insurance companies have different networks one of them may cover some providers that the other doesn’t. Around here we have two large hospital networks, and if you work for one your insurance doesn’t cover providers affiliated with the other. In that case it can very helpful to have another option.

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        2. doreen*

          Both of those , plus the secondary insurance pays for co-pays/deductibles etc. Remember, the premiums for the secondary insurance aren’t any less than if it were primary – if my husband and I both had family insurance coverage when our kids were young , the kids would be covered by both and the premium for each policy wouldn’t be any different than if we only had one policy. Of course the secondary insurance is happy to pay the $25 co-pay when they are collecting thousands a year in premiums for secondary coverage.

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        3. Hot Flash Gordon*

          The secondary will cover out of pocket expenses according to the terms of the policy. So, for example, Say your primary coverage has a $1000 deductible and $25 copays (after the deductible has been met) and the secondary has a $1500 deductible and $25 copays (after the deductible has been met). You have a procedure that is $3000. The primary will pay $2000 of that, leaving $1000. The remaining $1000 gets billed to the secondary, but since you haven’t yet met the deductible, you’ll be billed for the remaining $1000. Some insurances also have a co-insurance stipulation that, once the deductible is met, they’ll pay 80% and you pay 20% up to an out-of-pocket max (which is usually higher than your deductible (mine is $3000 out of pocket max once the deductible of $500 is met).

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      4. Turquoisecow*

        Yeah this. I had a coworker years ago who was on his wife’s insurance and she was on his. Often if one plan didn’t cover something, the other would, which gave them a lot more options for doctors or facilities to choose from.

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    2. Double A*

      This was my first thought. I didn’t even know you could be double insured for health insurance, and if you were, how would that work? Because once you meet a deductible, then you start paying coinsurance and like… how would a second plan factor into that? It seems like a nightmare to figure out and that there’s a good chance the two insurers would not play nice.

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      1. doreen*

        How it actually works is that you send the “explanation of benefits” you get from the primary insurance to the secondary insurance along with the claim. It’s basically the same process as when you have insurance both through your employer and Medicare – and while I won’t say there are never problems, it’s not a nightmare for the insurance companies which do this every day.

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        1. mbs001*

          Hopefully you have to pay the entire premium for your own coverage — rather than having your spouse’s company pay any for a non-employee. It’s already bad enough that a company is absorbing the costs of higher claims as a result. t’s not right that a company is spending funds on non-employees. And as said above, the reason most companies don’t allow this is that they don’t want non-employee claims to drive up their costs for their actual employees.

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          1. doreen*

            If you have to pay the entire premium for your coverage, it normally wouldn’t be worth having both. Which is why most people don’t – the full cost of my health insurance would be $1000/month just for me , $2500 for family coverage. It’s only worthwhile in specific circumstances that involve relatively low premium costs. For example, my brother in law has family coverage which costs him nothing and my sister had individual coverage which costs her $160/month for just herself. But my sister has out-of-network coverage and her doctors are not all in BILs network. It would be different if family coverage was going to cost BIL $2500/month.

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          2. Jackalope*

            Hard disagree on this. We need to get our health insurance separated from employment in the US, but until that happens, a big part of having a family is getting your family members covered under your insurance plan. Most employers will have plans that cost more if you’re covering family members (self plus one, self plus family, whatever their options are), and that’s fine and makes sense. But it also makes sense 100% that the employer is offering a benefit to the whole family; that’s often one of the reasons that people take specific jobs. It’s a cost of doing business.

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            1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

              “We need to get our health insurance separated from employment in the US.”

              Hear, hear!

              “But it also makes sense 100% that the employer is offering a benefit to the whole family; that’s often one of the reasons that people take specific jobs. It’s a cost of doing business.”

              Exactly! The framing of “that’s not fair” is not applicable here. This is a business, doing what makes sense for the business. In LW’s case, the business has decided not to cover double-insurance. Other businesses will find it’s a worthwhile expense to attract and retain talented employees.

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            2. Hansfel*

              Completely agree! At a certain point (baseline salary needs met) the benefits can become the entire reason you take a job and are an effective way to retain talent (my spouse considered a competing offer last year and a big factor in not switching jobs was our unwillingness to take a hit on sick days and scope/cost of insurance).

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            3. MassMatt*

              I agree that we should move to separate health insurance from employment, but that seems unlikely to happen in the near term.

              But I disagree with the 2nd point, in that the LW seems to want the benefit of having double coverage but complains about the additional cost. The company and their insurer is taking on more risk to cover this additional person, it makes sense that the cost should be higher.

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          3. StressedButOkay*

            It’s already bad enough that a company is absorbing the costs of higher claims as a result.

            No it’s not. It’s the price of doing business for companies over a certain size.

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            1. Hot Flash Gordon*

              And it’s only if the company is self-insured – which is why those companies won’t usually offer working-spouse secondary coverage.

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            1. Atomic Tangerine*

              Hey now to be fair, it has an outsize impact on very small businesses. I have 4 FTE’s and as much as I’d love to cover premiums for dependents, it would BREAK me.

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              1. len*

                No one is proposing you be forced to. They’re saying it’s a reasonable business decision/expectation for companies that are in a position to offer it.

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              2. NotAnotherManager!*

                An organization that small is exempted from nearly every law granting for employee protections, including the ACA requirement to provide health insurance at all.

                For the 70+% US of workers who are at an organization larger than 50 employees, I can’t say my first thought is, “Oh, no, how awful that this decently-sized organization has to provide health insurance for a spouse or child, who doesn’t even work here.”, which was the tenor of the comment I was responding to.

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          5. Elle*

            “Hopefully” you have to pay, rather than the company? It’s “bad enough” that they’re absorbing the costs of their employees’ families’ needs? In this country, we’ve tied health insurance to employment. It sucks (mostly for citizens, though I see some people reserve their sympathy for corporations) but it’s employers’ responsibility to shoulder that burden.

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    3. GoodNPlenty*

      One plan is primary and the second one is secondary. The primary one is whichever you personally work for. Wherever you get care coordinates benefits. When my spouse had cancer surgery before we were on Medicare, his plan paid their capitated rate and my plan paid the rest for him. We ended up with no cost to cover.

      I realize the way the US handles health insurance is insane but having double coverage worked well for us. Medicare is better, though.

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        Follow-up question: I’m familiar with systems where one can get a supplementary insurance (covering dental, optical, private hospital rooms, that kind of thing) in addition to the basic health insurance. But the supplementary is a very different policy with very different pricing. Getting two basic policies would make no sense, because they only differ in very small ways.

        So how does double coverage work in the US? Do the policies differ a lot in coverage where one could reasonably puzzle them together? Is the secondary priced differently? (Has to be, right? Lumping primary/secondary together makes no sense for the insurance from an actuarial standpoint either). Do all insurances/employers offer this arrangement? Do the two insurances sometimes get in a fight who has to reimburse?

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        1. not like a regular teacher*

          Massive oversimplification: with most US insurance plans, insurance (ideally) pays most of the cost for a given procedure, and you pay (ideally) a small percentage of the cost. The second insurance plan would (ideally) pay most or all of the portion your main insurance doesn’t pay.

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          1. Emmy Noether*

            And how high are the premiums for the secondary plan*? Because that’s a different type of insurance than the primary and the actuarial calculation has to be different, which should reflect in the price.

            *I’m obviously not asking for a dollar amount, because that would depend on a bunch of things. More like… how is it determined? Is it less/more?

            What I’m getting at is that Alison’s answer that

            employers don’t want spouses running up their costs if the person could instead get insurance through their own job

            doesn’t really make sense when talking about double coverage (because it’s not “instead”). My sense is that the secondary should be cheaper, but maybe not?

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          2. Cadillac*

            Oh! So if both plans have met deductible you’re only paying coinsurance on the coinsurance? Is that it?

            Like:
            Bill for $10,000
            Insurance 1 pays 80%, leaving 20%/$2k as your share
            Insurance 2 pays 80% of the $2k, leaving $400 as your actual share?

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            1. doreen*

              Usually – there’s also a non-duplication coordination of benefits where if the primary carrier pays the same or more than the secondary carrier would have paid, the secondary carrier doesn’t pay anything but if the primary carrier pays less than the secondary carrier would have paid, the secondary carrier pays the difference between the two.

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            2. Judy*

              That’s how it worked for my sister when she was married and both her and her spouse were working. It never seemed fair to me, the single lady, that I was always left with the $2K while she paid $400, if that.

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              1. Calanthea*

                You’ve highlighted one of the many problems with the US insurance system, in that it penalises those outside the traditional nuclear family structure.

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        2. Chelle*

          They absolutely do sometimes get in a fight about who should reimburse! And the tricky part is that sometimes one insurance will deny saying another you have should be primary (insurers generally know when you have multiple policies like this), and *you* have to call your insurer and sort that out if, for example, you don’t have that other policy anymore. The hospital you were at cannot do this for you. It’s supremely difficult to effectively communicate this to patients in practice (and to get them to understand the issue and take appropriate action), and some hospitals eventually resort to billing the patient to try to push them to help. Our healthcare billing system is a mess :)

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          1. Katydid*

            Yes! I used to train hospital registration and getting people to understand the Coordination of Benefits questions that they had to ask and then to set the insurance up correctly was quite a challenge. Don’t even get me started on the Medicare Secondary Payer Questionnaire!

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            1. Chelle*

              At least the MSPQ is just a list of questions! Explaining COB to people who maybe didn’t even realize they had two insurance plans (I see a lot of denials from Medicare about an old Workers Comp coverage) is so, so complicated. Either one is doubly hard if you didn’t know up front and now have to call the patient about it, too. I do process improvement consulting work for EHR billing systems, so I absolutely feel your pain.

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          2. Guacamole Bob*

            I ended up with two insurance plans for a month a number of years ago as I went off one plan and onto another… and it was one in which I gave birth. The thing that was wild about the fight between the insurance companies is that they were the exact same company, only with policies through different companies. I think one of the companies may have been self-insured and I get that it matters for various accounting purposes, but I was like… surely Blue Cross should be able to realize they hold both policies and figure out who should pay what without my help?

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          4. MassMatt*

            I worked at a major “insurer of last resort” many years ago doing (ugh) data entry and basic low-level claims processing. One major issue was exactly this coordination of benefits. I would see hundreds of applications rejected each week due to the insurer’s position that the other insurer is primary. Other insurer would reject the claim and say WE were primary. This would go on until they were rejected due to being past the 90 or 180 day deadline for benefits. It was so common it was no doubt designed to avoid paying claims.

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        3. doreen*

          Is the secondary priced differently? (Has to be, right? Lumping primary/secondary together makes no sense for the insurance from an actuarial standpoint either

          It’s not priced differently – it really can’t be , because lets say I’m covered through work and so is my husband. We each opt for family coverage so both policies cover both of us and our two kids. My policy is primary for me, my husband’s policy is primary for him and which is primary for the kids depends the months my husband and I were born in. (His birthday is earlier in the year than mine, so his is primary for the kids). There are so many permutations that no company is going to figure out different premiums for different situations ( which insurance covers the kids, does sonly one insurance cover prescriptions , is only one person covered by both and so on.) Usually, people only do this if one or both have very low employee premiums – for example, my son pays nothing for his coverage. If he marries someone who also pays nothing , of course they will have double coverage. Which is why some employers have rules abut not covering spouses who have or are eligible for their own insurance or not allowing two employees in the same health insurance* program to both have family coverage.

          * Sometimes health insurance programs cover employees at different employers. Maybe it’s through a union, or it’s a program that covers both county and municipal employees.

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          1. Emmy Noether*

            Ah, that makes sense. I at first thought you could choose which one is primary, and that both spouses would choose the same primary (whichever combo is more advantageous).

            If it’s each has one spouse primary and one secondary, then it’s symmetrical and makes sense to be the same price.

            Still, adding a spouse if the plan is going to be their only or their secondary should not have the same add-on price (since it won’t be the same cost to the insurer).

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            1. YetAnotherAnalyst*

              It’s a rule from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, to come up with a “fair” way to settle disagreements between insurance companies about who needs to actually pay what. Children covered by both parents’ insurance are considered primarily covered by the insurance of the parent with the earlier birthday.

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            2. doreen*

              No insurance company lets you choose which is primary – they all have rules in the coordination of benefits clause. Used to be the father’s insurance was primary , now pretty much everywhere has moved to the “birthday rule” – of course, there are special situations like what if there was a divorce and the kid is covered both by a parent and a stepparent and rules for when the parents share a birthdate/birthday month or if one parent has coverage from a former employer and the other from a current employer. There are even rules for Medicare vs employer insurance (which differ depending on the size of the employer)

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        4. Hot Flash Gordon*

          Most benefits/health insurance packages under employer subsidized plans bundle dental, optical, etc into one package (my dental and health insurance are the same payer, just different benefit buckets) and they don’t offer retail optical (glasses) but cover routine eye-care under the medical coverage. If we offered secondary coverage, it would follow the same rules at the medical (secondary picks up any left over out of pocket from the primary). As for private rooms, most hospitals in my area are converting their rooms to all private and insurance companies will negotiate with hospitals with the understanding that if a hospital only has private rooms, the room is still covered.

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      1. jess*

        You’d definitely want to make sure in your specific case. I do know of people who were double insured and didn’t realize til after the fact that it was the opposite of helpful. They had to pay both deductibles before either insurer would cover stuff. And coordination between the two insurers slowed things down too.

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        1. clevernamehere*

          YES to what jess says! Double insurance where you have to go through a coordination of benefits can often slow things down or leave you more expenses out of pocket. Please, if you have insurance offered through your plan and spouse (or parents plan) – take a look at things such as the costs for insurance, deductible, coinsurance, copay, prescription coverage and what the plan actually covers. Typically, the plan documents will also list how a coordination of benefits works for two insurances, but it really can be difficult for the insurance companies – especially if it is the same insurance company and two different plants.
          Nameo – you aren’t dumb. Our insurance system is confusing and designed that way. Some companies have great benefit departments that can help explain a lot of this, but a lot of companies don’t have that – and trust me, good education about benefit plans makes all the difference in the world!

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    5. ItDoesntAnymore*

      This used to be helpful because if they bk other covered 80% you’d get 96% covered.

      However, now that most insurance uses copays and all have out of pocket maximums, it’s rare for a second insurance to be worthwhile. In fact, the last time I had two insurance plans (an overlap when I started my current job) the second one didn’t pay a penny.

      Also, if deductibles are in play, you usually can’t apply the same charges to both deductibles – they usually consider that double dipping. So even if you have 80/20 or 90/10 type plans (they’re called coinsurance), you likely won’t hit the second deductible for a good long time, if ever.

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      1. MPM*

        Yes, this was much more common “back in the late 1900s” as my kids would say, when insurance was entirely different. It’s great if you happen to have two employers whose unicorn health plans already cover the employee’s premiums at or near 100%, have low costs to add a spouse, and have no deductible or coinsurance. It used to be unheard of for employees to pay any part of their own premiums with an employer-provided plan and HDHPs and even co-pays weren’t always a thing. But with most of today’s insurance plans, trying to have secondary coverage would be like throwing premium money into a black hole because you’d have to pay an insane amount OOP before the second would ever kick in.

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    6. HappyPenguin*

      I appreciated your question because (A) I didn’t see the benefit of double insurance either, and (B) when I don’t understand something that everyone else seems to, I frequently wonder if I’m dumb for missing it, so it made me laugh and not feel alone!

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    7. Sara*

      As someone who works in medical billing – in the vast majority of cases, secondary insurance causes huge problems. The insurance companies fight about which is primary (even when it is super clear) and in the best case scenario they will both deny the claim when it’s billed. Worse, they will retract the payment months after they paid it initially and then we have to bill the patient. Whenever someone in our office has secondary insurance we know it is almost guaranteed to be an issue. Very much not worth it, IMO

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      1. Minimal Pear*

        I used to be double covered and it definitely saved money but it was a huge time suck. My local hospital COULD NOT figure out how to bill correctly/what order to go in, so EVERY TIME they billed me I had to straighten that out.

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      2. Nightengale*

        I think there’s a difference between two private insurances and private plus state insurance.

        In my state (and many others) kids with certain diagnoses or disabilities can get secondary medical assistance regardless of income. This is overall really helpful. It picks up copayment on medications. It picks up extra speech therapy sessions. It also pays for a state sponsored behavioral health program.

        There are definitely hassles – we do a prior authorization through the primary insurance and then still have to call the secondary for a “coordination of benefits override” but overall the benefit is greater than the hassles.

        Although universal health care would be better still. . . .

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    8. Somehow I Manage*

      I’ve not done this with health insurance, but I am currently doing it with dental and vision. I have those through my employer and am covered on my wife’s. I have to get two new crowns and my cost is about $200 total. So the extra we’re paying (in this case it is about $12/month) I’m getting back and then some with the one procedure. I’m not sure I’d pay two premiums for health insurance, but if you factor in the cost versus what expenses you might have, it may actually be worth it because what one doesn’t cover, the other will pick up a good portion of… most of the time.

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      1. Hot Flash Gordon*

        I would for sure do this with dental insurance. It’s usually a super cheap premium if it’s offered by the employer and you don’t usually have to worry about networks. My dental coverage is a tiered plan where my maximum benefit is determined by what tier the dentist is in. So, if my maximum benefit is $2000 under a tier 2 dentist and $3000 under a tier 1 dentist, I can see a tier 2 dentist until I;ve hit that $2000 max, then go to a tier 1 dentist and still have $1000 left.

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    9. Medium Sized Manager*

      A smaller example of how it has helped us: my husband has a set amount of coverage for therapy at a 90% reimbursement rate. I also have coverage for therapy but the reimbursement rate doesn’t apply to secondary.

      So, once a month, he submits to his insurance for 90% reimbursement, and then I submit the remainder to mine. The end result is that he is not paying out of pocket for any therapy. Around September of each year, he hits the limit, and then mine just pays in full for the year.

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    10. Fluff*

      (a) primary insurance has hit a monetary limit in its coverage, (b) primary insurance doesn’t cover treatments that secondary does cover, (c) something else

      (c) similar to b except adding coverage for doctors and specialists not covered by main insurance. Insurances may cover a specific place of service like a hospital (I’ll call it Rural Hospital). Then insurances cover certain doctors “in network.” Some of those doctors work at your Rural Hospital AND are employed by Rural Hospital. Now, a hospital may hire a group of doctors like contractors. Anesthesiologists are a common group. Insurances often exclude some of these practices, yet you are in an area where Rural Hospital. If you want (need) anesthesia for surgery, your choices are:
      A. Plan to pay for anesthesia on your own to be at your in network hospital and with in network surgeon as covered by Plan 1.
      B. have both insurance Plan 1 and Plan 2 which includes that anesthesia group in network, Thus you have 2 plans to have more of your doctors be “in network.”
      C. Find a covered anesthesia group in Plan 1, BUT the only hospital covered by Plan 1 is 3 hours away and your surgeon does NOT operate there.

      Plus more options – most are not good. It gets so complicated. Even with everything planned to be covered, you might suddenly be seen by an out of network (not covered) doctor because that doctor is the only one available on call on the weekend when you needed that particular skill set.

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    11. Momma Bear*

      When you are injured, you may find that your primary doctor or surgeon is “in network” but the anesthesiologist is not, as if you had a choice when you were knocked out. Secondary insurance might cover the extra fees for being out of network, or the second provider may be in network for the second insurance.

      Or, if one of you has an HMO and one a PPO. The networks are different and sometimes it might be beneficial to go “out of network” which is really difficult with an HMO. The PPO would then pick it up. It could also be as simple as wanting to get a vaccine at a pharmacy vs the clinic which may not be as convenient for you.

      If Dante’s Inferno was written now, US Healthcare would be its own layer of Hell.

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      1. LimeRoos*

        For your first paragraph (chiming in as a trainer at a non-profit health insurance company), if you go to an INN physician for your surgery/visit/whatever, and then they send the xray/labs/anesthesiologist to an OON provider, most insurance companies will RAPL the claim since the member had no choice in their provider. So it’s for Radiology, Anesthesiology, Pathology, Labs, Emergency, and Transportation – these are ancillary providers that you don’t pick, and if the INN doc picks them, most insurances will bump those INN as well, since it’s not fair to the member. Just an FYI for people, it’s pretty helpful to know.

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        1. Hot Flash Gordon*

          Fun story – there was a case where a mega-large insurer was denying payments for a patient’s surgery because they went to an out-of-network surgical center. Except for the fact that the insurer’s care provider wing bought the surgical center the year before and were most certainly in-network. After both the provider and the patient went around and around with the insurer, the patient had to go to the media for them to finally reprocess the claims.

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      2. fhqwhgads*

        My understanding is (maybe this is a state law and not a federal one?) but the whole “you’re unconscious and the anesthesiologist is out of network” scenario is now illegal?

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      3. Hot Flash Gordon*

        Yeah, the only time you might have an issue is if you’re hurt at work or in an MVA. Most WC and MVA carriers don’t have networks, but if your WC or MVA claim is denied (or you max out your MVA benefits or meet maximum medical improvement), your health insurance may give you static about being sent to an out of network doc. Subrogation is gross sometimes, which is why a lot of lawyers tell you to call them when you get in an accident.

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    12. AF Vet*

      Oddball answer here, but might be helpful. I’m a US veteran married to an active-duty servicemember. I currently don’t work outside the home, but my veteran status does give me healthcare benefits. My husband also has military-issued health insurance and he is required to cover all family members, even if we have our own insurance. (This makes sense for us because sometimes we’re living in countries where Tricare is our only reasonable option.) I will use both insurance policies, because there are some things that Tricare covers that the VA doesn’t, and visa versa. For instance, I need custom orthotics in my shoes. Tricare doesn’t cover this need. The VA, because of my service-related disabilities, does. I also am covered for massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, and other modalities by the VA that Tricare doesn’t even provide for active-duty members! Hubby and kids are also covered as my dependents, so we’re covered if the worst case scenario becomes our reality.

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    13. Random Bystander*

      It’s not so much that you have to pay two separate deductibles.

      Let’s take a really bog-standard situation in which you have an ER visit for which the billed charges are $2500.

      Primary coverage would allow $1800. However, it’s the beginning of the year, and your deductible is $3000, so it all goes to patient responsibility (leaving $1200 for the primary deductible).

      Secondary coverage would allow $1700. Again, beginning of the year, and you get the benefit of the $100 less allowed, but it all goes toward your $3000 deductible for that plan (leaving $1300 for the secondary deductible).

      Eventually, primary deductible is met, so you have the co-insurance and/or co-pay going to the secondary. Secondary won’t pay until their deductible is met, but you’ve been burning through both at the same time until one is met.

      Reply ↓
    14. Reluctant Mezzo*

      The two insurance companies involved play jump ball, and the co-pays shrink to something you can actually manage. For high-ticket illnesses, this can be thousands of dollars you don’t get hit with.

      Reply ↓
  5. Banana Pyjamas*

    LW1, I also wanted to move for interpersonal reasons. I was able to frame it as wanting to be near the person overseeing my work. Since you’re getting a new mentor that might be one way to go about it.

    Reply ↓
    2. journeyboots*

      That was my first thought: if you were assigned a seat by your previous mentor, it makes sense to be moved to be near your new mentor.

      Reply ↓
    3. Cracker eater*

      I asked to move to an empty desk and was just straightforward that the people near my old desk were too loud. If there is an empty desk for you to move to, it shouldn’t be a big deal, IMHO.

      Reply ↓
  6. linger*

    LW4: that “not a team player” argument invites the response:
    “On the other hand, a good team captain considers the skills and weaknesses of their players and assigns tasks to favour success for the team as a whole. A captain who fails to consider what each individual can realistically accomplish, and who therefore treats everyone as interchangeable, is not acting in the team’s best interest.”
    Not that I would necessarily recommend saying it in exactly those words. But basically, you know what you can and can’t do, but this manager is sorely in need of a clue.

    Reply ↓
    1. Cabbagepants*

      “Team player” is a non sequitur for the situation, anyway. “Team player” is just “do what I say even if it is a negative for you.”

      Reply ↓
    2. Mem_Cee*

      Exactly. What I really hate is that this LW may be able to get accommodations and skip the travel, but still might have to work harder to “prove” themselves to a new manager (when it should be the other way around!) simply because of their disability. IANAL but my sense of US ADA law is that it’s vague enough that a company can just decide that a disability precludes someone’s ability to perform the necessary job duties simply because they can’t show up to a stupid meeting in person, and the burden is on the employee to pursue legal remedy if they disagree. LW, if you have a good relationship with your grand boss or new manager’s boss, maybe find a chance to bring this up and mention that you hope your reputation for solid work won’t be affected if your new manager forces you to apply for accommodations.

      Reply ↓
      1. Observer*

        IANAL but my sense of US ADA law is that it’s vague enough that a company can just decide that a disability precludes someone’s ability to perform the necessary job duties simply because they can’t show up to a stupid meeting in person,

        Not really. I mean, yes, some companies play that kind of game. But they are not supposed to. And while it’s true that some extent the employer gets to set the “necessary duties”, there are some pretty clear issues where an employer would lose. Internal in person meetings are the kind of thing that tends to get a lot of skepticism. Changes to the list that are mandated by “policy” rather than actual function is another thing that is almost certain to get you in trouble.

        So, smart companies avoid that stuff.

        Reply ↓
    3. Allonge*

      This sounds more like a fantasy response than anything realistic to say to a manager.

      OP should, first and foremost, be as clear as possible about how this is not just a preference for them but a medical necessity, including asking for a formal accommodation if it needs to go that far.

      If boss would insist on the team player thing even after that, then it’s more than fair to push back against it, but I would do it in a way that does not invite immediate conflict. Sure, that would mean boss is a really crappy manager, but there are ways to make the specific point without going for direct antagonism!

      For example, LW could say ‘as we discussed, it will not be possible for me to travel for an in-person meeting, but I would like to think there are other ways of demonstrating that I am a team player and I have done so in the past. E.g. I participated in X, took over Z when B was out. Can you think of anything in particular where you would like to see me do something different?’

      Reply ↓
      2. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, OP says they “gently brought up how difficult this would be”. Not “stated that I couldn’t travel on a plane due to a medical condition/disability”. I’d say the latter directly before going antagonistic on my manager.

        Reply ↓
    4. Ellis Bell*

      I’m curious where exactly this quotation is coming from, because it doesn’t appear to be attributed to the boss. Is it OP’s fears/experiences? And why is OP bringing it up “gently”? I think there are lots of reasons to tiptoe around requiring accommodations and to be discreet if you are managing without disclosing, but in this case it is making OP look worse than if they were direct and blunt about it being physically impossible. Appearing to not understand a priority is what’s going to look like poor team skills, not having a medical condition.

      Reply ↓
      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        If you’ve ever encountered the not a team player situation, you know it when you see it. Rarely does the boss come out and say you are not being a team player. But there’s things like but we need the face to face interaction to come together as a team. So if you can’t do the in person you must not really want the team to work.

        As for not being direct, OP knows her situation best. She doesn’t want to have to get into a whole well why can’t you travel, its on a plane, you will be sitting most of the time anyway, they have assistance at the airport so you don’t have to walk, etc. Plus then after the boss doing things like, are you sure you can handle the McGreevey report, that won’t be too tiring for you? Even when OP has handled the McGreevey report consistently and well for the past X years.

        Reply ↓
        1. Troubadour*

          There are lots of reasons for people not being medically allowed to fly that aren’t fatigue-related – the OP doesn’t need to get into details. They can just use Alison’s phrasing that they have a medical condition that means they can’t fly. If their boss asks what condition, they can say they don’t want to get into the details (use a slightly self-deprecating tone as if it’s just all so boring and tedious) but they’re happy to provide a medical certificate to clarify what they can and can’t do.

          The key is to clearly say “can’t” and “impossible” instead of just “difficult”. After all, the travel described would be _difficult_ for anyone – but for the OP it’s a complete blocker.

          Reply ↓
  7. CHRISTOPHER FRANKLIN*

    Ah, this is giving me graphics PTSD (35 years of doing graphics work)…. My own ideal workflow is 1) get me all the text that you want and need (it is far easier to adjust if there is too much rather than too little), 2) decide what you want it to look like and freeze that in stone, 3) look at the draft and decide what to like and don’t like about it with enough time change it (I don’t care at all about typos since we will have a separate step to check for typos, verify that the information is correct, and make sure the design works, and 4) finally, we do all of that final polishing and let someone who hasn’t seen it look at it as well as reading the copy out loud. The designer doesn’t need to know if words are spelled correctly; that is something best left to software and copy editors.

    Reply ↓
    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Often when working with small nonprofits, which this sounds like, you end up having less back and forth than this unless it’s a big project. Because of that if typos aren’t caught early, they often aren’t caught at all.

      Reply ↓
      1. Dinwar*

        That’s been my experience with small teams within huge companies as well. You want to catch typos, formatting issues, and the like early because the review is for technical stuff, not “basic” stuff (their words, not mine). Basically the reviewer wants to see something that could function as a final draft.

        Both ways work, and I’ve worked with teams that do both. But what that means is, any advice is going to have to be very company-specific and even team-specific. Advice that works for me (“Get in the habit of ensuring formatting and spelling are correct for everything”) won’t work for another team (that works on “Get the stuff on paper, we’ll polish it later”).

        Reply ↓
    3. bishbah*

      One of the biggest typos that made it to print at my last job happened because the text was outlined at some step in the graphic design process and as a result skipped the final spellcheck. (It was also missed by multiple proofers, including my boss, and was ultimately noticed by his eight-year-old daughter. But I’m still salty about the spellchecker.)

      Reply ↓
      1. Allonge*

        We have a regular report that we translate to a bunch of languages. It’s a BIG thing for my org. It gets written, reviewed chapter by chapter by experts, then there is a long approval process where a lot of people look at it again. Then it’s proofread. Then it goes into layout and proofread again. Then we publish in English and then translate.

        Yep, the translators pointed out that there was a whole sentence that was not finished. Not like, the sentence ended in a weird place – the text was going, and then there is a […] (obvious placeholder). Nobody caught it before that. It’s in the print version. Eh?

        Reply ↓
    4. Not A Raccoon Keeper*

      Agreed – one of my QA jobs was being part of a 4-person label review cycle, and we found errors frequently, and it returned to design for changes and re-cycled, no big deal. Over time, our designers learned some of the nuances of regulatory label rules, but that wasn’t their job, it was mine. Plus a lot of the ingredients (drugs/supplements) aren’t in spell check, and this is Canada so we’re doing it in two languages. The situation sounds fine to me, until it gets to the volunteer freak out!

      Reply ↓
  8. Alz*

    LW2- I think the reaction is the issue “went off about the design” is way too strong a reaction to typos. If I gave someone something to proof and they noticed but didn’t mention the typos then I would be disappointed no matter which stage the design was in- I would hate for a mistake to slip through and then be told that someone had seen it. The professional response would have been expressing disappointment at the quality or frustration at requiring a second proofing once the errors were checked- but “went off” is waaaaay too much of a reaction.

    Reply ↓
    1. CHRISTOPHER FRANKLIN*

      This is why i’d prefer to get dummy text instead of the final output because the editorial proofing is so separate from the graphic proofing.

      Reply ↓
      2. Blue Pen*

        Yes! My colleague is the graphic designer, while I’m the writer, and they catch visual things in proofs I would never notice while I catch copy things they would never notice.

        Reply ↓
  9. Burn it to the ground*

    #3 – as a sr. manager in supply chain who is being asked how this will impact business (million percent tariffs etc), I try to respond as neutrally as I can. Which is generally difficult because I am ready to storm the barricades.

    Sometimes managers have to shove down the fact they want to burn the patriarchy to the ground and just tell you in a neutral way things will be fine.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lucy Van Pelt*

      I think the language that might potentially cause offense is asking where the company’s moral red lines are in working with the government. Not so long ago (and maybe only in my hazy idealized memory of things), that would only have been discussed among groups of like-minded activists. It would have been an odd and possibly aggressive thing to ask your manager. Even now, it is far from a neutral question. Imagine someone who holds diametrically opposed views to you asking about the moral risks posed by a new administration that you voted for.
      (Or, as Arlo Guthrie asks his draft officer in the anti-Vietnam War saga Alice’s Restaurant, “You want to know if I’m moral enough to burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug?”)

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Personally, I think that we should be setting up more moral red lines in our work regardless of which political party is in power.

        If you object to using AI to select missile targets, you need to object to its development. Once it’s developed, any administration can use it. Obama and Trump both deported large number of undocumented immigrants. If you serve immigrants, not reporting their immigration status to the government should be a red line.

        I’m sure Google regrets ever making “Don’t be Evil” its unofficial motto, because there are quite a few Google employees willing to make a fuss and leak information whenever they find out it’s censoring its search engine in authoritarian governments or being very cooperative with the US government.

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    2. LookAtMeI'mTheManagerNow*

      Yeah the management above me is of the “I think it’ll be okay” mindset and I feel like I am the only person reading what was promised. So that adds to the stress I feel for my daughters.

      Reply ↓
    3. Anon for this*

      I’m a senior manager (director level) in a public agency and our internal messaging has been solid around the fact that many people are feeling stress and we have resources for them to turn to. We also have a strategic plan we’re following and our job is to do our job. They have stressed our commitment to our values and our mission of serving everyone.

      Even working only within our specific policy realm we couldn’t possibly game-plan everything that might or might not happen. Any energy spent on that is diverted from the work we really have to do that’s right in front of us where we can make a difference now.

      What we can do that’s important and useful is to act now to safeguard resources that might disappear (think online documents) and commit to doing a bang-up job on things we routinely do like comment on rulemaking or respond to federal requests for information.

      What our leadership couldn’t possibly do is put anything in email that’s subject to a public disclosure request! “Hey, we think this will go really badly and we plan to subvert the process at a specific point” isn’t something they’d say anywhere, ever. No responsible entity would do this; even a private-sector firm would be subject to discovery in the event of a lawsuit.

      Email is not the channel for this.

      Reply ↓
      1. PaperclipMovement*

        I think this is a very good approach. Acknowledging the uncertainty and at least alluding to strategic planning going on is a much better response than “I’m sure everything will be fine, just go back to work.”

        I work in government, and I was actually looking for a new job before the election. Now? I’m not going to resign. I’m not giving authoritarian parts of the administration that gift. I’m going to stay to protect this institution and support my union for as long as it takes for them to do all the paperwork/grievance processes/court rulings it takes to fire me.

        Reply ↓
      2. I Have RBF*

        What our leadership couldn’t possibly do is put anything in email that’s subject to a public disclosure request! “Hey, we think this will go really badly and we plan to subvert the process at a specific point” isn’t something they’d say anywhere, ever. No responsible entity would do this; even a private-sector firm would be subject to discovery in the event of a lawsuit.

        Email is not the channel for this.

        Emphasis added.

        In general, if you have plans to resist or something, do not email it or post it on social media! That’s just plain stupid.

        Sure, if you plan to drown your sorrows in a bottle of whiskey, post that, albeit tongue in cheek. But anything that could be construed as a threat or terror plan? Just don’t. Even if you are joking.

        Want to talk about serious options, like self defense, etc? Use Signal, or meet face-to-face.

        Your first priority should be to protect yourself and your family. That is not accomplished by emailing or posting stupid shit in public platforms. The opposition is well versed in “lawfare”, and they can, and will, use the process of law to F you over.

        This is not a game. Don’t let your anger get the better of your common sense.

        Reply ↓
  10. I'm Always the Phoebe in a Group*

    1. If you’ll be getting a new mentor soon, could you frame it as moving desks to be close to them? Since you’re sitting close to the bad mentor now, sitting close to your mentor has a history. Unlesss it’ll take a while to be assigned a new mentor and you need to get the hell out of dodge now.

    Reply ↓
  11. I'm Always the Phoebe in a Group*

    2. I remember working with a graphic artist on an ad and noticed one word spelled wrong. She let me know she did the design, but did not read the text. It took a minute to wrap my head around that because I catch this stuff whether I want to or not, but her jam is the layout and design. You mentioned the volunteer complained about two typos on a sign. That’s not the artist’s focus. Plus the text might change before you gets to final.

    Reply ↓
    2. skadhu*

      Heh. Designers have no reason to read the text, apart from determining if some formatting is required for it (heading level 1 or 2, for example).

      Reply ↓
      1. smirkette*

        And I’ve worked at places (including small non-profits) where whoever wrote the copy was responsible for including info hierarchy markup.

        I’ve been in both seats, and regardless I far prefer to have the copy completely baked before design unless it’s a super simple or recurring project because it’s much harder designing something if you’re not sure what’s being communicated and how it’s being communicated. Form follows function, etc.

        The real issue here imo is not sharing the workflow and expectations with the volunteer. Be specific about the kind of feedback you’re looking for.

        Reply ↓
      2. allathian*

        Yes, and that’s a fundamental difference in how different people’s brains work. I can’t NOT read or attempt to read (if it’s a language that I don’t understand but uses the Latin alphabet) a text that’s in my field of vision. I simply don’t understand how people miss signs, for example. Lots of designers, or I’d say pretty much all of those who work mainly with graphics rather than layout, are perfectly capable of doing just that.

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  12. Roeslein*

    Regarding drafts – spellcheckers exist and are free to use. By not bothering to use them, you are essentially adding to the workload of whoever is reviewing next. Once in a while, sure, but several typos in a single document that sounds fairly short would annoy me as well. I’m in consulting and my job as an experienced reviewer is to make sure the content is high-quality, easy to understand, client-ready, etc.- not to do a job AI can do. My feedback is usually around how to improve the flow, or possibly suggest an alternative way to present the information, but they are normally pretty high level. (Obviously if the typos is in the client’s brand that is another level of inacceptable.)

    Reply ↓
    1. Not Australian*

      Yes, although spell checkers are of limited utility: they can tell you if a word is spelled correctly, but not whether it’s the right word in the context. A human proof-reader is *always* going to be better than any automated system, and I wish more people – and organisations – would actually take the time and trouble to employ humans in this capacity. There are far too many people in the world who *think* they know how to write and spell correctly, when they don’t even take the trouble to double-check their own work.

      For the record, after a lifetime in proof-reading and editing, IMHO one mistake *per page* (approx. 450 words) is too many.

      Reply ↓
      1. Nebula*

        I’ve noticed that one of the ways that spellcheckers have changed/are changing the way people write is that there are some spelling mistakes which are now quite common because they are a word (so not flagged by a spellchecker) but not the *right* word. For example, I see ‘viscous’ for ‘vicious’ fairly frequently, and I also think the spelling ‘discreet’ is going to disappear and completely merge with ‘discrete’, as I see the latter far more often even though the former is usually meant. These are all things that only humans will catch.

        Anyway, in this particular instance, from what people have said above about graphic design, it should be the job of someone reviewing the sign to spot typos rather than the designer, so it sounds like they have a reasonable workflow. The LW needs to communicate the expectations better, perhaps. Or I suppose since they asked the question ‘Are typos in a draft a huge deal?’ the answer is that if you’re the one managing, you get to decide imo.

        Reply ↓
        1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

          I just whimper quietly now when I see discrete for discreet. And murmur my mantra: “be discreet: keep your knees and your e’s together”. I might add, “when t comes between e’s, discrete means separate”.

          Reply ↓
          2. N C Kiddle*

            I still remember the first time I saw that error. A blog that mocked various things on Craigslist took aim at someone who was looking for a “discrete affair”. I left a comment suggesting it wasn’t a mistake and they were just saying they didn’t want it to be continuous.

            Reply ↓
        2. mreasy*

          I see PEAK for PEEK more often than the correct word so help me.

          Spell checkers can’t catch typos in numbers or that create an existing word!

          Reply ↓
            1. Melody Powers*

              Same but I was at least amused when I worked with dogs and one of them had a note on her run saying she was “weary of men”.

              Reply ↓
        3. Emmy Noether*

          I think this is an actual use case for AI – it should be able to tell (by comparing word proximity across a gazillion examples, which is what AI is good at), which one is more likely to be meant, and then pop up a note that says “did you mean discreet?”

          Reply ↓
          1. D*

            Unfortunately, AI spell checkers are making this problem worse, not better. AI sees people’s common misspellings and assumes that’s more accurate than the actual word. I saw an example online recently that wanted to spelled “Quirked” as “Querched” because they see that more often and they’re frequency algorithms more than anything.

            Reply ↓
            1. Not Australian*

              I’ll see your ‘querched’ and raise you ‘succame’ as the past tense of the verb ‘to succumb’…

              Reply ↓
            2. Emmy Noether*

              Of course, you’d need a high quality training set! It’s not surprising that using the internet as a training set will make things worse.

              Reply ↓
            4. fhqwhgads*

              Yeah, this is also why it’s a massive peeve of mine that the phrase “hallucination” has become commonplace to describe LLMs making stuff up. It’s not a hallucination. It’s a best-guess that the words thrown together will be coherent based on random incorrect shit other people said. The more incorrect things people say, the more incorrect things it will say.

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          2. Nonsense*

            Except LLMs trained on open source (aka, ChatGPT and the like that illegally scrape content from the internet) will default to common use – and common use is frequently wrong. This is why Grammerly is practically unusable now. The AI is only as smart as its inputs.

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          3. rebelwithmouseyhair*

            yeah, the suggestions I have had are basically a waste of time. I barely use spell checkers any more, because they so rarely pick up on anything useful and even miss things. The latest version of Word no longer picks up on spaces before :;!?% The French always put a hard space before this punctuation and we don’t in English, so when I translate into English I have to remove them. Word used to point out instances where I forgot to do so, but doesn’t any more. I’m furious !

            Reply ↓
            1. JuliePaislie*

              I would have thought there’d be a way to make AutoCorrect take care of that, but I’m not sure how to make it work with leading spaces. Here’s a way to catch it when you run the manual spelling and grammar check:

              Go to Options – > Proofing. Look for where it says “Writing Style:”
              with a drop-down; there’s a button labeled “Settings…” to the right of the drop-down. Scroll down and check the box next to “Spacing”.

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          4. Nah*

            “You need to breath” is the utter bane of my existence and it’s spread seemingly everywhere! No, ‘breath’ is the noun, ‘breathe’ is the verb! They aren’t interchangable! This isn’t a read/read situation, why do so many people (all of which have been full grown adults, this isn’t a Gen Z/whatever thing) think it is………

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        4. Bee*

          My nemesis is soldier vs. solider, which I did not even realize was a word until I started noticing how frequently it was accidentally subbed in for “soldier” and slipped through spellcheck.

          Reply ↓
        5. Happily Retired*

          “Defiantly” instead of “definitely.”

          “Ok then, I’ll defiantly stop by the hardware store and grab some lag bolts.”

          You go, Lag Bolt Shopper! Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re shouldn’t do this!

          Reply ↓
          1. Observer*

            “Defiantly” instead of “definitely.”

            For some reason that one irks me more than most. No idea why.

            But, yes soooo many errors. Homophones are bad enough. But when they are actually different words it can get really weird.

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        1. Nah*

          And most that I know of won’t correct anything in capital letters either, which many announcement flyers are generally written in.

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        2. Freya*

          I have had to train every spellcheck ever that my name is not a typo. On my phone 15 years ago, it always suggested a name that I have never actually seen used, anywhere!

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          1. Nah*

            “Here Congress Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail…”

            It has been *ten years* and I have gotten to the point where one of the first things I delete from the keyboard’s dictionary is “Congress”. because for SOME INSANE REASON they have all been CONVINCED that it’s the word I *actually* meant whenever I type the word “comes”. and even after it’s been removed it keeps suggesting it! I don’t know if it just gets re-added whenever there’s an update or something, but literally the only time I have ever typed the dang thing is maybe the three times I’ve been complaining about this exact issue, meanwhile I write several thousand words on a good week (yes, on my phone, it’s a bad habit I use to write in bed or on the bus.) and really kinda need it to get with the program!

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      3. Rachel*

        The limited utility of spellcheck is the source of one of my best job interview stories – I work in digital strategy and once accidentally sent an email to thousands of recipients about “Public Financing” that had dropped a letter in “public.” It was still a word! My spellcheck did not underline it! But that’s definitely not what I meant.

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    2. Username required*

      You still need to do a sanity check after spellcheck. I had a salesperson whose name was changed to “Mr Finger” in contract documents after someone didn’t pay attention to spellchecker corrections. It was flagged by the client who rang “Mr Finger” laughing about it.

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      2. Batgirl*

        Worked somewhere where something similar happened to a writer named Nazia. Instead of printing her name as Nazia Writer, the spellcheck decided we should go to print with the byline for her article proclaiming her to be “Nazi Writer”.

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    3. Allonge*

      Sure – but then, there is the part where spellcheck does not check words in all caps, and so on.

      I guess my thing is: do I like seeing lots of typos? Of course not. Is it worth my time / blood pressure to worry about this? Also not. Grumbling about it will not help.

      If someone’s job is drafting, they need to pay attention and should be advised to do so if this is a frequent issue. If someone’s job is design, they may or may not have the sills / capacity to do proofreading. Proofread important stuff separately in any case.

      Reply ↓
    4. MCMonkeybean*

      1) spell checkers are extremely limited and will not catch a lot of typos and 2) this letter is about graphic design, which is sometimes not a place where you can even use spell check because the letters are more like images than words

      Reply ↓
    5. Dinwar*

      Spellcheckers are complete trash when it comes to technical writing. The people who make those dictionaries don’t work in my field, and words that are common in my field simply don’t exist in Word until you force your copy of the program to accept them. And every time a new version of Word rolls out you have to re-do the whole process. Even better, there are often multiple ways to spell the same word (or, rather, different but similar words for the same thing), so you need to make sure BOTH are in your personal dictionary.

      Usually it takes me a couple of months to get Word to stop putting red squiggles under every third word on a report.

      And don’t get me started on grammar from those programs. Different sorts of writing require different sorts of grammar; it’s been that way for a few hundred years at least. But to determine if something is wrong or not programmers need to determine what’s “correct”–and THAT means ignoring a fairly wide range of perfectly valid grammar styles. There are also major issues with things like technical jargon, where the grammar is absolutely correct but whoever programmed Word doesn’t know it. Can’t expect computer programmers to be knowledgeable about civil engineering or the like.

      In the end, what this means is that most of the time spellcheckers are useless. They flag so much of the document that any real issues get lost in the superfluous errors generated by the program.

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    6. Mockingjay*

      Since OP 2 is overtasked and must rely on volunteers, it might be best to tweak their process. Perhaps approach the grammatical volunteer and ask them to act as proofreader? Perhaps not for everything, but for critical items or earlier in the process. Or request volunteers preparing materials to download the free version of Grammarly. Or live with the typos – orgs relying on volunteers have to make some allowances. Perfection and correction cost money that could/should be spent elsewhere.

      Reply ↓
    7. Observer*

      spellcheckers exist and are free to use. By not bothering to use them, you are essentially adding to the workload of whoever is reviewing next.

      Who said that the LW is not using them? Spell checkers miss a LOT of typos. Google “spill chucker”. My checker on the computer I am using right now flagged the second word, but many checkers will *not* because that phrase actually has a meaning.

      If you then actually change it “spell checker poem humor” you’ll see why I chose that phrase.

      Spell check simply cannot find all errors. And it can easily introduce errors of it’s own. I mean, all of the “missing and L from public” stories are about people who *do* use a checker – which is why some people remove the word from the dictionary.

      Reply ↓
  13. Lexi Vipond*

    2 seems like very weird priorities to me – the sign would still communicate its message just as well as plain black or white text on a light or dark background (possibly even better than if it’s cluttered up with images), but will not communicate its message as well if the words are wrong (at best by distracting people who notice the mistake, at worst by meaning something completely different). So if there’s not enough time to do everything well, shouldn’t the text come first?

    Reply ↓
    1. bamcheeks*

      Well no, the point of having the sign designed is that a well-designed sign will communicate its message better. Size of fonts, layout, empty space, font choice, correct use of branding etc will all affect how quickly you find the sign and how easily you absorb the information on it, as well as things like how trustworthy the information seems, whether you’re the right audience and so on. And plenty of workflows get those things ready whilst you’re still finalising the text or deciding whether the event starts at 9.30 or 10am.

      Reply ↓
      1. Antilles*

        Exactly. The entire billion dollar industries of advertising, marketing, and graphic design all exist because “just black and white text on background” doesn’t convey messages as well as images. And in my experience, it typically requires a lot more back-and-forth to really nail the visual appearance than to simply have someone duble-chck yur splling.

        Reply ↓
      2. Falling Diphthong*

        I routinely encounter an issue where the yard signs promoting the upcoming community thing try to squeeze in a bit too much information, and so are not readable to people driving by. You can take it all in on foot–and of course it’s much easier to stop your sneakers and read more closely, vs your car and read more closely.

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    2. Allonge*

      It was a draft. Not the final product, a proposal for the design. If someone cannot decide whether they like the color combination because there is a typo, they should not be reviewing these things.

      Very often you cannot wait starting with the design until everything has been double- and triple-checked about the text. Layout and design can also introduce new errors, so often you would want a final proofreading in any case.

      Reply ↓
      1. BlueSwimmer*

        Some people love to find typos and small mistakes and point them out- it makes them feel smart and powerful. Since it was a volunteer, I think the right response is to give them thanks and the praise they want to keep them happy, while making the correction:
        “Thank you so much for catching those typos. I will make a note to be sure they are corrected in the final proofread. I really appreciate your eye for detail.”

        Reply ↓
        1. Not Australian*

          I think this is a bit unfair. Some people just can’t help *seeing* typoes, and it makes them feel uncomfortable when they do. Your suggested response is absolutely right, though, IMHO.

          Reply ↓
          1. Emmy Noether*

            Eh, I’m one of those people who can’t help seeing typos. I also tend to correct them at any stage, because finding is like 95% of the effort and correcting 5%, so even if there’s a chance it will become moot, having to find them again is more work than correcting a few unnecessarily.

            I just don’t make a big deal of them, unless there is an unusually large amount in a very final stage.

            Reply ↓
          2. LunaLena*

            I am one of those people who can’t help seeing typos, and I am also a graphic designer – and I think it’s fair to say that there are definitely a few people out there who just *have* to find a mistake to point out, so that they feel in control of a project or that they contributed in some way (usually so they could claim most/all credit. Ask me how I know). Certainly not all people, but definitely some people. There are plenty of posts about them on Clients From Hell.

            Back when I read CFH regularly, it was not uncommon for people in the comments to recommend deliberately including a couple of small, easy-to-fix mistakes into an early draft. If the reviewer was that kind of person, they would gleefully point it out and could claim credit for “saving” the project. If the mistakes went unnoticed, the designer would just quietly correct them for the final version. It made the nitpicky reviewer feel like they accomplished something, stopped them from asking for unnecessary changes simply for the sake of changing something/anything, and enabled the project to move forward in relatively smoothly, so it was considered a win all around. I’ve never had to go quite that far, but not gonna lie, I did consider doing it more than once.

            Reply ↓
            1. skadhu*

              Yep. And if it’s design by committee, often every member feels that they are required to criticize/correct something. If they can’t find something important to fix they’ll ask for something to be changed, even if that goes against decisions previously made and approved. (Also ask me how I know.)

              Reply ↓
              1. LunaLena*

                Oh absolutely 100%! I’ve been on design-by-committee projects where everyone had to get at least one idea into the final design. It ended up dragging on for so long while people requested changes “just to see what it looked like” and then others requested it be changed back or said “but what if we try [completely different idea that a small faction of the committee came up with on the fly] instead”, that that executive director eventually had to step in and tell them we were just going to move forward with the initial design.

                Reply ↓
          3. BlueSwimmer*

            Good point, Not Australian! I totally based my comment on a specific person I work with who does enjoy pointing out typos in a way that sets my teeth on edge. I shouldn’t have generalized.

            Reply ↓
      2. Lamont and Rollo*

        Ok but this was a volunteer reviewing it, not a professional editor or designer. If you want a layperson to do this work you need to give them explicit instructions

        Reply ↓
        1. Allonge*

          Ok, but again, the issue was not that the volunteer pointed out the typos, the issue was that the volunteer got angry about there being typos.

          You cannot go into that much detail in instructions – people who can handle typos without exploding will be alienated by ‘don’t call us with complaints about typos’.

          Reply ↓
      3. MigraineMonth*

        I do electronic health record UI design, and it is absolutely impossible to get useful feedback from medical professionals if there is something off with the data. It doesn’t matter if we tell them the patient is fake, or name the patient Miss Piggy the Muppet; if her pulse rate is alarmingly high or her blood pressure is impossible, we need to fix that in every one of the screenshots before we can get the feedback we need about the workflows and button placement.

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    3. Emmy Noether*

      You are vastly underestimating the power of graphic design.

      It’s been shown that if you, for example, write the word “red” in green and the word “green” in red, the font color will override the text content in most people’s brain (they’ll point to the word green if you ask them to point to the word red).

      You can do all kinds of fun misdirection like that, but you can also use the power of graphic design for good. Like making a poster that catches the eye, gets basic info across at a glance (which plain text will not do), AND give the details for those who want to read more.

      Reply ↓
    4. iglwif*

      While this is manifestly not true (there’s a massive body of research demonstrating that), I can understand why you would think so — the whole point of good design is to do its job invisibly.

      Reply ↓
    5. skadhu*

      Word choice and accuracy is obviously important, but there is endless solid research showing that design choices can enhance communication or hinder it (as well as the associated profitability of businesses). Good design, as someone said down below, is largely invisible, but gets messages across far more effectively. If someone doesn’t notice the message, or if the design is bad and discourages them from reading it or understanding it, it doesn’t matter what the words are or if there is a typo

      Reply ↓
    6. Observer*

      the sign would still communicate its message just as well as plain black or white text on a light or dark background

      Nope. Layout and design MATTER. There is a ton of empirical evidence of this. What font you use, spacing etc. All of this really makes a huge difference in how people understand the words, and how well they actually understand the *intended* message.

      Reply ↓
  14. Thisishalloween*

    LW1: Framing it as useful for both you and your soon-to-be former mentor may work. It makes sense for him to be closest to the person he’ll be mentoring next, so you don’t want to take up valuable real estate.

    Reply ↓
  15. Tangerine steak*

    LW2 I’m very tolerant of a lot of things in drafts, but typos that get highlighted by red squiggly lines really bug me. You shouldn’t be using me as your spell checker! I think it reasonable to expect that routine drafting tools are used before asking a volunteer (so unpaid person) to work through it.

    But flagging what you want in feedback can help. Telling me you want ideas for if the sign has nice layout/colours etc rather than asking me to review would point me to the right things. I would then likely comment that there’s still small errors needing fixing – but would be less annoyed than if I thought this was full draft and not ready to share outside the staff (ie with the volunteers).

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      Graphic design software doesn’t always have the squiggly lines, because text editing is not its job. Graphic design is also a completely separate skill set from text editing.

      I’m as annoyed by typos as the next person but in a well-designed production workflow this simply shouldn’t be the designer’s job.

      Reply ↓
      1. Tangerine steak*

        It may not be the designer’s job, but presumably the text came from someone. So either the designer copied incorrect text – and the person before them got it wrong, or they introduced errors when they re-wrote the text provided (copying correctly is their job I’d say).

        So whoever drafted the text should be using tools that pick up on basic spelling/grammar. There’s a lot of commentary about spellcheckers not being good – but I find them very helpful to pick typos. Many spellcheckers use rules (identify any word not in the list and add a squiggle), with ML models looking for the did you actually mean … suggestions. They aren’t perfect, but they do find a lot of typos (or at least they find a lot of mine).

        I get people sending me drafts full of red squiggly lines highlighting obvious errors. I’m not ok with that. I get why the volunteer was annoyed if the typos were of that level, as it felt to me like the volunteer wasn’t volunteering to be an editor or proofreader. It might be unreasonable that they are annoyed with the designer – but it’s reasonable to be annoyed with the paid employee who generated the text if they aren’t picking up things basic tools would highlight.

        Reply ↓
  16. Tangerine steak*

    LW4 there’s a good chance your gentle approach means your boss understood that you didn’t want to, not that you couldn’t. Chances are your boss has no real understanding of your disability and what his proposed meeting would do to you. If you don’t share details of your disability and the effects – it might be worth rethinking that. Not sharing all the details, but most people are a lot more understanding of accommodations they can understand.

    Reply ↓
    1. DJ Abbott*

      Or if he’s actually saying something like not a team player, that says nothing good to me. It seems like that attitude/phrase always means “do what I tell you if you want to stay on my good side”, period.
      But still worth a try to get the accommodations and see what happens. Good luck!

      Reply ↓
    2. Allonge*

      That is what I was thinking – LW4, unfortunately you may need to be a lot more specific to your boss about what travel would mean for you.

      What you wrote here is a good start, but it’s also something that is out of a lot of people’s experience, so some details would likely help. Emphasize the word medical at least.

      Reply ↓
    3. HannahS*

      I think it’s also wise to draft the email in a friendly, regretful tone. Throw in a

      “Sorry for the confusion, John–what I’d meant to communicate is that I actually can’t come due to a medical condition that makes travel unfeasible. I’d obviously love to be there in person; it’s hard to believe I’ve been working here for X years without meeting everyone face to face! Because our team has been fully remote, I haven’t needed to arrange formal accommodation before. In terms of attending the meeting virtually, would you rather that I speak with HR and my doctor and get something on file, or would you be ok to zoom me in?”

      Friendly, sets a boundary, gives him an “out.”

      Reply ↓
      2. Susan*

        Excellent! I am a person who does believe in the power of meeting in person, and I would totally accept this person meeting remotely with this wording.

        Reply ↓
      3. Tangerine steak*

        This is a great approach. It highlights that you do want to be a team player, and you want to be able to take part with everyone else – but realistically that’s not an option.

        With all things disability – there’s a real balance between how much does it make sense to maintain medical privacy or to share. There’s also the need to spell things out clearly because hints are often overlooked/misunderstood.

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  17. Nonprofitcommunicator*

    I work in nonprofit communications, so I have a different view on letter 2. I do agree typos in drafts are generally not an issue, but given this was going to an external stakeholder (I consider a volunteer external as they’re not staff), I would have made sure the materials were in better shape. Any time a draft for review goes to a Board member, etc. I do think it’s important to have a certain level of quality.

    Reply ↓
    1. Paint N Drip*

      Does the apparent frenzied pace of OP’s nonprofit change that math at all? From the description it seemed like the volunteers were vital teammates keeping the wheels on, does that ‘let them into the circle’ in crunch times?

      Reply ↓
      1. Tangerine steak*

        I would say it depends very much on the style of organisation and the type of volunteer.

        If the volunteer came on board to build bird houses and animal nesting boxes – it’s not really reasonable to expect them to take on early drafting of signs. Anything they are sent should be pretty polished – they aren’t there for the design/editing skills.

        If they came on board to develop campaign approaches and material to advocate for funding/access whatever for the nesting box endeavour I’d read things differently. This role and skill set seems aligned with drafting/editing and so being part of that process is probably ok.

        Reply ↓
  18. Purple Turtle*

    LW1, I wouldn’t recommend mentioning your old mentor as a reason for moving seats. In the long term, people tend to remember that you had a “conflict” or “disagreement” with someone (even if you, in fact, suffered harassment). Some people will just see you differently for it, some could even use it against you in the future. I’ve also noticed that bosses and coworkers tend to appreciate discretion as a trait. Even if everyone knows the real reason, it’s usually seen as more professional to state a neutral (made-up) reason. It’s not fair, but that’s my experience. It’s better to say you need to be closer to your new mentor or that you need to move away from a window/air conditioner, etc.

    Reply ↓
  19. Single Teacher*

    LW5- I am stuck on the LW’s comment that the spousal surcharge is penalizing those who have families. Isn’t it simply not providing an extra perk that those without families don’t have any way to get? (Double insurance)

    I say this as someone who has gotten to listen to my administration talk about how my school’s benefits are top notch for those with a spouse and kids, when they know very well I am neither married nor a parent, nor do I plan to be.

    Reply ↓
    1. Magpie*

      Right, it’s not penalizing people who have families. There would be no surcharge for her husband to just cover their kids, or to cover them all if she didn’t have her own insurance available. The surcharge only applies to people with other insurance available.

      Reply ↓
      1. doreen*

        Exactly – I’m sure there are a number of employees whose spouses don’t have other insurance who get coverage from this company. In fact, the way the letter is written it appears that the husband’s employer might cover the LW if she had access to insurance but opted out.

        Reply ↓
        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          Most likely! Employers don’t typically check if your spouse has access to insurance, because it’s common for both spouses to be working and they need to pick one or the other. It’s just more expensive to have a family plan than an individual plan, which covers that eventuality. Couples pick the better option for them – for instance my husband has city insurance, which is good, and my job offers me a stipend if I don’t use our insurance. Easy choice, and for an employer it typically comes out in the wash between people choosing them and choosing a spouse. But duplicating the cost messes with that accounting.

          Reply ↓
          1. MCMonkeybean*

            I’ve definitely always had to check a box that said whether or not my spouse has alternate coverage options when signing up for insurance. I just did my enrollment s couple days ago and even though I’m not putting my spouse on my plan I still had to go through that screen.

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      2. fhqwhgads*

        Right, and it’s probably wrong to think of it as a “surcharge” anyway. For example, my current job pays 100% of the premium for the employee and 25% of the premiums for spouse or family if they’re added on. My previous job paid 75% of the premiums for employees and 0 for spouses and families. If the spouses and families have other coverage, current job drops down to 0 too. Previous job wouldn’t have made a difference.
        So it might help the emotional response OP is having about the situation to reframe it from a “surcharge” if you’re double-covered, to instead think of it as “they cover some portion of spouse and family’s premium if spouse and family have no other coverage. You can still opt-in to it and pay 100% if you want.”
        At least, I’m assuming that’s the sitch and not that literally they’re charging a high premium for otherwise covered people. But I realize I may be wrong.

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    2. mbs001*

      Yes, it’s an entitled comment certainly. Why should her husband’s company pay for anyone’s insurance premium — and simultaneously absorb their claims against the company — who does not work for the company! Many companies do not even cover 100% of an employee’s premium — usually only a percentage — much less covering the higher premiums of that employees family members. If allowed to add family members at all, the employees themselves should certainly cover all of the additional premium cost for including the family. Not the employer. Doing so means less money to give to other employees.

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      1. Helewise*

        It’s not entitlement, it’s the way that our health insurance system has been set up and has worked (or not worked) for decades. It’s a crappy system, but saying that a person navigating the system is “entitled” for expecting it to work (or not work) as promised places the blame on the wrong party entirely.

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      2. metadata minion*

        “Why should her husband’s company pay for anyone’s insurance premium — and simultaneously absorb their claims against the company — who does not work for the company! ”

        Because it’s a benefit that many, many people appreciate. I don’t have and will never have children, and my partner is unlikely to ever need to go on my health insurance, and I will happily advocate for my workplace to pay for the costs of my coworkers’ families getting healthcare.

        I’ll even more happily advocate for decoupling employment and health insurance altogether, but that seems unlikely to happen any time soon.

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        1. Learn ALL the things*

          I’m definitely on team Health Coverage Should Have Nothing To Do With Your Job.

          However, while I am glad for employers to offer family coverage plans, in cases like LW’s where a spouse who already has coverage through their own job is using the company’s health plan as secondary insurance, I’m fine with them charging extra for it.

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        2. mbs001*

          That’s unequal treat of workers though. The company is giving one employee more in benefits than others. Just wrong. Each employee should be covered for the same amount period. Just because you have other family members does not make it your employers responsibility to cover your premiums. You’re lucky a company covers you if you’re not the employee — but if they do, you should definitely pay the premiums for the extra coverage and not take away from other actual employees.

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          1. metadata minion*

            How is that any more unequal than paying for maternity leave? If I have kids or a spouse, I will get that benefit too. This is a very common benefit among good employers — it’s why people talk about getting married for health insurance reasons.

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        3. Observer*

          Because it’s a benefit that many, many people appreciate.

          That doesn’t make it an *obligation*. And it certainly is not “penalizing” anyone to not provide this very expensive benefit to a subset of your employee base.

          Penalizing people would be to charge them more for *their* insurance if they have family or the possibility of getting insurance elsewhere.

          Reply ↓
      3. mlem*

        Yeah, my company charges more for family coverage than for individual coverage, because it’s more expensive to the company. That’s always made sense to me. They don’t charge more for 17 kids than for 0 kids, because — as far as I can tell — the insurance we use doesn’t. (My company actually pays something like 85% regardless, so the price difference really is on the insurance company.)

        The only conversations I ever hear about spousal coverage are about deciding which spouse’s plan to use, though; I never hear of anyone seeking double coverage. I don’t know if that’s state-specific, but I’ve certainly seen language to the effect of “if another plan *could* cover this event, we won’t” in plan documents.

        Reply ↓
        1. mlem*

          Turns out I was wrong; a coworker used to have double coverage when her (health-plan-employed) husband’s was free. TIL.

          Reply ↓
    3. Parenthesis Guy*

      In general, most people in this situation would not opt for double insurance. What usually happens in this type of situation is that people either decide to take one plan or the other.

      Family plans are designed to have significantly higher premiums, deductible and out-of-pocket maximums than individual plans because they’re supposed to cover the entire family. But when you make someone pay a subcharge it encourages them to sign up for an individual plan. This means that a family has its members on two plans, one family with a parent and children and one individual. They now need to meet two deductibles, not just one.

      And that’s the rub. It’s not fair to design a family plan with higher deductibles and out of pocket costs which parents need to take so that children get coverage and then make it so that one parent has to opt out. Either reduce the size of the necessary deductible to take into account one parent isn’t on the plan, or let everyone be on the plan equally.

      Reply ↓
      1. Learn ALL the things*

        I agree with this and I am perfectly happy for companies to provide the option for an employee’s entire family to be on the same health plan. But what we’re talking about here is the LW’s attempt to be on both their own company’s insurance plan AND their spouse’s company’s insurance plan. In that case, I think it makes sense for them to say “since you already have health insurance and only want to use ours as a secondary for additional coverage, your portion of the premium payment will be higher than it would be if you were only using our plan on its own.”

        Reply ↓
        1. Hazel*

          Except they won’t be claiming as much if they have their coverage, just the overage. What may seem ‘fair’ doesn’t necessarily make sense.

          To the question of why cover family – maybe bc you can’t discriminate based on family status? Or because it makes sense to have staff working not taking care of family members who would be better if they had medical attention?

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        2. Parenthesis Guy*

          NGL, I missed the part where they want double coverage. Probably because I find double coverage to be bizarre in the US.

          In a case of double coverage, the spouse’s plan is going to be secondary. Which means they’re going to pay less than the primary insurer (the wife’s employer plan) for any bill simply because the primary pays first. But the spouse will still have to pay the difference in premiums between a parent+children plan and a family plan. So, in theory, the employer should make a mint in this case.

          Reply ↓
      2. mbs001*

        It’s also not right that family premiums for someone with one or two kids is the same as coverage for someone with six kids. You know those six kids generate more medical costs than the family with two. But that’s insurance. Charge those who don’t use the services to pay for those that do.

        And I’ve long agreed that an employer has no responsiblity to pay for their employees health insurance and it in fact should not be tied to your job. It should be through government instead.

        Reply ↓
    4. Saturday*

      That part got me too. Having double coverage wouldn’t even be possible for a single person, so I don’t see how not allowing it is penalizing someone with a family.

      Reply ↓
    5. iglwif*

      That seemed odd to me too. (Caveat: I’m in Canada, so while employer health plans are a big thing, they are not the same kind of big thing as in the US — we’re talking dental care, vision care, and drug plans, not doctor visits and surgery and so on.)

      I had my spouse on my health insurance for 20 years, and my child for 15 years, and that meant I paid the “family” premiums rather than the “single” premiums. For part of that time he had insurance available to him, but my employer had better benefits, so we had everyone on mine. Then I quit that job and we were all on his insurance. In both cases, the “family” premium was significantly higher than the “single” premium.

      From the insurance company’s point of view, I don’t know why they would agree to cover twice as many people for the same price. For all they know I could be a cancer survivor who has a recurrence (yes) and my spouse might have asthma (yes) and our child might at some point need anything from abx for strep throat (yes) to day surgery for a minor birth defect (yes) to treatment for childhood leukaemia (B”H no), and obviously they will not know until something happens because they are legally prohibited from asking.

      Reply ↓
  20. Grey Coder*

    LW4 – massive sympathies! I have a chronic disease and at this point WFH is a sufficient accommodation and is standard for my role anyway, so I haven’t had to ask for anything formal. I’ve told my boss, but we’re flexible about things like medical appointments, so we’ve not needed to inform HR. But now my grandboss has organised a full day (plus evening) of activities for our year end in-person meeting, and I just cannot. This meeting also requires a day of travel each way. Travel itself is not too bad for me, but I scheduled a day off after the travel and before the meeting anyway. Unfortunately now everyone is talking about getting together the day before as well.

    Fortunately some of the activities are more team building/not business related, so right now my plan is to just skip most of the afternoon and rejoin the group for dinner. I am of two minds about declaring my disability — I don’t want to be forced into it by this, but also I think people will be more sympathetic if I supply a reason for skipping out.

    Reply ↓
    1. SpaceySteph*

      “Due to my travel schedule I am not available on [day before] but look forward to seeing/meeting you on [day of]!”

      These people don’t know that what you have scheduled on [day before] is recovery from travel. For all they know you are coming in on the late flight.

      Reply ↓
    2. smirkette*

      Massively long meeting days for on- or off-sites is definitely one of those very quiet and pervasive forms of ableism in the workplace. I worked one place where 18 hr days for conferences or on/off-sites were standard and I basically just didn’t sleep until I could get home.

      Reply ↓
  21. NYWeasel*

    For everyone commenting about #2 and typos in general, there are a few points that are specific to graphic design.

    First, it’s VERY COMMON within the visual arts that designers, illustrators, etc may be dyslexic. My own husband and BFF are both like this, with my BFF unable to even spell my name correctly at times. When I was still a working designer, I worked on a team of four and I literally was the only one who could spell worth a damn—and this was at a news station, so accuracy was vital. Unshockingly to me, I was also the weakest artist of the four—my brain isn’t naturally wired to be an artist, I had to work hard at it which is why I shifted out of the design side.

    Second, yes there are some proofreading tools in design software but they aren’t robust, and even now we rely on professional proofreaders to doublecheck our projects.

    Finally, it’s not a great practice to proof your own work, as designing involves staring at every visual element, not just the type, so it’s very hard to reset your focus to catch individual spelling errors. At the news station, I always ended up with the most onscreen errors because I had to proof my own work and I’d miss my mistakes.

    All that said, we ask our designers to review their work before turning it in, to try and minimize the errors we need to catch. But our expectations aren’t that they are error free. It’s that they produce strong design and are able to fix typos quickly when identified. We use people who are strong at spelling and grammar to review the copy.

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    1. Blue Pen*

      I agree, and I think a lot of this applies to writers, too. Writers get words on the page, editors make sure those words look and sound good. And while the two aren’t vastly different, they’re employing different skills.

      Reply ↓
      1. iglwif*

        YES.

        To become an efficient writer, I had to learn to turn off my professional editor brain for the drafting stage — I was spending too much time stuck looking for the perfect word or trying to get the rhythm of a sentence just right, when what I needed to do to meet my deadlines was to JUST GET ON WITH IT and come back to fix the (numerous) imperfections later.

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  22. Grith*

    Depending on how involved they are, I would never want a graphic designer going above and beyond to “correct” typos. If they’re sent a brief that includes the word easy spent “easi”, how do they know for sure that’s a typo and not a bizarre branding choice made by a marketing executive?

    Reply ↓
    1. BW*

      That was my thought, too. Ever since Toys ‘R Us, I’ve seen other companies try to do similar “typos.” One company got a cease and desist order and changed their name to “LLamas Ar Us.” It makes me cringe every time I drive by the sign.

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      2. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        Likewise. All it takes is owning one correction that was intentionally “wrong” and wasn’t desired to make many people in that role simply back off from proofreading verbal copy entirely.

        Reply ↓
    2. Forrest Rhodes*

      Re: typos in drafts, and “bizarre branding choice made by a marketing executive”
      I once worked for a major nationwide US financial organization that decided it would be time-effective if all HR documents spelled “employee” as “employe” because, you know, it takes so much time to add (and, I guess, to read) that final e.
      Drove me crazy every time I was forced to read their materials.

      Reply ↓
  24. Dear Liza dear liza*

    LW 5- Our doctor’s office warned us away from double insurance, as they had found each insurance company would refuse to cover something, arguing that the other company should do so. I don’t know how common that is, but it sounded horrible enough that we’ve always stayed just with my insurance.

    Reply ↓
    1. You Can't Pronounce It*

      As someone who used to be licensed in health insurance, I would usually steer people away from double coverage as well. Rarely is it beneficial. There should not be a question of who is primary, the employer of each person would be primary. The tricky part may come to the kids and then there are usually rules set up, but I can see how some companies would argue it.

      However, assuming there is no issue of who is primary, both policies will process as though they are primary and then, before issuing any payments, the one that is secondary will deduct whatever was paid by the primary from their portion of payment. This rarely brings about additional insurance payments actually being made unless the secondary policy is that much better than the primary.

      Reply ↓
    2. Eldritch Office Worker*

      100%. It can be a good safety net in extreme cases, but more often than not it’s just going to complicate your life.

      Reply ↓
    3. SpaceySteph*

      I know that every single one of my kids when born got their initial hospital stay (including 2 in the NICU) denied automatically because they were awaiting me to fill out a form (that they had not sent in advance) with coordination of benefits. The kids were never double-covered, the insurance company was just… hoping they were, I guess? My husband and I worked for the same company at the time, so we were able to get a family plan with no surcharge since the company would have to cover both of us regardless.

      The first time I didn’t know what was up when I got $120,000 bill from the NICU for my new baby and freaked out. It was pretty easy to handle though once I knew what it was, but the whole insurance thing is a hellscape.

      Reply ↓
      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Yeah, when I was having some major medical expenses a couple years ago our insurance company stopped processing claims for a while until we convinced them that we didn’t have any other coverage – never had, never even considered it but they wanted to find someone else they could make pay. Dealing with health insurance is so hellish I can’t imaging deciding to do twice as much of it.

        Reply ↓
    4. iglwif*

      In Canada, where employer insurance plans cover the stuff (like dental, vision, prescription drugs, physiotherapy, etc.) that provincial plans don’t, double coverage is not uncommon and can be very helpful. Your own insurance is always primary and will be billed first, then your spouse’s or parent’s insurance; if you’re a child/student and have coverage from both parents, the one with the earlier birthday is designated as primary. This is a widely accepted practice and is known among insurers and providers as “coordination of benefits” (COB).

      This means for instance that if my insurance covers $1000/person/year for psychologist visits and my spouse’s covers $700/person/year and my spouse, our child, and I are all on both plans, each of the three of us has $1700/year of coverage, which is significantly better than two of us having $700/year and the third having $1000/year.

      Reply ↓
    5. Strive to Excel*

      Post my parents divorce I dealt with double insurance for a few years. Non-stop confusion at every medical office I went to. Would not recommend unless you can point to very specific things each plan is covering.

      Reply ↓
  25. TwoPlans*

    LW5, back when most insurance was coinsurance (plan paid XX%, you paid (100-XX)% it made sense to get a second insurance plan if you had a lot of medical expenses and had access to a second plan. If both paid 80%, between them they covered 96%.

    However, these days it’s rare to find coinsurance options. Further, Obamacare requires a real out if pocket maximum for all commercial insurance (not just exchange plans) so folks with high medical expenses will hit the maximum and get 100% coverage for the rest of the plan year. When you have a copay plan, the secondary plan doesn’t have much to cover – there generally isn’t leftover for the second plan in this model. I had some overlap between plans when I started my current job and the second plan didn’t pay a penny during that time – there was nothing for them to cover.

    Reply ↓
  26. Elizabeth*

    People who only see typos can’t see the forest for the trees. They typically aren’t the best people to ask for editing help in phases where you don’t need that type of assistance.

    I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person. My husband is very particular and detail oriented. My daughter never wanted to give him a rough draft. She let him edit the finished product. His comments were focused too much on specific issues, and it didn’t help with the overall development of the project.

    Reply ↓
    1. Allonge*

      Yes, honestly, this is the issue for work-work products too.

      I am grateful for people catching typos! No problem to point them out.

      But please rise beyond that and answer my actual question on the structure, content, design or whatever, because if the only feedback I get from you is ‘colour should be color on page 45’, that is not that helpful – especially in the stages where that whole section may be removed still. I asked your opinion on the color scheme because I wanted to know if you think it’s too boring or not.

      Reply ↓
      1. Lamont and Rollo*

        Sure but in this letter the person is a volunteer, and I assume not a professional editor. If i’m in that situation unless I’m given very specific instructions on what to mention, I’m going to look at the whole thing including typos because why wouldn’t you look for any errors?

        Reply ↓
        1. fhqwhgads*

          The problem isn’t the volunteer looking for errors including typos. The problem is the volunteer “going off” about the typos. If the volunteer had just returned it with feedback, including noting the typos, it wouldn’t be a letter. It’s about the outsized reaction to typos.

          Reply ↓
    2. Tech Industry Refugee*

      I’m the go-to peer editor at my company. I learned a while ago to ask what kind of review the writer needs at this time. Sometimes, they need to ensure their ideas are sound and that questions are answered. Other times, it’s a question about structure; and often, it’s an “everything” review, down to word choice and mechanics. You can’t get angry at the editor if you failed to express your needs.

      A few people at work know that I am going to absolutely tear their piece apart with the best of intentions, so they just let me attack it like a hungry dog.

      So, I don’t at all agree that “people who see typos can’t see the forest for the trees.” It’s on you and your editor to come to a mutual understanding of what you, the writer, need help with in that moment.

      Reply ↓
  27. FashionablyEvil*

    #3–I work in a similar field. Our leadership has shared that our government affairs team had previously game planned out all configurations of outcomes for the presidency, House, and Senate. Our business development team has been reviewing the federal budget narratives from our key clients from the first Trump administration identify likely shifts in priorities. While there are likely some major impacts for agencies like EPA, overall, steering a federal bureaucracy is hard and a lot of things will be fairly status quo.

    Reply ↓
    1. AF Vet*

      This is one of the (admittedly few) times that bureaucracy itself becomes positive. You can’t turn a cruise ship on a dime, and the US government is the most unwieldy, intractable, and just plain ornery ship currently afloat. I have to believe that we’ll survive the next four years… because the inertia of the bureaucracy itself will slow all of these promised (threatened?) changes.

      Reply ↓
  28. Devin Singer*

    Re: #3, it’s quite probable that Alison is right, but also this may be the kind of question (and answer) that is better discussed *not in writing*. Even if you only work *with* the government, and not *for* them, you don’t necessarily want this kind of thing in a discoverable medium. (My friend has done govt and govt-adjacent work and she had to get in the habit of writing nothing down that she didn’t want subpoenaed or FOIA’d.)

    Reply ↓
      1. Strive to Excel*

        The rule I was taught from high-school up is never to write something if you’d be unhappy with it being reprinted in the New York Times.

        Reply ↓
  29. Four Lights*

    #2 As a former English teacher who gets talked to about this by people, I can tell you that some people definitely attach a moral component to spelling errors. Rather than being morally neutral they are seen as being lazy or careless, which are morally negative, or associated with poor education, which is associated with lower classes, which is associated with laziness and poor work ethic, morally negative things.

    Reply ↓
    1. allathian*

      Yes, absolutely. One of the best writers I know is severely dyslexic and can’t reliably spell the simple 2 syllable first name and 3 syllable second name they were born with. But their storytelling is absolutely stunning. They just need a good editor to fix their atrocious spelling for them.

      I’m the opposite of dyslexic in that my superpower is that when I’m learning a new language, I need to see a word written down and hear it said *once* and I can spell it reliably even if I don’t know what it means. This includes diacritics when I’ve advanced far enough to understand how they affect pronunciation. Admittedly all the languages that I know or have studied use the Latin alphabet. I’m not sure it would work with Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic.

      One of my online US friends used to date a Japanese-American man who’s fluent in both Japanese and English. He was diagnosed with severe dyslexia in English but he’s never had any issues writing in Japanese.

      Reply ↓
    2. WillowSunstar*

      I’ve had a few bosses in the past who would get verbally abusive about typos, even if you did 100 things right and only one out of 100 had a typo. One former boss even tried to make me promise that I would never again make a typo, which of course is impossible to promise. I no longer have a verbally abusive manager, but it’s to the point where I triple-check most things now if I have time.

      People are human, they’re going to make typos. But companies need to at least let things be double-checked in the process, there is a reason proofing exists.

      Reply ↓
      1. Freya*

        I had a boss once, for whom I screened resumes for job openings (amongst many other things). Because I knew this dude, I had a subset of criteria that was basically things that would annoy him that were really no big deal in the grand scheme of things but that it was not worth the trauma (for the prospective employee) to employ someone who did them. One of those was typos. The more typos I could find in their resume, the less likely I was to short-list them for the boss to look at, because I KNEW he’d have a fit about their work if that carried through, and it was just not worth it.

        Reply ↓
    3. Not your typical admin*

      This! I’m a horrible speller, and have experienced people assuming my errors are because of laziness. My class in elementary school was chosen to try out a new spelling curriculum in k-3rd. Long story short, it was so bad that by the time we got to third grade, the teacher pulled the plug on the program about halfway through the year. We missed a lot of the spelling fundamentals. As an adult, I’m very thankful for spellcheck, and know I have to work extra had to be precise.

      Reply ↓
    4. Selina Luna*

      As a current teacher (certified in English but not teaching English at the moment), I agree. I teach kids in poverty. I tell them (and teach them, which is different) that people assign morality to writing using formal grammar. I help them to overcome this in writing that I have explicitly designated as “formal writing.” And then I don’t grade this at all for most day-to-day quick assignments unless I’ve told them I’m focusing on a specific grammar concept. I actively teach code-switching in both writing and speaking because I want them to be judged for the content of their writing, not their accent.

      Reply ↓
    5. DramaQ*

      Oh you’ve met my current boss! I am dyslexic and have always been the world’s worst speller.

      My manager seems hell bent on thinking I misspell things on purpose and if she just beats me down hard enough about it I will stop.

      I’ve been called lazy, sloppy, incapable of paying attention to detail (that one went in my review).

      I asked for a dictionary to be loaded into our software because that would help immensely if I had spell check. You think that has happened? I don’t have the permissions to do it otherwise I would.

      Reply ↓
      1. allathian*

        Honestly, it sounds like your boss is setting you up to fail. Any chance you could get a doctor to write a note for you asking for the spell checker?

        What’s HR like in your organization? Your boss is ableist because she’s essentially punishing you for having a disability and that’s illegal in the US and in many other countries.

        Reply ↓
  30. BW*

    The number of times I’ve written something correctly, had AutoCorrect change it, then have me change it back, only to have AutoCorrect change it on me again, lather rinse repeat. I think I’ve finally gotten the correct word in my document, only to print it out and proof it and discover AutoCorrect got the wrong word in there again.

    I no longer disparage people writing posts on the Internet with typos, because I blame Autocorrect for their misspellings.

    Reply ↓
    1. wrap me up baby*

      Yes. There is a term in my field that is commonly abbreviated HSA, and autocorrect wants to change it to ‘has’. You can go in and manually changes autocorrect options in Microsoft Word (and actually you can add your own, so I have some typed series that automatically insert things like arrows), but I have not figured out how to do it in excel, so it’s just…wrong all the time.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bread Crimes*

        I have, perhaps ironically, gotten my phone’s autocomplete so used to “autocorrupt” that it suggests the word when I get as far as an “aut-” in a sentence.

        Reply ↓
    4. SpaceySteph*

      About a decade ago, we made a concerted shift from “manned spaceflight” to “crewed spaceflight” and the number of times I have seen “uncrewed” auto-corrected to “unscrewed” in official presentations and documents could fill a room.

      Reply ↓
  31. Helewise*

    #5, my husband’s company decided two years ago to suddenly stop covering working spouses who had insurance. It was rolled out really poorly and they didn’t communicate this until some people’s open enrollment periods had already ended – I had just a few days left in mine – which was extremely frustrating for such a dramatic change. Our family is covered by two different insurances now, which means that we have two separate caps for out-of-pocket expenses. To say I’m not a fan is an understatement.

    Reply ↓
    1. Parenthesis Guy*

      Losing your insurance from your spouses’ employer should be a qualifying event so whether your open enrollment is open should be irrelevant. You’d just tell your employer you lost your insurance and make sure you signed up for insurance within a certain number of days of the event.

      Reply ↓
  32. Lamont and Rollo*

    For #1, if Rob’s behavior was bad enough that it caused him to no longer be your mentor, I don’t think it’ll come as a big surprise to anyone that you might want to move, so I think you’re fine here.

    On #2, I don’t think typos in a draft are a huge deal, but if you’re asking a volunteer to do this editing work you might need to give more specific guidance as to what you’re looking for.

    Reply ↓
  33. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    4. Disabled, chronic pain, doesn’t travel well anymore either here as well.

    One thing that can help you is to read up on the laws and rights of your area surrounding disability accomodations. I felt a ton more confident going back to management and saying ‘I can’t do that 2 hour car journey because of my disability but we can use remote desktop/zoom instead’ when I had the chapter and verse of how I was protected in saying that right in front of me.
    Also, I know it’s really easy to downplay your disability and limitations – to try not to mention it, be the ‘good disabled person who doesn’t make a fuss’ – but I encourage you to practise putting it aside for a minute. I’ve practised the conversations at home, on my own, while holding my cane like a sword and visualising my favourite warrior women.

    It also helps to be factual. You can’t do that journey, there’s nothing they can offer that would make it possible (memories of a certain boss offering me a cushion to sit on!) and by being clear as to what you need as an accomodation (remote access) it doesn’t allow the management much wiggle room at all. Not legally anyway.

    Reply ↓
  34. I hate our healthcare system*

    LW5: I’ve never heard of a situation like yours (employer covers spouse’s insurance only if spouse is uninsured), only because at every company I’ve worked at or known anyone else to work at, there is a cost to insure the employee’s spouse and/or children.

    For example, at my company, you pay (not actual numbers) 5% of your income for insurance for yourself; 10% for you and spouse; 15% for you, spouse, and child(ren). Whether your spouse has access to insurance through their job is irrelevant. I believe (though I’ve never had reason to confirm this) that if your spouse has opted in to insurance through their employer, you can’t actually add them to your plan.

    So — consider yourself lucky to have the system you do! IMO it’s astoundingly generous of your employer compared to what’s typical.

    Reply ↓
    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      In situations like this, the cost breakdown you spell out often still applies. There’s just an additional fee on top of it, which is what LW is reacting to. However you are correct that the option for dual insurance is completely off the table for a lot of people!

      I don’t think LW realizes what a cushy situation they’ve been in until now.

      Reply ↓
      1. Hlao-roo*

        Yeah, that’s the way it worked at a company I used to work for that had a working spouse premium. To spell it out with some example numbers:

        Employee only health coverage: $100/month
        Employee + Spouse health coverage: $250/month
        Employee + Child(ren) health coverage: $200/month
        Family (Employee + Spouse + Children): $300/month

        If the spouse did not have the option of health insurance through their job (or did not have a job at all), then the above prices were what was deducted from the employee’s paycheck.

        If the spouse had the option of health insurance at their workplace, there was an extra $200/month surcharge on the premium prices, so the Employee + Spouse plan would go up to $450/month and the Family plan would go up to $500/month.

        Reply ↓
        1. fhqwhgads*

          Does your employer only tell you the part the employee pays or do they tell you what they’re paying too?
          Because in my experience (which I know may be uncommon), the breakdown is more like this:
          Employee only health coverage: $1000/month, employer pays $900, employee pays $100
          Employee + Spouse health coverage:$1500/month, employer pays $1250, employee pays $250/month
          Employee + Child(ren) health coverage: $1400/month, employer pays $1200, employee pays $200/month
          Family (Employee + Spouse + Children): $1600/month, employer pays $1300, employee pays $300/month

          If the spouse had insurance at their workplace, then Employee+Spouse would still be $1500/month, but employer pays $900, employee pays $600/month, or pays $700/month for the family one.

          These aren’t real numbers, just trying to illustrate. But now I’m confused and wondering if this is an outlier experience I’ve encountered at several jobs.

          Reply ↓
          1. Hlao-roo*

            Not an outlier! All of my previous jobs worked the way you described, with the employer paying most of the premiums and me just paying a small portion. I mostly just pay attention (ha!) to what premiums I pay and don’t think about what my company is paying, but I know I could look up the exact breakdown (80/20? 90/10?) if I wanted to.

            I didn’t include what the employer/company was paying for because I didn’t want my comment to become too long and confusing, I just wanted to show that the “working spouse premium” was separate from the price difference between Employee Only and Employee + Spouse plans.

            Reply ↓
            1. fhqwhgads*

              Fair enough. The reason I asked is because, in my mind, “surcharge for otherwise covered spouse” and “employer doesn’t pay anything toward otherwise covered spouse” sound like different things. I know to the employee’s out of pocket cost may not be functionally different but it sounded sort of odd to me when the OP called it a surcharge, and when you mentioned the “covered spouse premium”, it made me wonder if the premium itself were different, as opposed to the employee-paid portion of the premium.

              Reply ↓
    2. doreen*

      There probably is a cost to insure spouse/children and what the LW is complaining about is that if husband adds her while she has insurance through her own job, he will have to pay 100% of the premium. I’ll use different numbers – at my job, my employer paid 84% of the cost to cover me and 69% of the cost to cover my family. And if I opted-out of individual coverage because I have other coverage ( like through a spouse ) I got a $1000/yr incentive , if I opted out of family , I got a $3000/yr payment. These incentive payments are not uncommon and I suspect they are connected to “we won’t pay anything towards premiums for spouses who have access to insurance.” Because after all, if my spouse’s employer will provide me with health insurance, why wouldn’t I opt out of my own for the incentive?

      Reply ↓
  35. Tundradweller*

    Re #4, my own office claims to really care about increasing disabled representation, but then also does sh*t like that. Literally says, “your most important task is attending meetings in person.” Horrible trend in reversing workplace gains in accommodation.

    Reply ↓
    1. need more sleep*

      I got my RA turned down the same day the SAME PERSON WHO DENIED IT sent out some Disability Awareness stuff and DEI newsletter.

      We Want Diversity And Disability But Not When It Inconveniences Our Desire To Treat Our Workers As Interchangeable Cogs!

      Reply ↓
  36. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    #2 – Alison mentions this, but I think it needs to be called out much more strongly.

    Whenever you give anyone a draft to review, tell them upfront what you want them to look for AND what they can ignore. This is especially the case where the reviewer is part-time, volunteer, etc and doesn’t have all the context.

    “This is the draft poster for the 2025 Family Teapot Summit. This will be posted on community bulletin boards through the county, in the schools, and in the windows of several businesses downtown. I’d like your thoughts about whether the layout is eye-catching, whether we’re trying to cram too much information into it, and whether it’s understandable to middle-schoolers and up. We have already verified the dates and times with the fairgrounds, and the parking info is straight from them, so you don’t need to review that. We also have not finalized the speakers schedule so you can ignore the specifics and just look at the layout.”

    As opposed to

    “Here’s a poster – what do you think?”

    Reply ↓
  37. Tradd*

    Letter 3 – I agree it’s good for companies who might be affected by the new administration to have some sort of contingency plan, but they need to realize that we won’t know anything definite until Jan 20th. I’m a customs broker. Customers are understandably nervous and upset about the very real possibility of hugely increased import tariffs. However, the same customers are calling multiple times a day. We don’t know anything more than we do. With the president-elect’s first term, it took about a year in for the first tariff increases. We don’t know what will happen and just have to hang tight for the next two months.

    Reply ↓
    1. Cloud Wrangler*

      There’s a wile conjecture floating around that cannot be planned for. I honestly had someone ranting that Kinder Surprise Eggs would be illegal (vs. the Kinder Joy Eggs). How would we respond to the health and safety issue for her children.

      My snarky response I wanted to give was, “Just don’t buy them.” Instead I stated that this hasn’t happened and we will follow the same protocols as with every other new product imported to the US.

      In many cases there are guidelines in place. We don’t need to create new ones. Just use what we have. And don’t act like idiots, especially in writing (cough–FEMA response team leader–cough).

      Reply ↓
  38. Another Kristin*

    LW1, maybe I work with a bunch of unreasonable weirdos, but asking to move desks because of a personal conflict wouldn’t even be in the top 10 list of oddest space management requests I’ve heard about. People want to move because another floor has better coffee…they got a desk plant and need more light…they want a bigger office than their frenemy…and so on and so on. I would just ask, especially if there’s a desk available and it wouldn’t mean moving anyone else around.

    Reply ↓
  39. Moose*

    LW3 I also have an anxiety disorder and work for a government funded position. You didn’t put your foot in it, so don’t worry about that – my manager has been handling things similarly, by giving us general reassurance but no detailed plans yet. (I’m high enough up to know if there are plans.)

    Have you considered making a list of red lines *you* won’t cross? Only do that if it’s helpful! Personally I find outlining the problem makes it a bit smaller/more manageable and helps me prioritize which issues to fight for.

    But, work stuff aside, from one person with an anxiety disorder to another – times are rough right now, be gentle to yourself while you adjust.

    Reply ↓
    1. WillowSunstar*

      Also some companies might be afraid of retribution, so they aren’t going to publicize red lines unless and until the events actually happen.

      Reply ↓
  40. MidWasabiPeas*

    Letter #2

    Imagine if you worked in an industry that frequently uses the word “Count.”

    Now, imagine thanking whatever deity you believe in when you, for some reason you still can’t identify, decided to review a document from someone who is usually on top of their game and caught north of 25 copy/paste errors missing a very important letter in that word.

    Reply ↓
    3. Annika Hansen*

      I have misspelled this word before in an email to a person very high on the food chain. I had reworded my email a few times. I decided to give it once last look before I hit send so I didn’t actually send that word. However, I still panicked at the close call.

      Reply ↓
    5. need more sleep*

      I am so scared of leaving out the “u” in count that I write out “number of” rather than “count of” something.

      Reply ↓
      1. MidWasabiPeas*

        We don’t have the option to do that…it is a particular department name. They “count” things and for once, nobody went and made it more complicated. It’s an industry-wide term-they called the department exactly what it does.

        To this day, I have no idea what made me proof that particular document. The person who prepped it was my star performer and 99.99% of the time was A-game on. It wasn’t even as if their performance had been lacking recently. I just felt like I needed to review it. Thank you, Universe!

        Reply ↓
    6. iglwif*

      I used to lead a team that provided a service whose name included the word “Shift”. Nothing ever went public with the wrong word in it, but I used to have nightmares about the possibility.

      Reply ↓
    7. AF Vet*

      I haven’t had to worry about this for years (hooray for being a homemaker?), but isn’t there a function in whatever version of spell check you use to remove words that are otherwise normal? I’m assuming you never have to intentionally misspell Count… so why not remove its misspelling from your dictionary?

      Reply ↓
    8. ZucchiniBikini*

      I used to work for a government agency in my (non-US) state which had the word Public in its name. Imagine the fun when a very highly priced consultant gave a presentation to our staff with the name of the agency on each slide … with the “l” omitted.

      Reply ↓
    9. ZucchiniBikini*

      And on the same note, my father, now retired in his late 70s, *still* chortles about his retail job in a men’s fashion shop 50 years ago, when he was a college student, where the owner would frequently have sales of particular items such as hats, and had a standing sign that read “Men’s Bowels, half-priced, today only”. My Dad never could persuade him that bowls (as in bowler hats) didn’t have an e in it.

      Reply ↓
  41. Fluff*

    For LW #2.

    Note the recent news about the not quite misspelled website on the Wicked Barbies. The web address was supposed to send people to the Wicked Movie webpage. Instead, the mistake sent folks to a porn site instead. Even without a spelling error, you get a typo.

    “Mattel’s packaging for its latest dolls came with a wicked mistake.”

    Best opening line ever.

    “The link printed on the back of the toy’s box led to a pornographic website, prompting dolls all over the country to be pulled from shelves. Meanwhile, some dolls with the labeling error are being resold online for over $100.”

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/11/11/wicked-dolls-error-target/76199396007/

    Reply ↓
  42. need more sleep*

    #4: I hope this works for you and I wish you good luck. This is the exact same situation that had me kicked out of a job I had for 10 years: a new manager who wouldn’t take “disabled, can’t travel for your pointless meetup, but can still do my actual job” for an answer.

    Reply ↓
  43. Dog momma*

    Hmm, I was in health insurance as a reviewer for20 yrs and hadn’t heard of a premium to add a dependent.. but I’m not surprised…

    Reply ↓
  44. NotProphet*

    LW2, please have your graphic artist’s back on this. Especially if the GA at your not-for-profit produces a wide variety of collateral in a relatively short amount of time. Volunteer likely doesn’t realize that GA needs to focus on the design rather than the copy. I’m guessing you have a proofing process in place, and it worked as it should. As a former volunteer myself, expediency can look like sloppiness if he/she/they are unaware of the main focus of a graphic artist. :)

    Reply ↓
  45. Meep*

    Not to be unkind, but how can LW#5’s husband work for an insurance company and she not understand that the more people added to the plan the more the plan goes up?

    We are having a child in December so we were looking. My company has great single-payer insurance (since the lady who set it up wanted only the best for herself and hated families), so I only pay $200 a month for some great coverage. Adding my child would be an additional $700 a month.

    Meanwhile, my husband’s company is overall well rounded and cares about their employees through all stages of life so it is literally an extra $5 to add me and an extra $50 to add our kid. It is, unfortunately, the way it is. And it is going to get worse in 2025 if a certain someone has anything to say about it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Kevin Sours*

      “Not to be unkind, but how can LW#5’s husband work for an insurance company and she not understand that the more people added to the plan the more the plan goes up?”

      This is not only it is unkind it’s wildly off base. Actually read the letter.

      “Because I am employed and insured on my own, his company will charge him an extra fee … If I was unemployed and/or uninsured, it wouldn’t cost him extra.”

      Adding more people is what determines the cost going up in this case.

      Reply ↓
    2. Starbuck*

      FYI I’d really recommend reigning in the condescension here because in your own comment you’ve used “single-payer insurance” in a way that absolutely does not match the meaning that the insurance industry and policymakers have. The phrase you were looking for is “individual plan.”

      Reply ↓
  46. Jack McCullough*

    I’ve never heard of a working spouse premium before.

    Where I work there are two levels of insurance coverage: individual, two-person, and more, with escalating costs and employee contributions for each.

    The way we encourage people not to participate is that we pay people to opt out. If your spouse has coverage available elsewhere (or if you are eligible for coverage on your spouse’s policy) the employer pays an opt-out premium. We save what we would otherwise pay, the employee saves what they would pay for a premium, and the opt-out payment from the employer is still less than what it would cost to cover the person.

    Why not treat people well?

    Reply ↓
  47. AnnieG*

    LW5: It’s naive to think it’s ironic that your spouse works for an insurance company and their health insurance offerings are set up to benefit the employer rather than the employee. Insurance is a business, not health care, and their priorities and policies reflect this.

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  48. Old Lady at Large*

    I once had a co-worker tell me that the sound of my voice triggered migraines. This was someone I got along well with; I knew she had nasty migraines, and when she got pregnant they were even worse. I personally do not get migraines, but I was (and still am) totally sympathetic to people who do get them and was willing to help her out, but I couldn’t just sit at my desk in silence as a big part of my job was talking to providers and briefing new providers on our hospital dictation system. I suggested that she ask her supervisor to move her, but this didn’t happen until she moved to another office after having her baby.

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  49. Statler von Waldorf*

    LW#3 – I’m more cynical than Alison is. Regarding this part of your question? The “my concern is just to know that senior management has some sort of plan or internal moral standards to limit what kind of things we will work in support of” part? That I can probably answer.

    Based on my fairly extensive work with consulting companies, they have no moral standards, and will work on anything that will make them money. That’s business.

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  50. Specks*

    OP 5, I think it might be helpful to know how incredibly privileged you are when it comes to this, in the US context, to temper your feelings. Many of us have no insurance through either person’s work for years. And when we do get insurance, adding your spouse is anywhere from $150 a month (the best benefits I ever had) to $550 a month, even if the spouse has no other coverage — and often it’s not an option at all. Right now we’re paying $1200 a month in premiums for a rather crummy plan for two adults and a child, and that’s not even close to the highest per person we’ve had to pay. So the outrage at having to pay some for a SECOND insurance, when you’ve got cheap or free primary coverage for both of you, comes off as tone-death to say the least – like complaining that you only got a low-6-figure bonus.

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    1. Starbuck*

      It’s wild, I’m in the US but even I don’t understand at all how people are able to pay bills like that – it’s more than my housing and utilities cost. I’m so sorry.

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  51. Jack Straw from Wichita*

    We cant even add spouses if they have insurance through their employer–as long as what they have is equal to or better than what we are offered.

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  52. An Australian in London*

    Double insurance is location-dependent. In the UK it is a perilous legal position to be in and can result not only in a claim being denied (by both insurers) but can also end up with the claimant facing legal action for fraud.

    I am not a lawyer in any jurisdiction and this isn’t legal advice: the rule is a claimant cannot end up making a claim for more than 100% of the loss, so there are very few (no?) scenarios where it is an advantage; double insurance cannot provide more cover than does single insurance. It is considered so perilous a legal position that legal advice is to never do it. Indeed most insurers will ask in the application if any other insurance is held for the same entity and risk.

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  53. Oh Health Insurance*

    #5 – My company has taken the “we don’t cover spouses if there work offers health insurance” to another level. My partner used to work at the same company with me. We weren’t allowed to be on the same insurance plan because “we both had insurance through our employer.” And we weren’t even the first couple to both work at the same company.

    In the end she found another job where even with the surcharge for me, our family plan was cheaper, with significantly better coverage.

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  54. HowDoesSheDoItAll?*

    #2. I’m an editor who works with graphic designers. The designers always make spelling/grammar errors. They are designers, not writers. It’s my job to make sure the mistakes don’t make it to publication. Judging bad spelling from a graphic designer on a 1st draft is out of line and doesn’t reflect on their overall work excellence whatsoever.

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    1. I Have RBF*

      IME, designers work with text in blocks, and don’t really read it, theyt just treat it as shapes. Whether it’s Lorem Ipsum or Your Special Text doesn’t matter to a graphic design person… unless there’s too much text for the space. Then they’ll ask the writer to trim it.

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  55. Hedgehug*

    LW #2
    My husband is a graphic designer and they do tend to get crapped on more than most people when it comes to typos because they are expected to have a higher level of attention-to-detail. So to answer your question, I think it depends on what the thing is. A draft of a letter with typos very likely would not have garnered as much anger as a design proof for a sign visible to the public.

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  56. DJ*

    LW#w I think it’s very reasonable to request a desk change.
    Too many employers are way too difficult over such requests when it can be such a simple solution between 2 staff who don’t get along. Conversely it helps to keep ppl in the loop if they move closer to those they work on joint projects with.
    One person I worked near to wanted to move away from her subordinate. She had some mild hearing problems and couldn’t hear when her subordinate called over the partition. It’s easy enough even when asked to get up and come around and why to simply in the moment to call out/speak from ones desk like if you were sitting side by side. But being further away meant subordinate would have to get up and come over. But even worse the 2 didn’t get on and distance would have helped with that!

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    1. allathian*

      I feel sorry for the subordinate, it’s awful to work for a manager who doesn’t like you and isn’t professional enough not to show it. Been there, done that. No amount of distance would’ve solved that problem for as long as she was my manager. We got along okay once she quit being a manager and I didn’t have to work with her much anymore.

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  57. The Body Is Round*

    Thanks for that explanation about insurance. When my husband and I both got health insurance through work at about the same time, we noticed that — the cost of having both of us insured by his insurance or mine was more than the cost of having him insured through his job and me insured through my job. We assumed it had something to do with it being a “family” rate that didn’t account for couples without children.

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  58. Problem!*

    For #2 I’d bet dollars to donuts your designer is fed up with being asked to write copy when it’s not part of their job description and did it on purpose to call attention to it. You could call it weaponized incompetence, but we call it fighting duty creep.

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  59. LingNerd*

    LW5, my spouse’s company does this and it makes a lot of sense. They are a massive employer, so adding insurance for spouses who have access to insurance through their own jobs could result in insuring tens of thousands of additional people. So they basically make you pay full price if you want to do it. Insuring your employees is a business expense and it makes perfect sense that they would decline to take on the expenses of other companies.

    Reply ↓

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