coworker keeps telling people she’s my boss, suspicious jewelry, and more

by Alison Green on January 3, 2025

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My coworker is wearing jewelry that signifies a dominant/submissive relationship

I recently realized that one of my coworkers wears D/s jewelry every day. (Funny enough, I wouldn’t have recognized it had I not been a devout reader of your blog and read the letter from the person asking about wearing a collar to work!) Now that I’ve noticed the jewelry, I feel like I can’t un-notice it. I’m all for people living their own best lives, but overt sexuality at work makes me incredibly uncomfortable. (Can I blame my Catholic upbringing? Because I’d really like to blame my Catholic upbringing.) I work with this person regularly and am on friendly terms with them. We don’t discuss our personal lives with each other, so I would feel weird bringing up the issue of the jewelry. While we both work for a children-focused nonprofit, my coworker doesn’t interact with the public in any way. I think my concern is too petty and intrusive to bring to HR. Any tips on how to “get over“ the discomfort?

You’re right that it’s definitely not something you should bring up with HR or raise with your coworker.

I don’t know exactly what the piece of jewelry is, but there’s no guarantee that she’s wearing it to signify a dominant/submissive relationship! That stuff isn’t exclusively for D/s relationships, so it’s possible she just saw it and liked it. In fact, there were a bunch of commenters on that previous letter saying they owned similar jewelry with no symbolism attached.

So to get over your discomfort, why not decide that’s likely the case here? There’s a decent chance it really is and that your coworker would be horrified (or just amused) to find out how you’re interpreting it.

– 2019

2. My coworker keeps telling people she’s my boss

I’ve worked on a small team in a large company for about ten years. I have two peers — same pay grade but different functional work — one of whom started after me, who I’ll call Jack, and one of whom has been there about 20 years, who I’ll call Jill. We have together been through a half dozen bosses.

Both Jill and I have been encouraged to take the manager of the team position as our bosses have left, and both of us have repeatedly declined. I like the career I have and have no interest in converting to management. Jill seems to want the authority of being the manager without any of the responsibility. She frequently tries to assign work to Jack and me, repeatedly directly tells people inside and outside the company that we are her employees (in front of our current boss), and scolded our current boss because he “needs to clear changes to team assignments” with her first — which he immediately made clear to her that he does not need to do, as he is the boss.

So far, I have simply ignored this, since I work at a different site and don’t see most of it directly, but I’m starting to run into issues because she’s told this lie to so many people that there is confusion among some vendors and the teams we work with, especially since we do change bosses frequently. Our current boss has called her out when she claims Jack and I are her employees, and she claims she “misspoke” or that our boss or other hearers “misunderstood,” so talking to her directly isn’t terribly productive.

Is this something I should keep mostly ignoring and just correcting with individuals as needed? Given that she won’t own up to the fact she is doing this, I can’t think of any way to say, “Knock it off. If you want to be the boss, then take the job next time it comes up!” What do I say to someone when they have been directly told by Jill that she is my boss, and I have to correct that lie?

It’s bizarre that she’s doing this in front of your boss, who would obviously know the truth.

I think you do need to call it out directly, both on principle and because it’s causing confusion. It doesn’t matter that she’ll deny it; there’s value in calling it out and making it clear to her that you’re not going to tolerate it. You also don’t need to prove that she’s doing it in order to be able to speak up. It’s come up enough that you can safely say this to her: “Jill, why are you continuing to tell people that you’re my manager?” If she says she hasn’t and that people just misunderstood, then say this: “It’s happening frequently enough that if it’s a misunderstanding, it’s being caused by something you said. But to make sure we’re all on the same page, you’re clear that you’re not in fact my boss and that we’re peers, right?” Assuming she says yes, then say, “Okay. I’ll assume there won’t be further misunderstandings, but if there are, I’m going to ask (boss) to intervene.”

Or you could skip that last part and go straight to your boss now, which would be more than reasonable.

When you need to correct the facts with someone who’s been told Jill is your boss, you can just be matter-of-fact about it — “No, that must have been a miscommunication! Jill and I are peers. I report to Fergus.”

– 2017

3. My mentor got fired and now I’m questioning what she taught me

I started a new job in payroll last July and on my first day got paired up with Jane, a current employee. Jane had been handling most of my job for a few months and also had years of experience with payroll even though she was in a different department here. At the time, Jane was presented as an excellent resource for me to find out about the job and the company as a whole. We even were given an office to share, so she would be readily available to answer any questions that I had. We had many long conversations about her experience and opinions of the company and her input really shaped my impression of my job.

Six months after I started, Jane was fired. Since then, I have heard snide remarks about Jane from others in her department that she was not a good employee.

I have not been able to reconcile the first six months of working with Jane with this new information. Even though I didn’t take all of her advice, I did listen to everything she told me and believed much of it because of her experience. For instance, she told me a particular manager was terrible at his job (a position that she had before), yet I have heard positive feedback about him from others now. Should I forget everything that Jane told me? How should I filter out the good from the bad?

Do what you would do if you’d never had those in-depth conversations with Jane: form your own impressions, based on your own experiences with people, and reserve judgment about people you don’t work with yourself.

It’s possible that Jane’s impressions were all pretty right on. It’s also possible that they were way off, or somewhere in between. You’ll probably have a better idea of how you rate her accuracy once you start forming your own impressions and can check how well they line up with what she told you. You might find you come to similar conclusions, or really different ones. Stay open-minded and see what happens.

One thing to think about though: If Jane was very quick to share negative opinions about others when you started, that’s actually a strike against her. People with good judgment usually don’t rush to dump negativity onto a new hire and will be more discreet. So if looking back, that’s what happened, I’d bring some additional skepticism to bear.

– 2019

4. My VP insists on leaving papers in my chair instead of my inbox

I’m the admin for a team of four in a large company. It’s an okay job and I’m an okay admin. It’s a step back for me but I need the money. We have a new VP who insists on leaving paperwork for me on my seat. This is a major pet peeve of mine. I have an inbox on my desk for a reason. I’ve told the new VP this several times but he refuses to use the box. He says he doesn’t want his work to be missed. I put his papers in the box, on the bottom. However I’m tempted to start chucking them out. An I overreacting or is he being rude?

You are overreacting. Yes, ideally he’d comply with your request — but ultimately, as someone higher in the hierarchy than you, he can decide how he wants to do this. And who knows, maybe he works with other people who prefer urgent stuff go on their chair so they see it right away, and it’s not reasonable to expect him to track the inbox vs. chair preferences of everyone he works with. Or maybe it’s not that at all; maybe this is just his preference. It’s just not a big deal either way.

And it’s definitely not a big enough deal for you to expend energy or capital on it. Pick up the papers, put them in your inbox, done. (And frankly, rather than sticking them in the bottom of the box, you should look at them to see how they need to be prioritized. You’ve got to prioritize doing your job well over getting petty payback to him.)

I think you’re choosing to see this as some kind of power play. It’s not; it’s just a thing some people do. Let it go.

– 2019

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{ 398 comments }

{ 398 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Wolf*

    I wish LW1 had sent an update, defining more clearly what kind of “overt sexuality” jewelry it was. Because honestly, all I can think of is chokers or o-rings, and I’ve seen both as fast fashion accessories in stores over and over again. Neither of them has a clear meaning at all – they might have to some wearers, but the piece itself is not a statement.

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    2. JMC*

      I wish I knew what had happened here too. But if this was a question brought up today I would say MIND YOUR BUSINESS. The argument of “it implies sexuality” doesn’t wash. It’s no different from wedding ring, which also implies that person has sex with their spouse. A pregnancy implies sex happened too. Just worry about more important things than someone’s jewelry.

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      2. Sarah*

        MIND YOUR BUSINESS is good advice. But it is wild to see a wedding ring described as being “no different” than D/s jewelry.

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        1. Shinespark*

          Maybe not zero difference, but I can see it through the same lens of “this is a sentimental, appropriate for day wear token to signify I’m in [whatever] kind of committed relationship and serve as a reminder of that to me”.

          If seeing that token makes someone dwell too much on what goes on in private in that relationship, that’s kind of a them problem.

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        2. Mad Harry Crewe*

          It is no different – it’s a piece of emotionally significant jewelry that represents an important relationship. You’re just so used to seeing wedding rings, and they are so normalized, that you don’t think about them – which, ideally, is how any other piece of emotionally significant jewelry should be to the people around the wearer.

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        3. Santiago*

          Yes and yes. A wedding ring is not really wildly interpreted as a sexual object. It doesn’t suggest participation in a fetish subculture.

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          1. Insert Clever Name Here*

            That is correct, but the point is that neither do chokers or o-rings. A diamond ring on the left-hand ring finger is generally recognized within the wider Western culture to most likely be a wedding ring, but it can also just be a diamond ring that fits on the wearer’s left-hand ring finger.

            Chokers and o-rings do not exist in the same “generally recognized to most likely be” sphere as diamond rings, so it’s arguably more of a stretch to see someone wearing a choker and go “yup, that’s someone who participates in fetish subculture” than it is to see someone wearing a diamond ring and go “married.”

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          2. a trans person*

            Why the hell should any of us respect marriage more than nontraditional relationships? Why should straight people get a pass while queer people get piled on? This attitude is directly contributing to the current trans genocide.

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              1. HB*

                “???”

                I can’t speak for a trans person, but I believe what they’re referring to is the idea that certain relationships (and the people in them) are sexualized in a way that others aren’t. So for example, prior to the Obergfell decision I would hear a lot of arguments along the lines of “You can do whatever you want in the privacy of your own home, I just don’t want to know about it” when the “thing you know” is simply that a relationship *exists* in the same way that you might know a hetero couple exists. Essentially the hetero relationship is considered “normal” and so the presumption is that no one is (or should) be wondering about the kind of sex they’re having.

                Now that gay marriage is legal, it’s become much more normalized, but that’s not necessarily due to understanding/acceptance of people who are different. If it were, then transphobia wouldn’t be as big of a problem as it is. Instead, by virtue of being trans you’re considered sexual in a way that a cis person isn’t.

                So bringing it back to Santiago’s comment:

                “A wedding ring is not really wildly interpreted as a sexual object. It doesn’t suggest participation in a fetish subculture.”

                This is absolutely correct, but it’s because socially we’re trained not to sexualize a “normal” relationship. But the second that anything outside the norm (such as kink) is introduced, the social expectation of privacy vanishes. If I happen to find out that someone is in a D/S relationship, I really shouldn’t start thinking about what kind of sex they must be having just like if I meet someone who is Trans I *really really really* shouldn’t start thinking or worrying about their genitals.

                The jewelry we’re discussing is *not* overtly sexual. The only reason it’s *considered* sexual is because it may indicate a particular *type* of relationship. But again: knowing the type of relationship someone has should not invite, or be expected to invite, immediate thoughts/questions about the *sex* in that relationship.

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        4. JSPA*

          “no different” as far as “implying sex details.” There are all kinds of D/s relationships (including Ace) just as there are all sorts of marriages. Even if you were sure it was D/s (which you… don’t) you still know exactly nothing about the details of their sex life (if any).

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      3. HB*

        One of the things I love about reading old letters is noting how reactions can change over time. I went to the *original* original letter (where someone asked about wearing a collar to work) and there was someone who was dead set against it because to that person, it signaled the D/S relationship and it wasn’t info that they wanted to know. I’d be very curious to know if they no longer feel that way. It reminds me a bit of Trademark law – where sometimes you lose the Trademark in the term because it becomes the generic (Kleenex being the best example). And once it becomes generic, it basically becomes invisible – which I think in the case of D/S jewelry is what you *want* to happen. I think a lot of people in the first thread had already reached that point – they saw the jewelry as “just jewelry” but I think when people first find out about what it *could* mean it’s like the *potential* implication takes over in the brain and it takes some time to get it back to its neutral state.

        Anyway, given the last 8 years… I feel like I wouldn’t blink twice if I saw a coworker (or anyone) wearing something that I absolutely *knew* signified a D/S relationship. The only way I’m going to be able to get through the next 4 years is to chase joy as much as possible, and so if wearing something that is important to them (even if it somehow implies something deeply intimate/personal that I’m not entitled to know) brings them joy… I will wish them well and go back to minding my own business.

        So that would be my additional advice for the OP. First, assume that it’s just generic jewelry (because it very easily could be). Second, mind your own business because there are lots of things that your brain has already turned generic/invisible and this will become one too in time (the pregnancy implication is a great one, JMC!), and third: *if* your brain keeps poking you with this possible “knowledge” just redirect it because all you *really* might know is that your coworker is, as you put it, “living their best life.” And really, truly that *is* all you might know – I’m not in the kink community but I’ve seen enough TikTok videos to get the impression that there is a *lot* of variation and not all of it involves sex.

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        2. Paisley*

          What I think is so funny about LW1 (and so hypocritical) is that she starts off saying “I wouldn’t have recognized it…”. So she’s all concerned now, when before she wouldn’t have looked at it twice, so it can’t be that overt. This is definitely a case of MYOB!

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          1. fhqwhgads*

            Right, exactly. If it were overt, it’d be recognizable to anyone. Like…”overtly sexual” jewelry would basically have to depict a sex act. Jewelry someone associates with a certain thing because they read once about people who like the thing liking said jewelry is the opposite of overt.

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        3. Nah*

          it’s like the mother in law who started screaming scandalously at my aunt about the existence of sex toys, in front of her tween kids(!), because she’d gone rummaging through their bags and found a riding crop in my aunt’s suitcase.

          Now obviously I know nothing about my aunt and uncle’s sex life (and am perfectly happy not to! they had three biological kids and that’s the absolute most I want to know about it), and I have nothing against if she *does* use something like that in a kinky way. but they were also explicitly (ha) visiting the area *specifically to pick up a new riding horse for the stable my aunt worked at*.

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    3. H.Regalis*

      “Chokers or O-rings” describes most goth/punk/early 2000s jewelry I’ve ever seen. I think OP1 was winding themselves up over nothing.

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        1. H.Regalis*

          Exactly! They have a decently long history of being regular old jewelry, going from being more scene-specific in early years to popping up in Hot Topic in the early 2000s; and that’s if OP1’s coworker was even wearing something like this, which we don’t know because they don’t say what the jewelry was, coupled with the fact that they didn’t notice it in the slightest until they read a letter about BDSM collars.

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      2. Santiago*

        I too have little faith in OP to correctly identify the clothing, but even were it so it really is no one’s concern.

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    4. Landrovan*

      I love that it start with “would not have recognized it” and goes to “overt sexuality” just after. If you did not recognize it, it is not overt :) .

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    5. Southern Violet*

      Yeah absent any other information, I’m gonna assume its neutral, and that the LW is being weird (derogatory) for guessing at her coworkers sexuality. What the LW doesn’t know can’t hurt them, after all. As you say, it can be anything. I’ve seen those kinds of chokers in stores since the 90s.

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  2. JB*

    1st one made me think of the “phallus amulets” I saw at faires… they’re historicalky accurate and hilarious, but not for work. Link in reply.

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        1. Yvette*

          And I believe that’s supposed to be a tiny little bell just under the tip! Maybe it is supposed to be an angel not a fairy? After all every time, a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.

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          1. 40 Years in the Hole*

            Is this where the term “b*ll-end” comes from? My understanding is that it’s a somewhat vulgar term used in the UK to describe a man behaving badly. Though I find it kinda charming/funny as a non-Brit.

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            1. Sparky*

              “Bell-end” as used in the UK also means penis (though I don’t know if it’s from Roman phallic jewelry or just referencing the typical shape of the body part in question). It’s just that you’re more often going to encounter it used as an insult than to actually literally talk about genitalia — similar to the word “dick” imo.

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              1. Lydia*

                That’s almost 100% accurate except I do think people also use “dick” in private moments and I’m not sure you’d use “bell-end” in the same way. Although, imagining that sort of pillow talk is making me smile.

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                1. Sparky*

                  Yeah I think bell-end might not be quite the vocab you’d pick in those intimate moments, but I didn’t want to make too many assumptions about that!

            2. Shinespark*

              Brit here! You’re right on the usage, it’s said in the same way you’d describe someone as ‘acting like a d*ck’. For similar reasons – the phrase is a really old reference (like 1500s) to the shape of said body part.

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      3. RandomNameAllocated*

        there’s a most fabulous wind chime which was dug up at Pompeii, of a gladiator plus sword fighting his own appendage which is turned into a panther.

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        2. Falling Diphthong*

          I gather that at Pompeii a phallus was basically a waving cat (a symbol to bring your business good luck) and so they are friggin’ everywhere.

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      4. Sharpie*

        Those things date back to the Roman era – or rather, the style does. They were considered good luck symbols, and are all over Pompeii!

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  3. Testing*

    OP3: Jane might have been fired for something completely unrelated to the actual tasks.

    So her being fired or people making snide remarks (as often happens when someone is fired or leaves on their own accord and people are relieved, even if that person also had good sides to them) does not mean that one has to start doubting anything and everything she taught you.

    Then again, I wouldn’t consider someone telling me that a third person ”was terrible at their job” as ”teaching me about the job”, it sound more like gossiping, which you should always take with a pinch of salt. Either way, I’m curious about how this one turned out.

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    1. GammaGirl1908*

      Too true. I have a running conversation with a friend about how HR issues and poor judgment calls and white collar oopsies get you fired faster than anything.

      You can be a mediocre performer for 30 years and retire with a fanfare as long as you show up every day on time and don’t make a lot of waves. But even a top performer gets marched out by security for cooking the books, or stealing, or time card fraud, or sexual harassment, or an inappropriate relationship, or the like.

      It’s very possible she was just fine at the job, but made some other mistake. It didn’t even have to be as dramatic as these examples.

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    2. LW3*

      Hi! Thanks for weighing in. I never sent in an update because it was boring – I lost my job in a RIF due to Covid one year after this letter. I did form my own impressions of the people there in that year, but it wasn’t anything groundbreaking.

      To keep it more anon, I said I was only in payroll. I was actually payroll and HR, so our shared boss did tell me that she was underperforming. (I do now believe in hindsight that she dropped the ball on 1 key project and he didn’t think she could fix it.) I also took her critique of our controller as insider information that she received in a pseudo-HR capacity, but it wasn’t. I didn’t form a super strong opinion of him as time went on – he was better than some people that I’ve worked with in accounting, but not by much.

      I actually wrote this letter the same day that I discovered the AAM blog. So both continuing to read this site for almost 6 years and also getting more experience under my belt has really helped me see how to interpret this situation differently!

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      1. Kwebbel*

        I’m also six years into daily AAM reading! Amazing how it shapes your impressions and behaviors in the working world, isn’t it?

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      3. Just Thinkin' Here*

        What surprises me is that most of the time an employee assigned to train a new employee is a top / near top performer and not someone on the verge of firing. Interesting choice of a mentor by the management team.

        Reply ↓
  4. MrsThePlague*

    I don’t know how this will come across, but the last LW’s question and the response really brings up something I’m struggling with as I plan out my next career moves.

    That is: the expectation that because the VP is a higher up, he is allowed to ignore a stated preference that really is no skin off his nose (and that makes sense – I mean, mail goes in mailboxes, this isn’t an exotic request), and the LW just has to live with it despite it bothering her deeply.

    While this is a really small example, I notice this a lot in the questions and answers on this blog (to be clear, no shade at all to the LWs or Allison – I understand that she’s just helping LWs to comply with professional expectations, and she does a great job at it). You’re just sort of expected to do things that may not entirely make sense, or that you wouldn’t do in other interactive contexts, because hierarchy, and corporate, etc.

    And often, even if the example is more egregious than just mail placement, you still can’t say/do anything, and the answer is you have to find a different job.

    While I get and accept that workplaces are like any human grouping and require some coordination and compromise (and sometimes people really do have outrageous preferences that simply can’t be accommodated), I’m often taken aback by the level of sacrifice that LWs are expected to make, and how normalized this is. I can’t tell, though, if I’m being too precious or demanding, or bringing in some unspoken generational assumptions, or what.

    I often worry, though, about my ability to succeed in environments like this – not because I would kick up a ruckus all the time, but rather the arbitrariness of some of this would really start to get to me and I’d just sort of check out. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else.

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    1. Aggretsuko*

      That’s why people become bosses: so they can do what they like. You’re not the boss? You do what others say. OP can’t make VP follow the request, so OP has to live with it.

      I will say that some office cultures are big on Chair Paperwork so it won’t be ignored, and I’m guessing VP comes from that. Though I do think of my cousin who had a picture of Tom Selleck (her celeb crush) put on her chair and she didn’t notice for a long time, so….

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    2. RussianInTexas*

      The thing is, in this specific example, what bothers her deeply is a very tiny hill to die on. I do think the LW is being too precious.
      You have to deal with things that are tiny but bother you in all aspects of life all the time. And yes, when they come from higher ups, or governmental authority, or anyone/anything else that has control over your life, you need to balance how much acting on your bother is worth. I am not talking about things that are danger to your health, or freedom, or anything of the sort. I am talking about things that are truly just annoyances.

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      1. Spiritbrand*

        I think it has a lot to do with them stating that this job is a step back for them. I think they have feelings about their worth and things are going to bother them more in this job than they normally would because of that.

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        1. lunchtime caller*

          oh I DEF got that impression from this letter. I’ve worked as an EA at a fairly high level and in my experience, admins are supposed to make things run smoothly and support people like the VP. Part of doing your job well is melding your own systems and the systems that best suit the team in ways that make the seamless for the team and productive for you. So yes, seeing a pile on your chair and sorting it in your own inbox system. I saw a lot of hurt ego in the LW’s question and them having trouble adjusting to being the one that has to “bend” in this situation, but that often comes from thinking that your actual value as a person comes from being top dog at work. The people who succeed in admin/EA work, in my opinion, don’t take an ego hit from supporting others in the workplace and know to either get their feelings of being “important” from other areas in life.

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      2. acl*

        I’m an admin in a law firm. Seems like a lot of people don’t even have in-boxes anymore. A majority of work gets sent via email. I have an in-box that is rarely used.

        I like using the chair method. It ensures that I don’t miss something (although my desk is pretty neat these days!), and then I can prioritize the new task(s). I also often put things on my boss’ chairs to ensure that they see that I returned the work. In the alternative, I put papers on their keyboards.

        I really think LW is making a mountain out of a molehill. And being petty by putting work automatically on the bottom. When you need to earn money, you need to be flexible, and responsive.

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    3. Workerbee*

      It makes sense. And there’s not a whole lot that people not in power can do. I, too, am tired of ‘managing up,’ of having to expend extra effort because The Office Asshole gets free rein to make things worse for everyone else, of seeing awful people get promoted.

      It does make even the so-called small things loom larger than they perhaps should.

      However. This VP is deliberately circumventing someone’s style of work. To me it isn’t just about his preference of leaving papers on a chair. He’s showing that he doesn’t trust that the employee will see his oh-so-important materials and, you know, do the job they were hired for. Not to mention, the admin always has to expend the effort of picking the damn things up just so they can sit down and do the work being given to them. Every time.

      But what I really want to say to you is – they can’t take away your sense of self. You can put up a good front so you can get by and keep food on the table, and on the inside have your own private world to freely think what you like. It can help (it’s helped me).

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      1. lunchtime caller*

        But it’s the job of an admin to make the team’s work life run more smoothly. If they have to expend effort, well, that’s what the money’s for.

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      2. MrsThePlague*

        I appreciate this thought!

        Like I said, I totally understand that sometimes you have to compromise on things because otherwise, nothing would get done. It’s not the compromising part that gets me, per se. Rather, it’s when the compromise is being done by one party only, over something not at all unreasonable, and only because that party is deemed not valuable enough to be respected (or at least, not *as* respected as someone else) in their wishes. It rankles.

        I hope you can keep your sense of self, your sense of being valuable, in the face of it all :).

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      3. mbs001*

        Quite frankly, if I’m the VP, I don’t have time to remember Jane’s particular preferences and Johnny’s particular preferences. I’m going to use my particular preferences. It’s a ridiculous expectation of a senior manager.

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    4. Bella Ridley*

      Uh….yeah. Even referring to this as a “sacrifice” on any level is being too precious. The LW doesn’t come across as a particularly strong employee, and yeah, in the work world you do have to bow to the preferences of those who are above you. That’s just life.

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      1. Crooked Bird*

        A lot of people seem to be having this reaction, but the commenter isn’t just referring to the story above but to an amalgamation of stories over the years (and the “sacrifice” line doesn’t reference the above story at all.) It’s clear that she’s bothered by the power-dynamic itself (and sometimes by specific effects of it, we’d have to ask her for examples before judging whether we agree on the level of things!)

        As someone interested in history, I sometimes think there’s a lot of hypocrisy around hierarchy in modern (American/Western?) life. We’re taught that everyone is free and equal and that we’ve put the old bad days of social hierarchies behind us… but we end up spending a lot of our lives in, and having a lot of our lives determined by, these fairly intense hierarchies. I dunno, it’s coming to my attention specially these days b/c–I know this will sound rather odd–I’m writing a historical fantasy set in a version of 17th-century Europe right now. & every time I write a character referring to “my lord/my lady/my master,” it rings so oppressive to my modern ears (quite often that’s why I put it in there of course, to fit story themes)… & then I scratch my chin & mentally substitute “my boss” and it sounds FINE. It’s a weird feeling.

        I mean the reasons for this are more complicated than JUST hypocrisy; it is a more limited hierarchical relationship… and yet the amount that it bleeds over into the parts of our lives it’s supposed to stay out of is… sometimes unacknowledged.

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        1. Elle*

          American corporate environments are extremely hierarchical in a way I don’t think we really acknowledge. A lot of the executive leadership at my company is not American and there has been a shift towards “we all follow processes/the rules/policies no matter our position” and it’s been so refreshing.

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          1. Crooked Bird*

            I didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to put my finger on the specifically American-corporate part of this like you have here, so I really appreciate your doing so! (It was definitely my impression having lived in both France & the US, but I’m an alien to the “corporate” part of the equation & so really couldn’t speak to this w/ certainty.) There’s such a strong cognitive dissonance there, given the American emphasis on freedom & equality.

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        2. MrsThePlague*

          Thanks, Crooked Bird – you hit the nail on the head that it’s the power dynamics that bother me. And specifically, power dynamics based on evaluative criteria that I don’t get (accept?). Despite my post perhaps making me sound like an authority-hater, I’m more than willing to bend my wishes to people who are more knowledgeable than I am in a particular area, or who are wiser or more experienced in some relevant way.

          But what I see so much of is people who, because they make more money or have a grander title, have been given the right to make others bend to their will in ways and in areas that have nothing to do with their knowledge or expertise, and that in fact, may just be about them not wanting to do something they don’t want to do (like leaving mail in a mailbox), or to flex their perceived importance. How is insisting on leaving mail on the chair instead of the mailbox any less petty than insisting on leaving mail in the mailbox and not on the chair, for instance? And yet, the VP gets a pass and the LW is told to live with it.

          I think it’s really interesting to compare these dynamics to 17th century Europe, though! (And I think that looking at the gradual erosion of the lord/vassal/serf system could be instructive for gradually eroding the boss/workbee dynamic!).

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    5. Zona the Great*

      I’ve written here before and people always pile on. I’m not giving any advice or telling others I disagree with their approach.

      But, I don’t let bosses treat me badly just because they’re the boss. I wouldn’t give a fig about the papers on the chair thing but I don’t take advice that indicates I just have to tolerate disrespect because of some hierarchy. So that means I have been known to tell bosses they may not speak to me like that, that they owe me an apology, or that they did something unprofessional toward me.

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      1. Lydia*

        There is a chasm between a small thing that bothers you like putting paperwork in your seat and being treated badly by your boss. Perhaps the paperwork thing is the final straw, but if that’s the case, you’re ignoring the actual larger issues to focus on the thing with the least weight.

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      2. MrsThePlague*

        I really like this and it’s encouraging to here that people do (professionally) push back. There is absolutely no reason I can think of why you should be treated as somehow less than in a professional context. And I think saying something like “that’s not an acceptable way to speak to me, please refrain/reframe” shouldn’t be an issue – but some of the examples I see make me worried that it often is.

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        2. mbs001*

          Being yelled at or abused as one thing. Thinking that your boss putting paperwork on your chair is abuse is ridiculous.. And if someone kept complaining to me about it, they’d be fired.

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    6. Pam Adams*

      I see it as one of the reasons we’re being paid- too put up with occasionally annoying crap. I’ve bern known to calculate how much per minute I’m being paid to do Task X, and spend that money on a treat.

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    7. doreen*

      Here’s the thing I don’t understand – if I prefer A and the other person prefers B and it really is just a matter of preference how does one determine whose preference is accommodated without involving hierarchy ? Suppose the LW preferred mail on the chair and the VP preferred to put it in the inbox? Or I prefer email and my manager prefers phone calls or vice-versa? I could be wrong, but I’ve noticed both in real life and here that people seem to take a position that one of these arbitrary positions is objectively better than the other – for example, phone calls should only take place if both people prefer them. If one person prefers emails, then the other should “sacrifice” and use email. But that doesn’t really solve the problem as neither one is objectively better as a default method.

      You can always say or do something about whatever is bothering you – the thing is actions often have consequences and you need to decide if it’s worth it. Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t – but email vs phone isn’t worth any consequences to me , not even my manager saying “Well, I prefer phone calls”

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      1. Annie*

        And in this case, ultimately, your boss is your boss. He sets the expectations and requirements of your job, and you meet them. That’s how it goes.

        I had a boss once and I had to adjust my form of communication with him. He didn’t want reasons or data, he just wanted the answer to the question, period. In my line of work typically you provide the reasons and data to back up any answer, it’s just natural. He was not so interested in that, so all of us who worked under him had to adjust.

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        1. MrsThePlague*

          Did his way work, though? Because I could absolutely get behind going along with his way when it’s demonstrably effective, even if it meant an adjustment for me. What would be hard for me is if either a) his way completely ineffective, or b) it didn’t really make a difference either way, he was just insisting because he’s the boss and he just wants to, even though it might create lots of extra work or headache for other people. I mean, isn’t that just being spoiled and/or kind of a jerk?

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      2. DE*

        I mean, you could just discuss the actual merits of the two preferences. Maybe I think email is better for documentation. Maybe I think that’s actually a bad thing and want to keep some information off the record. Either way, if we want to actually follow best practices, we need to actually make the case for our preferences.

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        1. Smithy*

          I think that this assumes there’s always going to be a “best practice” answer.

          I think about this a lot for the debate of doing something via email vs a meeting. I have a job that includes a lot of cross team work, and I strongly prefer having a meeting vs addressing issues via email because there’s regularly so much background info or context that I don’t have full visibility for. I really need a format where I can ask a number of follow up questions.

          It’s very common for those colleagues to not need that format, while I do. For them email can fit into their schedule better, is faster, and affords them more time do work on other priority areas.

          Now because of how much I need this format, I will go up the hierarchy and insist that this is a necessary format. But that doesn’t negate the preference of the other team and the benefits that it genuinely can provide for them.

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        2. doreen*

          That’s why I specified “just a matter of preference” – even if email is better for documentation and sometimes people specifically want to keep things off the record, there are loads of situation where there really isn’t a best practices answer or where the two parties have different priorities. Maybe I want a record and the person I’m communicating with doesn’t (which has happened to me multiple times). Maybe it doesn’t matter at all whether there is a record – maybe it’s relatively simple issue like whether the conference room has been reserved for Tuesday at 10am. Those issues tend to get resolved according to the preference of the person who has more power – which is often the person who ranks higher in the hierarchy.

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    8. Smithy*

      I think you can really benefit from this insight in thinking through what kind of environment where you’d thrive. Whether it’s the type of thing of striving to become your own boss, a flat hierarchy or a more rigid one. A larger workplace, or a smaller one. Seeking out management or becoming an expert individual contributor – knowing your personal preferences in where you’d thrive is just helpful.

      Right now I work in a place that is large, but is largely resistant to formal hierarchy. This is a feature of my job that I do find frustrating because it can often become a case where everyone’s preference is given such deference that making decisions can take more time and there’s a lot of time spent managing feelings. Personally, a more hierarchical structure where you have moments like the OP’s that you have to suck up, also can imply a place with a leaner decision-making structure. In a future job, a bit more hierarchy and its pain points might be something I’d seek out over this version of decision making by committee.

      Ultimately I think this becomes a cost benefit analysis that’s really helpful in figuring out where you’ll thrive. What irritating issues bug you less, and which ones bug you more. And under what conditions will you thrive, vs those where you’ll disconnect.

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      1. Carol the happy*

        Paperwork on chairs isn’t sanitary!
        I found papers on a chair once, in a medical clinic! A new admin had moved from working in a factory oversight position when he got his MBA- but he had no medical or Infection Control training.

        When I mentioned to him that nothing goes on a seat except a seat, he was dismissive, but a Nurse Practitioner heard him and basically tore him a new one. (She didn’t know he was three days on this job. I let her know that I just wanted him taught, not fired.)

        A few days later, he came in with (plastic) school folders with pockets, marked “Urgent” (red) “Important for this week” (yellow) and green was for routine but with a deadline.

        Seems he had done some homework about sanitary procedure- AND had gone around sniffing chair seats, which ultimately convinced him.

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        1. Yorick*

          I dislike people putting stuff in my chair because I might sit on it. No, I don’t need to look at the chair before I sit down! And it doesn’t occcur to me that someone might have put something important there because it’s a chair and that’s not what chairs are for!

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        2. Smithy*

          In a hospital, food service or production business, or one of the many other employers where sanitation matters – this may hold weight. But in so many other types of workplaces, it’s likely not an effective argument. I’m imagining telling this to my friend who’s a teacher, and just the litany of all of the other unsanitary realities he’s around daily due to being around children.

          This is in no way means that you’re incorrect. Just that in many workplaces that deal with a number of unsanitary lived realities, this may just be less effective than expressing a worry you’ll sit on it or it’ll fall off the chair onto the floor and you won’t see it. Or just letting it go and not being bothered by it.

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      2. MrsThePlague*

        “…thinking through what kind of environment you’d thrive in.”

        I think you hit the nail on the head and this is exactly what’s pinging for me when these types of situations come up on AAM. I think I’ve been naive about the work world up to now, assuming that all environments value best practice and knowledge/experience over potentially arbitrary titles. As I’ve come to realize that’s not the case, it’s been a bit depressing to consider operating in these kinds of environments for the rest of my life. But what’s starting to dawn on me is that (at least I deeply hope) there are different types of environments and I need to find the ones that fit. (Kind of a ‘duh’ moment, I guess, but so it goes lol).

        I do agree with you about flatter hierarchies sometimes making decision-making more difficult. I would find that frustrating. I mentioned it above but I have no problem deferring to people with more knowledge or experience, or a better record of success than I have on a particular topic. So, not totally anti-hierarchy! I would just want it to be limited to hierarchy based on knowledge/experience (so, on a llama-grooming project, give a lot of deference – but not automatic acceptance – to someone with 50 years of llama grooming study/experience), and limited to their sphere of knowledge (so, perhaps we wouldn’t automatically defer to her on teapot designing).

        With that said, there should of course be some space for newcomers and new ideas – but I think that’s where a general culture of valuing people inherently would come in. We don’t let 50-year llama veterans bulldoze people in every related or unrelated context, so that there’s space for some respectful dialogue – even if we ultimately end up going with the veteran.

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    9. Kay*

      When someone agrees to pay you for work, you agree to do the work they ask of you (barring illegal/unsafe, etc). Sometimes you can negotiate that work up front – yay! You have to choice of agreeing to the work they ask you to do, or finding someone else willing to pay you for the work you would like to do.

      It would have to be an exceptional admin for me to agree to pay someone who said “if you ever put requested work on my chair I shall assign it the lowest priority or perhaps throw it in the trash”. If I found out this is how they decided to operate after the fact, they could expect to find themselves fired.

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    10. Irish Teacher.*

      Honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s just because he’s a higher up. Even if he were a peer and he just…ignored her requests, there wouldn’t really be much she could do. Or at least much that would be worth doing.

      I mean, what are the options here? Ask him to put it in the inbox instead? Sounds like she did and he didn’t change. Complain to somebody higher up? Even if he were a peer or even lower on the hierarchy, that would look fairly petty, to complain something like that. Refuse to do the task unless the paperwork is placed in the correct place? Again, probably looks petty and probably makes her own life more difficult.

      And I think it would be the same in other contexts. If your husband or wife kept putting stuff they wanted you to look at on your chair when you asked them to leave it somewhere else, well, you could snap at them, but if they keep doing it, there really is a limit to what you can do to change that.

      The reality is we can’t change others’ behaviour. We can, if the behaviour is serious enough, inact consequences – leave a job or a partner, fire somebody lower in the hierarchy, end a friendship – but for minor annoyances, one’s options are often restricted to “talk to them and ask them to do things differently, but if they won’t, you are left with put up with it or have an argument every time/continue asking and being ignored.”

      I know you are addressing a bigger issue than just this one and yeah, obviously, bosses do get away with things that people lower down the hierarchy would not, but a certain amount of it is just that we can’t control other people and if they choose to ignore a stated preference, we generally have to decide if it’s worth pushing and this…probably isn’t.

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      1. lunchtime caller*

        I’ve definitely seen this thought pattern in people I love as we talk about various life troubles… “well they SHOULD change! maybe if I just explain it again/better and they see that I’m right!” I’ve had to say pretty bluntly, “well let’s take them changing off the table as a solution because it’s clearly not happening. You’re right that they should, but they aren’t, so what other brainstorming do we have here?” But I also have a low tolerance for banging my head against a wall and prefer to get to the part where I can relax and have my problems solved in one way or another!

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        1. Freelance Girlie*

          If I was the LW, I’d consider being super petty and switch my chair to an exercise ball to sit on. Much harder to leave papers on an exercise ball. Might force him to change!

          (I freelance fulltime, partially because i strongly dislike situations like this one, so, this is not “advice”)

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      2. Happy*

        If my husband kept doing something that he knew was my pet peeve, I would feel incredibly disrespected and would consider it an indication that we had serious problems.

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        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, I didn’t mean to suggest it would be fine for a husband to do this. Just that the choices would still be leave him, argue with him about it or accept it.

          It probably wasn’t a great example on my part because we certainly expect our spouses to pay more attention to our preferences than we would expect our workmates to do, but my point was more that it’s just because he’s a vice president that the admin can’t make him change his ways. While it would definitely be disrespectful for a spouse to ignore somebody’s wishes, if they continue to do so, the choice might still be leave them or put up with it (just as it is leave the job or put up with it with a boss).

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      3. MrsThePlague*

        This is true and fair!

        And I am for sure coming at this with enough self-awareness to know that I can get hung up on ThE PrInCipLe oF tHe THinG!!1, haha.

        But what has helped me move through that is being able to tell myself “you know what, I’m not wrong in feeling annoyed and the other person is not right in behaving this way, but I’m choosing to let this go for my own mental health.”

        The position I struggle with – that I see in corporate life – is the one that says “actually, the VP is perfectly entitled to needlessly ignore your reasonable requests, for no other reason than he wants to, because he’s Important, for Reasons.”

        And you know what, maybe I am just being stubborn and over sensitive! Maybe I don’t have a right to understand why I’m being ignored or dismissed.

        I guess I’m still working out what boundaries I’m allowed to enforce at work – because it seems like they are a lot lower than anywhere else in my life – and writing this out/hearing from the commenters is helpful. :)

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        1. Irish Teacher.*

          The position I struggle with – that I see in corporate life – is the one that says “actually, the VP is perfectly entitled to needlessly ignore your reasonable requests, for no other reason than he wants to, because he’s Important, for Reasons.”>

          Yeah, I think that is legitimately annoying.

          And I do think it’s reasonable to be annoyed if you are ignored or dismissed.

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        2. Insert Clever Name Here*

          I’m going to preface this by the assumption that we’re dealing with a normal person and not a jerk, because jerks are gonna be jerks regardless. But I wonder if this framing might make sense to you:

          I am an individual contributor in my organization, and sometimes my VP wants things in a format I think is less efficient, or wants us to take a path that I don’t agree with (all legal, but I don’t think is the best path for reasons of opinion). I could argue with her about it or I could recognize that it’s not that my opinion matters less than her opinion In The Overall World, but that at work my opinion does matter less because she is an officer of the company and I am not. That means that the choices she makes with regard to what we do and how carry more weight because she is actually more culpable for her choices than I am for mine. There is very little I could do in my current job to get pulled before a state commission and grilled by an angry state attorney with TV cameras and news coverage — there is a lot she could do in her job to wind up in that situation.

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          1. MrsThePlague*

            This is a good point – the culpability/accountability differences. And definitely this would be convincing for me in an environment where we’re working on things that directly impact people’s well-being (medical spaces, policy initiatives, security, that kind of thing).

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        3. lunchtime caller*

          It sounds like part of what bothers you is the “he’s Important for Reasons” bit and I think it’s totally fair to try to avoid places where titles and promotions all feel a bit meaningless, arbitrary, and ego-stroking. If someone was a VP and thus their opinion was more valuable because they had a higher level of expertise, made more money for the company, and were expected to have a deeper level of insight into what the company needs, it might be an easier pill to swallow that the company needs his day to go a little more smoothly than yours. It makes total sense to either prefer somewhere with a flat structure (everyone gets a say etc.) or at least somewhere with really transparent metrics behind the titles that align with what you also value in a higher-level worker.

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          1. MrsThePlague*

            I like the phrasing you used here: “somewhere with really transparent metrics behind the titles that align with what you also value in a higher-level worker.” I feel like I didn’t even realize I could or had to ask for that in a work environment, but that’s exactly what I’d be looking for.

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    11. LaminarFlow*

      You can choose to get stuck on The Way I Think Things Should Be in every single aspect of life. This thinking won’t magically change The Way Things Are, so…choose something else to give your F**** about!

      Also, using the example of the boss putting files on the subordinate’s chair, and that behavior really bugging the subordinate: Work on building a strong relationship with the boss, and at some point, ask the boss to put the files elsewhere. It’s probably not a huge ask/the boss likely isn’t doing this to make the subordinate mad. They just have a system that has worked in the past.

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    12. Critical Rolls*

      Hierarchy provides shortcuts. Person A wants things this way, person B wants things that way; person B is the boss, so we’re doing things that way. A *lot* of how we do things is fairly arbitrary, and so making decisions about which arbitrary way to do things is a hassle. And I say that as someone who is very much about systems and optimization; so often consistency is more important than which way things get done. Does the outgoing mail belong in the left or right hand drawer? Doesn’t matter as long as everyone is putting it in the same place.

      I will add a disclaimer that if there is a substantial reason to do things a specific way, reasonable bosses should be open to hearing it. But unless it rises to the level of meaningful disruption to workflow, a lot of this is just “we can’t have everything in the workplace precisely to our preference.”

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    13. RagingADHD*

      On matters of preference that have no impact on workflow, productivity, respect, accessibility, etc, then the most senior person’s preferences prevail (unless they actually prefer not to think about it at all and just go with the flow). This is not arbitrary or purely because of hierarchy. It is because a junior role (unless it’s an individual contributor) exists to assist the senior role and have work delegated to them. It’s what the job is there for. If the senior person didn’t need assistance, they would be a department of one. In the case of admin roles, the job is to either assist a senior person or a pool of people.

      Assisting people means *actually helping them in practical ways.* Part of the job is to make their workday easier by removing friction and minor obstacles. And if that means the senior person puts the papers in your general vicinity instead of in the one spot you like to see them, welp, that’s the minor obstacle you are clearing for them today.

      To call this arbitrary would be like saying it’s arbitrary that a cashier should hand or slide over your purchase to you after they ring you up. After all, they could throw it on the floor. They could make you climb over the counter to retrieve it. They could give it to someone else and make you fight for it. The expectation to hand it to you isn’t arbitrary – it’s a subtask within the regular performance of the job, that makes the transaction work smoothly.

      The papers on the chair are not actually a problem. The fact that this bothers LW deeply is the problem, and one that they need to address on their own. Most likely they need to confront their own assumptions about admin work and the way they treated or thought about administrators when they were in the job they had to “step down” from.

      I mean, “find a new job” over this example, or calling it a sacrifice, is the equivalent of telling someone to divorce their spouse over replacing the toilet paper so it rolls from the top when you prefer it to roll from the bottom. It just isn’t worth all that.

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      1. MrsThePlague*

        I can see the point in this. What I think you’re saying is that subsuming your preferences is part of this specific job (assistant/admin), not just an expectation of all jobs wherein there is a hierarchy of some sort. So maybe the learning point here is to understand the fundamental nature of the job and make sure it’s what you actually want to be doing.

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        1. RagingADHD*

          No, that’s the opposite of what I mean. Being an admin is not any different in this respect than any other job. I just think the whole idea of “subsuming your preferences” is a really strange and irrelevant take on this situation.

          If the senior person wanted their direct report to come to their office three times a day to pick up papers for processing, that’s not “a preference,” it’s an assigned task. If you had a better / more efficient system to suggest, feel free. They might adopt it or not, but having the senior level responsibility means they make decisions about systems within their area, unless they have delegated that to someone else.

          But in this instance, instead of tasking their report with collecting the papers, the senior person brings them and puts them in the chair. Picking up the papers is such a vanishingly trivial thing that it seems ludicrous to call it an assigned task or delegated work, but it is.

          Any job — every job — consists of doing work that is delegated to you. The more senior the role, the more you have areas of responsibility rather than specific tasks. But there will always be some tasks, processes, and procedures that someone else owns and you don’t get to change to suit yourself.

          In large companies, even the CEO is delegated work by the Board, and the Board is assigned tasks they have to complete by whoever oversees compliance. Doctors have to follow the procedures of the facility they work in. Teachers have to follow the procedures of the administration. Freelancers have to follow the wishes of the client.

          If you don’t want to be delegated to, or do anything that doesn’t feel like your favorite approach, IDK what kind of work there is for you.

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    14. J E*

      I had the same reaction. I’m professionally successful and well paid in a corporate environment, in my 50s now, and I have always hated hierarchy for the sake of hierarchy. Yes, bosses get the responsibility and privilege of making decisions. I’m good at it and fully embrace that’s part of leadership! I get to make decisions and control budget because that’s my domain area of expertise.

      But this example – dick-swinging for no good reason – is bad management. It’s bad human-ing. Just because someone is an EA doesn’t mean their own work processes and desk aren’t deserving of respect and consideration. “Making the team successful” is what a talented professional does. Doormat isn’t in the job description.

      The original advice was fine, and the comments that OP sounded like she felt she was lowering herself in this role were spot on. I’m not disagreeing with that, but the conversation touched on something bothering me lately. Does anyone else feel like big corporations in the US are becoming more hierarchical in the past 10-15 years?

      It might just be my current org, where the culture is friendly and collaborative but there is a strong historical deference to authority that I think encourages a passivity in individual contributors and team managers (and some of my direct reports). For example, saying “just tell me what to do,” about something trivial and well inside their job, and it makes me feel like they’ve historically just been well, told what to do.

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    15. mbs001*

      Yes you’re being too precious. There is hierarchy in office environments for a reason. And that’s why people in higher up positions direct people in positions below them how to do their tasks. If a VP wants to put papers on an underlings chair then so be it. The VP may have had too many items overlooked and is letting the person know that this is important. Or perhaps this is their preference. Either way, they are the VP and you are under their direction. Period. It’s not your call to tell them how to behave. If you want to be the boss, then work on your skills and get there.

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  5. nnn*

    #1 has me idly wondering what the Venn diagram of “people who can recognize D/s jewellery” and “people who are bothered by visible D/s jewellery” looks like.

    I think I can kinda maybe sorta recognize a small subset of it (but that’s never been put to the test), and I might potentially depending on context be uncomfortable with a subset of it (but that’s never been put to the test), but I’m not sure how common that is. The most sheltered people won’t recognize it, the most worldly people won’t be bothered by it.

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    1. Susan*

      A married manager at a former employer of mine (which was generally a very conservative organization, almost nobody admitted to being divorced, nobody was openly gay, single people – like me – were frowned upon etc.) always wore a stainless steel ring that is apparently considered a “slave ring”. I didn’t even know it was this (had to google it now), but I must admit that it made me somewhat uncomfortable (because I suspected it meant something like that). Didn’t help that the entire guy was creepy and a known bully.

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      1. Susan*

        First, sorry for the accidental double posting! I would like to add that I grew up within a very patriarchic, cult-like Catholic environment myself. Due to this upbringing, the detailed practices and symbols of the BDSM community were very foreign to me. Yet, I was somehow able to intuit what that “slave ring” meant (it wasn’t that difficult, to be honest). Therefore I don’t think this is black-and-white.

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      2. nnn*

        So until I read this post, I was absolutely 100% confident that a stainless steel ring meant the person is an engineer…

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        1. Generic Name*

          Uh, yeah. I work for an engineering company, and many people wear stainless steel pinky rings to signify their membership in Order of Engineers.

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          1. Susan*

            For the records, I wasn’t referring to a regular stainless steel ring, but a “Ring of O” made of stainless steel (the version with the smaller ring attached to it). I had posted a Wikipedia link with a picture, too, but that one got stuck in moderation, apparently. That ring was very notably different from the shiny wedding bands everyone else in our org was expected to wear in order to demonstrate that we were “good family people”.

            My further comments have nothing to do with the original post, but still for context: I wasn’t wearing a wedding band myself due to being single – and was considered “less than” because of that. On the other hand, had I gotten married, they would have bullied me out of the company because they didn’t want to employ any mothers (happened to female coworkers of mine!). I was ultimately bullied out when I reached my mid-thirties, anyway (like many other women) – they didn’t want to take any risk of me getting pregnant, apparently… That was hugely traumatic for me at the time (and did lasting damage to my career). That specific manager, on the other hand, seemed to get away with practically anything he did, including poor job performance and regular bullying (although he wasn’t the person who bullied me).

            Again, nothing to do with the post above – I was only taking issue with the claim that only very “liberally-minded” people would recognize the meaning of such symbols. I think many people who are used to very restrictive standards would also notice this, no matter how familiar they are with the specific practices.

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            1. HB*

              Based on your experience with the coworker, my guess is that a lot of your discomfort was due to *him*. If he’d been a perfectly pleasant person and you still happened to notice the ring/figure out what it meant, you probably would’ve been like “Huh, interesting – and now I’m going to pretend I don’t know that”. That’s obviously a wild conjecture, and there’s no way to test it, but I’ve found it’s easier to dismiss/selectively ignore things about people when you like them when you don’t. And by dismiss/selectively ignore I mean things that aren’t objectively bad per se, but things like chewing too loudly or fashion choices you find questionable… things like that. Whereas when you *don’t* like someone (for whatever reason) it turns into a “b**** eating crackers” situation.

              Reply ↓
              1. Susan*

                I think one problem that only people from very conservative circles know is that almost all “violations” of sexual norms are treated the same. An extreme example is certainly the Catholic Church, where child sexual abuse by clergy was only treated as a violation of celibacy, as far as I know.

                However, this also means that a relatively powerful guy who can get away with violating one of these norms (in this case, not showing a visible preference for BDSM) would presumably also get away with preying upon women or other genders more easily than others in such a culture. This certainly sounds strange and is probably only understandable for people who are very familiar with such cultures (and it is a very sad truth that such observations can also get weaponized against LGBTQ people).

                I think this made me uncomfortable – and this guy and his all-male team (no woman lasted among them for more than a year!) clearly showed a lot of other creepy and sexist behaviors, and they were getting away with it.

                I think an otherwise “normal” nice guy who wore a ring like that would have been bullied out too because he didn’t fit the norm. Under these circumstances, you had to be a toxic person to get away with that (maybe I’m being a bit cynical, but that was my impression).

                Reply ↓
      3. Antilles*

        Uh what? Was there something special about this ring? Some kind of decoration or engraving on it? A unique decoration that indicates what it was?
        Because if it’s just a plain stainless steel band, that’s not necessarily the meaning. Stainless steel rings are commonly used as alternatives to silver/gold wedding bands for men – especially if your job/hobbies involve using your hands a lot. Also, historically, an iron or stainless steel ring worn on the pinky finger was the mark of a Professional Engineer, though that tradition is on the decline.

        Reply ↓
        1. Susan*

          No, I meant a ring almost exactly like this one (apparently, it is also called “Ring of O”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_O#/media/File:Ring_der_o.jpg

          I only mentioned the stainless steel because this material made the ring even more obviously different from the conventional wedding bands everybody else was wearing. Again, everybody’s sexual life (especially the young womens’) was basically being scrutinized and was (inofficially) expected to conform to fairly strict “Christian values”. Therefore it was quite conspicious that this (more powerful and very openly sexist!) guy was apparently allowed to violate this standard. When everyone is being watched so closely, people learn to notice subtle differences like this, I think.

          Reply ↓
          1. Sparky*

            I can see how the design makes it clear that it’s different from a wedding ring in this case, but the material shouldn’t necessarily. My wife and I have stainless steel wedding bands with custom engraving on the inside because we eloped and were frugal about the whole thing. I don’t think anyone has ever commented on the material either, since they’re rarely close enough to really tell the specific material rather than just the silvery color.

            Reply ↓
          2. Anon Kinkster*

            Late to the conversation here but I have a perspective: involved in the Chicago bdsm scene for 10 years, a decade or two ago. I’ve never seen anyone wear a ring as you describe. I’m not sure even what it is, a ring for your finger? I’ve seen similar worn as collars but rarely outside of a scene event. Most commonly, I’ve observed exactly that kind of collar on goths and punks, many or most of whom probably have no idea about bdsm.
            So I don’t know what you assumed about this guy. Was he proclaiming his relationship status? Or his sexual preferences? Maybe… but very few people would have any idea of what the jewelry means. And they’d probably be wrong since it doesn’t have a universal meaning. I’m here to tell you wearing a ring of a certain type means absolutely nothing. (I’m guessing this guy’s ring meant, I’m a jerk, but I’m a straight white married guy in a conservative workplace, so I can flout convention in little ways and get away with it.)

            Reply ↓
        2. Happy*

          I just want to point out that you don’t have to be a Professional Engineer to join the Order of the Engineer and wear the ring – an engineering degree from most schools is sufficient.

          Reply ↓
    2. Mrs. Pommeroy*

      It might be about wearing it in the work place that bothers the LW.
      I, for example, am relatively aware of a number of these things but I really don’t care to see them whilst being out and about on my daily business, let alone at work. To my mind, everyone can do whatever they want (disclaimer for consent and all) but I don’t want to know about it, especially with colleagues. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      Reply ↓
      1. JB (not in Houston)*

        Yes, I can’t agree with “the most worldly people won’t be bothered by it” if we’re talking about in the workplace. There are plenty of things that wouldn’t shock or bother me at all outside of work but that I don’t want to see at the office, and it sounds like that’s how the OP feels.

        Reply ↓
        1. StarTrek Nutcase*

          Only for anyone chooses to equate marriage with slavery or from a culture or religion that does. IME that doesn’t include the majority in first world countries nor in Christianity. But I suppose any jewelry can have multiple meanings depending on the wearer & beholder.

          Reply ↓
          1. amoeba*

            …what? No, because it’s literally a symbol of the romantic relationship of that person. Are you implying that BDSM/ D/s relationships are… equal to slavery? Wow.

            Reply ↓
            1. Crooked Bird*

              This seems like a bit of an extreme interpretation given this discussion started over something called a “slave ring.” I imagine that StarTrek, like me, understands that the slavery involved isn’t literal slavery, but the notion of slavery is still evoked/symbolized by the ring. I really don’t think they were trying to draw a parallel beyond that.

              To me the issue is that a pretty visually vivid sexual preference is symbolized by the ring. It’s not like wearing a rainbow pin or a wedding ring, i.e. implying that you’re in a relationship or which gender you’re attracted to, which are fairly abstract implications. The ring lets people know, “Once I am actually in the bedroom with someone, here is the kind of thing I like.” It’s a step too far. If there was a symbol suggesting the wearer is a leg man or enjoys a certain position best, I’d definitely draw the line there as well–and wouldn’t most people?

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    3. Lady Lessa*

      Based on what I’ve read before at AAM, I suspect that a librarian might be wearing her necklace as a symbol. But as long as she leads a good book club, what she does after work is her business.

      Reply ↓
    4. Falling Diphthong*

      I think that hits at the problem with the previous referenced letter–if people would miss the significance of the thing you’re displaying on its own, and so you helpfully go around the office explaining exactly what it signifies, then the overlap in the Venn diagram grows.

      Reply ↓
    5. Great Frogs of Literature*

      I think it depends very much on the piece, and perhaps on what I know of the person. I’ve had coworkers and work acquaintances who wore collar chokers, and thought nothing of it, especially from someone who has a somewhat goth-y aesthetic to start with. But I can think of stuff I’ve seen at sci-fi cons (usually for sale, not actively worn) where my reaction to seeing in the workplace would be “You’re wearing WHAT now???!!!” even if only in my own head.

      Reply ↓
    6. WeirdChemist*

      I had a former coworker who always work a thick metal choker, that I assumed was just some funky jewelry (she had a somewhat goth/alternative fashion sense), until I happened to catch that it had a tag with “Property of [her partner’s name]”

      At which point I proceeded to politely ignore it!

      Reply ↓
    7. Rikki Tikki Tarantula*

      I recognized a D/s necklace on a reality show contestant, but that’s because it was an actual padlock, which was pretty darn clear even to me, Ms. Vanilla Oblivious.

      Reply ↓
  6. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    1. Just write it off in your head as goth (or punk). There ya go.

    Heck I wear a metal choker to work sometimes. Very ornate. And very good at covering up a few scars that I don’t want questions asked about.

    Reply ↓
  7. Professional Lurker*

    #4 Not saying this isn’t an overreaction, but this just made me remember how a coworker would do the same thing and it equally drove me crazy. I’m not going to get to your thing faster because you prevented me from sitting down. In fact now it’s going to take me about .3 second longer

    Reply ↓
    1. xylocopa*

      Yeah. I get that it’s not a hill to die on, but I’d be irritated every time myself if someone did this. It’s kind of rude, kind of demeaning, though also kind of not worth making waves about in OP’s situation.

      Reply ↓
    2. AndersonDarling*

      I had a job where I had to carry lots of item to and from my desk and I HATED it when someone left files on my chair. I had to sit on them so I could set the packages on my lap and unload them into place on my desk.
      It was a power move to leave things on chairs instead on the inbox. I don’t think they understood that my 10-hour shift, sweaty bum had to squish these files so I could catch my breath. Not the power move they were intending.

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      1. Seal*

        It was a power move to leave things on chairs instead on the inbox.

        This. Leaving things on someone’s chair instead of their clearly marked inbox, especially after being asked no to do so, is at best rude. If they can find the chair, they can find the inbox.

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    3. Lenora Rose*

      Unless you are, like AndersonDarling, often carrying things when you get to your desk, it’s just… not that big a deal?

      One of my coworkers leaves phone messages on my chair. I pick them up and sit down while still reading them. I prefer to leave messages on the keyboard if there isn’t an obvious inbox, and inboxes where I can, but I compare this to some of the actual power moves and nonsense that can happen, and it’s not worth spending a lot of energy being annoyed with. .3 seconds seems the right amount of annoyance.

      Reply ↓
      1. mlem*

        I’d sit on them half the time — not (necessarily) to prove a point, just because I don’t always check my seat before sitting and often have my attention elsewhere. Hope you like getting your papers wrinkled, VP!

        Reply ↓
      2. Rikki Tikki Tarantula*

        I don’t know what I’m more baffled by: that people consider leaving papers on a chair wildly disrespectful, or that people don’t look at a chair before they sit in it.

        Reply ↓
    4. NerdyPrettyThings*

      I’m with you, it would drive me absolutely insane if someone did this, and there’s no good reason why. (I have a sitting-to-standing desk, though, so I could plausibly say that I wasn’t using my chair and didn’t see it for hours.) Maybe what we should take away from this is that there’s a segment of the population that has this as their pet peeve and just all resolve not to do it, ever.

      Reply ↓
    5. BethRA*

      I put things on my office mate’s chair sometimes, but it’s to make sure it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle or get placed on the wrong pile on her desk. My assumption is not that it will get done any faster, it’s that she knows better than I do where it needs to go.

      Just because something bugs us doesn’t mean it’s being done TO bug us.

      Reply ↓
        1. Insert Clever Name Here*

          If you have an inbox, and if that’s what it’s intended for :) I have a tray on my desk that is technically an inbox but I use it for holding a couple of reference documents — if someone put something in what is technically an inbox, it’d probably take until the end of the day for me to see it (or until the next time I reached for the Signature Authority cheat sheet). Put it in my chair? I’m going to see it.

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        2. Lydia*

          I don’t have an inbox because that would be one more thing on my desk, which doesn’t have a ton of space to begin with. Leave it where I’ll see it. Either on my chair or on my keyboard. If it gets sat on because I missed it, oh well. This is really the least important thing to expend energy or capital on.

          Reply ↓
          1. Dahlia*

            Yes, but we are talking about LW4, where the headline is, “My VP insists on leaving papers in my chair instead of my inbox” and they specifically say, “I have an inbox on my desk for a reason.”

            Reply ↓
          2. extended hobbits*

            That’s a good point–my desk doesn’t have a physical inbox either and there’s really no clear-cut space for one either. So if someone wants to leave anything for my attention–a post-it note, papers, file, etc–then they generally leave it on my keyboard or chair (or computer monitor if it’s a Post-It note). If I sit down on it by mistake, that’s on me for being an idiot who doesn’t pay attention. But you know what I also don’t do? I DON’T get all bent out of shape over it like a weirdo who wants to make her working relationships unnecessarily hard for some reason.

            Reply ↓
      2. fhqwhgads*

        Sure, but my take is still if there’s an inbox, and the goal is for the thing not to be lost, the inbox is a more logical place than a chair. Chair to me is totally a good way to get something lost. Inbox is not.
        But you said something sliiiightly different than the boss in the letter, which might mean something or might mean nothing. You said “lost in the shuffle” and the letter says “lost”. The risk of the chair is that the papers get literally lost. If the concern is “lost in the shuffle”, that to me is actually indicating concern about the thing being done faster. If it’s in the inbox, the things in the inbox are gonna get done. Putting them somewhere else to draw attention to it implies the inbox is a place stuff goes to sit forever. But also in your case, there’s no inbox, just piles on the desk? So it’s kinda apples and oranges.Because your chair reason is “there’s not an obviously correct place”. Whereas in the letter, the boss is deciding which place draws the most attention to the thing (and might be wrong).

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    6. I DK*

      Maybe she should leave her inbox on her chair whenever she leaves her desk? Sort of Pavlov the VP into using the inbox?

      Reply ↓
  8. Despachito*

    OP1 says that they were able to recognize – or “recognize” the meaning of the jewelry only after reading AAM, so I assume it is nothing obvious at first sight and generally understandable such as the winged… device described earlier.

    I would strongly recommend to let it go because there is a fairly big chance that OP is misinterpreting the meaning of the jewelry and it is not a statement piece. And even if it was, a lot of people would not recognize it just as OP wouldn’t without reading AAM or other sources.

    Reply ↓
    1. EvilQueenRegina*

      Possibly even the coworker doesn’t recognise it as that – could be a situation where they just saw it and liked it and had no idea it could be taken for that, and would be mortified if OP raised it.

      Reply ↓
      1. Despachito*

        In prehistorical times I was given a cannabis leaf pendant. I was a good girl back then and our country was pretty secluded in these terms so I had no idea that it was in fact a marijuana leaf. Neither I nor anyone I knew ever came across marijuana at these times, and I proudly wore that beautiful leaf around my neck. It may have looked like a statement but it definitely wasn’t.

        So I think it is perfectly possible that the coworker just liked the jewelry and is unaware of its meaning. And it is obviously not publicly recognizable as a symbol at first sight, like, say, a swastika.

        Reply ↓
    2. Clisby*

      I read AAM and I doubt I’d recognize it as anything in particular. I’ve looked at examples on some of the links from the original posting, and those, in general, look completely appropriate for work to me. But then, I pay very little attention to what people wear.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bernice*

        Man, some people at AAM have never worked admin jobs and it shows (which is ironic because a large number of them have definitely never worked academic jobs, manufacturing jobs, non-office jobs, etc and that REALLY shows). So who the heck is even reading here then???

        Reply ↓
        1. KatAlyst*

          well, assuming we’re picking jobs as a progression instead of wheel-of-fortune, it makes sense that any given AAM reader may have had multiple jobs without having a range of ALL jobs. I’ve worked in-or-adjescent to retail & back-office & admin & inventory & taxes & accounting, but never manufacturing or academia or agriculture or international, etc. etc.
          Some of these “off” or incongruent-mentality comments are interesting glimpses of perspective into how different personalities really-just-could-NOT (whatever) with the basic assumptions of a different category or industry.

          Reply ↓
          1. Falling Diphthong*

            That last bit led to a past interesting thread, where I learned for example that at certain levels of the finance industry you must take two contiguous weeks of vacation every year, during which someone else answers your phone and email. It’s not about recharging you; it’s about interrupting any schemes you have going.

            Reply ↓
          2. Tippy*

            I don’t think you need to have a specific experience in a field to realize deliberately disobeying a direct request/command from a supervisor and then sabotaging work is unacceptable.

            Reply ↓
            1. Kay*

              Right!? The flat out insubordination people seem okay with throwing around is, well, I guess not that shocking to me – but I’m a bit surprised there are so many people willing to risk getting fired and sabotaging their future.

              Reply ↓
              1. Lexi Vipond*

                There are plenty of places where it takes gross misconduct to get you fired, and asking someone who happens to be paid a bit more than you to please put documents in the place meant for them and not the place meant for your arse really doesn’t reach that standard.

                Reply ↓
                1. Lydia*

                  It also is such a low energy situation that you might come across as a bit precious if you did ask about it, it didn’t start happening, and then you spent all your days being annoyed about it.

                2. Kay*

                  The LW was putting the VPs work last and contemplating throwing it away, the commenter was saying they would absolutely throw it away – uh, that is absolutely risking your job. We fired her for refusing to do her job and sabotaging our C suite is not the kind of reference you want either.

        2. AMH*

          I am really surprised at the number of people who feel so strongly about this. In my working experience it’s about 70/30 for on the chair vs. in an inbox, and while I know different things bother different people, it had never occurred to me that anyone WOULD be bothered.

          Reply ↓
          1. Samwise*

            Seriously. I worked admin jobs early on (a step up from the physical exhaustion and verbal abuse that is waitressing). The aim of admin jobs is to make the boss’s life easier. I don’t like papers on my chair either — it’s too easy for them to get knocked onto the floor, but if my boss left them there, I’d pick them up and put them in my in box. On top of the pile.

            And frankly, the OP said they were an “ok admin” — maybe not, the VP may be leaving his papers on your chair because you don’t actually get to them in a timely way.

            Anyone who says, I’d throw them away, no you wouldn’t, if you needed the job to pay rent, buy food…if you did throw them away, you’re not even an ok admin. You’re a child.

            Reply ↓
            1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

              My thought too. If you are only an okay admin, getting into a power play with your boss over where he leaves the papers is going to get you to unemployed okay admin. Putting them at the bottom of the pile just because you are irked is not a sign of good judgment.

              As someone who worked as an admin a lot before law school, you need really good judgment as an admin. Do you route this call to the boss or just take a message? Of the 24 things that need to be done today how are they ranked in importance of needing to be done. Things that come in during the day do not automatically go to the end of the list.

              Reply ↓
              2. Liz Bender*

                You bring up a good point. My initial reaction was that the VP’s behavior is pretty disrespectful, but I’ve never worked as an admin per se. The way I read the situation was that LW has a normal work flow that involves an inbox on their desk and everyone else follows that workflow with the exception of the VP. And putting the papers on the chair was the VPs way of saying but my stuff is a higher priority! In the support functions I’ve served, there isn’t a clear hierarchy to who’s requests are more important, so if I encountered this, it would come across whiny and kind of childish on the VPs part. But maybe that’s the whole point – putting the papers on the chair *is* meant to signify this is a higher priority than the rest of the work queue, and the VP *is* the most important stakeholder in LW’s reporting structure. I’d ask if this work-around was intended to make a statement about how important/high priority that work is. That gives LW some cover if they’ve been reading it wrong this whole time.

                For what it’s worth, I expect a whole lot more from the VPs than I do from the admins I work with. I think the VP is capable of following LW’s preferred workflow if they wanted to, and they don’t want to. Which I too would find to be a recurring statement of disrespect. And I might dream about swiping the papers from the chair and casually stepping all over them while reconvening work on my inbox. :)

                Reply ↓
          2. AndersonDarling*

            It really depends on the culture. In a healthy workplace, it simply means that the file is important. In toxic workplaces, its a power move to prevent subordinates from sitting down.
            The drop off could be a file, or a stack of boxes plus books and paperwork. That makes a difference too. They could be preventing someone from sitting for 30 min while the stack gets onloaded from the chair.

            Reply ↓
            1. Bella Ridley*

              Don’t you think if that was the issue rather than just being annoyed, the OP would have said so? Pretty big difference between “the VP puts papers on my chair and it’s annoying” and “the VP puts a stack of boxes and papers on my chair so high it takes me a half hour to unearth the seat so I can sit down.” Boxes. Be for real.

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            2. toe beans*

              I don’t disagree that it can be a power play, but 30 minutes!? You can’t physically fit that much stuff on a chair. The stack can go on the desk and you can sit down to sort through it.

              Reply ↓
            3. Matrix*

              “ They could be preventing someone from sitting for 30 min while the stack gets onloaded from the chair.”

              There is no scenario in the world where stacks of papers (yes stacks) on a chair requires 30 minuets to move before the person can sit down. And if that were the case, the OP should have mentioned it because that’s an entirely differently situation than what they wrote in about.

              The people arguing for acting like petty children by tossing the VP’s papers out, being passive aggressive, and are generally treating it like a huge insult to burn bridges over, etc—okay, so you have no clue about admin roles and would never succeed in that role. That’s fine, not everyone can do everything. I can’t do martial arts at work, for example. But stop coming up with ways for the LW to get fired (if they haven’t already for their “okay” performance and/or poor attitude) and let the people who actually chose this life provide relevant advice that keeps the LW employed (or anyone else facing a similar question who just needs to get over themselves because hey, rent is due tomorrow).

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            4. Lydia*

              If the paper in a chair is a power play, there are much, MUCH bigger power play situations happening that need more immediate attention. Because where the paperwork ends up is not the only toxic thing happening here, I can guarantee.

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          3. Antilles*

            Agreed, but it’s also surprising the amount of people who have apparently not encountered this. Not an exaggeration, but every single office I’ve ever worked at has had people who leave documents on chairs. When I’ve visited other companies in a variety of industries, I’ve also regularly seen documents left on chairs.
            The idea that people feel so strongly about this or have never encountered this just feels baffling to me because in my experience, it is completely commonplace.

            Reply ↓
            1. Artemesia*

              It has always signaled — ‘this is really important and needs to be seen to first’ in my world. The boss may have had the experience of putting things on the desk or box and then not having them done immediately.

              I put important documents on my husband’s chair for this reason — if something important comes in that I want to be sure he sees and deals with immediately, it goes on his desk chair.

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            2. AMH*

              Exactly, I am genuinely stunned at the strength of emotion in the comments about this! Humans really are a widely and wildly varied bunch with the things that annoy us and the things that don’t even register.

              Reply ↓
            3. Shan*

              I remember being absolutely stunned by the reaction when the letter was first published, and multiple years later, I still am. I cannot imagine attaching this level of significance to where people leave papers in my office, to the point where I’m viewing it as a personal attack and plotting to throw away documents left by an executive.

              Reply ↓
            4. Annie2*

              I am also surprised. I’m the boss, and my admin leaves papers on MY chair. I tend to put things over her keyboard if she’s not at her desk, but it’s never occurred to me that either way is a power play – it’s just “making sure you see this right when you get back to your desk”.

              Reply ↓
            5. DE*

              I’ve never encountered this. Not everyone works in corporate environments. In fact, I’d say most people don’t. I work as a teacher and if a student or a colleague left a piece of paper on my chair I’d probably assume that the paper was misplaced and would be likely to toss it. I have a spot for students to turn in work to me for a reason.

              Before reading this thread I didn’t even know this was a thing people did. I’d be worried about the paper getting sat on.

              Also, why are we not sending emails? Even if the form needs to be physically signed I would email the person that I’d dropped it off at their desk (not their chair).

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            6. Wayward Sun*

              When I have to leave a document for one of the professors in my department, I usually leave it on their chair or on their keyboard. About 90% of the time these are the only horizontal surfaces in the entire office that aren’t already stacked with papers, fast food wrappers, coffee cups, etc.

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        3. Happy*

          Well, yes. Most people only have direct experience with a few different jobs, at most. Obviously most readers have never done X job, for all values of X.

          Reply ↓
        4. Justme, The OG*

          With the large number of types of jobs that exists, it very much makes sense that not everyone has worked every type of job.

          Reply ↓
    4. Plausible Deniability*

      That seems intentional.

      When someone is busy, they might sit in a chair without thoroughly examining it for important papers. After all, a chair is not a labelled place for important papers, unlike an inbox. – oops.

      Standing up from the chair could send the bent or crumpled paper to the floor. – oops.

      A crumpled piece of paper being thrown in a bin is a regular occurrence. – oops.

      Reply ↓
      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        I would be tempted to return something (say, a document that required a signature) with obvious wrinkles from being sat on. Probably wouldn’t actually DO it, but I’d be tempted.

        Reply ↓
      2. Antilles*

        User name does *not* check out, because none of those are plausible deniability.
        It’s a white piece of paper sitting on your black chair seat; it doesn’t require “thoroughly examining it”, it’s pretty noticeable even from a casual glance while walking towards your chair. But even if you miss seeing it, you then sit on the chair and fail to hear the sound of crinkling paper and also fail to notice that you’re sitting on a piece of paper? Then when you stand up, you also don’t notice the piece of paper falling to the floor? Then, when you come back to your office an see a crumpled piece of paper on the floor that you don’t remember putting there, you can’t even bother to least glance at it before just tossing it in the trash?
        That’s a ridiculous set of circumstances. Your best case scenario is that the VP just sort of doesn’t think it through, just reprints the document and then goes right back to leaving documents on your chair the following day. And then what? Maybe you can sell the “didn’t notice it” once or twice, but it’s going to quickly become apparent that you’re either being passive-aggressive or completely unobservant; either way, that’s a bad outcome for you.

        Reply ↓
        1. DE*

          We don’t actually know the color of the chair so. I’ve had light colored desk chairs before and definitely sit sometimes without looking. I’m a teacher so my attention is being pulled in many directions all day. If something was to be left on my chair I think there’s a fair chance I wouldn’t notice it.

          Reply ↓
      3. Lenora Rose*

        Walking up to my desk, my chair is generally in plain sight; I can generally see white (or lavender) on black. And most of the time, if I somehow missed it, if I sat on a piece of paper in most of my office work clothing, I’d NOTICE by feel (or sound).

        Reply ↓
      4. Matrix*

        If you didn’t see a piece of paper on your chair, then you need a new eye exam or new eye doctor or both. Right away.

        Reply ↓
      5. Rikki Tikki Tarantula*

        Papers are not tiny specks of dust. Would you really need to “thoroughly examine” your chair before sitting in it? A glance that takes a second would do the job.

        Reply ↓
  10. Lala*

    agreed, but my boss does a variation on this (along with leaving removed staples all over) and it drives me crazy. it is rude, and meant that way. it shows his disrespect for me and the work I do. but that is clearly how a lot of people feel about admins (he also shows his disrespect in a variety of other ways, and yes the place is a terrible place overall, and I would love to get out).

    Allison might not be wrong in her response about what the admin should do, but the vp is being rude. when someone in power insists on something like that, when someone below them indicates they dislike it, it is entirely a power play and a signal of disrespect for the person doing the work and, most likely, the work itself.

    But don’t lose your job over it. what people like the vp and my boss fail to understand is that there are lots of ways that you can take your revenge….

    Reply ↓
    1. Salsa Verde*

      This is so interesting to me, because I do not think leaving notes or documents on chairs is rude, nor disrespectful, nor a power play! That would never even occur to me.

      When I read the letter, I thought, oh, there is something else going on here that annoys this LW about this VP and the documents on the chair is just the most easily identifiable and articulated issue.

      Reply ↓
      1. Seal*

        The difference is that the LW asked the VP several times to put documents in their inbox instead of on their chair to no avail. I’ve been in the LW’s position, and not only is the VP being rude, they’re disrupting someone’s workflow. In my case, early in my career I worked for a unit that received and proceeded thousands of paper documents a week. Part of our workflow included routing certain documents to specific people, who would later return them to our unit. Despite having prominent and clearly marked inbox for returns and repeated reminders to use them, a few people routinely dropped off documents on random desks or counters or even someone’s chair. The perpetrators laughed our requests to stop doing so, but were quick to point fingers when something got lost because they were “too important” to follow instructions.

        Reply ↓
    2. Kay*

      If you are looking for ways to take out your revenge then you need to find a new job or seek therapy because this is not a good path.

      Reply ↓
    3. Matrix*

      “what people like the vp and my boss fail to understand is that there are lots of ways that you can take your revenge….”

      Uh hi FBI? Yeah we’ve got a live one over here maybe. I mean WTF

      Reply ↓
      1. Account*

        Uh indeed. Most adults don’t have much use for the the concept “revenge” unless they’re literally watching an action movie.

        Reply ↓
  11. English Rose*

    #4 – this overreaction seems of a piece with OP’s low-key disparagement of the job: “It’s a step back for me but I need the money.” Focus on doing the job well, which includes cool-headed prioritisation, regardless of how the work reaches you.

    Reply ↓
    1. WellRed*

      I wonder if the step back aspect of it is contributing to her annoyance about the papers on the chair. It’s really not a personal affront reminding you of your place in the hierarchy, OP.

      Reply ↓
      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        It may not be a personal affront, but as a former admin I know a lot of people don’t really respect admin work, so I can see interpreting it as a slight on the role if not LW directly. Coupled with what English Rose picked up on re: LW’s own feelings about the job, I can see it being a thing where LW doesn’t like being treated as an admin because they also don’t really value the work either.

        Reply ↓
      2. InStarTrek Nutcase*

        IME most higher level bosses really give little thought to deliberately pissing off an assistant. – they simply don’t care enough. Even the “best” bosses are more focused on their responsibilities & troubles, and I’d prefer any focus on me be on getting me better pay or benefits.

        Reply ↓
    2. ashie*

      I will put stuff in people’s chairs if they have crap all over their desk and I don’t want it to get lost. I wonder if “okay admin” is also kind of messy.

      Reply ↓
      1. Polly Hedron*

        If a messy person has a visible inbox, why wouldn’t you put your stuff in that inbox?
        (That said, I think “okay admin” should just move the VP’s stuff to the top of her inbox and sit down.)

        Reply ↓
        1. Galadriel's Garden*

          If I’m a VP and I know my “okay admin” doesn’t often get to important stuff in a timely fashion, and I have something that is *absolutely critical*, then yeah, I’m putting that document on their chair so I know that there’s no way they miss it. I used to be an admin, and I’m deeply perplexed that this is the hill LW wants to die on – part of the deal is sometimes catering to preferences you’re not a fan of, and so long as it’s within legality and ethics, you often just have to deal with it (at least until you’ve developed enough of a rapport with whoever you’re supporting to use some capital and push back on things that truly bother you…and developing that rapport involves, you know, not throwing out your boss’s paperwork or willfully ignoring it on principle).

          Reply ↓
        2. Banana Pyjamas*

          I had a coworker with an unlabeled inbox that was the same as two other trays on their desk. The couple times I wasn’t able to hand something directly to them, I left it on the keyboard.

          Reply ↓
    3. Kat*

      Yeah, this seems like a situation where the LW just flat-out doesn’t like the job and is trying to zero in on one thing to say “this is the problem” when it’s really not.

      Doing the job as well as possible while looking for new opportunities elsewhere would certainly be a better decision than throwing out the VP’s documents(!!!).

      Reply ↓
  12. amoeba*

    #1 Even if it is, in fact d/s jewelry, would it help to consider it more like an engagement or wedding ring? In the end, it’s the symbol of a relationship, just a less conventional one than others. Wedding rings also tell the world something about your relationship status, including the fact that yes, you’re probably having a sexual relationship with your partner. Like, in the days before extramarital sex was normal, they were basically literally showing that you were somebody who had sex! But we don’t consider those “overtly sexual”, right?
    I know you don’t intend it that way, but seeing those as “overtly sexual”, but other “relationship jewelry as non-sexual reminds me of the people who consider talking about LGBTQ rights as “shoving their sexuality in people’s faces”. Their relationships as such aren’t a sexual thing! They’re just relationships/their private life/family.

    Reply ↓
    1. B*

      I came here to say something like this but probably less eloquent! D/S relationships, especially the kind of 24/7 dynamic that might be implied by someone wearing a day collar, are usually about the power exchange and structure of the relationship, totally separate from any sexual shenanigans which may or may not be going on. And the power exchange element is in many ways just a more formalised and intentional version of things that happen in more traditional relationships like imbalances in who does the chores, manages the calendar, does more of the emotional labour, earns more money, is the little spoon, etc

      Reply ↓
      1. Testing*

        To be fair, I’ve felt uncomfortable at work when hearing about colleagues’ non-formalized but very real and large imbalances in who does the chores, etc. in their traditional relationships. To each their own, but some things are going to sound weird when mentioned at work to your colleagues who are not willing participants in that particular relationship.

        And the difference between wearing something that signifies such a structure and someone talking about it is that I guess no one talks about this stuff at work all the time (and if they do you can ask them not to).

        Reply ↓
        1. toe beans*

          Yeah, I don’t necessarily want to know if my colleagues are the big spoon or the little spoon either! Or if Dave does all the housework as an act of service. Describing an intimate relationship dynamic can be TMI without being sexual.

          I wouldn’t say anything about someone wearing a collar to work, and I think there’s a really good chance this is actually just a vaguely alternative fashion choice with no deeper meaning. But I also think D/s jewellery communicates more than just a wedding band.

          Reply ↓
          1. Falling Diphthong*

            I think you’re hitting at the discomfort with the intimate details.

            Like a past letter in which the boss let an employee move in with her–in which bystanders understood this to be because the poor guy needed a place and no sexy shenanigans at all were going on–and at the office she talked about doing his laundry for him.

            Reply ↓
          2. B*

            Right, but no-one’s describing anything. The collar doesn’t tell you any of those things, any more than a wedding ring tells you private details of a married couple’s sex life.

            The point I was trying to make is that “that person must do weird sex stuff” is something that comes entirely from the viewer’s assumptions and prejudices about what that kind of relationship must entail

            Reply ↓
            1. Falling Diphthong*

              Why would random bystanders need to know that your relationship has a dom/sub dynamic, or a master/slave dynamic (there’s a whole history there that to many of us does not equate “such sexy fun!!!”), or Mandalorian/Grogu dynamic, or furry costume dynamic, or role playing as every bartender we meet dynamic?

              Reply ↓
              1. Pescadero*

                Why would random bystanders need to know that your relationship even exists? Which is a large part of the purpose of wedding rings.

                Reply ↓
                1. Jackalope*

                  Part of the point is that wedding rings tell you who is romantically available and who is taken. There are all sorts of potential issues with that, and of course someone could be in an open relationship, etc., but that’s one of the reasons people wear them.

              2. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

                Why would they need to know it has a “we are each other’s legal heirs and make medical decisions for each other” dynamic? Which is all marriage actually is.

                Reply ↓
                1. Falling Diphthong*

                  In all seriousness: It would be weird to be made uncomfortable by the knowledge that someone around you had a designated legal heir and medical decision maker. Whether you inferred that from them mentioning a spouse, wearing a ring, or telling you “My daughter Gretl is my designated heir and medical decision maker.”

                  And there was even a past letter on this, where someone felt that his boss saying “Okay babe, love you” to end calls with her husband rubbed in that he was single, and so he wanted her to never do anything in his hearing that might hint that she had a partner. There is information that is considered generic, boring, and true of much of the population. And information that is considered too intimate for non-intimates to want to learn about you, usually online designated “TMI.” That this classification is based on cultural norms doesn’t make it not real.

            2. toe beans*

              Yes, I get that. The point I was making is that even with sexual aspects completely off the table, I still don’t super want to know this much detail about the relationship. Intimate and personal matters can be entirely non-sexual and still be a bit of an overshare for the office.

              And I wouldn’t assume anything from a collar, as there are any number of reasons a person might wear one. (I am also completely on board with ‘weird sex stuff’ outside of work, fwiw.) But I still think it’s a stretch to argue that a collar worn in a D/s context is totally equivalent to a wedding ring.

              Reply ↓
              1. t4ci3*

                A good way of checking if your problem with something is legitimate or a personal problem you should work on is to switch the problem item out with something else when thinking about it and see how it sounds.

                Reply ↓
                1. toe beans*

                  Yes, I’m familiar with that idea. It can equally be used to argue a point based on false equivalence, which is what I think is happening here.

                  I’m stopping now because personally I really am not super bothered about anyone’s kink jewellery. But nothing here has yet convinced me that a symbol of a specific relationship dynamic is equivalent to a symbol of a relationship’s existence.

                2. Orange*

                  The usefulness of checking yourself by making that mental switch depends on the two scenarios having an underlying similarity, which is what people are questioning here.

        2. Susan*

          In my view, sexuality isn’t just about freedom, it is also about power. Therefore it matters who gets sexual freedoms and over whom, and who doesn’t.

          Therefore, if – say – in a generally more uptight/”Christian family values”-focused organization, a male manager higher up on the chain gets to wear BDSM paraphernalia openly, while the sexual lives of more junior female employees are being scrutinized (and the male manager himself is supportive of that uptight/patriarchic culture!), that would give off huge predatorial vibes to me (see my personal experience which I shared earlier in this thread). I think the specific context matters a lot in such cases.

          Reply ↓
          1. amoeba*

            Well, yes, sure, but there is zero indication in the post that anything like that is the case here? (Also, I’d say it would even then still be strange for him to wear the jewelry that’s associated with the submissive role, that doesn’t exactly scream “predatory” to me…)

            Reply ↓
            1. Susan*

              Apparently, the specific type of ring (“Ring of O” in the version with the smaller ring attached to it) he wore can be associated with both a Dom or a Sub role, depending on which hand it is being worn (don’t remember which one it was in his case, though).

              Anyway, I don’t think a sexual predator who prefers “Sub” roles is any less predatorial than a predator with any other preferences. Therefore, if powerful men in some organization get away with wearing symbols like this while not supporting similar freedoms for “lesser” coworkers, this could be one among many red flags IMHO.

              I’m by no means suggesting that this was the case in the situation described in the post. What bothered me more were generalized statements in this thread that such symbols couldn’t be a problem because only very “liberal” people would understand their meaning.

              I grew up very “sheltered” (but unfortunately not “sheltered” from “Christian” predators) and still understood the symbolism. I think people who have been socialized in a very restrictive environment are generally very sensitive to subtle signals – because their whole life has been shaped by them. And they also intuitively understand when certain people are “allowed” to violate such norms while others are not.

              Reply ↓
        3. Lenora Rose*

          If anything, I would assume a BDSM relationship that was 24/7 or involved service, I’d assume an imbalance in chores was much better and more healthily negotiated than in a more traditional relationship where one partner is obviously overburdened but it wasn’t a formal agreement.

          (I would also assume discussion of either one would be TMI at work, but this is not about that part of your comment.)

          Reply ↓
        4. Elle*

          I came here to say this as well. I’ve historically been pretty troubled by the things I hear from coworkers in hetero relationships (he doesn’t know your kids’ teachers names? his mom called you what? he doesn’t let you do what?), but I have actual Things to Do, so I’m not pressed about it. I can find your lifestyle harmful and off-putting without whining about it.

          Reply ↓
  13. Czhorat*

    oP4’s VP irks me so much, and I’m annoyed that Allison’s advice to just accept it is the obvious right thing to do

    putting something in a chair so the recipient can’t miss it is the kind of passive -agressive nonsense only someone in mid to upper management can get away with.

    the LW is clearly overreacting and shouldn’t burn political capital on a personal stance that papers left on the chair to to the bottom, but I can wholly understand the irritation

    Reply ↓
    1. Aggretsuko*

      I’ve heard of other offices where the admins all put stuff in the chair because they were convinced it would not be noticed/be forgotten otherwise.

      Reply ↓
    2. Your Mom Though*

      This seems like such a bizarre take to me (an admin) who has literally never thought about where I leave something for a coworker on their desk. On the keyboard/chair/desk (if there’s a big empty spot), I’m really only looking for the spot that seems least likely to be missed, no passive aggression implied. But wow I am learning a lot about how people see themselves in relation to the rest of the world today.

      Reply ↓
      1. Nah*

        Okay, but have you been told by a coworker that they really do not want papers ever put on their chair, but placed in their inbox instead, and if so would you continue to put documents on her seat regardless?

        Reply ↓
      2. Rikki Tikki Tarantula*

        It’s wild, isn’t it? I was baffled then and I’m baffled now that this commonplace tactic to make sure someone sees something is such a big deal to people. Takes all kinds, I guess.

        Reply ↓
    3. AMH*

      I really disagree with you here, a rarity! It’s been common where I work for admins to put things on their bosses desk and vice versa. It certainly never felt like a passive-aggressive move and someone getting upset at it to the point of reprioritizing work would be viewed as wildly precious. I don’t doubt it can be a passive-aggressive move in some working environments but it’s certainly not flatly so.

      Reply ↓
      1. AMH*

        bosses* chair, I meant. Autopilot. Also common for people at all levels to put things on people’s desk, obviously, haha

        Reply ↓
      2. Czhorat*

        I suspect it’s workplace and industry dependent. My views overall are probably skewed because i’ve worked in one specific industry for the last couple of decades and know what to expect from people here; that doesn’t always translate to other places.

        Reply ↓
    4. MassMatt*

      I would be mildly annoyed at someone leaving papers on my chair, just because leaving it on my keyboard is more convenient and more likely to get seen. I have not seen many actual “inboxes” on people’s desks recently, the closest I’ve seen is a bin for manual forms which multiple people check and pick up during the day.

      I did have a coworker with an inbox (it was actually labeled as such) but it was at a corner of her cube away from her desk. I made the mistake of leaving something in it for her once and she said “oh, that box is for junk mail like newsletters etc, I only check it every few months”. A sort of decoy, I guess?

      So yes, I’d leave HER stuff on her chair.

      Reply ↓
    5. Annie2*

      I commented this above, but my assistant leaves papers for me on MY chair. I am sure some people do this passive-aggressively (as some people have the ability to do just about anything passive-aggressively) but papers in chairs to me is very, very normal.

      Reply ↓
    6. Kay*

      But it is the obvious and right thing to do. Part of the admin’s job is literally to support this VP! not support the VP within the confines of how she feels the VP should present the work requested of her. Annoying – for her yes, but accept it – big yes!

      Reply ↓
  14. Irish Teacher.*

    LW2, one thing that surprises me, having read this blog is that…this seems to come up a number of times. I think there have been at least two other examples.

    https://www.askamanager.org/2023/08/my-coworker-keeps-saying-hes-my-boss-hes-not.html
    https://www.askamanager.org/2021/08/our-new-entry-level-hire-thinks-hes-our-boss.html

    OK, the latter is a bit different as it’s possible he wasn’t lying but genuinely misunderstood what he was hired to do, but still! The idea that there are people who just decide “I am this person’s boss” without being told “this person reports to you” or even when specifically told they don’t is just so odd.

    I do think somebody in authority needs to shut it down way more firmly. The fact that she is “scolding” the actual boss for not going through her is really over the top.

    The fact that she appears to be…bordering on gaslighting at time, makes this even more serious. I know the term “gaslighting” is massively overused but telling people she didn’t actually say something and they “misheard,” then continuing to make the claim, comes close.

    She is not only undermining Jack and Jill, but also their actual boss, assuming he is her boss too, then she is…being almost insubordinate and she is causing confusion among vendors. I really think the boss should have been clear with her that this is unacceptable and cannot continue. I know the LW has no power over that and that this event took place seven years ago anyway.

    LW3, even if Jane hadn’t been fired and she always showed good judgement, I still wouldn’t assume somebody was a terrible manager based on one person’s word alone. Anybody can be mistaken. I know that is just an example but that is one of the things I would definitely not take one individual’s word for, because even the best of people can misjudge others or have a BEC situation.

    As regards filtering out the good from the bad, I’d say see what of her advice matches with what you hear from others. And I would say that would be true even if she hadn’t been fired. It’s never a good idea to take one person’s word as gospel. Everybody has blind spots and even the best person at their job could be wrong on something.

    Reply ↓
    1. MassMatt*

      L2 I am surprised falsely claiming to be someone’s boss seems to be a thing in multiple workplaces too. And more surprised that the *actual* boss in this letter doesn’t seem capable of putting an end to it. I mean, the coworker tells the boss they need to run schedule changes by her first? And the boss is OK with this?

      Even if this coworker had a lot of seniority/institutional knowledge, this is bizarre behavior.

      Reply ↓
  15. I should really pick a name*

    overt sexuality at work makes me incredibly uncomfortable

    I don’t think this can be considered overt when the LW can only identify the jewelry because of this blog.

    Reply ↓
    1. Falling Diphthong*

      That’s one problem with any IFKYK signifier–someone out there gets concerned that no one realizes the special cool meaning of her green feather, and so tries to get her office to greet her as “The High Sparrow of the UnderCity” and explains exactly what the green feather means for her relationship to the rest of the UnderCity, and suddenly a bunch of mundanes are dumped into the IFKYK group.

      Reply ↓
      1. Be Gneiss*

        It feels like if that was happening, the LW wouldn’t have had to explain that they only know because of a different letter on this blog, though. If this person was walking around the office going on and on about it, it seems like that would have been the focus of the letter, instead of an admission that it only registered as having this particular significance because the LW had previously gone down a D/s jewelry rabbit hole after reading another letter here.

        Reply ↓
      2. Elle*

        I can’t speak for everyone engaged in a D/s relationship, but I think I speak for the overwhelming majority when I say we’re not particularly interested in evangelizing. People aren’t into D/s because we want people to think we’re cool- we’re into it because we just are. I would gently invite you to delve into why your assumption is that people who practice D/s must want attention from normies for it.

        Reply ↓
        1. Dogwoodblossom*

          I assume this comment was in reference to the OG letter that this LW was referring to, the one that taught them about kink jewelry in the first place. An AAM classic about a woman who wanted to bring her partner to work events and call him “Master” in front of coworkers. That was very much a case of someone into D/s making it everybody’s business. I agree with you that that isn’t generally the case, but I don’t think Falling Dipthong was making a sweeping generalization so much as referencing a post that most other commenters are familiar with. It’s up there with Cheap Ass Rolls.

          Reply ↓
          1. Dogwoodblossom*

            Sorry, it’s even more bonkers than I remember. She wanted her coworkers to CALL him “Master” too.

            Reply ↓
    3. Juicebox Hero*

      I’ve been reading this blog daily since at least 2018 and I wouldn’t have a clue what that kind of jewelry would look like, unless it was a full-on dog collar type thing. Even in that case I’d probably think “goth” over “sex stuff”.

      Reply ↓
  16. el l*

    OP3:
    2 things about whether Jane gave you good work habits:

    1. Ability gets you hired, attitude gets you fired. Would not be surprised if that old saw applied here.
    2. In plenty of places, like my last stop, it’s common to bond with your coworkers by complaining about how bad someone was who left the building. Even competent departed people got this treatment.

    So who knows. But reserve judgment.

    Reply ↓
  17. Falling Diphthong*

    I suspect #2 is trying to manifest The Job She Wants, which is to be everyone’s boss but have no responsibility for the work. And that’s why the actual boss gets told her vision of how job assignments will go.

    Reply ↓
    1. She of Many Hats*

      The LW said that Jill was offered the opportunity to become a manager numerous times but refused to interview for the role. I would take the issue up with their manager one more time saying that Jill claiming to be a boss is causing problems with workflow and communication among teams and making it harder for LW & Jack to do their jobs effectively and the lie will undermine the proper authority channels including manager’s. If the issue happened once or twice, it can be attributed to miscommunication, repeatedly means the “error” is being constantly reinforced. I also would not be surprised if some of the work assigned by Jill to LW is stuff she’s supposed to do.

      Reply ↓
  18. Rondeaux*

    What happens when the VP comes to put papers on your chair and you are sitting there? Does he ask you to stand up so he can leave in on the chair? Does he hide around the corner until you leave your desk ? Does he try and wedge the paper in between you and the seat? (this would be inappropriate)

    Until we know this information I’m not comfortable giving advice on the situation

    Reply ↓
    1. Antilles*

      Don’t be ridiculous. If OP was in the office, the VP would just hand you the papers.
      The chair thing is simply a way of leaving documents for someone when you aren’t there, no more, no less.

      Reply ↓
    2. Dr. Rebecca*

      Oh, honestly. If the LW is sitting there, the VP probably hands the papers to them. Don’t be so dramatic.

      Reply ↓
      1. Rondeaux*

        In my office we just email or slack things to each other so perhaps I don’t have a great gauge on paper protocol

        Reply ↓
        2. Jennifer Strange*

          But certainly you have a gauge of how people react when they approach an empty chair and a taken chair?

          Reply ↓
          1. Rondeaux*

            I think it would depend if it’s the LW’s regular chair or are they hot desking?

            But that doesn’t matter – either way I don’t understand why LW is so put out by the paper on the chair. To me it wouldn’t even register as a slight

            Reply ↓
            1. Dahlia*

              What? If OP was hotdesking, you think the VP would try to shove the papers under her butt instead of handing them to her?

              I think we’re missing the forest for the trees here.

              Reply ↓
          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I was quite amused at the idea of him hiding behind the wall, waiting, perhaps for hours, until she leaves, just so he can leave the paperwork on her seat.

            “Ha, ha, she is going to the bathroom. Finally, I have my chance!”

            Reply ↓
    3. Lenora Rose*

      What happens is; The VP comes to give papers to LW. If LW is not at their desk (on break), he leaves them on the chair. if LW is at the desk, he’d just do what a normal human does, and hand them the papers. Or, if LW’s hands were full, they could say, “Just put it down there” (Indicating inbox, open space on desk, or other appropriate locale.)

      Reply ↓
      1. Rondeaux*

        I’m just curious why they can’t email or at least fax the documents. It might not be relevant to the overall letter but the current process seems unwieldy. I haven’t seen physical in/out boxes in many many years.

        Reply ↓
          1. Caramel & Cheddar*

            I’m imagining a VP who likes to use paper somehow figuring out how to fax a digital document from a computer to a fax machine that is probably somewhere else in the building that the admin then has to go collect and I’m laughing very hard.

            Reply ↓
          2. Nightengale*

            I worked somewhere once where I had to fax things across the hall. I had thought I would save work (and get some exercise) by printing the thing out myself and hand walking it to the intake person, but no.

            Reply ↓
        2. Caramel & Cheddar*

          The letter was from 2019, when the number of workplaces still relying on shuttling paper copies of things around would have been higher than it is today. I’d also argue that people at the VP level often like physical copies of stuff because it’s easier to deal with something in front of your face than search for it in your inbox, which can be a time saver (for the VP) when you’re generally in a lot of meetings, etc.

          I haven’t used paper in my job for nearly a decade, but it’s still pretty easy to see it’s uses in an office environment even in 2025.

          Reply ↓
        3. TX_Trucker*

          We have many government contracts and memorandums that still require signatures to be “ink on paper.” Once a week I sit with my EA with a stack of papers that need to be personally signed by me. If it can’t wait until our weekly meeting, she will leave it on my chair. Which I find funny, considering it’s the opposite of OP#4, and the admin is leaving something in the chair for a higher-up.

          Reply ↓
        5. Rondeaux*

          When I was i college I worked a sales job and the boss had some kind of list of active fax numbers, so he thought up “Cold Fax Friday” where we would send faxes with our products and pricing to all these numbers… Basically fax spam

          Reply ↓
          1. dogwoodblossom*

            I worked a job not long ago with a fax machine for stupid reasons and the bulk of faxes we got were spam. I assume it’s been around since roughly 10 seconds after the fax was invented.

            Reply ↓
            1. Anon For This*

              As someone whose Young Enterprise adviser* convinced our YE team to offer fax-based advertising services (=spam) as our business model in 1992/3, I can confirm this.

              *He was non-creepy and subsequently kind enough to give me a summer job that served as pocket money through upper 6th, but definitely had some questionable business practices. Like getting 16yo me to photocopy a box of questionnaire responses from readers of an industry magazine that had somehow fallen into his hands, compile them into a marketing database for his business, and drop the box at its originally intended destination saying that it had been misdelivered to my office (without specifying where that was).

              Reply ↓
        6. Lenora Rose*

          Fax the document: get up from their desk, walk to the copy room, enter the fax number… realise it’s the SAME fax number and the machine I’d have to pick it up from is the one they’re standing at…

          vs

          walk over to my desk (closer than the copy room) hand me a sheet of paper.

          As for email, it’s faster for certain things, and often used, but, eg, I currently have 8 items on my desk that need signatures from higher-ups, 7 my boss and 1 his boss. When signed, boss brings the folder back with all the items and sets it on my desk – ditto for grandboss’s assistant.

          Yes, we also scan a lot of documents and send them around via email, work with a lot of PDFs, and can do electronic signatures for some things. One of the assistants finds it more efficient to use a tablet and get his boss to sign docs via stylus, and thus skip scanning before emailing – my issue with this is that I’d feel much more need to hover and wait for the signature on the spot, instead of just leaving the folder on my boss’s desk for him to handle later.

          Reply ↓
        7. DE*

          The letter was written six years ago. Or, rather, it was blogged about six years ago. The events it describes could be even older than that.

          Reply ↓
  19. Jack Straw from Wichita*

    RE #1 – People wear things ALL THE TIME and have no idea what they mean or signify. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here, but it very well could be.

    My 20YO nephew had a phone case with the Bertha skeleton from the Grateful Dead and had zero idea who the band even was–he just thought it looked cool. A friend bought me a necklace on Etsy that had a large gold cat and green eyes pendant–it’s 100% a cat from a very specific anime fandom. It’s my choice to wear it now that I know (I don’t, but it’s because I think it’s ugly lol), but had my kid not said “that looks familiar” I would never have known.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sunflower*

      I got a keychain from a gumball type machine with a boy and cat. I had no idea it was from an anime until stumbling on it years later. I just thought it was cute. I still don’t really know what it’s about but I still use the keychain just because it’s cute.

      No need to assume about the coworker and who cares about other people’s private lives anyway as long as they’re not in your face about it.

      Reply ↓
  20. ManagerOrLead*

    Re: LW2, I wonder if she was given supervisory authority without managerial (HR) authority. I’ve been in jobs where I’ve been in charge of projects, to the extent of controlling the time of people on the project and how the work is distributed, without technically being their boss in the official hierarchy. I could and did tell them what to do on a daily basis and I brought up performance issues or problems directly related to the project. I sometimes did this with people who had a higher title level than I did (Sr vs Principal) by virtue of the titles HR/managers chose to give new people hired specifically to work on my project. We shared the same boss from an actual managerial perspective, and he oversaw two projects and all staff working on them including the project leads. So he made decisions on the relative resourcing of the two projects, set expected output for each project, worked with the leads to prioritize when there was too much to do, mediated staff disagreements if escalated above project level, took care of all performance reviews/raises, and was responsible for anything else that came from HR.

    I’ve had many other projects throughout the years that had levels of authority that broke out by project where someone who wasn’t my boss managed my day to day activity or I managed the day to day activity of someone I didn’t manage. We just hired someone whose day to day work responsibilities are split 50-50 between me and my boss. This is a bit more unusual in my experience as there’s a clear winner when there’s overlapping needs (the other times I’ve done splits like this it was with a peer and we had equal footing in negotiating).

    Anyway, I was always very careful about my wording but I’ve worked with people who were more casual about it; for all practical purposes a project lead in these cases is your day-to-day manager, using ceded authority from your technical boss (and with expectations that actual disciplinary actions would come from the real boss).

    Reply ↓
    1. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Unlikely, given that her boss corrected her when she did it in front of him. It’s right there in the letter.

      Reply ↓
  21. Steve*

    I had a co-worker who treated me as though she were my boss and it caused great confusion and a year of misery for me and everyone around us. I took what I thought was a great job, a step up in pay and responsibility from what I had been doing, and almost immediately started being bossed around by a co-worker who had been filling in on the job I was hired for after the last person (who had lasted six months) left. I kept checking in with the lead administrator asking (sincerely, no snark) “oh, I thought we were colleagues, did I mis-understand? is she my boss?”. The answer was always “no”. It was a very contentious relationship and I kept trying to ‘fix’ it. Management agreed that she needed a re-set in how she was dealing with me/the role, but that never happened – she left 9 months after I started and I left a few months later. As a side note, despite the fact that we were supposed to be working together, she was not one of the 7 people I interviewed with to get the job; a point she brought up (with some bitterness) on my first day with the company.

    Reply ↓
  22. Angstrom*

    #4: Where I work, In/Out boxes on desks are almost extinct. They’re a relic of the past, like Rolodexes. It’s possible that the VP defaults to putting papers on chairs to be sure they will be seen.

    Putting the VP’s papers on the bottom of the In box is petty and spiteful. Tasks should be prioritized by the work requirements. LW may be feeding the cycle — the VP’s work is always at the bottom of the pile, so the VP leaves new items in the chair so they get attention.

    Reply ↓
    2. Be Gneiss*

      I had a boss who HATED when people left papers in his chair…but also had a black hole of a desk and an inbox where things would get lost for months. I dealt with safety/compliance/regulatory stuff, and a lot of it couldn’t afford to go missing until it resurfaced from the sea of desk detritus. If it was important, I left it on his chair. He complained, but the task was handled.
      If things that are high-priority for this VP aren’t getting done because OP has some kind of beef about it, it feels like they are reinforcing the idea that important things will get lost in the shuffle if they just go in the inbox.

      Reply ↓
  23. JB (not in Houston)*

    It’s kind of fascinating to me how differently people react to a piece of paper in a chair. I would be so interested to read up on office worker sociology.

    As with the last time the topic came up, it’s genuinely surprising to me how many people get offended by someone leaving something in their chair. It’s been a common thing everywhere I’ve worked, so I’ve never thought of it as something strange. I can see how someone might have a preference, but the strong language people use to describe it and their feelings (like calling it a power play or demeaning) is something I never would have expected. To me it’s one of the many aspects of work life where you might have a preference about how something is done, but it’s not worth investing your emotions in it, especially because the other person probably doesn’t mean anything by it.

    I don’t know if people who feel strongly about it have otherwise wonderful offices and therefore don’t have to have a pick-your-battles mentality (and thus have the mental bandwidth to get that emotionally invested in this), or they work in *terrible* offices and so something like this is just the last straw. Or maybe I’ve worked in too many “that’s just how Bill is” places that I’ve acclimated to accept stuff that annoys me–I work in law, which is an entire field of Bills. If I get upset about someone leaving something in my chair, I’m not going to make it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Czhorat*

      I personally see it as, at the very least, passive-aggressive. It sends the message “I am so important that I need to moderately inconvenience you to INSURE that you see my request FIRST before you can even sit down”. It also can connote a lack of trust that the recipient WILL deal with the paper if it’s put in the inbox and not on the chair or on top of the keyboard or something. It’s also a bit awkward ergonomically; you need to bend a bit to get something from your chair. If you’ve tweaked your back or something that might be a bit more of an irritant (yes, I was born in the early 1970s. How did you know?)

      For that matter, I’d say that “across the keyboard” (assuming that the job has a workstation) is better than “in the chair”. Neither is as respectful as “in the clearly labelled [IN] tray”

      Reply ↓
      1. StarTrek Nutcase*

        Good points. That and it just doesn’t touch their memory cells as worth retention because they have a million other details more important.

        And I love petty, but throwing those papers away is much more likely to cause the assistant problems than the boss.

        Reply ↓
      2. AndersonDarling*

        I’m in the same age group and there was different baggage tied to this move back then. As an admin back in the day, I was wearing 3 inch heals, skirt, and panty hose (gasp!). After running up and down 3 flights of stairs, all ya want is to sit down. But you couldn’t sit down because someone plopped a bunch of junk on your chair instead of anywhere else. You can’t lightly sit down on the stack because it could snag your panty hose. You had to go through it before you could rest your burning feet.
        It was just one more demeaning action in a world of slights.

        Reply ↓
        1. Crepe Myrtle*

          When I was an admin asst, I had the same problem. It was just another passive aggressive gesture from people with power over me, whether they meant it that way or not. Even after I asked the culprits to put items in the inbox, they didn’t. It was very frustrating and interrupted my workflow each time.

          Reply ↓
          1. Decima Dewey*

            This is one thing that irks me, but I don’t make an issue of it. I’m spectrumish, so a whole slew of things irk me, but if I made issues of all of them I wouldn’t be able to function.

            And yes, getting an in box and labeling it as my in box still got stuff left on my chair. Okay.

            Reply ↓
        2. Jennifer Strange*

          But you couldn’t sit down because someone plopped a bunch of junk on your chair instead of anywhere else…You had to go through it before you could rest your burning feet.

          Why do you have to go through it? Why not just move it to wherever you wish they had put it instead and sit down?

          Reply ↓
      3. Pescadero*

        “It sends the message “I am so important that I need to moderately inconvenience you to INSURE that you see my request FIRST before you can even sit down”.”

        1) I’m pretty sure that is the intended message.
        2) If they are the boss – their request might just be that important.

        Reply ↓
        1. Clisby*

          That might be the message you receive, but it’s not necessarily the message being sent. To me, it’s just flagging that it’s something new; nothing at all about how important it is – you’ll have to glance at it to see. As someone whose inbox was about the last place to look for priority items, this was helpful. My last in-office job (computer programming) was 1988-1996, and I’d say most people delivered mail/messages by putting it in the chair, unless of course a person was sitting there. The next 17-18 years of my programming career was 100% remote, so I was Mistress of the Mail and put stuff wherever I wanted.

          Reply ↓
      5. Antilles*

        You’re putting way way more thought into the meaning behind it than the person putting down the paper did. On the other side, the entire thought process is usually this:
        I need to put this somewhere that you’re going to notice and it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, your desk/inbox already has a bunch of papers on it and one more piece of white paper is going to blend right in, but if I put it on your chair or keyboard, it’s instantly noticeable and you can work it into your schedule appropriately.
        That’s it. That’s the entire thought process. No message about “lack of trust” or “I am so important”, just flat out logistics of making sure you see it.
        Maybe you keep a completely empty inbox and a desk that never has any papers on it, so even a single document would instantly be noticeable. Or maybe you’re so organized that even though you have papers on your desk, you will instantly notice even a single piece of additional paper. In either case, that’s awesome for you, but that also very much puts you into a tiny minority of office workers.

        Reply ↓
        1. Clisby*

          ^^^^ Exactly. There might be loons out there who are paper-messaging, but I’d bet they’re few and far between.

          Reply ↓
        2. Rikki Tikki Tarantula*

          This. I want papers on my chair, because then I will see them. Strangely, the person I had to repeat this to over and over was my husband (I work from home and am also in charge of the bills, important papers, etc.) For ages he would put things on my desk but off to the side, I didn’t see them, and we ended up with late bills. So now he finally puts things on my chair.

          Reading nefarious motives into this commonplace practice is quite something. Maybe it’s my on-the-spectrum brain, but I just want to get the work done and don’t care about possible power plays because the Lannister memo was placed on my chair.

          Reply ↓
      6. JB (not in Houston)*

        Wow, we have worked in very different office environments, then! Maybe where you work people are trying to send that message, but that’s just not the case any place I’ve worked.

        You’ve always been a levelheaded commenter, so I feel like you are probably just saying that’s how you feel and that you are aware that not everybody who would put something in your chair actually has that kind of implied meaning behind it. If not, I feel bad for you if you’ve worked with people who try to send passive-aggressive messages based on where they leave stuff for you. I’m not being sarcastic or patronizing–I would really hate to work in a place filled with people who were so petty that you had to worry about whether every small interaction contains a hidden meaning. I promise you, if I leave something in your chair, there’s no meaning behind it! And it would not occur to me that I’m actually inconveniencing you, or at least not any more than I would be by giving you that piece of paper in some other way.

        Reply ↓
      7. Elle*

        I see it similarly. “Attend to my dumb thing before you even sit down, because I am so very important” is the message, to me.

        Reply ↓
    2. Admin Lackey*

      It’s funny, I work at a court and absolutely everyone will put files and documents on other people’s chairs because we just have /so/ many files and documents in our cubicles that you could definitely miss new ones if they aren’t put on your chair. Which might not matter but could be a huge deal depending on how urgent the document is.

      It doesn’t seem to bother anyone, but I imagine that’s because there’s no power games associated with it.

      Reply ↓
      1. JB (not in Houston)*

        Ah, maybe that’s what it is. I mean, I had office jobs before moving to the legal field, and nobody cared about stuff in chairs there, either. But maybe the legal field (and courts in particular?) is filled with put-stuff-in-chairs people.

        Reply ↓
    3. sb51*

      Also it says that “my papers are more important than anyone else’s who might get to your inbox after me” (even though you don’t know whether the inbox-owner goes through stuff top-down (LIFO) or bottom up (FIFO)). If it’s still a paper-heavy office where the admin might get multiple things over their lunch break, it might be more about one-upping the other people adding tasks than one-upping the admin.

      Reply ↓
  25. Jack McCullough*

    Re: D/S Jewelry

    Every day of my life since 1976 I have worn jewelry that advertises my sexual orientation and relationship.

    Do you think I should stop this because it might make people uncomfortable?

    Signed,

    Devoted husband

    Reply ↓
        1. Czhorat*

          It symbolizes a relationship which does often have a sexual component, as well as (usually) assumptions about that relationship. One would assume, for example, monogamy.

          Am I comfortable with the power dymanics of full-time D/S relationships with master and servant roles? Not really, but that’s none of my damn business; let other people live how they want, and remember that straight heterosexual people can have ALL KINDS of visible representations of our lifestyles without anyone blinking an eye.

          Reply ↓
          1. Socks*

            Oh yeah no disagreement on any of those points. My point was just that gay and bisexual people wear wedding rings too, so he’s not actually advertising his orientation with the ring.

            Reply ↓
            1. Admin Lackey*

              If he’s worn it since 1976, there was a long period when he was definitely advertising something about his sexual orientation

              Reply ↓
        2. Dr. Rebecca*

          Sure is, until we get to a point where someone wearing one is de facto assumed to be gay/queer as often as they’re assumed to be hetero.

          Reply ↓
          1. Socks*

            Most people in general are assumed to be straight until proven otherwise. Some people get clocked as non-straight very easily. For either of those groups, I don’t think the presence or absence of a wedding ring really tips the assumption scales.

            Reply ↓
            1. Clisby*

              My husband and I have been married for almost 29 years now and neither of us has ever worn a wedding ring. There is nothing to assume from that except that we didn’t want to.

              Reply ↓
      2. Dr. Rebecca*

        They’re not different, though.

        We accept wedding rings, discussions of heterosexual families and their issues, and pregnancy talk–which, let’s be clear, is talking about the fact that you had procreative sex–because they’ve been normalized, but they weren’t always. Women prior to about…4o-ish years ago were often (not always, but often) required to leave jobs if they got pregnant or hide their pregnancy from customers/clients. Now offices throw baby showers and fundraise for IVF.

        BDSM relationships are just another relationship format with a more formalized structure–so long as the coworker isn’t bringing out the whips, chains, and cuffs in the boardroom, or making anyone call their partner their master, it’s just like a wedding ring or a baby picture.

        Reply ↓
        1. Thursday Night*

          This is cultural relativism gone wild. Wearing a wedding ring denotes that you have made a commitment to someone—in principle, a lifelong and monogamous commitment. Wearing something associated with BDSM clearly denotes to those around you that you like to be choked and spanked while calling your partner “sir” or “master.” To pretend that these two things are not merely similar but actually the same is wild.

          Reply ↓
          1. Dr. Rebecca*

            They’re not hurting you, why do you care? I mean that literally–nothing they do or wear is impacting your life at all. If you’re having icky thoughts about their sex life, that’s TOTALLY on you. I honestly don’t want to talk with people about their pregnancies–the entire process is gross–but that’s a me problem. This is a you problem.

            Reply ↓
            1. Thursday Night*

              They’re not hurting you, why do you care?

              I have never claimed that they’re hurting me and I have never claimed that I care. I am simply pointing out that wearing a wedding ring is not the same—not better or worse, just not the same—as wearing something that denotes what you like to get up to in the bedroom. Is that clear enough for you?

              Reply ↓
              1. amoeba*

                That’s unfortunately still an argument that has historically also been used to stop queer people from talking about, well, their existence.

                Reply ↓
                2. amoeba*

                  @Thursday Night no, but you’re using it right now for a different group of people that are not in traditional, vanilla, heterosexual relationships.

                3. Thursday Night*

                  Do people not understand the distinction I’m highlighting? If two persons in such a relationship decided to marry and wear a wedding ring, no one would blink twice. If, however, two married persons decided to wear jewelry to denote the particular sexual acts that they perform, I think most people would rightly regard that as TMI.

                4. Dr. Rebecca*

                  @Thursday Night, you’re reducing BDSM to sex. It’s not just sex. The same way hetero marriages aren’t just sex. They’re not denoting their sex acts, they’re signaling their relationship, the EXACT same way a wedding ring signals a relationship. You don’t know ANYTHING about what they do in their sex life, you are making assumptions about them. In fact, to return to pregnancy, absent discussion of IVF, we know more about a pregnant person’s sex life than you do about anyone wearing a collar or other BDSM symbol.

                5. amoeba*

                  Yeah, that’s the whole problem in this discussion here, I think – Thursday Next thinks of BDSM as a sexual practice, while BDSM folks themselves consider it a way of living/type of relationship similar to (but different from, obviously) a traditional/vanilla relationship.

                6. Thursday Night*

                  My understanding is that BDSM stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism. In other words, it clearly denotes a sexual relationship whose acts can be easily inferred by anyone who hasn’t been raised from childhood in a monastery or some other secluded environment. If, however, I am mistaken, and BDSM actually stands for something else entirely, then I’d be very glad to be corrected.

                7. Dr. Rebecca*

                  Thursday Night, it does stand for that, but it does NOT have to be sexual.

                  If you want to be told what to do, and I tell you to sit, and you do it, that’s domination/submission.

                  If you want to be hurt, and I call you names, that’s sadism/masochism.

                  There isn’t always a sexual component. In fact, the people who get into BDSM only to get themselves off are generally the ones that other people are told to stay away from. There’s a caring, loving relationship in most cases, where everyone gets what makes them happy in AND out of the bedroom.

                  So yes, you’re wrong.

                8. Thursday Night*

                  I think your position is clearly unsustainable. To pretend, in light of what BDSM stands for, that it is not primarily sexual is… wild. If that were not the case then no one would blink twice if told that a father and daughter, mother and son, or a teacher and student were in a BDSM relationship. Again, you may sincerely believe that such relationships are perfectly happy and healthy, but they are clearly sexual in nature.

              2. Elle*

                It simply doesn’t denote only that. You’re taking a concept that means a lot of complicated things* to a select group of people and saying that because your own understanding of that concept is limited, the concept itself must match your limited understanding. It does not, as other commenters have pointed out. I recommend thinking less about strangers’ intimate lives. If you find that difficult, maybe that’s something to examine as well.

                *Fun fact: D/s doesn’t necessarily imply BDSM or play that involves pain. Many relationships from 40-50 years ago are indistinguishable from D/s relationships in practice, with the only difference being that the roles aren’t dictated by what genitals everyone involved has and are entered into consensually rather than prescribed by society.

                Reply ↓
                1. Thursday Night*

                  I recommend thinking less about strangers’ intimate lives. If you find that difficult, maybe that’s something to examine as well.

                  Why do so many people find it so difficult to discuss ideas with ascribing sexual or otherwise personal insecurities to their interlocutors? It’s just weird. What would be so wrong with simply assuming good faith on the part of everyone concerned?

          2. Czhorat*

            I think you’re more than a little bit ignorant of what a DS lifestyle entails. That’s OK, I am too. I’m certain that there is more to it than sex, and your reductionism makes as little sense as saying “a wedding ring means that you have vaguely unsatisfying missionary position sex once every fortnight” – the stories you spin in your head about the couple’s sex life are YOUR ISSUE.

            What you’re doing is the opposite of cultural relativism; you’re saying that your way is the only good and true and decent one and everyone else is a degenerate of some kind. I’ll gently note that real and implied power balances in heterosexual marriage has changed over the years and even within our lifetimes. You’re taking one snapshot of one relationship in one moment and saying “this is the good one. Only this”.

            Reply ↓
            1. Dr. Rebecca*

              ^^^This. Also, there are BDSM relationships that don’t involve physical play at all. Something for Thursday Night to keep in mind.

              Reply ↓
          3. Lightbourne Elite*

            It doesn’t actually clearly denote any of that and your disdain for a different lifestyle is palpable.

            Reply ↓
          5. Nancy*

            No, it does not denote that to anyone, since not all BDSM relationships are the same.

            LW doesn’t even know what it is, since lots of people wear goth style jewelry because they like it.

            Reply ↓
          6. GreySuit*

            Adding to the chorus that uh… no, wearing a collar does not mean “Wearing something associated with BDSM clearly denotes to those around you that you like to be choked and spanked while calling your partner “sir” or “master.””

            A collar is a symbol of commitment to a relationship. Hell, sometimes a Dom will wear a collar because they’re committed to their sub. In no way do a Dom and sub have to be having sex at all- lots of people engage in totally nonsexual kink. I encourage you to give that a Google before you make any more sweeping statements about people whose lives you know nothing about.

            Reply ↓
            1. Thursday Night*

              If I’m wrong and BDSM relationships aren’t inherently, or even primarily, sexual, can parents and their children engage in BDSM relationships? What about teachers and their students? How about forming BDSM groups at work? Let’s cut the cap and stop pretending that sexual arrangements aren’t sexual.

              Reply ↓
              1. Nancy*

                Does it bother you to see wedding rings, another symbol of a committed relationship that involves sex?

                LW is probably wrong anyway.

                Reply ↓
                1. Thursday Night*

                  Wedding rings denote that a person is in a committed relationship; unlike BDSM-related jewelry (which the LW’s colleague may or may not have been wearing), however, wedding rings do not denote anything about the type of sex their wearers engage in.

          7. Parakeet*

            It really doesn’t indicate that, no. You have a very narrow idea of kink, or even what a D/s relationship looks like.

            Also, a collar, specifically, symbolizes a commitment to a partner. Which is where people’s observation of the similarity is coming from.

            Reply ↓
    4. CommanderBanana*

      Right? I’m over here shamelessly flaunting an engagement ring that lets all and sundry know my personal life.

      Seriously, I’d love for people who like to borrow trouble to take me step by step through their thought process. If the hangover from a repressive upbringing is so severe that you are this ruffled by someone else wearing a piece of jewelry, please (and I mean this with all compassion), talk to a professional about it.

      IMHO this is not that different from that one office that flipped out over how their coworker looked after she had a mastectomy. This just isn’t your business, and if it’s bothering you THAT much, please, seek some professional help.

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

        IMHO this is not that different from that one office that flipped out over how their coworker looked after she had a mastectomy.

        Pretty much. It’s not ‘advertising’ anything and if it causes inappropriate thoughts in other people’s heads about what that person *might* get up when unclothed then that’s an issue for a therapist, not the workplace.

        I’ve been at work a long time – I can very clearly remember a time when my cousin was told he couldn’t call his husband by that title because even the mention of being gay caused people to think about explicit sexual acts and labelled it ‘perverse’. And I’ve seen people in today’s workplace told that they cannot mention about being trans because it’s somehow equivalent to mentioning their undercarriage configuration in explicit detail and hence ‘perverse’.

        We’ve got a long way to go yet.

        Reply ↓
  26. foureyedlibrarian*

    I have guillotine earrings, doesn’t mean I’m about to join a bourgeois revolution. If your coworker starts to ask you to refer to their partner as master, then you may have an issue. And, luckily, that’s been covered already

    Reply ↓
  27. ashie*

    Re #2 I report directly to the CEO and everyone assumes VP is my boss because he supervises 90% of the company operations. I’m generally a pretty laid-back person so I feel really petty correcting people but dammit if I don’t feel a little insulted every time.

    Reply ↓
  28. Chaos organizer*

    I used to share an office with a woman who could not stand having things put on her chair (she even had a sign!) . Her desk was a mess. And she insisted on checking the catalog records of any new books so the cataloger would put new books on her chair (so she would see them). She came in once saw books on her chair and flew into a rage and threw all the books on the floor. It startled me so badly I got up and left. When I left that job I cited her in my exit interview.

    Reply ↓
  29. I'll have the blue plate special, please.*

    I can understand OP4. It sounds disrespectful to put papers on someone’s chair. Every place I’ve worked in puts papers in someone’s bin or desk.

    Reply ↓
    1. FashionablyEvil*

      Whereas where I have worked, we always put papers on chairs. I have been scolded for putting stuff on someone’s desk because they liked how their desk was arranged and I can’t remember the last time I worked with someone who had an actual inbox. Definitely a YMMV situation and not a hill for the LW to die on.

      Reply ↓
  30. amylynn*

    I am a little surprised by the vehemence of the responses to OP 4. In my first professional job I was taught to place paperwork in coworker’s chairs. But it wasn’t a power thing – you did it regardless of the power differential between you and the recipient. We did have in-boxes (mid-nineties to mid-aughts) but we had so much paperwork they effectively functioned as to-do boxes and during busy times became black holes. Before I started, some important paperwork wasn’t processed in a timely fashion because it got lost in someone’s in-box, so management dictated that you drop things off on people’s chairs. And you learned quickly to check your chair before you sat down!

    Reply ↓
    1. Jennifer Strange*

      Yeah, I’m surprised too. I understand the LW preferring the VP didn’t do this, but the insistence that doing so is a power play so that employee can’t sit (because moving the papers takes three seconds???) is bizarre. I’ve worked in tons of places where putting paper on the chair was the norm.

      Reply ↓
    2. CherryBlossom*

      I’ve rarely encountered this, but when I have, I just pick up the papers and deal with them as needed. I just cannot imagine gathering up the energy to be anything more than mildly annoyed if there were papers on my chair, and even then, only if I was carrying things or otherwise needed the chair ASAP.

      Reply ↓
    3. LaminarFlow*

      I was in a very similar office in the early ‘00. Putting files on chairs was a regular and mundane way to give papers and files to someone else.

      I have no idea why this practice is so offensive to some folks.

      Reply ↓
  31. Rondeaux*

    “(Funny enough, I wouldn’t have recognized it had I not been a devout reader of your blog and read the letter from the person asking about wearing a collar to work!”

    AAM has taught many of us the necessary skills to survive in the workplace, I don’t think hunting for sexual innuendo in the office is one of them – please ignore the jewelry before YOU are the one doing something inappropriate

    Reply ↓
  32. Cookie Monster*

    “When you need to correct the facts with someone who’s been told Jill is your boss, you can just be matter-of-fact about it — “No, that must have been a miscommunication! Jill and I are peers. I report to Fergus.”

    As much as I like Alison’s answer, I would slightly tweak this to (said in a calm, breezy tone) “No, that’s just what Jill says but it’s not true. I don’t know why she says that. She and I are peers. I report to Fergus.” Just call it out directly to everyone and anyone. Yes, technically Jill miscommunicated but I don’t think we need to be that diplomatic about it.

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  33. RoadLessTraveler*

    I am sorry to be off topic, but I’ve been away from here a while. Will the Friday Q&As start back soon? I know it’s vacation but curious!

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  34. Juicebox Hero*

    #4 strikes me as bizarre because, at my job, putting papers on someone’s chair (if they’re not in the room, obviously) is the norm and I can’t figure out how it’s supposed to be offensive. Since that letter was from 2019 I imagine the problem solved itself soon after…

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  35. Peanut Hamper*

    It’s entirely possible that the coworker in the first letter doesn’t even recognize what the jewelry is; she could have just seen it somewhere and bought it because she likes how it looks. Or she knows what it means but just likes how it looks.

    See: the manager who talked about what great blowjobs she always gave. (Mortification week August 2023)

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  36. YesPhoebeWould*

    #4 is being entirely ridiculous. If. they are an admin, and the VP wants to put papers on their chair? The VP is going to put papers on the chair. And admin angering their boss’s boss’s boss (who are the whole reason the admin role exists) is not going to end well.

    And as for “pushing back” by throwing out the VP’s papers to “teach them a lesson”?

    That “lesson” ends with an angry admin carrying a box of their belongings to the car, accompanied by a security guard, and the NEXT admin still receiving the VPs papers on their chair, only in this iteration, hopefully acting more professional.

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    1. Czhorat*

      You’re allowed to be annoyed by the behaviour of those in power over you. If the VP were writing here, the advice should be to be respectful and put their requests in the in-box.

      Because it’s the admin writing, the only course they have is probably just to deal with it. That doesn’t make it fair or right.

      Even if the requests don’t get trashed, there is a lesson here: if you annoy the admin staff you’ll get worse service from them and less in the way of extra assistance.

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      1. Kay*

        No. There are times when the boss’s preference is what happens. Very much the “you’ve raised your concerns, I’ve considered it, and I’m deciding to proceed X way” kind of thing. Just because your employee has a preference doesn’t mean it must be done that way.

        Admins, and every other employee for that matter, need to realize that a reasonable request from the boss is part of the job. It is all part of being a boss/employee and giving worse service because you dislike your boss’s preference is just a recipe for failure. You can disagree with your boss’s choice, but a successful and well adjusted employee is going to accept it and do the work the boss has asked. No need to take it personal, lower your performance levels or risk your job.

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        1. Czhorat*

          Before I was in this side of the industry I was in the AV contracting side. Do you know who the most powerful person was in more than one contracting firm where I worked? The office manager. They’d hold purse strings for expense requests, they’d be able to assign resources, they’d be able to get stuff ordered for you. If you looked at the on-paper hierarchy they would be somewhere near the bottom. If you treated them as if they were your servant and beneath you then you *would* have your stuff done last, done at the end of the permissible time frame, or bounced back to you if you’d missed dotting a T or crossing an i. It doesn’t matter if you ran the office or were a junior-level project manager – you depended on them.

          THAT is why the perceived message bugs me; the admin is a part of the team, possibly an important one. Treating them like an equal – which they are in terms of humanity – is not only the right thing to do morally, it also keeps the workplace running better.

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          2. Kay*

            They still have a boss, and if the boss says – I appreciate your input but we are doing it this way, well, that is the way. I agree the admin is part of the team, but if my admin thinks that I have to do things their way they won’t be my admin.

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  37. Tuesday Tacos*

    LW#4 – my boss puts stuff he wants to give me ON MY KEYBOARD – while I’m working.
    I feel your pain.

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  38. CZ*

    Well he is a VP. He can put the paperwork on the floor if he wants to. Yes it is annoying he puts it where you do not want it. But in the chair is a pretty common thing. Gotta get over it.

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  39. MistOrMister*

    I remember #4 and I didn’t get the angst then and don’t get it now!! But I have had multiple jobs where people put stuff on your chair as a means of making sure you knew something new had come in. It was such a normal thing that I couldn’t understand how someone could be annoyed by it.

    I cant help but wonder if part of why the VP was putting things in OPs chair was concern that OP wasnt managing their workload properly. The fact that they said they are an ok admin and put all the VPs stuff right on the bottom of the pile kind of makes me think they arent prioritizing things correctly and the VP was trying to get around it. To just stick something at the bottom of the pile without ever looking at it…I hope they got another position elsewhere doing what they wanted because admin work is probably not for them.

    Reply ↓
    1. Looper*

      As someone who is Extremely Annoyed by things being placed in the chair, I can’t exactly pinpoint why it’s so annoying, but I think part of it is the projection of disorganization on the part of the person leaving something in my chair. I am highly organized and know every single thing on my desk. The people who consistently did the chair thing were often disorganized disasters. So it’s like, sorry you’re such a mess that you have to use your chair as an In Box, but don’t bring that problem to me.

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      1. Angstrom*

        But if I saw a highly organized desk I’d be more likely to leave papers on the chair so as not to disturb the carefully arranged desktop.

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        1. Looper*

          Which is why office politics/norms are so hard to navigate! I definitely am aware that my irritation over this is a personal issue so definitely agree with the advice. But it’s honestly kind of funny how many “office etiquette” type things will have equally reasonable and/or impassioned supporters on both sides.

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          1. Angstrom*

            Absolutely! We all have moments when we think “It would be so much easier if everyone would just do things my way.” :-)

            On this one, the LW has a clearly marked In box and has asked the VP to use it, so by ignoring it the VP is being a jerk. But it’s not a hill to die on, and not giving the VP’s work the appropriate priority out of spite is going make life worse for the LW.

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  40. Just Here for the Llama Grooming*

    Longtime admin here. I worked with people who put work on the chair, always, firmly, because he (it was always a he) didn’t trust anyone, ever, to see it anywhere else. The recipient could have an immaculate desk and a big box marked IN; didn’t matter. These folks were usually other kinds of jerks, to varying degrees.

    Then there were folks who, upon first meeting an admin, asked “Where should I put projects for you? Should I give you special instructions in an email or some other way?”

    Like everyone else who likes a paycheck, I learned to breathe deeply and ignore as much as possible the implied levels of jerkdom that came with the first group of people. And I recognize Alison’s advice to focus on the work, not the delivery method, for the excellent advice that it is.

    That doesn’t mean that the jerk isn’t a selfish jerk. It means that some people get away with being selfish, petty jerks. And yes, that isn’t a good result.

    There are sometimes other reasons for work on the chair, as others have mentioned, and folks do well to be mindful of those reasons (especially the “workplace norms” reason). That said, I think it’s important to understand and respect one’s own internal jerk-o-meter, if only to avoid being a jerk oneself. If Joe is a jerk, a useful gauge in the workplace can be “Hmm, would Joe do this? Yes? Then it’s a good thing for me NOT to do.”

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    1. PaperDropoff*

      I’m female and I’ve always put stuff on someone’s keyboard or chair. I was taught that’s the polite way to do it so they know it’s there and you’re not messing up whatever filing/ordering system they have on their desk.

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  41. fort hiss*

    It’s the discussion of subtle collar necklaces here that made me suddenly sit up and go “wait a second” when watching a video of the Youtuber Sarah Z the other day. Apparently this is a known thing about her so just missed this until that moment, but some other people I talked with didn’t know either, and I did have to say “I heard about this sort of jewelry from Ask a Manager.”

    Reply ↓
    1. Dr. Rebecca*

      Blake De Pastino on PBS Eons was wearing a subtle collar in one video and I had the same reaction of “Oh! Hello!”

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  42. Merry*

    LW #4 I get that it isn’t a hill to die on, but it would also drive me slightly more nutty every time he did it. If it happened often enough, I would switch to a core balance chair, just to get him to stop

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  43. Angstrom*

    #1: That’s the thing about symbols — one can never be sure how they will be interpreted. Is it the mainstream meaning(if there is one?)? Is it being worn ironically or in protest? Are they “taking it back”? Are they honestly ignorant of the meaning(s)? Are they wearing it to annoy people? How can one be sure?

    To use an extreme example, there are millions of non-Western people for whom the swastika was and is a symbol of good luck, and they’d be baffled at our view that displaying one is “obviously” a sign of a repellant ideology.

    Closer to home, there are emojis. If someone sends me guava spatula motorcycle they know exactly what they mean, but I don’t have a clue. :-)

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  44. Looper*

    I don’t disagree with the advice at all, but I am also irrationally annoyed by things be placed on my chair rather than my desk, so just offering a note of Solidarity in Annoyance with the LW.

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  45. OlympiasEpiriot*

    #4…back when this was posted, I didn’t get to it in time to reply; but, putting things on people’s chairs as a default is not a good idea. people often sit down without looking and if someone has a physical problem that makes the bend/turn thing difficult, then making them do something to get it off the chair before sitting is just rude. And we might not be able to tell by looking.

    Just put the thing in the inbox, maybe with a bright post-it note to make it visible.

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  46. CzechMate*

    Re Number 3. This has happened to my husband a few times over the years at different companies. He does remote sales in the tech sector, so it’s fairly common that a) he has one point of contact (typically a sales manager) and doesn’t have as much contact with the rest of the team, b) a new, charismatic person (usually a man) is brought in to be his manager who wants to “shake things up” and do away with old, inefficient processes. Here’s what I’ve taken away from watching from afar:

    -It’s never good to have only one person you talk to about your work. If one employee/manager is discouraging you from talking to anyone else in the company, that’s a problem. (I told my husband, it’s like what an abuser does before they start gaslighting.)
    -After a problematic mentor leaves, it’s always good to meet with your manager to talk about hand-off and change of process. When you have that conversation, you can also get into the “Hey, I heard X from Jane, is that true?”

    I’ve also been on the other end of this scenario (i.e. “Fergus” was fired who had been telling their colleagues that my processes were just *too* complicated, when in fact they weren’t following the very simple, straightforward one-page handout I’d given them). Your colleagues will already know that Jane is a problem and that she may have been giving people different stories about why processes don’t work to cover her tracks. The best you can do is reach out to them directly and say you want to get to know them and their work properly now that Jane is gone. They will likely appreciate it. In my case, the contact told me up-front that Fergus had called my process unnecessarily convoluted and complicated. I wasn’t offended (I actually laughed a little to myself) and said, “I’m sorry to hear he felt that way, but I am curious why he didn’t talk to me if he had questions. Why don’t I walk you through the process as it is now, and later down the road we can discuss if it’s too cumbersome for you.” (Spoiler alert: it was extremely simple.) Contact and I now have a great working relationship.

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  47. PaperDropoff*

    I’ve always put stuff on someone’s keyboard or chair if they didn’t have keyboard (laptop user). I was taught that’s the polite way to do it so they know it’s there and you’re not messing up whatever filing/ordering system they have on their desk. It’s been pretty standard at every place I’ve worked – well over a dozen places in multiple industries. If someone came by and put papers somewhere else I either wouldn’t notice until I actively needed something else stored where they put it or I would think they were playing games (hiding it so I didn’t see it and it messed me up or got me in trouble somehow).

    Reply ↓
    1. PurlsOfWisdom*

      Didn’t read all the comments before adding my own, but yes. This has been standard in every job I’ve ever had and didn’t realize it wasn’t just common practice.

      My husband and I even do this at home when we need the other person to see/sign something or a post it with reminders if we miss each other in the morning.

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  48. PurlsOfWisdom*

    Wow. The commentariat seems especially wound up on both sides of the documents on chairs issue.

    So for those in need of a solution. If I need something seen urgently I leave it on a keyboard. No chance it’ll get sat on and it’ll be seen immediately when they sit down.

    There. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

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    1. Wayward Sun*

      This reminds me that I once had someone come to me in a panic because everything they typed immediately disappeared. They were sure their computer had been hacked.

      There was a stack of papers pressing down on the “Backspace” key.

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  49. DJ*

    LW4 it wouldn’t worry me if ppl leave my work on my chair (unless I was sitting in it). It’s not really the hill to die on. Not the at to go to put it at the bottom of the work in the tray. Just prioritise the work as you would with your tray work!
    You could always try putting a sign above your tray “Please put work for me here”

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  50. DE*

    I’m a little surprised by the response to #4 and I think it has to come down to the industry people work in. I’m a teacher and in education there’s this idea that the school secretary is really the one who “runs the school”. I think people mostly say that as a joke (obviously the teachers and administrators are actually in charge) but we really do seem to treat our support staff very differently than people working in for-profit environments. I would never insist on doing something as trivial as this “my way” just because in the hierarchy I technically outrank the non-certified staff. In fact, I think if I did what the VP did here it would seriously hurt my reputation. I get to make decisions all day about shit that a was actually matters. I’m more than willing to let someone with far less power (and far less compensation) make decisions about their own workspace.

    I also *really* don’t agree that it’s the person lower in the hierarchy’s responsibility to adjust to the higher up person’s preferences. I feel that it’s the opposite. I’m paid a higher wage and I think this means that I should have to put up with more bullshit, not less, than the support staff. The reason they’re paying me more is that the district believe that I have more skills than they do. Doesn’t that mean that I should be more capable of adjusting than they are?

    It seems to me that in education, teachers and administrators attempt to endear themselves to the support staff but in the corporate world the support staff is trying to endear themselves to higher ups. Is this an accurate reading of the situation?

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  51. Catholic wedding ring breeding kink*

    If you read up enough about any cultural or religious marriage traditions, you can assume many and varied things about all kinds of people. Do you think this much about your employees’ sex lives when you see their weddings rings? They also symbolize a commitment, often still to submit, to reproduce, to support financially, to please sexually, to follow lots of other religious/cultural/legal rules.

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  52. Kt*

    I disagree about #4, the paperwork on the chair is almost definitely a power play. OP likely doesn’t have the capital to fight it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not annoying.

    Reply ↓

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