employee’s girlfriend visits him at work every day

by Alison Green on February 19, 2025

A reader writes:

I manage a small independent business. We recently brought on a young new hire, “Jim.” There are usually only three of us working. Jim’s girlfriend works from home and has been coming in every day to bring him lunch. At first it was fine, but they started to be very affectionate towards one another — for example, kissing multiple times, which is extremely audible. One morning they got into a fight, and when she brought him his lunch they decided to hash their fight out in our office.

They never do this in front of clients, but I finally put my foot down and asked him to not bring personal arguments into the workspace and to limit his affection with his girlfriend. His reply was that he’s a human being and he doesn’t have enough time when he gets home to work things out. His solution to the affection is that he and his girlfriend walk outside. He does not get a lunch break because he has to be on the premises due to regulations, so he is on the clock when they go outside, usually for 15-20 minutes at a time. I’m second-guessing myself since my decision to confront him didn’t get the point across.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Am I wrong for rejecting a candidate because of their email address?
  • Candidates sending additional exercises we didn’t ask for
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{ 268 comments }

{ 268 comments… read them below }

  1. HayHayHay*

    I think you can reject someone based on an email address, as long as it wasn’t something like Jane.Smith69@ because she might have been born in 1969 and not even realize what she chose for her email address.

    1. Strive to Excel*

      I’d side-eye anyone past their first professional job applying with a questionable email address. First jobs? Not everyone is taught email etiquette. Or knows how to reliably send from one’s “business” email!

      1. Tradd*

        I’ve been casually mentoring some mature women who are returning to the workforce after staying home to raise their children. They all have unprofessional emails. An example would be “princessdiana2013@yahoo.com.” I told them to set up a Gmail address with combination of their name/numbers for their job search. Several of them took it as an attack on their individuality and thought I was asking them to ditch their long term email address. They truly didn’t understand the concept of having a different email address for the job search. I then showed them my email addresses. My main one is not the professional one. Then I have one with my name for my “professional” email. I’ve had both since 2008.

        Several of these women had been out of the workforce since the mid-late 90s so they really have no concept of how modern job search procedures.

        If I was hiring and someone had a Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL address *plus* something cutesy, it would raise a red flag as someone out of date and inflexible. And I say that as someone in my mid-50s.

        1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          Or they have Momof4kids or SusieAnyaXandersMom. Please don’t. It makes it look like you are a mom first and an employee second.

          Yeah, yeah, employees are human. But you want to look like when you are at work, your focus is work.

          1. Former Admin Turned PM*

            My personal email address (both when I used Yahoo and once I switched to Gmail) both have “mama” in the name, so I created a Gmail address that included my initial, last name, and professional certification to use as my LinkedIn and job search contact. Gmail addresses are so easy to get, there is no excuse for not creating one what won’t send up red flags.

        2. Rex Libris*

          I don’t think it’s a being “out of date” thing so much as simple cluelessness. I mean, I’ve been using email for over 25 years. All that time, I’ve had multiple addresses for work, personal, school, whatever.

          1. Tradd*

            The women I’ve been working with have been out of the workforce for a LONG time. I think the most recently any out of the group had worked was about 2005. They had their one personal email address and that’s it. These are women who mostly just have a high school education and maybe some community college.

            1. Disappointed With the Staff*

              Yep. My parents have had one email address between them for more than 20 years at this point. I’m certain that if my mother had applied for a job she would have used her {hisfirstname}.{hislastname}@{theirISP} email address.

              OTOH she has a master’s degree and has taught both in person and online. So I’m not sure qualifications are really relevant to people like her. I’m pretty sure she thinks email addresses are like physical addresses, and since she lives with her husband she shares an address with him.

              1. allathian*

                Yeah, and joint email addresses feel less professional than names and numbers to me.

                That said, I’d suggest elininating the birth year, why advertize your age like that?

                2. Disappointed With the Staff*

                  Who says it’s their real birth year :)

                  sincerely,
                  james.h.smith.1997 at hotmale.com

        3. Carolyn Burnham*

          Why does the domain of the email really matter? I’ve had the same Hotmail account since 2006, name only, because trying to update all my online accounts, correspondence and passwords with a new email is a giant hassle that I don’t want to deal with. The address itself is professional, the domain really doesn’t matter.

          2. First Name Last Name Yahoo*

            It shouldn’t matter, and I say this as a Full Name at Yahoo.com person, but someone once pointed out to me that people can judge a person’s age range by their domain. Obviously, a Gen Z’er would not have been a part of the AOL.com era, so it can be discriminating if in the wrong hiring person’s hands.

            1. Beany*

              I remember some years ago people used “AOL!” on discussion boards as (mocking) shorthand for “me too!”, since AOL-era Internet users seemed to have the same technological problems and loved to share them.

          3. No Direct Reports*

            I was coming to say this – I’ve had the same email address since 1994- myname@hotmail.com. I got it way before we were advised not to use our real names, and was lucky to get it so early I didn’t have to have any numbers it. Anything I would change to now would have to have other words or numbers in it – I’ll never be this on the forefront of technology again.

            That being said, it is just my name, nothing at all sexual about it!

          4. T.N.H*

            It shouldn’t matter, but it does. If you decide you don’t care, that’s fine. But some hiring managers will screen you out for having an out of date email address.

            1. Nah*

              What counts as an “out of date” email domain? I’m not even thirty and I use yahoo, and that’s somehow apparently going to get me kicked off an applicant list? I am legitimately baffled by that comment and would love to know.

              1. Diomedea Exulans*

                Yeah. This out-of-date email address thing is ridiculous. I’m a millennial and I know many highly successful professionals in the tech (!) industry who got hired with Hotmail addresses. One of our recent senior VP hires still has an aol address and the startup’s millennials owners hired him in a heartbeat. People have these biases and personal preferences, but not everyone.

                My personal email address (that I often use for most communications apart from job search for the aforementioned reasons) is a literal translation of my Italian given name to English, with a wordplay + my birth date. It basically looks like a misspelling, but I have been using it for 15+ years now.

                1. Nah*

                  People are recommending gmail to “make you look younger” and even if I was willing to switch to even more google in my life (If I do ever switch out, it’ll probably be a leap to that protonmail going around), but my *grandmother* literally has a gmail account older than my yahoo by several years. I am so freaking confused at this point.

          5. JSPA*

            You don’t have to change or lose the old one–get a second account, and if you like, automatically redirect from one to the other. Your email is a tool, not your identity! And if a provider has an outage, which does happen, it’s useful to have a backup account.

        4. Timothy (TRiG)*

          My sister’s first e-mail address was [fiancé’s surname]wannabe@gmail.com. Astonishingly, that didn’t scare him off. I doubt she uses it for jobs.

          I own a domain in my own name (firstname.surname.name), and use employment@ for job searches.

        5. Myth*

          I’m not sure if you’re saying that a Hotmail etc. email shows someone who is out of date, and *then* also having something cutesy shows that they’re inflexible, or if you’re saying having both is a red flag but I really dislike the idea that a simple Hotmail/yahoo/etc email shows something bad about the applicant.

          Mine is firstnamelastname@hotmail.com and I’m only thirty. Am I supposed to think that shows me as someone out-of-date?

          1. Ray B Purchase*

            Honestly, yes. I’m 35 and if I see a hotmail or yahoo domain I’m not necessarily red flagging in my professional life unless there are other signs of the candidate being behind the times or out of sync with technology, but in my personal life it’s a red flag for a scammer.

        6. Vio*

          I used to have an email address that was ridiculously long, I can’t remember why I thought it was a good idea at the time. I eventually realised that I needed to change it and went for something much shorter, took some getting used to but it was much less embarrassing to give out and looked much better on my CV. What’s amazing is that I’d been on at least two different courses to teach jobsearch skills and neither of them had mentioned anything about the email address. Mostly they’d glanced at our CVs, given us generic feedback that suggested they hadn’t even really looked at any of them, put us in a room with the latest newspapers, yellow pages and some phones and told us some (even then) rather outdated advice about harassing the same companies over and over and applying for the same jobs (90% of the vacancies in one newspaper were the same as the previous day/week) repeatedly. Been interesting to learn from this site that this isn’t just limited to the UK.

    2. Kevin Sours*

      Mixed feelings because I think it’s a little petty to police email addresses and rejecting somebody because “GiantsFanXYZ@” isn’t the epitome of professionalism is a trifle petty. On the other hand something that is clearly sexualized is… a bit much and shows poor judgement.

      1. Rainy*

        I once had a student insist that he wouldn’t use or check his uni email; he told me to use his personal email instead. It was along the lines of BigDickOnCampus696969 at host and he proudly stated it in front of the whole class.

        I said “Yeah, I’m going to use your uni email, bud.” It was weeks before his classmates stopped snickering.

        2. Spencer Hastings*

          And depending on the details of the two email providers, he probably could have just forwarded his school email to his main one and even responded with the school email as an alias. Talk about a hill not to die on…

        3. Forrest Rhodes*

          Hmm. If somebody has to announce—by t-shirt, license plate, or email address—something like BigDick or Big Balls, then as far as I’m concerned he’s proudly announcing that he has neither …

        4. Mari*

          I have a standing policy in my class that I will give one, no questions asked, extension per half, AS LONG as you request it more than 24 hours before the due date.

          I have waived that, obviously, for emergencies/illness, but on a couple of occasions for students who have just had things blow up on them. I once had a student actually complain to my Dean that I hadn’t given him the same grace – he asked the morning the paper was due. The Dean asked why I hadn’t and I pointed to the email: lazyb@stard420@*****.

          The Dean laughed out loud, told the student I’d applied the policy as written and that he needed to get a new email.

          1. Rainy*

            I did a lot of “here’s how to college” in that particular course, including “how to write a college research paper” and I had a policy that I would read as many drafts of a paper as someone wanted to bring to me IF (and only if) they A) came with it in person to my office hours or another scheduled appointment *and* B) every review took place more than 72 hours before the due date. I would not read any drafts beginning 3 days before the paper was due.

            The number of students who emailed me a draft at 3am the day a paper was due expecting a review? So high. I very much enjoyed the time someone complained in class in front of their classmates that I was unfair for not “reviewing” the draft they sent me four hours before class, and I pointed out that reviewing their paper hours before it was due was just…grading it.

            1. AnotherOne*

              I never understood classmates who didn’t take advantage of the one prof I had in college who did this.

              He’d only review 1 draft for you but he’d sit down, read the whole thing and go over it with you in real time. And it was a short paper- 5 pages double spaced. Going guaranteed you A- or at least a B.

              All you had to do was snag a time slot and go to office hours on a Saturday.

              Cuz yeah, this guy came in on the weekend for hours to give this option to students. And people still didn’t take advantage of it.

              Decades later I still don’t get it.

        1. Spreadsheet Queen*

          I’ll admit that I’m curious if this reference was something that has ALWAYS been a sexual reference, or something that is newer slang. Because if it’s the former, a 50-plus person should know better! If it’s the latter, well, we don’t all keep up with current slang. (I keep my SKILLS current. Slang, not so much.)

          1. Nah*

            To be fair, there’s a horse going viral right now for having a name with unfortunate sexual connotations for a breeding stallion, because the original owners had absolutely no idea and wanted to honor a specific horse back in his lineage. The new owners apparently cannot change it and have said it’s made it very difficult to advertise their services.

            I like to think of XKCD’s 10,000 People comic whenever I learn something nowadays that apparently everyone else around me considered common knowledge (or, alternatively, that everyone around me thought something totally different/used a phrase in a completely different way to its actual meaning/etc)!

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              Like the joke in memes where Boomers supposedly think “LOL” means “lots of love” and not “laughing out loud.”

              1. Emily Byrd Starr*

                My mom literally said that for several years even after everyone knew it meant “laughing out loud.”

              2. Vio*

                I remember realising that “Oh, snap” did not mean “Look, they’re the same!” anymore and realising that I was somehow older than everybody else my age… on lingo at least.

            2. AnotherOne*

              A friend of my mom’s makes soap. She originally named a soap Plan B.

              …yeah, luckily her daughter and I (of similar ages) had the exact same response. And she let her mom know what Plan B connotes for anyone 45 and under.

              Her mom changed the name of the product cuz she’s up for cheeky but that wasn’t what she was going for.

      3. Sneaky Squirrel*

        I would never reject someone for this, but I have to admit I’ve side-eyed a few @aol emails in the 2020s for computer science and technology based jobs.

        1. aoloriginal*

          I love my aol email! Mainly for the side eye I get from so many people nowadays, it makes me chuckle. It works perfectly well, why would I change it? I don’t need a cooler email. Maybe I would if I worked in tech.

          1. Sneaky Squirrel*

            Hey, if it works for you, more power to you! For most jobs, I’d say it’s not really an issue. For tech jobs, an aol email address is a flag that maybe someone isnt keeping up with technology trends. And more generally, a more modern email would help to protect someone who is concerned about age discrimination.

              1. North American Couch Wizard Society Member*

                OMG vintage email addresses. Is it like the digital equivalent of sealing your letter with wax or playing vinyl records?

                As someone who got their very first email address in college, I’ll just be over here desiccating in the corner.

          2. Jojo*

            I still have and use my AOL email. (My dad made fun of me for using it). It’s silly and a little weird, but not inappropriate; but I would still not ever use it for any kind of professional purpose, especially not for applying to a job.

            If someone applied with a clearly sexualized email, i would really have to think hard about hiring them.

              1. HayHayHay*

                I work in email marketing and we often just blanket do not send emails to people with AOL or Hotmail addresses because so many of them are spam traps that it tanks our domain reputation. So the only thing “wrong” with the domain is that so many other people are ruining it for people who legitimately use them.

                1. AnonyChick*

                  Interesting! Is this the case even if someone signs up for marketing emails with an AOL address? Because I’ve had the same AOL account as my main email for 30+ years, and—while I don’t use it for “professional” stuff because it’s too cutesy—it never would have dawned on me that there might be systems that would automatically just ignore it due to the domain.

          3. LifebeforeCorona*

            My ex still uses his AOL for his personal email. He’s always worked with tech and used company issued email for work but he’s very attached to his AOL. Almost everyone I know has gmail now, it seems to be the default. Yahoo and hotmail are for fun.

            1. Penny*

              I once had a coworker who was shocked that I had a non-Gmail email address (this job didn’t assign us work email addresses). She did not know that non-Gmail email addresses existed.

        2. Disappointed With the Staff*

          Working in geek world I have had comments on my @geek 2tld email address. It’s a situation where if you know you know and you’re probably impressed. The other 7 nines don’t know and if told don’t care. Similarly I have an xn/unicode domain but while more people think that’s cool an awful lot of spam filters ban those completely.

          1. Caffeine Monkey*

            I used to have an email address on the subdomain associated with a piece of software that was very popular in my very niche field. It used to inspire a great deal of respect and pretty much guaranteed me a job interview, because it was the equivalent of a recommendation from the software’s developer.

            Nowadays, the field has grown so much that people don’t recognise the subdomain. Because it’s a fairly complicated email address, I no longer use it and stick to my .@gmail.com. (I got in early. No numbers needed.)

            1. AnotherOne*

              In all fairness, if you got in early (or early-ish and had a unique name cuz I didn’t think I got my email that early but I have at least 2 variations without numbers) but it means you get a lot of email for other people when their numbers get dropped.

      5. Zona the Great*

        Yeah I had this guy who had been working with us for years using an email address and then suddenly came to me saying it has changed and now he wants 69 added to the end. Too old to be born then and too young to have graduated then. It just made him look gross–mostly because he was already gross to many of us.

        1. LifebeforeCorona*

          In this day and age, anyone who doesn’t understand the meaning of 69 is deliberately been obtuse or thinks it’s edgy to use it an email address.

            1. JSPA*

              Someone who’s had 88 since class of 88, or who was born in 88, may also have that entirely innocently!

    3. Cupcakes are awesome*

      This person is in their 50s so I am guessing they chose the email back when everyone thought it was funny to get descriptive. The fact that they haven’t changed it in all these years or opened an additional more professional makes me question whether their skills might be outdated too.

      1. Her My Own Knee*

        This is exactly where my mind went as well. If you’re applying for a professional position this kind of thing should be a no-brainer.

        1. LifebeforeCorona*

          My kid was told when she went to university to choose a professional email address because no one wants to hire daydrinker69

        1. Dahlia*

          I have first name last name for myself, but my mom’s name is fairly common and it was quite hard making a email address for her in a combination that didn’t look crazy

        2. WillowSunstar*

          I use Hotmail but it was only a few years ago that Microsoft started giving us all Outlook emails and announcing they are going to delete Hotmail eventually. So all of my emails come from Outlook now. Hotmail goes to the spammers.

          1. Carolyn Burnham*

            I have Hotmail too. My emails may come from outlook technically but it is still the Hotmail address

      4. Goldenrod*

        Yeah – pretty much your one job as an applicant is to do whatever you can to get your application into the “yes” pile.

        An inappropriate email shows 1) a lack of judgement, and 2) a lack of effort. And possibly 3) a lack of technical skills. I would put that right into the “no” pile without a second thought.

      1. HigherEd Boundaries*

        I think I saw a Reddit post months ago about someone finding out the other connotation for using the last two digits of 1988 in an email. They pretty much went into a minor spiral of how they’ve always had the last two digits in their email since it’s their birth year, and wondering how many jobs they’ve missed out on because they unknowingly had a racist dog whistle as part of their email address.

      2. Calamity Janine*

        i would like to second this, as someone born in the same year.

        it’s pretty far down on the list to get upset with the group making that a problem, but dang it if i won’t hold back the last little smidge for them due to Come On Could Y’all Not

        1. I Have RBF*

          I knew a guy online that had “1488” in his handle. I never knew whether it was a racist dog whistle, or whether his birthday was January 4, 1988.

      3. AcademiaNut*

        That’s an interesting example, because it’s very culture specific. If I saw 88 in an email address, I’d probably assume it was a reference to being a father (88 = bābā in Mandarin, which is the same pronunciation as dad), because I spend a lot more time around Mandarin speakers than I do around Nazis.

        1. Ess Ess*

          Agreed. I would have assumed some Japanese background or cultural relevance due to 88 being a number for longevity and luck.

    5. Fíriel*

      Yeah, I think there are a few instances where I’d hesitate to reject this unless it was really obvious (like the university example mentioned by another commenter). Unavoidably bad birth years or hometowns come to mind, especially ones where the reference is a little obscure or gets weirder over time. And of course I always have sympathy for people who get inadvertently assigned something rude by an automated system. Ian James Erkoff might not choose to go by his initials and last name, but if that’s what corporate or a university sets as standard, he’s going to develop some Scunthorpe problems very quickly.

      But some things really just show unimaginably bad judgement and should be treated as a sign of same.

      1. Emily Byrd Starr*

        Not just bad birth years and hometowns, but it could also apply to someone named Susan Lutt who went by her first initial and last name, or someone with the last name Hooker.

        1. Dawn*

          You still have to know your audience. I don’t care what your name is, don’t send out job applications as “slutt69@hotmail.com”. There is more than one way to write your name professionally.

          1. Emily Byrd Starr*

            Yeah, but an employee who sees the email on the application isn’t going to know whether it’s intended to be sexual, or it just happens to be from Susan Litt who was born in 1969.

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      I agree on considering an innocent explanation in some cases. e.g. Acronyms can be used to represent 18 different things, one of which is a sex thing, and yet someone will be convinced that’s the one and only use of pvc–even though that just means poly vinyl chloride to many of us, and Percival Victor Czernyski to Percival.

    7. colin broccoli*

      yeah someone in their 50s could easily be born in 1969. this OP seems like they are overreacting unless it’s some other reference.

      1. mary w*

        As someone who graduated high school in 1970, 69 meant the same thing the then as it does now. Use 1969 if you really need to reference the year in your email address.

        1. Frieda*

          My mom was a high school teacher in the late 60s and after innocently missing the point of a dirty joke, she had some students tell her very nicely to go home and ask her husband what “69” meant. So she did.

          Point being: if my somewhat sheltered mother, now in her 80s, knows that reference? So does whoever is using it in their email address.

        2. Ari Flynn*

          My father graduated high school in 1969. I’ve seen his yearbook. They absolutely knew what it meant.

    8. MAC*

      I was born in 1969 and I would never use that in an email. And I would seriously question how someone born in 1969 would NOT realize what people might think. Unless their job experience is listed as “Cloistered Nun” and their education is “ Raised by Wolves” there’s just no way they don’t know.

      1. Part time lab tech*

        Or, like me, they’re just a reserved prude. I was in my 30s before I understood the sexual meaning of 69. My parents are boomers and to me LOL means both lots of love or laugh out loud. Does 00XX still mean hugs and kisses?

    2. Tg33*

      I was wondering why he doesn’t’t get a lunch break, and why he doesn’t have evenings off, going by the letter. I suspect I’m not picking up on context!

  3. Rainy*

    Whoa. That first one is something.

    Also, I know this is an older letter but I really need to push back on that usage of “confront” which is one I see a lot these days. Pretty much any time I see people talk about confronting someone lately, from context clues they actually mean “have a straightforward conversation with,” and I don’t think that this particular linguistic shift is doing anyone any favours. Confrontation is not an appropriate response from a manager! You have authority in that relationship, use it to discuss the matter calmly and have a productive conversation. Stop framing your need to communicate with others solely in terms of confrontation. Please.

    Don’t make me confront you by Wednesday of this week.

    3. Botanist*

      Completely agree on the use of the word “confront.” It automatically amps up the emotion and defensiveness behind the conversation.

    4. Dasein9 (he/him)*

      Every time I see “confront,” thanks to AAM, I mentally add, “by next Wednesday of this week.”

    5. The Bureaucrat*

      You’re absolutely right, but now I kind of what to rename all of my “staff check in” meetings to “staff confrontation meetings.” (I promise that I won’t, however.)

  4. Her My Own Knee*

    There’s a vast difference between “being human” and engaging in activities that are not appropriate in a professional setting. It sounds like Jim is either immature or lacks judgement.

    1. Silver Robin*

      agreed. “being human” means ensuring the workplace is meeting safety and health standards, not nitpicking timeliness (unless coverage is a requirement), being collaborative and respectful when there is a problem, understanding ebbs and flows of productivity…

      It does not mean “I manage my relationship so badly that the only time I have to solve problems with my girlfriend are when she visits me at work” or make out sessions in the office. Damn.

      1. Rex Libris*

        Yep. Being human at work means needing the occasional bathroom break, it doesn’t cover an uncontrollable urge to snog one’s girlfriend.

      2. Former Admin Turned PM*

        When I was still teaching and in my first year of marriage, my husband had a specialty subject position that brought him to my school two days per week. Both of us are very human but managed to completely refrain from kissing each other or fighting whilst on campus.

    3. Artemesia*

      It would be perfectly reasonable to require Jim to not have his girlfriend at the worksite, period. It is odd for a girlfriend to be hanging around at work and totally unacceptable for them to be arguing at the workplace.

    4. Ray B Purchase*

      I cannot imagine telling my manager that, actually, my spouse and I do need to fight when she comes to visti me at work today because I won’t have time when I get home.

  5. ZK*

    It’s not like it’s hard to get an email address. When I was job hunting I made a specific gmail account for work. My main email obviously has my birth year in it and I didn’t want to risk potential age discrimination, and my other (junk) email is kind of cutesy. And using an obviously sexual email address? Nope. Hard pass on that. If I’d been crass enough to make an email like that when I was young and dumb, I’d have outgrown it in my 2os, and certainly not be using it now in my 50s!

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Why is it “obvious” that your main email has your birth year in it? I know that’s a thing people do, because I’ve heard of it here, but know literally nobody who does it in real life.

      1. Jennifer @unchartedworlds*

        That was a bit ambiguous, but I think they meant “obviously” as in “can’t miss it”, not as in “of course it would”.

      2. Jennifer Strange*

        I think ZK meant that they have a number in their main email that is obviously their birthday, not “Of course I’d have my birthday in my email, that’s a no brainer!”

      3. metadata minion*

        I generally assume a 2- or 4- digit (at least, if it starts with 19 or 20) number in someone’s email is a date, probably either their birth or high school/college graduation year. I know a ton of people with email addresses like that.

        1. Labracadabrador*

          I’m now envious of the me from another timeline who was born in 2718 (as implied by my email, FirstLast2718@emailhost). We’d *totally* have space travel figured out by then.

          Sadly, it’s just Euler’s number. Not nearly as cool.

        2. Artemesia*

          I have a not common name and yet Gmail already had one with my name, so using my birth year (2 digits) was a way to be able to have my name in the address; I learned it from my former sister in law who had done this earlier. Lots of people do it, but I can see it would be awkward for job searching if it were 69 or because it shows your age.

        3. Former Admin Turned PM*

          when I created my “mama[myname]1998” email, a lot of people asked me if there really were 1,997 people with my username, not realizing that the 1998 referred to the year I became a mom.

      4. PhyllisB*

        I can’t understand the disdain for Hotmail or AOL emails. I have three Hotmail email accounts and one AOL
        My personal one is a nickname, my first business one has my birth year in it my other two accounts just have first initial last name dot com. I do this to sort out newsletters from personal emails. I have an AOL account because one company I worked for required it. I never pay attention to anyone’s email address. BTW, I DO have a Gmail account that got assigned to me when I got a smartphone but I never use it because I can’t remember my password.

      5. LifebeforeCorona*

        The last 2 digits of my birth year (not 69) are in my email address because my name is so generic that I couldn’t get it alone and most variations were taken. I wanted to use my full name so there was no mistake about my name. As common as my first name is it was still misspelled Anne vs Ann vs Aynne.

    2. Lily Rowan*

      Yeah, the personal email address I actually use is from yahoo (just my name), and I don’t even use that for job searching! I made a gmail, so I don’t look like a dinosaur.

      1. Ms. Eleanous*

        A lot of “use gmail” advice.
        And yet a great deal of tech advice is on how to get rid of google.

        I am gradually getting away from Google.

        1. Tradd*

          Then get an Outlook.com, etc., email. Or use iCloud if you’re Team Apple.

          But no AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail.

        2. Bunch Harmon*

          I would love to move away from Google. Their support of the current administration, including the “Gulf of America” change on Google Maps, is really getting to me. Unfortunately, I have used Google Drive to save at least 15 years of documents, and I have no idea what to do with all of that.

          1. commensally*

            It depends on what you need. There are other options for easily-accessible cloud storage (though the ones not owned by giant evil corporations generally aren’t free.) Proton gets recommended a lot, and will also get you a non-gmail email address.

            If you need collaborative editable text documents, I’ve heard a lot of good things about Ellipsus. Canva will do presentations pretty well. Unfortunately I’ve yet to see a good alternative to Sheets.

            If you just need to get the files off of Google, you can batch-select and download right from Google Drive (and I suggest doing that anyway, just ask a backup.)

            1. Lyudie*

              I’ve recently migrated several Google Docs documents to Ellipsus using Markdown export. It worked great and I like Ellipsus a lot so far.

          2. Good Lord Ratty*

            Proton Mail (which has free and paid versions) also now has a drive service very much like Google’s. I switched a few years ago and liked them so much I now pay for a subscription.

            1. Frankie*

              Protonmail speed accepting my password and locked me out of my email permanently then wouldn’t stop charging me because I couldn’t confirm cancelation in my email. I’ll never trust that platform again.

              1. Teal Tshirt*

                In the early days, there was no password recovery, but now there are several options. Just mentioning it for others considering Proton.

        3. bishbah*

          I bought a domain for my name eons ago ($20/year) and with that I can use almost any private email host and set it up for the address [firstname]@[firstlast].com.

          If a particular host annoys me (*cough* Gmail), I can change services without changing addresses. Currently I’m with DreamHost.

          University alumni addresses can also be handy for job hunting purposes.

        4. Antilles*

          I always find the gmail thing interesting because my gmail is coming up on 20 years old. If you’re judging emails by “out of date”, the email account is certainly old enough to indicate that just as much as a Hotmail or Yahoo account.
          But since it’s Google, people don’t think that. The only real clue to the age of the account is that it’s my an extremely simple FirstLast email, i.e., if you think about it, the account must be ancient that it wasn’t already claimed.

          1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            Mine is first initial last name at gmail! Uncommon last name, but still clearly an indication of being an early adopter which at this point makes me Old.

              1. Not-very-edgy Librarian*

                I snagged FirstNameLastName@gmail for my oldest kid (b. 2007), and LastNameFirstName for my second (b. 2009.) They’re both grateful, but I’m already warning them that people may mistake them for Elder Millennials on the job hunt someday.

                By the time the little one came along in 2013, Gmail had no available combination of First, Last, or NickName that I could find, so he’s in his own.

      2. geek5508*

        I was telling my office mates that I use an AOL account, and they said “You are old!” When I mentioned in the same convo that I met my wife through MATCH.COM they said “You’re REALLY old!!”

    3. commensally*

      It can, actually, be hard to get an email address these days. Pretty much all of the free email services require 2-factor authentication – which generally means a phone number. If you don’t have a phone number that gets text messages that you can access every time you log in, you’re out of luck. If you have an email older than, idk, 5-10 years, you are likely grandfathered in and don’t need this, so quite a few people have an old email from the 2000s but would find it very difficult to get a new one.

      (You might think this isn’t very common, and maybe it isn’t if you’re applying for white-collar jobs – but helping job hunters at a public library, we see it *all the time*.)

      1. Ariaflame*

        My isp has outsourced emails now. Which of course means that if they annoy me too much it is now easier to leave them.

  6. Lisa*

    LW2, if the candidate were otherwise going to get an interview I wouldn’t necessarily reject just based on email address, but when interviewing I’d definitely probe with questions that tell me about their professional judgement.

    1. Kerr*

      Agreed. I wouldn’t automatically dismiss them if they were a strong candidate, I’d just ask an extra question or two during the interview to check their behavior/judgement.

  7. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    He’s a human being and he doesn’t have enough time at home to hash it out??? What does he think the rest of his coworkers do when they are having issues with their significant other.

    1. Whfhc*

      Yeah, we’ve all been there and wished we could have more time for our private things… but either we deal with it or we go part-time.

    2. Elbe*

      I’m very curious as to how the LW responded to the human being comment in the moment. Because… wow. Everyone working there is a human being and yet professional norms still exist.

      I understand that having a full time job can be a difficult transition for someone who is used to having more free time, but they are the ones who need to adjust. You can’t get into arguments with your SO at work!

  8. Fluffy Fish*

    No lunch break? In the US I thought law everyone has to have certain amounts of breaks.

    Of course it could be non US, but is anyone aware of in the US what type of work would be exempt from getting a break?

      1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        Well, this is disappointing. (I’m not American, so not super familiar with the norms and rules).

        1. Rex Libris*

          You can usually assume any employer in the US can screw you over more or less however they want as long as the paycheck doesn’t bounce and it isn’t explicitly and obviously based on a protected class like race, sex, age, or disability. Union power and membership is a ghost of what it was 50 years ago, and practically nobody has a contract. There are some states with more stringent protections, but very little at the federal level, because Freedom, or something, apparently.

    2. Amber Rose*

      US federal law does not require breaks, and states may or may not require them. I was actually surprised how many states don’t have rules about it.

      In Canada, you can forgo your right to a break if you have a written agreement, and then there’s a bunch of positions that aren’t regulated like CEOs/upper management, some kinds of delivery drivers, some kinds of safety sensitive positions.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        good lord – i didn’t even realize it was state laws. our labor protections are truly appalling.

      2. Statler von Waldorf*

        I disagree with your assessment of Canadian labor laws.

        You and your employer cannot negotiate away the minimum legal requirements of the various Employment Standards Acts unless you are negotiating a collective agreement, and those minimum legal requirements include breaks.

        Yes, there are exemptions, and they vary by province and whether you are working for a federally regulated business. However, unless you are an exempt employee under the law, you cannot legally forgo your breaks in Canada. If you know of any laws stating otherwise, I’d honestly be very interested to see it.

        1. Amber Rose*

          Woop, I mis-remembered. Different arrangements can be made by unions, and then there’s the “if it is not reasonable for the employee to take a rest period” exception, which in my experience gets abused.

    3. not nice, don't care*

      Police/emergency dispatchers are often required to remain on duty and eat at their desks, when emergencies permit.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        so i work in this realm in a state that does have break requirements. we do still have to give them breaks although the when can be flexible.

      1. Sunflower*

        Yup. In my state, you must take at least a 20 minute break if you work more than 5 hours. My company threatens us with firing if we don’t sign out in time. Not because they care about us being overworked, but because they don’t want to get fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for breaking state labor laws. So it’s shocking when I hear other places don’t have this law or disregard it.

    5. Printer Person*

      I work for a printer and the people in the factory get a 20 minute paid lunch break but they’re not allowed to leave the building. Office workers get a 30 minute unpaid lunch break but they can leave and come back. I believe it has to do with not entirely shutting down the presses because it’s a pain to start them back up again from scratch. I work in the office so my understanding of this is possibly not perfect but the previous printer I worked at had this same rule.

      1. LifebeforeCorona*

        I worked in a kitchen and technically we were entitled to breaks. In reality you grabbed a break during a natural lull during your shift. Sometimes you got your full 30 minutes and other times you got 5 minutes. It’s the reality. The only time breaks were strictly enforced was when I worked in a union kitchen.

    6. Dinwar*

      There are some situations where you can’t have a real lunch break. I’ve been on jobs that required 24/7 oversight, and you had to be within 15 minutes in case something happened. Or you just were stuck there until the task was done (could take 24 hours) and planned accordingly. You bring food or ask someone to get you food and eat it there. Got in trouble with an accountant once on a work trip over this. I was 45 minutes from the nearest road, and technically got an hour for lunch, and they complained that I bought groceries on Sunday for the week’s lunches. Seriously, what else am I supposed to do? The cacti weren’t edible, I checked!

      I knew an insurance adjustor that was the only one available. 99% of the time she was in the office, but as the only one there that could legally do certain things she was required to be there the entire shift. They had a lunch area set up in the office, but she was still expected to respond to any customers or calls while eating. That was a small office, too–random folks showing up to have lunch with her wasn’t unusual. Small towns are a different world.

      Then you have folks who work through lunch so they can go home early. Done that often enough too.

      So it’s a thing that does happen.

    7. Tio*

      In the original letter, it says that this was a pharmacy tech. So he should have a lunch break, but it may not be at the times he’s getting his “lunch” delivered. (Also means he can’t just walk out for 15-20 minutes whenever she shows up and leave the pharmacy unstaffed)

      2. Hydrates all the flasks*

        OMG that provides so much additional context!!!
        1) the regulations thing, for starters (just drives it home even more)
        2) I think the original letter ran before pharmacies (especially chain ones like CVS, Walmart, etc) finally were able to take legally-mandated half-hour (or hour-long?) lunch breaks every day. As in, the whole CVS is still open but the pharmacy area itself is closed tight for 30-60 minutes (sometime between 12 PM to 2 PM) so the pharmacist and technician(s) can eat their food. And catch up on work (because yeah, they’re still filling prescriptions, calling insurance companies, calling doctor’s offices for refill authorizations or prescription clarifications, restocking drugs, doing training modules, etc back there. IT NEVER ENDS).
        2b) So the whole fact that Jim didn’t actually get a break AND couldn’t leave the site because of regulations
        3) the bizarro “I’m a human being, I don’t have TIME to fight with my girlfriend when I get home!!” behavior
        4) the daily PDA becoming more and more overt
        5) the LW being like, “…can I tell him to stop?? Is that okay?????”

        Points 3 through 5 are just like…retail is a weird place and healthcare retail (i.e. retail pharmacies) are even weirder. Not bad weird. Just weird. So points 3 through 5 especially are not surprising now that I know we’re dealing with a CVS or a Walmart pharmacy. If it’s an independently-owned pharmacy, the weirdness dynamics are dialed up to 11.

        1. Hydrates all the flasks*

          Just read the original Jim letter. It’s a small, independently owned letter and Jim is another pharmacist. Okay yeah, this just makes so much sense. Not sense in the way “normal workplaces with normal people act like this” but in the sense of, “I have absolutely worked at a pharmacy like this and relatives who work at a big box Rx are dealing with their own darn Jims this very minute. And it’s just a part of the game for some reason.”

    8. used to be a tester*

      I assumed it was something like a dispensary/weed shop, partly because there are regulations about how many staff need to be on the premises at all times, and partly because in my experience weed shop employees aren’t big on professional norms. :)

    4. Bibliothecarial*

      My officemate does this – not overly sloppy but still, you don’t need to kiss goodbye five times mwa mwa mwa while I’m sitting three feet away from you. My partner and I wave at each other whenever they stop by to give me coffee, even if nobody else is in the building.

  10. I don't work in this van*

    For LW3, I wonder if this is partially because they’re doing the exercise before an interview. They probably learn a lot from talking to you, and want to reflect that additional knowledge in the work. Take-home exercises are common in my line of work, but I’d be skeptical of them happening before a real interview (assuming the phone screen is with someone in recruiting/HR who doesn’t necessarily have the background in the work itself).

    1. OrdinaryJoe*

      This is what I was thinking too! Pre/guesses vs more information after talking to you regarding goals, audience, timing, whatever.

      If you ask me to design a teapot launch with no information, my answer would be different then if I knew that teapot launch was going to be two weeks before Easter/Spring/Mother’s Day and with a unique design only available in April.

    2. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      This does feel like the wrong step in the process to me, both because of the number of responses you have to screen and because you’re asking people to put in time when they haven’t really interviewed yet–big investment of time all around. We use exercises in our interview process but not at such an early stage. We use ours after the first interview and only ask it of the short list of people we’re inviting back for the second interview, which will usually be the basis for us deciding who to extend the offer to. We ask them to prepare their response, send it to us in advance, then the first question in that second interview asks them to talk about what they prepared. We’re listening for the knowledge and reasoning along with their ability to explain to people who don’t all have the same expertise they have; these aren’t one-right-answer exercises. (We also provide the questions in advance so they can prepare.)

  11. Ms. Eleanous*

    A lot of “use gmail” advice.
    And yet a great deal of tech advice is on how to get rid of google.

    I am gradually getting away from Google.

    1. GreySuit (they/them)*

      Same. I recently learned about a free document collaboration host called CryptPad that seems very promising to me, so I can finally cut the Docs reliance that I’ve had previously for sharing writing drafts, and I’m forwarding my previous gmail addresses to my new Protonmail while I get all my accounts up to date.

    2. Missa Brevis*

      I’m also getting away from Google as much as I can, but it’s definitely still a strong enough norm that I think it’s worth keeping an active Gmail for professional communication.

      I also think there’s a pretty significant difference between someone with a protonmail or tutanota email or something like that compared to AOL or yahoo. The former might read a little quirky, but the latter seems very out of date/out of touch.

      1. 2e asteroid*

        I understand that this is a convention, but at this point it seems ridiculous to me that somebody’s aol email from 1995 marks them as clueless and out of touch, while my gmail from 2005 looks perfectly reasonable.

        1. AnonInCanada*

          I would think of AOL as the modern-day equivalent of a bell-bottom dress. Many people will look at you as if you were out of touch with the times if you were wearing one today, much like potential employers may look at yourname204 at aol.com the same way. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just sayin’.

        2. Laura1*

          It’s just because no email provider has taken gmail’s place yet. Maybe it will one day, but at this point they have size working in their favor.

          1. Stormfeather*

            I wish it would, I’ve also been trying to use less Google but I’m cemented into my gmail address as it stands. I have one for my ISP… but I’m also not in love with my ISP and would prefer one not locked to something I might change for various considerations multiple times in a decade or two.

      2. aoloriginal*

        why do I need an up-to-date email though? Genuine question. My aol email, which has my name not my birthdate or anything personal, works perfectly fine. I get that it’s old (I like to think vintage) but I really don’t see why I would need to change it just to seem more up-to-date. I do understand that having to ask this question just proves that I am uncool and out-of-date, but I knew that anyway and I really really don’t care!

        1. commensally*

          For job hunting, an aol email does mark you as a person of a certain age, which should not matter (and legally in many places isn’t allowed to) but it often does.

          For general professional purposes though, I’d say it’s fine (maybe even better than fine, hanging onto it that long proves you’re reliable.)

        2. pally*

          The aol email will date you.
          In the eyes of a prospective employer, it serves as a way to screen out the older candidates.

            1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

              …which are all things they don’t know about until they meet you. Your email address, they know from looking at your resume.

            1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

              It’s not their definition of “older” that matters, it’s the employer’s. Which varies a lot from field to field but can easily be as young as “over 35” in big tech.

        3. amoeba*

          I stuck with gmx for a long time (hey, it used to be the fancy modern version when I moved on from my old, crappy German provider in, like, 2008!), but it did at some point become technologically super dated – e-mails would take a long time to arrive (like, sending from a gmail account and it took ten minutes to show up – not great when you need that file *now* to do a presentation at a job interview!), and the web interface is frankly horrible, and also riddled with ads. The storage was also super low. So I did eventually get that gmail address because that one’s comfortable and modern, while gmx basically hadn’t changed anything since, well, at least 2008.

    3. Sneaky Squirrel*

      A fair point, though I’m not sure that advice has made it to the working world quite yet. Gmail is still the primary email provider that wouldn’t raise an employer’s eyebrows.

    4. Paint N Drip*

      I am noticing this, but I wonder what the next ‘neutral’ email will be then? We all end up with some snap judgments when we see AOL or protonmail (for better or worse) but Gmail has been seen as baseline/normal for decades!

      1. Good Lord Ratty*

        What’s the snap judgment with proton mail? I switched to them from google two years ago and quite like their service. Not thrilled to hear people are apparently making snap judgments about it.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          In my real life, the only people I’ve heard make snap judgements about someone using a proton mail account are the same people who make negative snap judgements about someone wearing a mask in a crowd since 2020.

          ie they think the person is overly cautious, because proton mail has a reputation as being more secure, less cavalier and less data-harvest-y with your email contents than services like google.

        2. Arrietty*

          Not necessarily negative – I make a judgement that the person is tech-savvy and concerned about privacy.

    5. A Book about Metals*

      Anybody judging candidates on email *providers* shouldn’t be taken seriously and definitely not in a position to hire anyone

      1. Jean (just Jean)*

        I totally agree, but unfortunately there are many people in a position to hire others who do indeed judge people on their email providers. Having a gmail email address might eliminate one reason for being arbitrarily eliminated from consideration. It’s easy to say “if they don’t want me because I’m ‘too old’ then I don’t want to work for them,” but that can be cold comfort when one is unemployed.

  12. learnedthehardway*

    I would absolutely reject a candidate if they used an inappropriate email address – that speaks to their lack of judgment in ignoring professional norms, as well as the potential that they will act unprofessionally at work. You can hardly be surprised when someone with an obvious sexual innuendo in their resume email address ends up sexually harassing people, for example. Why ignore such a red flag?

  14. Throwaway Account*

    My SIL, my brother’s wife, and my brother shared an email address for ages! I think until she was in her late 40s. I can understand a family email for the kids’ school and activities, but that was her only email, and she could not understand why I thought she needed her own. And I’m 5 years older than she is and I’m a boomer!

    1. doreen*

      It kind of depends on what the email is for and how it’s used. My husband and I shared an email for years because when we first got it, the provider only gave us one email address – but it didn’t matter the way we used it. Functionally, it was more like it was a family email address because we used it for things like utility accounts and kids activities and we didn’t have our own. Now, we each have our own and they are used for much more – and sometimes I miss the days when I didn’t have to wonder whose email is on the electric account and whose is on the cable account.

  15. cncx*

    Sometimes the abusers in abusive relationships do things to sabotage their target’s job.
    That both of them don’t know that fighting and kissing at work isn’t ok makes me think something else is going on, honestly. Not to fanfic this, but girlfriend might be intentionally winding him up on the clock. It is something to think about.

    1. Calamity Janine*

      or, honestly… what about the girlfriend’s job? she can’t exactly have one if the boyfriend is demanding she spend 2 to 5 at his workplace for kissing appointments. not that it’s really the LW’s purview, but it’s an element of abuse that could have already been enacted in that direction, too.

      1. metadata minion*

        Maybe she doesn’t work a standard office schedule? I’m not sure where you’re getting 2-5 from. I’m just seeing that she drops off his lunch and they sometimes spend 15-20 minutes hanging out. Am I misreading? If she works nearby, it might even be enough time for her to be doing this on *her* lunch break.

      3. amoeba*

        I mean, even if she didn’t work from home, as long as she’s nearby, it seems like a standard 1 h lunch would be absolutely sufficient for what she’s doing?

    2. Lenora Rose*

      I dunno, based on the 20-somethings I’ve met (And once was), some are fully professional, and some seem to assume anyone looking at them canoodling MUST think “aww, so sweet!’ not “ugh, how unprofessional”. They can be disabused of the notion (I was, thankfully still in University), but sometimes it takes a verbal hammer to break through.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        The phrase we used with our sixth form students (17 to 18 year olds) was “there’s a time and a place”. A lot of them wouldn’t have dreamed of doing any PDA at high school (16 and under), but when they got to sixth form college they genuinely seemed to think it was cool and adult to be constantly draped over your significant other. They had a little wobble when confronted; there were concerns about being infantilised, and what are they supposed to do with their in the moment feelings, but they all got on board when it was explained as seriously not the done thing.

    3. Jennifer Strange*

      Okay, but that doesn’t explain the PDA? And even if she were intentionally winding him up, that’s not on the LW to solve, so the advice remains the same.

    4. el l*

      Nope, I’m going with immaturity and not understanding personal norms. At least until there’s a lot more info indicating a deeper/troubling level.

  16. fancy pants math*

    OP3
    “I do recommend that you take the time to review it because there can be real insights for you about the person’s capabilities”

    When I’ve had candidates send in extra materials (either items like the OP describes, or letters of recommendation), I don’t look at them at all. Perhaps it’s different in the corporate world, but in higher ed I need to be scrupulously equitable. We often have candidates who are first-gen college/first-gen graduate education, who often do not have the social capital that many middle class applicants have. Despite the recent executive orders, I’m committed to DEI and do not want to just perpetuate inequities and injustice.

    1. Zona the Great*

      Plus I resent having to do more work in reviewing a non-standard Thing. I used to manage a federal grant outlay to our state agencies and I had one lady attach a massive narrative document because she felt our application didn’t capture all her greatness. I told her I didn’t review and wouldn’t review. It isn’t fair to me or to others. Part of the grant application is to gauge how concise you can be.

      1. LifebeforeCorona*

        When I was in school we were assigned a 3 page report. Someone proudly turned in a 10 page report and the prof told them that they stopped reading it at page 3 and graded it accordingly.

    2. TQB*

      OTOH, i tend to do recruiting of soon-to-be grads. I’m speaking to 8-10 applicants a day, and the reverse is likely true for them. If someone remembers something we discussed and follows up in any sort of meaningful way in their emailed thank you (yes they all send one), I definitely take note and appreciate that this was maybe a genuine connection with sincere interest.

    3. Anon Just for This*

      I work in the public service (not in the US – my heart goes out to my American counterparts) and we wouldn’t be allowed to review any additional materials. Anything that could or could be seen to give someone an advantage could result in a grievance to the union.

    4. Lisa*

      “I need to be scrupulously equitable”

      Careful. Treating people equally and equitably is NOT the same thing.

      Let’s say you have someone who has less job-relevant experience due to needing to work for pay rather than do volunteer/unpaid internship work. They might provide additional materials demonstrating their ability to do the job, and ignoring them would perpetuate that disadvantage. This specific example may or may not apply to you, it’s just the first one that came to mind.

  17. Pumpkin cat*

    I love my yahoo address, and I think it’s impressive I’ve kept it clean and not spam ridden for over 20 years. It’s firstname lastname @yahoo.com and looks very professional.

    1. Verily*

      It’s a beautiful thing! I sometimes wonder if my firstnamelastname @ emailprovider.com makes people think I am very old due to my common last name, but I love that I have it and would never give it up!

  18. Elsewise*

    I used to work for a college that did a lot of work with adult students. We got an applicant once for a criminal justice track whose email address was something like BongLord42069. I asked him why he was interested in criminal justice and he said he’d visited his brother in prison and “just felt like I belong there, like that’s the environment for me”. He wanted to be a prison guard. Never did enroll. Maybe he found a faster way of getting into that environment?

  19. Eff Walsingham*

    I am intrigued by this concept that some commenters have mentioned, that everyone who is job hunting needs to have a “FirstnameLastname at gmail dot com” email for that purpose. I’ve had a gmail account since you had to be invited (like a vampire!) and my address is… words. Not political words, not cutesy words, just some nouns that are easy to spell. Unlike one of my names, which I am frequently asked to spell out when communicating.

    So I’m aware that it’s possible to make a second address and have it forward to my main one – I’ve had this set up when I’ve served on boards, for example – but it seems like a hassle when I’m unsure if it matters. I’ve had a few comments like “Must’ve been an early adopter!” and also some compliments like “nice one!” or “That’s easy to remember.”

    Maybe I should ask it as a Friday question: How many people who do hiring are turned off by SimpleNouns at host dot com, or only move people along who are FirstnameLastname? And does it help that these are not high-level career track positions?

    1. Lenora Rose*

      Why would you wonder this?

      The easiest and fastest way to produce a clean professional looking email is by using a version of your name, which makes it the easiest thing for people who are giving advice on employment to suggest while keeping things simple and universally applicable. (If you’re the rare exception like Fernanda Uckington, you also know how to account for it.)

      And note, the specific example was something obviously sexualized, as are most of the others in the comments (although I’ve also seen weed use and Nazi/white supremacist whistles mentioned as turnoffs)

      It is not the only way to provide a professional email address; I wouldn’t blink twice at summerlake@… or foxgrove@ or whatever it happens to be.

    2. Lisa*

      Simple neutral nouns are fine IMO! The advice to use some combination of your name that it’s an easy way to create a neutral address and avoid choosing something cutesy or political or that could turn out to be offensive in the future.

    3. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Gosh, if I am looking in my inbox from a job applicant, it’s sure a lot easier to look for something with their name in it.

      Make it easy for me to hire you.

      1. Eff Walsingham*

        My full name is in the subject line, along with the job # and title. This was the style that was preferred in the 2 former jobs where I helped with hiring.

        1. A. Lab Rabbit*

          And that’s fine for the initial resume submission, assuming you’re emailing it to me. But a lot of resumes get processed by an applicant portal.

          Plus, if we are corresponding about follow ups (second interviews, etc.) it’s still easier to find firstname.lastname rather can.of.greenbeans.

          Again, make it easy for me. I might be dealing with dozens or hundreds of applicants.

          1. metadata minion*

            Is your applicant portal indexed by email? I also use an applicant pool when hiring, and the application process includes a place to put your name, which then shows up when I’m looking at applicants.

            1. Peanut Hamper*

              That’s a portal, though. It seems like Lab Rabbit was talking about email, which is where these things tend to end up.

              I totally agree with the advice though. Want a job? Make it easy for me to hire you.

              1. amoeba*

                Gmail also shows the sender’s name (which you can generally set in your preferences) and not their actual e-mail address! The mail address itself is visible but depending on which view you’re in, either only upon mouse-over or in smaller, grey print next to the name. So looking at my gmail, I might never even notice the address itself!

                So, which means – for me something neutral would be fine and at the very most lead to mild wondering whether there’s a story there or not. However, make sure the “sender” is your actual name, I’d be pretty confused if I got a mail from “Summer Lake” instead of “Jane Smith (summerlake@gmail.com)”!

          2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

            But email address and display name are often different. I don’t think your situation is very likely.

            1. amoeba*

              Yup, I said that above – the display name is usually really what’s prominent on first glance nowadays!

      2. Dinwar*

        Not always. My first and last name are a family tradition, and my father and I work in somewhat related fields (or did, before he retired). It’s led to some amusing bits of confusion. For example, at least a few times when someone’s run a credit report it’s gone to the wrong person.

        And frankly being too lazy to look at the resume (which you almost certainly required and which includes the information you’re after) does not speak well about the work culture. It reads very much as an environment of “You need to comply with my orders before I even give them, and will be punished for failure to do so.” Maybe that’s not true–maybe your company is a fantastic place to work–but as an applicant I don’t know that. All I know is that you had criteria that were not spelled out but which you never the less expected me to comply with. In a way, this accomplishes the objective; obviously you and I wouldn’t work well together, and this certainly would keep us from doing so.

    4. Grimalkin*

      As someone who a) toys with going by a first name that isn’t their legal first name, and therefore wouldn’t know which to use for an email address, and b) has a surname that constantly gets either misspelled or mispronounced… I wish I’d thought of this some years back myself. I suppose I can still see what’s available, but I bet a lot isn’t anymore…

    5. PurpleCattledog*

      I think there’s many ways to be appropriately professional for different industries.

      We hire through a portal. Your email is one of the later things I’ll see. If it’s definitely sexual, or offensive, that tells me relevant information because we work with teens and I’d be worried about your appropriateness around them.

      However, I’ve family who work in very different industries. Emails for them aren’t professional things, they’re personal used solely to get the job. Nobody would care unless it was extreme in offensiveness – it tells them nothing relevant about the candidate. It’d be like objecting to a phone number cause you don’t like it.

      I think the environment of employment and what professional looks like there is far more relevant.

    6. EchoGirl*

      I’m somewhere in between — I have one that’s based on my name, but is somewhat off the standard formula. It’s part of my first name, middle initial, last initial. I like it because it’s a little different but still professional.

      (The other side benefit of this is that while it’s relatively easy to connect my name with my email if you know both, if you only know one it’s near-impossible to parse out the other. This means that email spammers can’t guess my name to give themselves even the flimsiest cloak of legitimacy — if I see an email addressed to my email handle instead of my name, I know instantly it’s spam — and on the flip side, someone who’s met me once isn’t going to be able to guess my email to send me a bunch of unsolicited messages if they were inclined to do so.)

  20. Bananapants*

    Wait he doesn’t get a lunch break at all? Even if there are regulations that require someone covering his post at all times, that shouldn’t mean he can’t have breaks.

    1. doreen*

      Sometimes that depends on what exactly is meant by breaks – even in states that require breaks there are often exceptions. For example, in my state there is an exemption when there is either a single employee on duty or only one in a particular occupation. Which would mean the only pharmacist on duty doesn’t have a right to an uninterrupted lunch break ( they could eat while still on the clock subject to interruption). And even if someone in my state is relieved of all work for a lunch break, the employer is not required to allow them to leave the premises.

    2. Human*

      Yeah, most people get breaks where they can leave if they want, take care of personal business, and even see family members.

      Jim doesn’t get this normal treatment (ostensibly due to regulations), and so found a way to take care of things that did not disrupt customers or the business “They never do this in front of customers”. When that wasn’t acceptable to the LW because they didn’t want that occurring in the workspace, Jim instead took his business outside but still close enough to the workspace to be compliant with the regulation that he remain on premises.

      Since Jim doesn’t get this normal break, it’s not outrageous for Jim to find 15-20 minutes to take care of personal business like normal humans get to do on their break time. Especially when Jim goes outside so the LW doesn’t have to see any of this personal business.

      1. PurpleCattledog*

        I agree. Unless Jim is being paid penalty rates or had a very short shift he should get to have lunch. It’s unreasonable to expect him to work a full day and not be able to take 20 minutes (my world it’s 2×15 min paid + 60 minutes unpaid) to have some personal time.

        Another reason why I’m thankful for labour laws in my country!

  21. Fluff*

    LW # 2 – you mention this is an entry level job. If they are qualified, I recommend interviewing them.

    1. Entry level job. I am an outlier here. I believe we should mentor or coach more for entry level jobs. This is where people have a better chance to learn the social and cultural norms. It is often the first step into a work place future.

    2. Their response may give you more insight. For example, you could respond with an invite to interview and request a different email address. “We are happy to interview you. Do you have another email address we can contact you which does not have any sexual references? I look forward to hearing from you.” And you may find a nice reply and a gem of an employee who is trainable. Or a turdling who presents a clearer red flag.

    We make a lot of assumptions on emails. It may be a stupid ancient high school email that no one bothered to change. It might be a smut email from a previous job (only fans, etc.). It might be a bigoted email. It might be an address that links to a new address or forwarding because they are too lazy or too afraid to change emails.

    I still have hope that somewhere somehow there are peeps who want to learn and try.

    1. Eff Walsingham*

      Haha, I *love* “Do you have another email address where we can contact you that doesn’t contain sexual references?” I can absolutely see myself typing this, before deleting it and proceeding with other candidates. YMMV. (I’m in Canada, if that’s relevant.)

  22. FunkyMunky*

    I feel like Zoomers are completely unprepared for the real world of a job, SMH! you need to tell him no more gf visiting or he can look for a new job. I don’t think he gets it otherwise!

    1. Silver Robin*

      we can say the guy is unprofessional without bashing an entire generation. Everyone has a learning curve and Zoomers are no worse than Millennials are no worse than Xers are no worse than Boomers. Older generations just seem to forget that they, too, were once young and clueless (or their friends were).

      1. Tea Monk*

        Yup. Young people never know things because you need experience or even worse because we thought it was obvious and didn’t say ” hey, these are our expectations “

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      Can we not stereotype an entire generation based on the action of one of them? Also, this is an old letter, so it’s not clear what generation Jim is from.

    4. metadata minion*

      People said the same thing about Millennials. If you go back in the archives of this site, you can find letters complaining about nearly-identical behavior from people who are now in their 40s.

      1. Tau*

        Yeah, I’ve been reading AAM since 2015 and I remember being so frustrated in the early days by letters and articles talking shit about my whole generation (Alison was great, to be clear, it was LWs and other sites that treated Millennials as some sort of weird alien and also totally incompetent species). I breathed a sigh of relief when that stopped, and I’m not super keen to see it start again with the next generation.

      2. londonedit*

        Yeah, as an ancient Millennial/one of those in-between people who falls between the Millennial/Gen X gap, I’m glad ‘Gen Z’ has finally replaced ‘Millennial’ as shorthand for ‘young people doing things we don’t approve of’. I’m in my mid-40s, for goodness’ sake! But that just shows how ridiculous it is to blame anything and everything on an entire generation. Not long ago it was ‘Millennials’ who were the feckless idiots ruining everything by spending all their money on avocado toast instead of buying property, now it’s ‘Gen Z’ ruining everything by not using capital letters in text messages. Or something.

    5. Calamity Janine*

      given the age of zoomers as a generation, and given that the letter is one being revived from the archives, you might have to adjust which generation you’re trying to snark on here…

      …and then regretfully you have to look at other generations for other notable letters of cringeworthy actions at work. it’s not like the zoomers came up with the infamous duck club, after all.

      then you just expand backwards from ask a manager about who is really to blame, and anyway i’ll meet you when you get to Cicero shouting “o tempora, o mores!”, with a big bunch of evidence about how the elders of Rome also definitely went wild, and we can continue on to making some Etruscans very chagrined, all the way back to how Rome clearly had no chance since it was founded by folks whose mom was so lazy she just had a wolf be her babysitter. those youths sure are fickle these days…

  24. SB*

    I would be so bad at being a manager

    Because if was like, “Hey. I need you to keep your tongue out of your girlfriend’s mouth when you’re on the clock and it’s not appropriate to yell angrily at anyone, even if they aren’t a fellow employee”

    And my report responded with the equivalent, “get off my case, I am a human being, MOM.” like I was the one being unreasonable….well, I don’t know how to end that thought. But I don’t think my response would be that of one who was good at managing people.

  25. Hydrates all the flasks*

    His reply was that he’s a human being and he doesn’t have enough time when he gets home to work things out

    LOL okay, babe. That’s not really what “relationships take work” means so like, if he’s thinking about his personal relationship in terms of a second-job mindset, then maybe it’s time for the personal relationship to be reevaluated. That might be a bit harsh but the fact that he and the GF decided to bring the fight to work the next day has me side-eying the strength of their love (or at least their combined maturity levels) a bit.

  26. Wingo Staww*

    To any of the young’uns who read this:

    Create an email for professional communication before/during college, if possible.

    Best formats:

    firstname.middleinitial.lastname@provider.com

    lastname.firstinitial@provider.com

    lastname.firstinitial.birthyear@provider.com (less desirable but it’s fine if you have a common name).

    1 ) Don’t sign up for things with your school email address, it can be hard to access at a certain point.

    2 ) Phase out the cutesy emails (kAylaRoXX420@bleep.com) as soon as human possible.

  27. Ex-Prof*

    I wonder if he thinks all of his workmates, who get through the day without snogging or quarreling, are not human.

  28. Raida*

    Jim, walking outside to ‘be on premises’ as though you are working but are actually taking a break and to hang with your girlfriend is… not actually being at work.

    I don’t mind that she drops off your lunch.
    I don’t mind “I’m going to get groceries, should we do goulash or chilli for dinner?”
    I don’t mind a “love you and a hug and kiss”

    I do not want to have to tell her “Sorry Jim is at work, he’ll see you later”, or shoo her away like you two are teens and she wants to hang at the game store, or make up some new, over-reaching rule for how long a personal visitor can be on the premises.
    So please Jim, could you take the step yourself, and stop taking these breaks.

    Separately, he’s lucky I’m not his manager – I would already have spoken directly to her – “Do not come here to pick a fight with one of my staff. Leave, right now. And I suggest you don’t embarrass him again like that.”

    1. Laser99*

      The OP doesn’t specify what type of business they have, but if it’s retail, this type of issue is *extremely* common, as many “civilians” believe retail isn’t a real job. In any event, this should be shut down tootsweet.

  29. Raida*

    “His reply was that he’s a human being and he doesn’t have enough time when he gets home to work things out.”
    Hah.
    Jim, don’t tell me, your boss, you have significant failings when it comes to managing your time *and need to steal work time to do personal stuff*

  30. Tiger Snake*

    I find it strange that a workplace would have a policy that means cannot leave but allow such frequent visitors. Usually not being allowed to leave is a security issue and they’re more stringent.

    1. metadata minion*

      It might be someplace like a library or retail where the staff can’t leave without arranging for a replacement because the security issue is that there are random members of the public wandering in and out all the time.

  31. Witch of Oz*

    I’m curious about why Jim the human being doesn’t get a lunch break. I mean fair enough if he’s only working a couple of hours, but if he’s doing more, surely he’s entitled to a break?

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