I’m supposed to live with my boss and her husband, bad coworker is finally leaving, and more

by Alison Green on February 7, 2025

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

1. I’m supposed to live with my boss and her husband for months

I have been working at my company for two years, and I get along well with my boss, who is a woman in her early thirties. Her husband also works for the same startup and we are all on a work trip together for a few months in a foreign country. The company is providing community housing (with private beds and bathrooms) for commuting workers that holds about 10 people, and a few two-bedroom condos.

Before we arrived, my boss, her husband, my coworker, and I were under the impression that we would be the four people filling the two condos — me and my coworker in one, my boss and her husband in the other. When my coworker arrived, she was taken to the community housing and given a room, and when we arrived, my boss and her husband were moved into one bedroom of an apartment and I was moved into the other bedroom of the same apartment. When I asked if my coworker and I were going to move into the other condo once it became available in a few days, I was told no.

I brought up the problem to my boss’ boss and said that I am concerned about living with my boss and her husband for the next three months, but for the short term it is not a problem. He said that it’s a valid concern, and that he would work on it and that I should suck it up for about a week.

About a week has passed, and my coworker who I originally was going to live with has expressed her preference for staying where she is because she is already settled in, and I was informed by my boss that I am to keep living with her and her husband for the foreseeable future. This is so my boss’ boss and another male coworker can live in the other apartment and my coworker can stay where she is.

I am quite uncomfortable with this situation and have expressed this to my boss, my boss’ boss, and the person in charge of housing, and I am not sure what to do next. I am excited about this job and really enjoy working with my team, but working 72 hours a week with my boss and her husband and then going home with them is just a bit too weird for me. Any advice?

How firmly have you told your boss’s boss and the person in charge of housing that this won’t work for you? This isn’t less-than-ideal housing for a couple of nights in an emergency; this is three months of your life outside of work, and they almost certainly have other solutions available if you make it clear that the current plan is a no-go for you. If, out of a desire to be flexible and not demanding or to seem like a team player, you’ve been anything less than than crystal clear that this is a no for you, it’s time now to get much more emphatic.

Talk to your boss’s boss again, state firmly that you’re not on board with this, and say you need to make arrangements to move, whether to the community housing where your coworker is or somewhere else. For example: “I was willing to do it for a week like you asked, but I’m not comfortable with this for longer than that. I’d like to move to the community housing where Jane is or, if that’s not possible, to a hotel or other solution.” If you get any pushback: “Given the length of the trip, it’s really not feasible and I wouldn’t have signed on for it under these conditions. I can take the lead on finding a place to move if that’s the fastest way to handle it.”

2. My bad coworker is finally leaving … should I stay?

I’ve had issues with my underperforming coworker, Sanford, as long as I’ve been with my small nonprofit. From missing agreed-upon deadlines 90% of the time, to saying misogynistic things to coworkers in meetings (he singles out our foreign-born female coworkers — never the males — to repeat things back to him, to make sure they understood it, despite them being fluent in English and just being one of the people listening in a group meeting), he has been a “missing stair” in our organization for years. Despite this, our CEO saw it fit to create a completely new director-level position for him, promoting him by two levels and firmly setting a ceiling on my career path within the organization, as his new role took parts of what I would do at that level.

Despite all the flexibility, raises, and promotions he’s received despite his skills and work ethic (or lack thereof), Sanford has landed another role outside of the organization and is leaving. Many of us are celebrating, but I’m left in a tricky situation. I’d also planned on leaving, in large part due to being tired of cleaning up after Sanford, but now my path for growth seems to have opened up.

Do I stick around and see if Sanford’s absence helps make my job easier and clears the way for my career growth, or do I continue to pursue other opportunities? I am in the final stages of interviewing at several other companies that would pay me substantially more than what I make in my current role.

Keep pursuing those other opportunities. Sanford is leaving because he got another job, not because your organization decided to deal with him (in fact, the opposite — they promoted him) so if you stay, you’re staying at an organization that not only accommodates Sanfords, but rewards and tries to retain them. They didn’t suddenly see the light and become a better place to work, and if another Sanford comes on the scene tomorrow, you’d have no reason to believe they’d do anything differently with the new one. Their handling of Sanford says something about who they are as an organization; you shouldn’t change your plans just because this one manifestation of those problems is gone.

3. New manager is changing things for the worse

I work in a grocery store bakery. My teammates and I all have things organized in a way that is best for our efficiency. This new assistant manager has rearranged things into a mess. I have allowed this to go on out of respect. It’s just not working. I have gone to my bakery manager as well as store management bout it. What do I do now? I have changed things around since no one has helped me. And she just changes it back. She has not been receptive to speaking about it. She struggles with a power struggle.

The thing about being in a power struggle with your manager is that the manager is nearly always going to win because of their power and authority relative to yours — or at least that’s the case if you’ve talked to levels of management above you and no one cares enough to intervene. You and your teammates can certainly try talking to your manager as a group and explaining why you want to switch things back — and that’s worth doing if you haven’t yet — but ultimately if you can’t convince her, you don’t have much recourse.

In that situation, your best bet is probably to roll with the changes for a while. If a month or two from now they’re still causing problems, raise it again at that point; sometimes when you’ve made a good-faith effort to roll with changes but can still point to problems, that’s an easier sell than when you resist them from the start.

4. Is it illegal to hire someone just to fire people?

I’m writing a novel and I have a character who is hired solely to make people redundant before moving on. I heard from someone recently that it is illegal to hire someone for the sole purpose of making people redundant/firing them, only to get rid of them after they’ve completed this job. Is that true?

You mean hiring someone specifically to conduct layoffs/firing but not keeping them on after that? Like George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air? It’s not illegal to do that. Typically, though, if a company brings in someone from the outside to do it, they’d go with a firm or contractor (also like Up in the Air), not hire a full employee to do it — but it wouldn’t be illegal to have them be an actual employee if for some reason they wanted to. (That said, your use of “make people redundant” makes me think you might be in the UK rather than the U.S., and I can only speak to U.S. laws.)

You may also like:
{ 260 comments }

{ 260 comments… read them below }

  1. Artemesia*

    A former BIL’s career was to be a lone ranger in Europe who was hired to fire people. I know he worked in England, the Netherlands and I think in France. He was just as delightful a person as you might imagine of someone who chose this line of work. He was however a consultant doing this not an employee.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      OldExJob was privately owned, but during the recession, a larger global company bought them. They hired a VP to “streamline OldExJob and its sister company and bring them into a new era,” or something. What that ended up meaning was layoffs. Lots of them.

      He started with the sister company and then hit OldExJob. My job along with the marketing person’s was entirely eliminated, and my duties were passed to the salespeople. The marketing went to corporate. I heard through the grapevine he hired an assistant, but for himself; she did none of my old work. Then he left. :\

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I imagine this is unfortunately common: if your company is struggling and you know you need to make a lot of changes, you hire a person or consulting team who will tell you how to make your company more “efficient”, which departments can be “streamlined” or “trimmed” and other nicely sanitized words for making a lot of your employees unemployed.

        1. Zombeyonce*

          I hate all the jargon companies use to try and pretend layoffs aren’t just a bunch of employees losing their jobs. Mine has been using the term “strategic realignment” and the execs cringe whenever we underlings call it “layoffs”. They act like it wasn’t them who made the decision to get rid of hundreds of employees (though, conveniently, none of the highly paid people in leadership).

          1. Artemesia*

            I was once in a merger where the organization reorganized from a matrix organization to a more traditional departmental one and then cut whole departments. Those in management assigned themselves to the units that were not going to be cut often putting much less qualified selves into slots that logically would have gone to well experienced long term very competent people — who found themselves without a lilypad to sit on when the carnage began. My favorite was a mediocre manager who managed to himself assigned to three positions he felt were unlikely to be cut at the cost of a couple of stellar performers.

        2. Artemesia*

          Our University college hired a management consultant for this purpose whose main money saver was going to be to eliminate the Dean of students office since it was not something most organizations had (I am not making this up). The primary function of the college but since Xerox and Capital One don’t have those positions it was obviously redundant.

          2. Le Sigh*

            How that wasn’t the first clue to the University that they hired someone who doesn’t remotely understand their organization is….well not surprising I suppose.

    2. Landry*

      I worked for a pretty large national company where it wasn’t uncommon for people to transfer to work in a larger market or for upward mobility, including at the upper management level. We got a new president one time whose entire reputation was that of a “hatchet woman” who had no qualms about laying off people. The company and industry as a whole was dealing with a lot of cutbacks, and some managers had a harder time letting people go than others. Not her. Employees were nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet to be reduced. We always suspected that was why she never got to know her staffs very well at all, lest she see people as people.

      1. StarTrek Nutcase*

        I guess I’ve always been pragmatic that any business I’ve worked at (~6 over 40+ yrs) was NOT in business to provide jobs but to either make a profit or serve a specific mission (if nonprofit). And changes – such as low profits, regulatory, leadership – usually impacted jobs (ex. my layoff). While I did find some layoffs or firing weren’t free of bosses’ personal preferences, most were a function of what the business – rightly or wrongly – prioritized.

        I do think it serves no purpose to pretend jobs are “owed” anyone, anytime, anywhere – though of course losing one’s job is a personal crisis.

  2. MsM*

    LW2: Not only do you have no reason to trust they won’t hire another Sanford and deal with him similarly, you should probably assume they’re going to look outside the organization to fill the gap he’s left. They already had a chance to put you in a leadership role, and they effectively said, “No, we’d rather have literally anyone else.” And you know that’s not your fault, on account of all these other companies champing at the bit to hire you. It’s theirs. Don’t give them the chance to take you for granted twice.

    1. Can’t think of anything clever*

      One of the things I’ve seen is if they do promote LW to Sanford’s job suddenly there’s a completely different set of rules and standards, sometimes driven by “We don’t want another Sanford” and thereby difficult or impossible to meet. So, yes, leave!

      1. Sloanicota*

        I’d say, if you can get Sanford’s job, take it but start job searching immediately so you can leverage the title and six months or year of experience in your next role. But if they don’t offer it to you, definitely leave as soon as you can.

    2. Venus*

      I think the dynamic has changed slightly, in that LW should continue to look for other work but should now be more picky about taking a new job. When Sanford was around there was a strong push to leave soonest even if it meant a similar job, whereas now LW should only take a job that offers better pay and work environment. Essentially LW can now afford to be more picky. Most importantly, the current place is a mess and LW should eventually leave, whether that’s in the next few weeks or sometime in the next year.

      1. Dido*

        pretty sure she was only going to take a job with better pay and work environment anyway… nobody willingly leaves for a worse job

        1. BowTiesAreCool*

          But if your job has a bad atmosphere, a lot of people will leave for the same pay, or even a modest cut, to get a better environment. I’ve done it–taken a bit of a trim financially to get into a saner place. No regrets.

        2. Raktajino*

          >nobody willingly leaves for a worse job

          AAM is full of examples of people who left for any port in a storm because a slight improvement is still an improvement. Venus means you can do a more thorough vetting process, check on the new employer’s rosy claims, and decide whether you’re ok with the tradeoffs.

      2. LW2*

        Yes, I do feel less pressure from negative feelings about working within my current organization. I can anticipate less fires to put out, and no blockage to trying a new strategy. It is such a relief to have Sanford gone!

    3. Smithy*

      I get the point, but don’t think it’s usually that linear a reality as to why it’s a concern.

      This employer could wildly value the OP and be utterly thrilled that they have a trusted, well trained, internal candidate who can step into that role with minimal handover. They could offer the OP all of the money they were hoping to receive – and it would still be a red flag. Because the leadership has shown that they don’t manage bad behavior, but rather let people stay as long as they like or perhaps engaged in other ways to push Sanford out – again as opposed to directly/honestly managing Sanford.

      If the OP would be reporting directly into the CEO, they may learn that more senior role under a poor manager that won’t actually give them guidance and mentorship to thrive in that kind of role anywhere as opposed to just that organization. Or more likely, there will inevitably be a new Sanford who will be managed similarly.

      1. Hell in a Handbasket*

        “the leadership has shown that they don’t manage bad behavior, but rather let people stay as long as they like or perhaps engaged in other ways to push Sanford out”
        Sounds like it’s worse than that — they actively liked and promoted Sanford, at OP’s expense. Tolerating a bad employee because management is weak/lazy is bad enough, but giving him multiple promotions is much worse.

      2. LW2*

        I think you’ve really narrowed it down to the crux of it – the lack of management of Sanford is part of a larger pattern of lack of people management. It has happened elsewhere in the organization, but Sanford is where it affected me the most. There is very little guidance or mentorship, as well.

    4. Mockingjay*

      They will keep OP2 exactly where she is.

      1) She’s effective and keeps her team productive. (Of course management takes credit for the success and wants it to continue.)
      2) She doesn’t cozy up to senior management. (If promoted, she would likely point out unpleasant truths about company operations instead of gladhanding with the “boys.” They don’t want to hear bad news with its implied criticism.)
      3) She is apparently cheap, salarywise. (No one will give up a bargain.)

      This company sucks and will not change. OP2, please ramp up your search.

      1. LW2*

        Oof, tough truths. These all ring true. And you are more astute than you think – “the boys” is a very literal term, as the three roles that are the most public-facing (including Sanford’s) are all filled by white men, two of which have qualifications that are, at best, a stretch for their role.

      2. A Significant Tree*

        This is why I still left after the colleague (senior manager) who enforced the glass ceiling over my head surprised us all by leaving before I had my formal offer from another org in hand. I told people at the time that if things changed substantially I’d be happy to come back, but since they opted to promote that colleague’s chief acolyte as his successor, I didn’t see that happening for a while. It was not subtle either, the chief acolyte told me that I’d be maintaining my same position indefinitely while I ‘earned’ a shot a promotion (after promoting objectively less qualified men). I’m much happier having taken the offer… or I would be if it weren’t a fed job currently facing this nightmare scenario.

        OP, you have what sound like real options for better-paying jobs, I hope one works out well for you!

      3. Hannah Lee*

        OP, please take Mockingjay’s comments to heart. Whatever else is going on at your employer, they are likely doing all the things she says, and more, none of which are to your benefit or will ever give you an opportunity for growth or advancement.

        And from what you described happening with Sanford and with the others in similar positions all being white men, they have a fixed idea of what kind of people they see in those roles, want in those roles and will repeatedly hire for those roles. It’s wrong and it’s short sighted of them, but that is who they are and they aren’t going to change.

        IME, at this point you can either stay where you are and keep “burning daylight” or really push them to advance you (but if they give in, I can guarantee they will offer you lower compensation and/or worse work parameters than they would offer Generic White Dude #12 and it will be an uphill battle for you to succeed or advance and will continue to frustrate you)

        Your best move would be to continue your job hunt and accept a good offer to work elsewhere. They’ve already showed you they don’t value you enough to promote you (though Mockingjay is likely right that they like you exactly where you are for a bunch of reasons that *aren’t* going to benefit you, ever, at that employer) The time to start your next phase of work life is now, away from these dolts.

    5. el l*

      OP2, ask yourself:

      Do I like this place so much that I’d be willing to take a pay cut (compared to elsewhere) to work here?

      Because when you remove biases towards the status-quo, that’s your decision.

      (Put another way, would you rather have the possibility of growth at current employer, or the reality – incarnate in an offer letter – of growth at another place?)

      Can’t see a path to yes.

      1. LW2*

        el 1, this is such an interesting way to look at it. Am I willing to donate half my potential salary to my current employer? Food for thought, thank you.

    6. MigraineMonth*

      I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of what happened (I don’t think there was a leadership role that LW2 was in contention for; they created it specifically for Sandford’s special blend of incompetence, racism and misogyny), but I agree that LW2’s current company missed their opportunity and they should take a role somewhere else.

      Honestly, LW2, even if leadership had fired Sanford and made it clear they were cleaning up shop, you still shouldn’t pull out of the final stages of job interviews on the *chance* that your current company might promote you in the future.

      1. LW2*

        LW2 here – yes, I’d be unlikely to pull out of current interviews lined up. I think I was more worried that I wouldn’t give my current organization a chance to possibly fix things.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          They’ve already had plenty of opportunity to fix things, if fixing things were a priority for them. IMHO

    7. LW2*

      LW2 here. Yes, there is no guarantee they’d tap me to fill that role. Thank you for the outside perspective!

      One note of clarification – we were both promoted to the same level at the same time, but his role was created for him. His role was defined in such a way that boxed my responsibilities into a corner.

      1. I Have RBF*

        IMO, that shit is unlikely to change, even with Sanford gone. They did it to you once, they’ll do it again. Get away.

    8. Sara without an H*

      LW2: Senior leadership in your current organization has already shown you who they are. Based on their past performance, they probably already have their eye on another Sanford. You don’t need to “give them a chance”–they have already shown they have no interest in promoting you. Believe them.

      One point not yet raised by other commenters in this thread: you never make up for lost income. If one of the other organizations you mentioned comes through with a firm job offer for more money and better career opportunities, you’d be well advised to take it.

  3. Laupey*

    #4 I think the LW meant something different. I think they’re wondering about this scenario: I have a llama groomer I really dislike but can’t get rid of for some reason. So I hire a second llama groom. Later, I’m told I can only keep one llama groomer, so I get to lay off the original one and keep the second one. Thus, I hired a new llama groomer to make the first one redundant and therefore easier to get rid of.

      1. Myrin*

        That, and the “a character who is hired solely to make people redundant before moving on” which clearly has the second llama groomer as the agent.
        (Quite apart from that, though, that’s actually two different scenarios – in the part I quoted, the second llama groomer left their job on their own, in the part sarah quoted, they are fired.)

      2. M*

        I suspect it’s actually that LW4 has *heard* that the scenario Laupey describes is illegal, internalised that knowledge as “hiring someone to make someone redundant is illegal”, and is now confusing the two.

    2. GammaGirl1908*

      I didn’t even consider this second scenario largely because I’ve seen something like the original scenario happen!

      I worked for a small business (~30 employees) that brought in a new employee. It wasn’t clear at first what her role was, but eventually we figured out that she essentially was an efficiency advisor / expert.

      During the huge recession in 2003, the company lost a lot of business, and made a few costly mistakes. She came in to advise the company owners on the best path forward. On her advice, they decided to make huge changes to the company goals and business lines, which involved letting the staffers go who were handling the old areas of business. They sacrificed most of the staff to save the company, which was hard for me as a victim of the layoff — especially because it wasn’t clear as it was happening. They just told me when my last day would be — but which I can understand looking back.

      The efficiency person was on staff for maybe a year, if that. Now, I don’t know whether she was always intended to be short-term, and whether that was the agreed plan all along, but it would make sense if it was.

      1. MK*

        The difference here is that an efficiency advisor is really hired to fire people. It’s true that, if a business is failing, firing workers is often inevitable to try and save it, but that’s not their actual job.

    3. froodle*

      LW2: I worked for a company that promoted a mediocre worker (though a top flight kiss up kick downer) up multiple levels.

      While he was mediocre at the individual contributor level, as he climbed the ranks to Assistant Supervisor, then Supervisor, then Manager, more and more of his lack of ability and even deeper lack of character was exposed.

      Over time he went from standard model Mediocre White Man to Nightmarishly Incompetent Buffoon, with Power Trip actions and Micromanagement Grip(tm).

      Eventually, he left. Those of us who’d spent years being ground into the dirt beneath him breathed a sigh of relief. I personally told myself he was dead, and I’d never have to see him again. That’s the level of awful he routinely and gleefully inflicted on his subordinates.

      …and then,he came back.

      (The job he left for was in our government, where non management is heavily unionized, and also our government had just very publicly taken a beating in an anti bullying lawsuit from a high level doctor about her treatment during COVID. So when he tried the behaviour that got him rewarded at Old Job, he was given the choice to leave or be fired.)

      My Old Job looked at this recently excised tumour on the groin of it’s workforce, and essentially said “oh, the mean old Government won’t let you bully and throw your weight around? Don’t worry, here you can victimize as many peons as you want!”

      They hired him back, at a higher role, with more power. Two months in, he was already repeating his previous behaviours.

      Trust me on this. Like a faceful of oozing pustules, Sanford is simply the most obvious and distressing symptom of a much bigger disease.

      1. Lenora Rose*

        Okay, that was not an image I really wanted to carry through the day. That being said, your point is excellent; these people saw nothing wrong with Sanford, they could absolutely do this.

        1. froodle*

          lmao sorry! (also apologies for the nesting fail and double post,I suspect I fat-fingered the comments box!)

          tbh that imagery actually helped me out a little when dealing with him.

          whenever he got on one of his hissy fits of “i must tear down everyone who is smarter and more competent than me”

          (which was everyone and everything in the entire world, excluding perhaps some of the stupider rocks and the really inept varieties of bathroom mould on their worst days)

          i would look at him and think, “you zit. you pimple. you ingrown hair. you canker sore. you bubo. you lesion. someone should douse you in bleach. I would love to throw bleach in your horrible little homunculus face right now.”

          sometimes he would lose steam in the middle of his little power trip and trail off. i dont know if my silence was offputting or if some of that last impulse showed in my expression, but i’d take the win if it came.

          (it did not come often enough to be worth the rest)

    4. Lab Snep*

      Ahahaha. This actually happened to me at a design job.

      Apparently the person they hired to replace me BEFORE I WAS GONE left on his own accord out of disgust and 6 months later I found out they couldn’t KEEP ANYONE.

      Revenge.

    5. Panda*

      My manager at my last job did this. I was the unwitting second person in the role. After 5 months in the role, they laid off the person who had been at the company for 3 years. I felt terrible, but I was told by the rest of the team that the person being laid off always had performance issues.

    7. ZSD*

      I had read it this way as well. I had thought there might be some sort of law where you need at least X employees to be able to conduct layoffs of form Y, and right now they have X minus one, so they want to hire someone to reach the X threshold and then lay off others, or something like that.

      1. doreen*

        In the US, such laws generally work the other way around – for example, employers with X number of full-time employees have to provide Y days notice of layoff/shutdowns affecting more than a specified number/percentage of employees. If they have X-1 employees, those rules don’t apply.

    12. Notmyusualname*

      I think it is more along the lines of what we had where someone had protection and could only be laid off for redundancy, economy. So they hired a 2nd someone to do the same job and after a few months declared a reduction in force. As soon as #1 was gone, #2 mysteriously left and they never reopened the position. It was kind of clear that was part of the deal #2 had made.

  4. Charlie*

    I interpreted #4 differently: the way I read it was that a company hires Jane, claims now that they have Jane in the position she can take over John’s job duties and they don’t need him anymore and can justify laying him off, and then once John is gone Jane leaves since her whole schtick is repeating this pattern.

    If that’s what you meant, LW, I’d rethink it – seems quite convoluted as a business plan. But I might be misunderstanding!

    1. Cogitator*

      Also I don’t get what advantage there would be over hiring someone who actually does the same job as John and having them just stay.

      2. JM60*

        The purpose may be to hire someone at a lower salary to fire someone who you were paying a higher salary. Employers sometimes do it when the job market favors employers and candidates are desperate.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yes, but that would be the business case for having Jane *replace* John as Graphic Designer. I don’t see a business case for hiring Jane as Graphic Designer just to lay off John as Graphic Designer *when you plan to then fire Jane*, leaving no one as Graphic Designer.

          That’s just making John’s position as Graphic Designer redundant with so many extra steps (and paying unemployment for two employees, now).

    2. WS*

      It would be much easier (in a UK or Australian workplace, anyway) just to make the position redundant, so you can make John redundant. I’ve done this (we had a single-person satellite office in a smaller town, it didn’t work out) and it’s legally very straightforward if there’s no similar position to move that person to.

      1. Emmy Noether*

        Yes, if the goal is to have no-one in that position, simply letting John go “because of redundancy” is the straightforward way. Redundant doesn’t have to mean it’s being done twice (the way “redundant wording” usually means the same thing is said twice). It just means superfluous, or no longer needed. Jane is not needed for this plan (one could even say she’s redundant).

        What is illegal in a lot of places is to let John go “because of redundancy”, and two days later hire Jane (permanently) into that position. You have to actually eliminate the position long term for the “redundancy” reason to count. I’m not entirely sure how reversing the order would be seen. If it’s too close together (create a second llama groomer position, hire Jane, a week later “oops, only need one llama groomer after all”, fire John) it might be too obviously trying to skirt the law, and therefore also illegal. If you hire Jane and then let both Jane and John go, that wouldn’t be illegal, just pointless.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah, if the OP means redundancy in the UK sense, then the best way to make it illegal is to hire someone else for the position; hiring someone else proves the position is necessary to the business and therefore not redundant. Eliminating a position is totally legit though.

        2. londonedit*

          Yep, in the UK the *position* is made redundant, not the *person* in that role. So you can’t say you need to make the position of Assistant Llama Groomer redundant to cut costs, and then two months later hire someone in the position of Assistant Llama Groomer.

          I read the question as being more ‘can we hire someone to come in and do the work of making people redundant’, and I’m not really sure whether that would work in UK law – though presumably that person would know that their job would be to come in and fire people and then leave? So I guess as long as they know that and their employment is all done by the book then it would be fine? But what you can definitely do is hire a consultancy firm to come in and look for where costs could be cut and things made more efficient, and they might well recommend redundancies as part of that. They might even do the actual work of determining which positions to make redundant and then doing the consultation and announcements to staff etc.

          1. bamcheeks*

            I think this is actually pretty common/- in my most recent job search I was looking at jobs at the project-lead, head of, deputy/assistant director level in areas that bordered on HR and organisational development, transformation etc, and I saw quite a few university jobs that were clearly, “pls come and restructure our organisational chart”. Most of them were open-ended jobs, but a few were fixed term for 12, 18 or 24 months on the expectation that there was a specific timescale already in mind. They tend to be somewhat circumspectly worded because “oh, HR is hiring someone to restructure, guess redundancies are on the horizon” isn’t a great look. But it is a truth universally acknowledged that you’re never more than 4 years away from a restructure in HE anyway.

            I genuinely can’t think of any reason why this wouldn’t be allowed, and I’m wondering how LW had got the impression it would be. If you live somewhere where fixed term contracts are allowed and redundancies are allowed, why would you not be allowed to hire someone in the former to do the latter?

            1. londonedit*

              Yes, that was my thinking – presumably you’d present the job as ‘coming in to oversee a restructuring of our llama grooming department’ and the role would be explained as such, and it would be understood that it’s a fixed-term contract until the restructure is complete. I don’t think there’d be a practical way of doing it without the person coming in knowing that it was a short-term thing (I mean, surely even if you for some reason didn’t say so, I’m sure they’d guess that once the redundancy process was complete, their role itself would then be redundant?) and I don’t really see a reason for a company to do that (it would be quite odd to hire someone and make them think it was a permanent role, and then get rid of them once they’d done whatever task you wanted them to do – and I’m not sure that would be entirely above board from a legal perspective, although I suppose really you can fairly easily sack people or make them redundant without too much recourse within the first two years).

              Basically, in terms of writing it into a novel, I think the easiest thing would be for the character to be a consultant who’s brought in on a contract basis to oversee a round of redundancies.

          2. EvilQueenRegina*

            Exjob once filled posts with temps for a year before they were able to rehire for the positions – the manager in place at the time was too hands off, didn’t spend enough time with us to know what actually went on on the ground and what we all actually did, and after our then-chief exec told her she needed to make savings, a structure got approved that cut quite a few posts.

            However, it soon became apparent that actually, ex-manager had cut too many posts. (This was an admin team for children’s social care, and the cuts had led to an unsafe level of service). Ex-manager was removed from post after a few months, temps were quickly brought in and a year after the original botched restructure, another restructure was drawn up and new people were hired to take over the jobs.

        3. Lexi Vipond*

          Yes, this is what I started trying to say earlier.

          It seems unlikely that there’s a law that specifically says you can’t recruit a second person to do something, then decide after a while that you only need one person and keep the better performer, only to have that person leave of their own accord. But if it starts to look like you did it all just to get rid of John, that’s when it might get you in trouble of some kind.

          1. Cyrano*

            It’s also pointless: if you let the second person go after they’ve displaced the employee you really want to fire…you didn’t need anyone doing the job at all, so you could indeed make the role redundant, safely and legally. I can’t think of a situation where you’d need to engage in that kind of subterfuge – either it wouldn’t be necessary or it wouldn’t work, even within a plausibly recognisable fiction.

            It’s a guess, but I think the letter writer may have got some other fact slightly mangled, maybe about the legality of firing and rehiring or other redundancy practices, and internalised it as ‘you can’t hire someone to carry out firings’. But this kind of Efficiencies Consultant, Interim HR Specialist or however else you’d like to dress it up is very much a thing.

            1. Lexi Vipond*

              Well, you could recruit into Jane’s empty post once it *was* empty, or she might be willing to stay for a few months while you recruited. But if you want rid of John that badly, it seems unlikely that there’s not something you can genuinely discipline him for.

    3. I should really pick a name*

      That was my first thought, but then that leaves them with no one doing the job.

      Why not just skip the middle man and lay off John because the job isn’t nedded anymore?

    4. BW*

      I was let go after 25 years because “my position was eliminated.” There was no need to hire someone else and then fire me because of redundancy.

      1. Gobstopper*

        Yeah, I think this is a “two countries separated by a common language” issue. In the UK, “made redundant” is a common phrase that just means “laid off” or “the position was eliminated,” not that there were two people duplicating the job or any other kind of literal redundancy.

  5. Ashley Armbruster*

    Yes, LW2, leave that org if you can for a better place!

    I’ve dealt with a few Sanfords before, but I’m surprised he left. I wonder why?

    1. Artemesia*

      I have often seen non profits hire high level management by the old boy’s network and put gross incompetents who had stunk up one organization right up there near the top of theirs. It is one of the. mysteries of life.

      1. MK*

        In my experience (and I have spent part of my career investigating similar cases), there is usually some payoff at some area that a regular employee/coworker of the incompetent person cannot know. Systems like the old boy’s network aren’t really about doing favours simply out of favouritism, it’s about trading “favours”; often these people bring something of value to the company. Also, and this isn’t a reference to OP who I am sure knows their situation best, often it’s a case of “gross incompetence with an asterisk”, in that the problem coworker generally sucks but is great at one thing that makes them valuable (and their exasperated coworkers are unwilling or unable to acknowledge that, not unnaturally). Last case I looked into, the person was everything their coworkers complained about, but she was also responsible for 50% of the company’s sales, and the others didn’t want to believe that. Not that it’s a good idea to retain a problematic employee because they perform well in one area, but still, it’s not a mystery why the company kept them on.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          And sometimes it’s just the perception (by the decision makers) of them being valuable, no actual value. Some people are skilled at selling themselves and nothing else.

          And sometimes the favours being traded are not about the company at all. Keeping the in-group in power is a self-interest goal of its own. John will promote Michael over Aaliyah because that way there’s less competition above the glass ceiling for John and John Junior as well.

          1. Cabbagepants*

            The hell of it is that many organizations don’t know how to evaluate talent and so “big talker who impresses your management” is the only basis for evaluation.

            1. Sloanicota*

              Eh, I hate to say it, but at least in my field, Sanford may be legitimately valuable just due to a few key “connections.” Think, he went to school (maybe … Stanford?) with a key senator or aide on an appropriations bill we all care about, or he’s a nephew of a reliable major donor. At least this is why I’ve always seen good ole boys “failing up.” However, the move is to make him a department of one with no ability to muck around in anything important.

              1. TeaCoziesRUs*

                This reminds me of a favorite villain in a Judith Krantz novel (I’ll Take Manhattan)! He goes to an excellent school – where his grades are mediocre, but his skill in sports and charisma gives him Influential Friends. He gets hired at a bank, where his only job is to wine and dine the elite of his friends and their friends, letting investments over to their bank. He’s an absolute sleezeball, but he keeps that job until he takes over his brother’s successful magazine empire. If you can handle the 80s and 90s of it all, it’s a fun read. :)

            2. Tenebrae*

              I used to work for a woman both cruel and deeply incompetent. The higher ups never seemed to notice that nothing got done because the one thing she was great at was marketing herself (and finding other places to assign blame for failure).
              Similarly, she left for another position because she believed her own hype and was apparently fired within six months.

            3. Lenora Rose*

              There’s a reason why in a lot of technical fields, the people who do the work want to be part of the hiring team if possible, and to require a practical test if not; they do not trust management to actually recognize the difference between a person* who is confident because they know the work and a person who is just confident.

              * let’s be honest, the person who sounds confident but doesn’t know the work is most liable to be an able bodied cishet white man.

              1. Lenora Rose*

                (I guarantee someone reading the above is going to try and misread it to assume this means I think all able-bodied cishet white men (ABCHWM) are incompetent, which is not even slightly the case.

                Rather, a specific subset of ABCHWM have been socialized and taught that they’ve earned things if they just want them, and that “Fake it till you make it” is fine even for highly technical jobs which require concrete knowledge in the door. This subset are a great annoyance to everyone — including the subset of capable ABCHWM who know how to do the work.

                And yes, there are cases of women, disabled, gay, BIPOC or etc etc ETC also imitating this confidence, but fewer, and it grows much less likely the further the person is from ABCHWM — not due to any inherent traits, but due to social assumptions, and increased scrutiny by workplaces, and increased likelihood mistakes will be remembered and catalogued, not brushed off.)

              2. MigraineMonth*

                High-level, this is how stereotype threat works:
                – People who are assumed to be good at X will pursue careers in X if they’re below-average, average, above-average or brilliant at X.
                – People who are assumed to be bad at X will only pursue careers in X if they’re above-average or brilliant. Otherwise it’s just too hard to compete, because you have to contend with internalized bias, hiring manager’s bias, and other candidates.

                It’s nearly impossible to skate past on confidence alone if you don’t fit the expectations, as any woman or black man who’s been challenged to a tech skills quiz for daring to wear a Linux t-shirt can tell you.

                1. Emmy Noether*

                  I didn’t know there was a name for this! It’s long been my pet theory as to why the women physicists I know are so much better on average than the men physicists.

        2. Not That Kind of Doctor*

          One of my agency-life survival tactics is to tell myself that whichever apparently useless client contact is making my job difficult on any given day must be really, really good at some other aspect of their job that I never see. It’s a real mental stretch with some of them.

        3. LW2*

          MK, really good insight and very close to reality. Sanford is a champion sweet-talker, remembers details, and makes genuine connections with community members right off the bat. When he was under another department, with a boss that kept him on-task and followed up on results, he brought many donors and volunteers into the organization.

          However, once the boss was gone and before the promotion, his natural lack of follow-up, ability to meet deadlines, or to do much work at all consistently made our biggest fundraiser of the year a series of crises that we (read: I) had to work overtime to solve. After this fiasco, he was promoted. And since then, he has brought in maybe 2 or 3 donors in the span of 2 years, at a level that I do not think even covers his salary.

    2. Metal Gru*

      “I’m surprised he left. I wonder why?”

      My take on it is he genuinely believes he deserved those promotions, doesn’t see a problem with his behavior, and has convinced another company of his worth… probably he’s the type who gets by in life through schmoozing and “networking”.

      I’ve seen a few instances of this where someone was promoted out of their league due to the “boys’ club”, golf buddies or whatever, moves on to a similar level position elsewhere that has genuine expectations, falls on their face.

      1. Zombeyonce*

        He definitely didn’t see a problem with his behavior; after all, he exhibited it for a long time and was promoted! That’s a feature of this company, not a bug.

      2. LW2*

        LW2 here – I like your phrase of “genuine expectations.” I’m not sure he had any within our organization, given his job was created for him. You’re spot-on on the schmoozing.

  6. Insert Punny Name*

    @Alison, I read Letter 5 differently (but you may have additional context). I think they are asking whether it’s illegal to make a new position and hire someone simply so another person/role can subsequently be rendered redundant, particularly if the company has no intention on keeping the new person and/or new role.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      If so — also legal in the U.S., as long as you’re not getting rid of the first person for illegal reasons (like because of their race or disability).

      1. Patty O. Furniture*

        What about hiring several people with the intent to only keep one ultimately, using the employee probationary period to make the decision? The hires are of course unaware. I presume this is just horrible, but not illegal, but could the hires sue?

        3. Dancing Otter*

          That’s a lot like the basic model of the auditing profession. Hire a lot of new grads; up or out every year (maybe two, depending on next year’s crop).
          When I was at Coopers & Lybrand (now part of PWC) in the 90’s, they expected at least half of each year’s cohort to be gone within one or two years.

  7. Cheap ass rolling with it*

    LW3 — malicious compliance!

    CYA and document everything your new manager says and follow it to the letter. Let chips fall where they may; if/when are messed up, I expect upper management will begrudgingly recommend returning back to old ways.

    1. glt on wry*

      Unfortunately, in the food industry, you’d be out on your ass. This industry doesn’t have the same protections as white-collar jobs.

      1. Zombeyonce*

        It depends on their exact employer. Many grocery stores have unions, which may protect LW if she’s a member.

    2. commensally*

      In a situation like this, malicious compliance is often the same as compliance compliance, but powered by spite. So, yes – do what your manager says, and make sure it’s on the record that you are doing so. If it’s really significantly worse, the drop in quality/productivity will be noticed eventually, and your best positioning at that point is to make it clear it wasn’t due to intractable staff.

      Generally, once the manager has been there a few months, either you’ll get enough used to the changes that you’ll decide you can deal with them, or the manager will adapt to the staff enough that they will be a lot more amenable to listening to your advice, or it will be clear enough that they’re not ideal that you can then quietly propose “new strategies” (that are the old strategies”) in a way that makes it seem like they’re the boss’s idea. Good luck.

    3. Amber*

      I like this idea thank you. There has been some new direction with this issue since I have written this letter. Upper management has seen the problems that have been come about from the changes the assistant manager has made and have worked to change them back if not better than what they were to bring back our efficiency.

    4. Limm*

      I’m sorry but malicious complaisance is terrible advice for a minimum wage supermarket job.

      Some jobs are simply about showing up and doing what you’re told. They just are.

      A minimum wage supermarket shelf stacker saying “I’ve allowed my boss to make management decisions so far but…” is a GARGANTUAN red flag. She’s the boss. You get to “allow” her to do anything.

      There is no power struggle here. Just one person unable to understand the reality of casual manual labour jobs.

      1. Former grocery store cashier*

        The OP said they work in a store bakery. They are not a stocker, they are doing skilled work baking for the store. And they probably have a lot of pressure on them to produce a high volume of baked goods, so the managers changes are having a big impact on their ability to do their job well. I can definitely understand their frustration. They are in a tough spot where they don’t have control over how they do their work but may still be held responsible for a negative outcome (like not being able to bake all the products on time). I don’t think denigrating the work of people who have jobs in grocery stores is helpful. A lot of “manual labor” jobs actually require a lot of skill and are more difficult than people think.

      2. Sacred Ground*

        Bakers are not casual manual labor jobs. If you doubt that, try to hire one at minimum wage.

  8. Nodramalama*

    LW3 a lot of people, including me, are reluctant to accept change when they think their current system is working. But it sounds like maybe you’ve been starting from a position that the changes are bad. If you operate from a good faith position or even an agnostic one then the changes can just play themselves out.

    I also think ignoring the changes and treating it like a power struggle is a mistake. For better or worse, she is in charge.

    1. MK*

      The bigger problem is that OP is starting from the position that she has to agree to any changes. The phrasing about allowing the changes to go on is particularly telling.

      1. The Cosmic Avenger*

        And changing them back right away without saying anything to the manager. I would have pointed out specifics like “we keep this product over here because we have to use the slicer on that side of the department” or “these ingredients are needed over here more often than over there”, and then ASK to move them back. Not trying to discuss it and understanding why the manager did what they did is making them look bad, IMO. The manager definitely had a reason, and the LW doesn’t even know if it was a good one or not. (Even if not, knowing the reason can help you convince them to try it your way, if you can find another way to address that reason.)

      2. Amber*

        I suppose allowing was the incorrect term. I simply meant I have dealt with the changes for a while now. I have had numerous conversations with this person as to understand why she is making those changes as well as tried discussing why we have had things a certain way for our efficency. she refuses to hear any of it or even speak like an adult about that issue.

    2. Chance*

      The changes are less efficient and have made a mess. The LW isn’t just in a position where they don’t like change, they are writing after bad results from bad changes.

      1. boof*

        I’m taking the LW at their word that they think things are a mess/worse, but no context as to why their manager made these changes and whether they’ve tried to roll with them for long – I’m not even sure what the changes are (ie, rearranging ingredients on the shelves – would be really annoying but I think you’d probably get used to it eventually vs can say “hey, we always use sugar and flower together, can we put them back near each other” etc etc

        1. Amber*

          so I have rolled with the changes for a while. It’s not so much as the ingredients she’s just moving around on a shelf. we have two sides to our bakery as well as a back area to keep our backup containers and things etc. we keep smaller stacks of containers near our area of decorating so that we don’t have to take a walk 200 times a day to get the container we need on a regular basis. Or the extra icing buckets stacked so high that they fall on our shins because they are on a moving cart.

        2. Edwina*

          It would be helpful if the new manager had talked with the team at the beginning to find out how things are currently being done and why. And if changes needed to be made for whatever reason, the new manager could have explained why.

      2. doreen*

        I believe the OP that they believe the results are inefficient and make a mess- but that doesn’t mean it’s true or that there aren’t factors important to the manager that the LW is ignoring. I worked someplace where employees hated change – and they never saw a change that made the situation better/more /efficient less expensive. Just as an example, in one location , all the “mail” going outside the organization was sent via UPS. Even a single envelope with a sheet of paper that didn’t need second day or overnight service. Mail going to our main office was picked up by courier and brought to the main office. Turned out the reason everything was sent UPS was because there was no postage meter at that location. Eventually someone figured that out and changed the procedure so that most mail was sent to the main office to go through the postage meter. The staff complained. Because now, they had to determine what needed overnight or second day service and what didn’t and that was more work for them and therefore less efficient. The fact that each UPS envelope cost $5 minimum didn’t matter to them.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          But it sounds like OP asked the new manager the reason for the changes and the new manager basically refused to give any reason? And OP also told the new person why they other things had efficiencies and the manager also didn’t have a response for that? If it were like your example, I’d expect the manager to say “the old way is too expensive, even if it was easier for you”, but that’s not what seems to be happening?

          1. Doreen*

            The letter doesn’t actually say that no one has ever given the LW a reason for the change , just that the assistant manager is not receptive to discussing the issue and the LW didn’t get any help from the bakery manager or store manager. It might be that no one has given a reason – or it might be that the LW doesn’t accept the reason given. Can’t tell from the letter – but I can tell that I have seen more than one situation where explaining to people that the new way was less expensive got a response of “ it’s not like it’s coming out of your pocket” so obviously explaining often isn’t enough.

    3. Michigander*

      I’m not sure this would qualify as a power struggle because, well, the LW clearly has less power than her manager. It’s not really a struggle when she has the power to fire you if you don’t comply with the rules.

      1. bamcheeks*

        It depends how united the staff are. That’s the point of unions, of course, but it’s true informally too. If the whole team or department disagrees with a manager and is willing to keep fighting, the power to hire and fire is a lot less useful than if it’s just one person.

        1. DJ Abbott*

          OP knows their own situation best of course , but the grocery and retail stores I’ve worked at see employees as interchangeable parts. They would be more likely to fire all the employees and hire others, then to allow employees to dictate to management.

          1. Fíriel*

            True – I will only add that this low-level manager is probably not particularly important to the corporate behemoth either.

          2. Joana*

            Experienced this once- it didn’t actually happen, but threatened. Air conditioner kept breaking in the middle of summer. Corporate told the owner (franchise) that she had to close the store when it does so. AC breaks and lo and behold, store owner would rather ruin product (it was a sandwich shop, so much melted cheese and wilted veggies) and make us suffer than give up on some profit. One of the workers called it in and corporate called her to say if she kept the store open they’d revoke her franchise license.

            She brought all of us into the back room and screamed at us that she’d fire us all, close for a week and rehire a new staff. Also something about “all she does for us.”

            Yeah she was absolutely unhinged and I’m surprised that place hasn’t burned to the ground.

        2. Michigander*

          From the letter, I get the impression that the staff maybe all agree that the changes are for the worse but only LW is trying to fight it.

      2. Amber*

        they don’t really fire anyone there. They simply cut your hours to the point you quit. I said power struggle meaning that the bakery manager has allowed us or asked us to make changes after this assistant manager has initially changed things and she goes behind that and changes it again because she feels like she being undermined in “her department”. The thing is that this grocery company is owned by their employees so it’s all of our dept.

        1. Freya*

          That’s called constructive dismissal, here in Australia – it’s when the employer didn’t say you were fired, but their behaviour forced you to leave your employment.

    4. DJ Abbott*

      It can be hard to let go of the idea that you know best about your own work, but management in food and retail often sees employees as easily replaceable.
      LW, very few things are worth risking your job. Let management do what they want to do unless it reaches the point of endangering health and safety. It’s their mess, not yours. Let management make the mess, and let them clean it up.

      2. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, this is where I have to recite the personal work mantra, “I can’t care about these things more than my bosses do.”

    5. LaminarFlow*

      In these situations, I typically think it is best to just roll with the changes. As Alison pointed out, the power hierarchy is in play, and things that a manager does will usually win (regardless of how stupid, redundant, or just plain ridiculous they are). Also, there may be pressure from upper management to implement these changes. While it would be awesome if the manager is transparent about that part, they might not want to be/might not think it is a professional thing to do.

      Eventually, the changes that the manger implements will either show the gaps in their process, or they will bring successful change. If it is the former, taking the attitude of “Hey, Manager, would you like me to walk you through our process before you joined the team?” and being a genuinely helpful resource who wants to help can build trust. If it is the latter, acknowledge that you were wrong to make such a snap judgement, and that these changes are working out well. That also builds trust.

      Remember LW: you are still getting paid, and unless these changes are wildly out of whack with your job duties/putting you or others in danger, who cares? Roll with it, and choose to care less.

      1. Amber*

        I can’t care less if I have a good work ethic and I take pride in my work as well as have ownership of my work. All of the employees own this company therfore some of us would like to see it succeed. Store management doesn’t agree with the changes, they just don’t want to handle it. they want the head of the dept to handle it. Since writing this letter there have already been thingsbthat have changed back to the way they were.

    6. appo*

      Yeah that was my first reaction. I know I’ve had new managers change things but after getting over my annoyance, they usually either had a point or it really didn’t impact my end results to do it their way.

      Of course if it’s endangering staff/against health code/etc then speak up but otherwise these usually aren’t the hills to die on.

  9. Chirpy*

    LW 3: sometimes it works better to go along with the new changes, so that when a problem inevitably comes up, you can figure out a better way to suggest the other way of doing things as a solution. For example, at my old location, we put loose “teapot lids” in a big assorted bin in the warehouse. At my new location, my new department head didn’t like this idea when I floated it. But the “teapot lids” come in small boxes of 6, and it’s annoying to have a bunch of half-empty boxes on the shelf. So I did it her way for a while, then came up with a slightly modified solution: two smaller assorted bins – let’s say one is for “square lids” and one for “round”. Instead of emptying all partial boxes into a giant bin like before, now I only put the last 1-2 from a box in the assorted bin. It keeps her happier, but also still solves the problem of a bunch of nearly empty boxes cluttering the shelf.

    You do have to make a decent effort to follow the new way in order for this to work, though. And sometimes, the new way isn’t so bad once you figure out the logic. So it’s a case by case situation.

    1. Ellis Bell*

      I think it’s tempting in a power struggle to decide there’s only two ways of doing things; the boss’s way and the original way that had been figured out by staff. I take OP’s point that their way was working, and the boss’ way is not, even after giving it a fair shake. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a third, fourth or even fifth way of organising things, and the boss may try some or all of them before deciding on the one they eventually like. It’s worth asking some respectful questions, or just keeping an open mind, about what the new manager is going for; does she need it a certain way for one of her job duties? Has she been told to do it? If you know what the end result needs to be from her perspective, you’ll have better luck at suggesting alternatives. But, OP needs to stop going rogue. Only a fool gets involved in a power struggle with a manager, even an inept one. Even if you’re sure that it’s completely due to inexperience and that the system they have set up will fail; just let them fail. You’ve said your piece.

      1. Mockingjay*

        It took me a long time to understand that regardless of the task, the pay is the same. Meaning I’m paid to do what I’m told. Heck, most managers are paid to do what someone higher up told them.

        The conflict is because most of us are conscientious about our work and take pride in doing it well, or at least efficiently. I had to stop thinking of process change as “right” or “wrong.” Instead, it’s just a different way to do things. New method may not be as efficient, but it’s still a process that we’re paid to do. I also had to accept that at work, I’m not always going to know the “why” a process has been changed. Knowing why might help me accept the process change, but I don’t need to know in order to do my job.

      2. Amber*

        I did try to have numerous conversations with her about the changes. She didn’t want to speak about it. I was only put in the middle of the power struggle because of upper management. the assistant would change something, upper management would allow me to change it back. Then she would change it back, when I would try to tell her that upper management asked me to or allowed me to change it she would say I don’t care and continue doing what she was doing. She would keep throwing out there that she would write the person up that would change it but would never have a conversation about it.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          That’s pretty interesting and I see your frustration; I would definitely characterise her as fairly inept/new to management. A good immediate manager would explain what they need from you and why, but even if she’s terrible at her job, she’s still your superior. I wouldn’t characterise upper management as much better. If they were concerned about what you said they should have talked to her about undoing her own actions and held her to it. It’s not reasonable to put it on you. Based on that my advice would be to pay more attention to upper management’s actions, and less to their words – if they’re not actively managing her or telling her to stop, they’re effectively okay with her continuing as she likes.

          1. Ellis Bell*

            So, just saw your more recent updates and it seems that upper management is walking the walk as well as talking the talk. Great news!

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      I think this is a good strategy. Also Ellis Bell’s point about not getting locked into “There are two ways to do this…” Often there are 17 ways.

    3. Merry and Bright*

      I worked overnights for three years as a stocker at a large company. The company rotated the assistant managers on and off of night shifts once a year, so every January we would get a new assistant manager who wanted the stockers to change our process of working to something more “efficient”. So we changed it, and a month later when our completion rates dropped, the assistant manager would have us change it back to the original process that actually was efficient.

      I only experienced this three times, but some of my colleagues had been working there for decades and told me they had experienced this phenomenon for their entire career. For a lot of managers who don’t do the job, they don’t understand why what you are doing is efficient, and they will only listen to performance data, not experienced employees.

      1. Grenelda Thurber*

        This happens a lot in every organization I’ve worked for. It seems like every new manager has to p**s all over everything so everyone knows who’s “the law around these parts.” I always thought the best approach would be to try to understand why things are the way they are, maybe even talk to the people doing the work, and then make changes. A silly example: every new CTO my company gets has to change the password change policy because…reasons. We’ve gone back and forth between shorter passwords that have to be updated every three months and longer pass phrases that only have to be changed once a year at least 5 times. Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, but it’s starting to feel gratuitous.

  10. Higher-ed Jessica*

    LW2, Alison is exactly right. You didn’t have a Sanford problem, you had a leadership problem, of which Sanford was the most painful and irritating symptom. Just because this symptom randomly cleared up on its own doesn’t mean the underlying affliction has been treated or cured. Flee!

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yeah, I left my previous job at a nonprofit specifically because of a Sanford, who was in a c-level position and our CEO, who of course had hired Sanford, either didn’t see or didn’t care that Sanford was a liar, manipulator, and didn’t do a lick of work. It took me a bit to realize Sanford was a nightmare – turns out all of her annoying, condescending bluster right out of the gate was, indeed, the red flag it seemed to be – and once I did I kept hoping that they’d fire Sanford, but once I realized they weren’t going to, I lost all faith in leadership there and quickly found a new job that pays me 40% more than what I made at the NP. So, to quote Alison, I realized I didn’t just have a coworker problem, I also had a management problem.

      1. LW2*

        LW2 here – I hate to hear that this is not uncommon in nonprofits. I actually really like my CEO other than the lack of people management, and the work we do is great… But the management problem is A Problem.

    2. LW2*

      LW2 here. Picturing Sanford as a rash of some sort has me in stitches!! Y’all have really good ways of clearing things up for me (no pun intended).

  11. Metal Gru*

    Letter 3 – assistant manager making changes.

    What did the store manager say when you spoke to them?

    The problem at the moment is that you keep changing things back (without any further discussion?). From the assistant manager’s perspective the letter would be like this: “I’ve recently made some changes to the bakery area because of [reasons]. Most people are going along with it but I have one team member who disagrees, and every time I’m not there keeps putting things back to the old way which we then have to undo. I don’t want to fire them as they are a good worker apart from this but this situation can’t go on, what can I do?”.

    If the changes are really detrimental, this will become obvious. I would document the discussions you’ve already had (and any future ones) and then let this play out. Whatever the consequences are, and whoever calls you on them, link it back to those changes (where relevant). Situations like this often resolve themselves once the consequences start happening.

    1. glt on wry*

      I really sympathize with OP#3. I know what it’s like to have a routine or a system on the floor and then have someone elbow in and try to change it. When that ‘someone’ is clueless, it really makes the changes even worse.

      So, does the assistant manager have experience in the industry? If so, there may be valid reasons this person wants these changes, and you will see the outcome later. If not, I agree that it would be aggravating to have to adhere to someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

      It’s hard to adapt to a new routine, especially when you have something that you know works. But you might have to accept that it’s not your job to decide about changes and roll with it for now. Until, of course, management finds out it’s inefficient (this will happen, if what you say about your preferred protocols is true). So, hang in there, and maybe eventually management will see that you’re right.

      Ultimately, I wouldn’t get your shorts in a knot about this particular place. It’s not worth the stress. If management isn’t listening to you, trust in your skills and start looking to move on. You have the skills and the motivation — take it somewhere that will appreciate it.

      1. Lenora Rose*

        Humans are amazingly bad at telling the difference between “Doing it this way is annoying right now because it break my habits but if I stick with it, it will be good in the long term” and “doing it this way is genuinely worse overall”. In almost all cases, unless it’s actively endangering health or safety, the only way to know for sure is to try it for 2-3 months (This is the average length of time needed to ingrain a new habit over an old one) and come back to it from an informed position.

        Think about how many stories we’ve had of people having meltdowns over patently GOOD change, or change which hurt almost no-one (remember the “phones with 2 fewer auto-dial slots” story?) We know we’re bad at this when we look at others melting down, but also bad at noticing when we’re doing it too.

        2. fhqwhgads*

          Yeah, it’s like “is this hard because it’s not what my muscle memory wants” or is it “this way is hard because it makes every employee walk back and forth across the workspace 6 times, but the old way we could stand in one spot and reach everything”.

      2. Insert Clever Name Here*

        OP has commented a few times as Amber — sounds like the assistant manager won’t engage in conversation about the changes, which are things like stacking items so high on moving carts that they fall when you try to get them and moving frequently used items away from the area where they’re frequently used.

  12. Difficult*

    I am struggling a bit with the answer for #1. This is a situation with so much power differential. What kind of leverage does LW actually have if they do not want to give notice or are required to stay with the company to have flight costs/travel costs covered when then go back?

    1. mm*

      perhaps I am too much of a corporate bootlicker, but in this economy and with little leverage, i would not put up too much fight about this. if i am understanding correctly LW1 h as their own bedroom and bathroom which means as much privacy as they can get in this situation. it’s only 3 months and the risk for making too much a deal about this is way too high

      1. duinath*

        Three months is a long time to be living with your boss, especially after you’ve told them (via higher ups) it’s not okay and they’ve flat out ignored you.

        How do you think that bodes, for how that boss will act for those three months? I don’t see being comfortable in that house for a weekend, let alone *three months*.

        I would go back to the boss and say, “as I told (boss’ boss) I really am not okay living with my direct supervisor (or whatever is applicable) any longer than I already have. I’m wondering if that fell through the cracks, somehow? We do need to find a different living arrangement for me if I’m to stay for the three months.”

        1. airport gemstone*

          I’m surprised the boss is ok with this too. Imagine trying to be intimate with your partner and you have to worry about your subordinate hearing.

        2. mm*

          I wouldn’t take the risk and I would be afraid that making too big a deal about this will be seen as focusing on something frivolous or worse throwing a tantrum. Is it right? No. But do you want to be jobless and right or inconvenienced and employed? That’s not a gamble I want to play.

          1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

            I like how you are posing and answering your own questions here. I feel like you are revealing how you would manage. You are really quick to jump to extremes like “frivolous” and “tantrum”. Adults having a conversation is not a tantrum. You could certainly flounce around and scream, but you can also act like a professional.

            Please stop threatening the OP’s job with your fear mongering. You don’t know her situation and you have no reason to think she will be fired for raising a reasonable concern.

            1. BadMitten*

              I also think mm is incorrect, but I read it as them coming from a toxic workplace or just other general bad life experiences.

              mm, you might want to read some old posts about toxic workplaces—it’s not the norm for people to be fired or disciplined for this.

      2. Honey*

        I agree. It’s not ideal but I’d suck it up by staying in my room and own area after work. On days off, I’d sightsee.

      3. LingNerd*

        It’s not quite the same, but for a time I was both working for and living with my mom. 80+ hour weeks, too, and OP mentioned 72-hour weeks. It was terrible. It’s really important to be able to decompress when you’re working that much and it’s very hard to decompress when you’re around someone basically 24/7 and there’s a power imbalance. Three months is a long time to not be able to properly relax.

        And then you throw in that it’s not just their boss, but their boss’s husband too. And again with the long hours they’re working, either those two will have to way tone down a lot of normal spouse things, or OP will likely witness a lot of it. Which is kinda weird with coworkers, but very weird with your boss! And by normal spouse things, I mean stuff like talking unfiltered about your day, minor arguments, and casual intimacy like cuddling and flirting

        1. Zombeyonce*

          It’s also bringing in a very unpleasant power differential, which is not what you want with roommates. If there’s a common roommate issue, like someone not keeping up with dishes, LW is not only outvoted because there are 2 people automatically united against her by virtue of their marriage, but one is her boss and already outranks her in their day-to-day lives. It’s a nightmare of a situation.

          1. Hannah Lee*

            Yeah, that’s a really good point.

            If it were just LW and her boss sharing an apartment, there may be some way to make it work even if it weren’t ideal. But throw in the boss’s husband and suddenly LW is 100% in a “one down” position not just because of the work hierarchy, but also as the odd-person out in a 3 person household.

            In the best of cases, with plenty of space and everyone being really respectful of each other as humans, that would be a tough situation. And this is not the best of cases, as the boss/husband have made clear with their cavalier approach to OP’s housing for this LT assignment.

            They are just moving LW around like a chess piece into whatever bedroom is convenient for them, without ANY consideration for how that might impact LW, and refusing to acknowledge that “you’ll be sharing a 2 bedroom flat with a peer co-worker” vs “you’ll be sharing a 2 bedroom flat with your boss … AND your boss’s husband who is also in a position of authority at your employer” are 2 VERY different things which much more pressure on LW 24 x 7 is just another example of that. The risk to LW that a minor, normal roommate squabble could bleed negatively into her work life, or that she’ll be expected to always be in work mode are … not zero.
            If it were me and I had any other options, I would push back hard on this

      4. TerrorCotta*

        Yeah, I very much think “this is the job, you either accept they said no, or you go home.”

        It’s a start-up that brought their entire staff to a foreign country for an extended period, expecting 72 hour work weeks, and communal living for ALL the staff. They don’t care about your well being!

        The two condos were clearly intended for the higher-ups, boss and co-worker spouse got one, grand-boss got the other (presumably as a late addition), and then they each gave the spare room to another employee of an acceptable gender/rank/whatever.

        The BOSSES chose who they wanted in their rooms. You can certainly offer to go to the communal housing IF there is still room, but the grand-boss said to suck it up for a reason. He’s not going to kick your boss and her spouse out of their apartment, nor does he want to room with you. Unless you have mega-leverage here, they’re not going to get a third condo or hotel for you.

        At BEST you could maybe ask if anyone in the communal housing wants to swap. But ultimatums about life-work balance are clearly pointless and detrimental (to the job, at least) here!

      5. Jennifer Juniper*

        If the LW is female, I’m wondering if boss and spouse think they can use her as an unpaid cook/housekeeper/personal assistant when she’s not at the job.

    2. Sloanicota*

      I agreed I thought it looked a bit bleak for OP there. If it were me, I’d probably focus on strategies that create as much as a firewall – physically and mentally – as possible between me and the boss and spouse (how’s the spouse by the way, they’re not really a work colleague?) rather than keep pushing this when I feel they’ve gotten a clear answer. But I’m a bit too mousey at work sometimes. I’ve just seen situations where a seemingly reasonable request, persisted on, made the employer turn on the employee in ways that were unrecoverable. Remember the fundraiser who wanted to book her own hotel conference room? I’ll have to dig for that letter as an example of what I mean.

      1. TeaCoziesRUs*

        The dose also is a coworker on some level, as they also work at the company.

        OP, would you be willing to live in the dorms with your coworker? If so, why not offer that as an option? If you need your own space / room / bathroom, what ways can you separate yourself from your boss? I.E. Can you work different shifts, or stagger your schedule so you have time alone in the house? Can you set up your room to be a cozy nest – which, granted, takes a toll on your sleep, but at least gives you a space to BE?

        Also, 72 hours a week is not feasible long-term. So hugs there, too.

    3. Clementine*

      I think the LW has to be prepared to return home on their own dime, jobless, if they make a case out of this. It’s wrong, and might be able to be fixed in court (or maybe not, and either way at great expense), but practically speaking, that might be the outcome.

    4. Tippy*

      I agree, especially with the hotel suggestion. If they have 2 condos and community housing I highly doubt that a housing outside of these two is going to have a favorable reaction.

    5. Chauncy Gardener*

      This sounds like my personal version of h–l. I hope you’re able to get out of this situation, OP! Good luck!

    6. fhqwhgads*

      I’m thinking of it from another perspective. It sounds like the people OP escalated to agreed it wasn’t appropriate to have a subordinate lived with the married bosses for three months. But when the other coworker OP coulda/shoulda/woulda lived with gave a firm “no” to moving from their current spot, their no was respected. So OP has every reason to believe if they put in their own firm no, they should get at least the same consideration as their first coworker.

  13. allhailtheboi*

    TIL as a Brit why many letter writers don’t use the phrase “made redundant”! I always thought it would add so much clarity to “laid off/fired” but I didn’t realise it’s not an American phrase.

    1. Releeh*

      Yeah, Australians use redundant/redundancy too. Makes me wonder if the US has the concept of voluntary redundancy – I guess not, unless they do but musk has just never heard of it.

    2. ecnaseener*

      As a US reader, what’s the added clarity? I always assumed it was a synonym for laid off – is it more specific than that?

      1. Emmy Noether*

        It clarifies that it’s because the role was eliminated, not because of the performance or behavior of the individual employee. Although I believe Americans often use “laid off” for redundancy and “fired” for performance or behaviour reasons, but not everyone always seems to make the distinction? “Redundancy” has the advantage of being unambiguous.

        1. BeingLetGo*

          the two terms are unambiguously different in the US and layoff is exactly equivalent to your definition of redundant (I have seen redundancy used in US but not very often). If someone does something to cause their ousting they were fired regardless of what language they choose to use. If their position was eliminated, even if it’s the only position eliminated, they were laid off. In the first case they typically are not eligible for unemployment, in the second they typically are (there are a few exceptions both ways, and the rules are slightly different in each state).

          More ambiguous language includes: let go, separated, and… there are a few others but my brain isn’t dredging it up.

          1. doreen*

            It’s not quite that unambiguous in the US. I’ve mostly worked in union environments in the US and in that situation “layoff” doesn’t just mean the position was eliminated. It does mean one or more positions were eliminated – but it also means if Jane is laid off as a llama groomer, and a llama groomer position opens up Jane must be offered the position before someone new can be hired . Which as far as I know is not the case in non-union environments and sometimes causes confusion for people who switch between the two.

        2. Caramel & Cheddar*

          This conversation is so fascinating to me as a Canadian (where we have both British and American influences in English) because I wouldn’t at all say that “laid of” and “redundancy” are the same thing! A redundancy is when the work is eliminated so the person is let go as a result, but a lay off is when the person is let go even if the necessity of the work isn’t eliminated. I’ve worked places with lots of layoffs but rarely redundancies.

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

            Interesting. I think US uses lay off for both. Like either the job is being eliminated because the company is not doing that work anymore, OR they are reducing and streamlining. So the company is reducing from 2 managers to 1. They may use the wording redundancy but its not an official term used (as far as I know).

        3. Daisy-dog*

          I think you may be confusing “let go” with “laid off”. “Let go” is used in any situation in which someone is separated from their company. And I’m sure many people who are “fired” would prefer to not use that word. The general understanding of a layoff is to be made redundant.

          1. Hannah Lee*

            As I’ve understood it, “layoff” in the US means “we don’t need you working here anymore” … it could be because a department is being downsized, or because a whole line of business is being given up on, or because 2 similar functions are being combined and they only need 8 analysts total, instead of the 6 from each of the original functions.

            But I’ve also seen it used for one of those baby-GE performance review things, where the lowest performing 10-15 % of every department is automatically let go, even some departments are understaffed to begin with or performing higher than their peer departments (so the lowest 10% of Department A is performing at a much higher level than the mid-high level performers of Departments B and C)
            and for the “we’ve got a slow month ahead” so we’re laying everyone off (aka furloughing them) for 4 weeks without pay.

            It’s very confusing because employers use the phrase to mean many things.

      2. Madame Arcati*

        I think it is the same as being laid off but just in case here is my U.K. perspective. We talk about making people redundant but really it’s the job/post that is redundant – we are no longer selling llama brushes so we don’t need llama brush makers, the post is redundant so you have to go. (So re Emeritus Editor’s comment it is not necessarily voluntary). This would normally come with a payout – a redundancy payment, which I believe you’d call severance. This would be adjusted according to length of service, and maybe profits in the private sector (I’m not in it so don’t quote me on the last bit!).
        You cannot then immediately recruit more brush makers – because you’ve said there is no work/need for that pose.
        So LW’s situation would be legal – you could bring someone in to fire or make redundant or otherwise legally dismiss employees, then when that is done, Mrs Sackmore-People’s post with the function of dismissing people is redundant so she’d have to go. In reality though you’d do that with a consultant and/or on a fixed term contract so you don’t get into redundancy regulations etc.

        If you were reducing your llama brush sales and wanted fewer brush makers you might offer voluntary redundancy so Jeff can retire a bit early using the payout to bridge the short gap.

        So basically it’s leaving a job without being fired (sacked) so with the benefit of good reputation and hopefully good money. This is against the background of legislation that requires a reason to sack someone, and where most jobs have some sort of contract. So being sacked is more negative that it is in the US because some sort of fault is assumed, but also more difficult because unfair or constructive dismissal (the latter being making someone’s job so awful they have to resign) aren’t legal.

      3. ecnaseener*

        Thanks both! What you’ve described is indeed exactly how I would define “laid off” in US parlance (minus the legal restriction on hiring for a similar position right afterwards – I don’t think we have that but maybe in some cases).

        Emmy, not everyone in the US understands the difference between the terms, so you might see people mix them up sometimes.

        1. Some Words*

          To many people, being laid off feels exactly like being fired. Because no matter what it’s called, the person is out of a job.

          I get it about severance pay & unemployment impacts. I’m talking only about the emotional response.

    3. Sloanicota*

      “Made redundant” always gives me “fell pregnant” vibes with that notably passive tense.

      1. Madame Arcati*

        It’s a fair use though with being made redundant. It is specifically not your fault or owing to your actions, it happens to you without your say so (unless voluntary, in which case you wouldn’t say made refunds h, you’d say took voluntary redundancy). And that’s not the case (usually, unless something awful has happened) with pregnancy.

    4. fhqwhgads*

      We have it. We generally know what it means. But it’s not commonly used in this context, so it creates an additional level of ambiguity that wouldn’t be there if it were the dominant phrasing as it is in commonwealth countries.

    5. EvilQueenRegina*

      Also British, and I can remember saying once about my ex-coworker having “been made redundant”, an American person had replied “So Winifred got fired?” and I had to reword it to her having been laid off. Sometimes I find myself consciously using the word layoff here where I might have used redundancy in a conversation in the UK, to make sure I’m understood.

  14. Nathan*

    Thank you! I asked the question about redundancy! And indeed, I am in the UK.

    I’ve not heard of that movie, so I will have to check it out. I did think it was strange what I heard, that it is illegal to bring someone on to fire others, only to fire them once the job is done; I imagine it is all down to what was contractually agreed in the first instance!

    1. Michigander*

      If someone is brought on just to fire people, I would guess that they’d have a fixed term contract. So when they’re done, their contract just ends instead of them being fired.

    2. HR Lady*

      Hi from a UK based HR person! Came to the comments to add some flavour in to this one.

      It isn’t illegal to bring someone in to fire others and then dismiss them in turn unless you are dismissing for discriminatory reasons that breach the Equality Act. Most times you would either use a consultant OR you’d bring someone on a fixed term contract with the express purpose of them doing the task and then leaving. Broadly speaking you can also fire someone for no real reason (again unless it’s discriminatory) during the first two years of their employment, that’s one of the reasons there is no statutory redundancy payments owed in the first two years of employment.

      (There’s a lot of nuance here and it does depend on how big the organisation is and how many people are being made redundant and if unions are involved etc etc. And all of this might change under the new employment rights bill. But your novel is probably fine!)

    3. CTT*

      Come back to the weekend thread if you do watch Up in the Air and report back – I am fascinated to know how it’s aged.

      1. linger*

        In the movie, there are two levels to consider.
        Clooney’s character was directly employed by a firm that was contracted to perform mass staff reductions at client firms. So he always knew he would be performing only a very short-term role at each client firm: maybe only a few days.
        But on the other hand, he always assumed his position at his own firm was secure.

  15. froodle*

    LW2: I worked for a company that promoted a mediocre worker (though a top flight kiss up kick downer) up multiple levels.

    While he was mediocre at the individual contributor level, as he climbed the ranks to Assistant Supervisor, then Supervisor, then Manager, more and more of his lack of ability and even deeper lack of character was exposed.

    Over time he went from standard model Mediocre White Man to Nightmarishly Incompetent Buffoon, with Power Trip actions and Micromanagement Grip(tm).

    Eventually, he left. Those of us who’d spent years being ground into the dirt beneath him breathed a sigh of relief. I personally told myself he was dead, and I’d never have to see him again. That’s the level of awful he routinely and gleefully inflicted on his subordinates.

    …and then,he came back.

    (The job he left for was in our government, where non management is heavily unionized, and also our government had just very publicly taken a beating in an anti bullying lawsuit from a high level doctor about her treatment during COVID. So when he tried the behaviour that got him rewarded at Old Job, he was given the choice to leave or be fired.)

    My Old Job looked at this recently excised tumour on the groin of it’s workforce, and essentially said “oh, the mean old Government won’t let you bully and throw your weight around? Don’t worry, here you can victimize as many peons as you want!”

    They hired him back, at a higher role, with more power. Two months in, he was already repeating his previous behaviours.

    Trust me on this. Like a faceful of oozing pustules, Sanford is simply the most obvious and distressing symptom of a much bigger disease.

    1. Not Australian*

      Yeah, I had to deal with one of these too: so glad when he accepted another job that I contributed generously to his ‘leaving present’, and then three months later he was back having leapfrogged two rungs up the promotion ladder. I was very vocal about wanting my contribution back. (And no, I didn’t stay long after that.)

      1. Sloanicota*

        I’ve also seen the “Hugh le Dispenser” phenomenon fairly often, where the favorite is gotten rid of with great difficulty, only to be replaced in fairly short order with another similar scenario. It comes from the leadership and the kind of people they want to have around them.

        1. froodle*

          hold on, I gotta google something real quick…

          …okay, this is funny.

          but yes, I know exactly what you mean about the way leadership shapes company culture.

          “a fish rots from the head” is a saying for a reason, and the quality of Old Job’s ‘leadership’ ensured putrescence all the way down

      2. froodle*

        Much sympathy for the dawning horror movie-esque realisation that, though you swore you threw the whole manager out with the trash, you’ve just turned around and there it is, back inside and leaking bin-juice all over it’s new corner office.

        Also HAH at asking for your contribution back!

        I didn’t go to Incompetent Buffoon’s in-office goodbye thing (nobody from his team did), and he didn’t have one after work at a pub or similar (possibly because either nobody even would have turned up or he might have gotten a few publicly aired drunken truths thrown his way) but a couple of people from related departments did show up to see him get his card with signatures from his half dozen cronies

        one of them described it later as “you knew when you squash a spider, but you have to lift the boot to make sure it’s definitely dead?”

        (my team and I actually did have cake and sausage rolls a couple of weeks after he’d gone. it wasn’t a “good riddance to Nightmare Homunculus” party, but it also wasn’t NOT a “good riddance to Nightmare Homunculus” party)

    2. LW2*

      LW2 here. “Ew” to that last paragraph, but it really does make the point! Thankfully, Sanford was never given any direct reports, and I was always prepared to hand in my notice if I ever got moved to report to him.

      I am sorry you had to go through so much stress in just trying to do your job! Thanks for sharing your experience. It really helps clarify things for me.

      1. froodle*

        thank you for the sympathy and you’re welcome for the (slightly grotesque) share!

        in my case, the Return of Sanford did at least give me the final push I needed to walk away from that company altogether

        fun fact, the day of the interview for the role i would eventually leave for, i was about five minutes off heading out for it when the Homunculus King started ringing my deskphone.

        (he loved doing his abusing over the telephone, because unlike email there was no trail,and unlike in person there couldn’t be any witnesses)

        i thought about answering it, but instead let it ring as I went to do a last comb of the hair and spritz of deodorant

        when I came back, a field guy who never came into the office and had like, negative five in his water cooler chat stat, stopped me in the corridor to tell me he really enjoyed my method of scheduling their work,that it was efficient and smooth and made planning their whole month so much easier

        then he bounced, and i went off to my interview

        I sometimes wonder, if I’d taken that call,would I have done so well in the interview that followed?

        if I hadn’t been away from my desk at the right moment to catch that unexpected boost from such an unexpected place, would I have walked into that meeting room so confident in my abilities?

        if I’d given the Homunculus another chance to tear me down, could I have sold myself quite so well?

        just something to ponder, amidst the Sanfordness of it all…

  16. r..*

    LW4,

    the practice is awful, but AFAIK mostly legal. In companies practicing stack ranking/yank&rank the practice of hiring one or more incompetent persons so you can later fire them to meet a quota instead of actually having to fire a valuable contributor even has a name:

    Buffer hire.

  17. Ellis Bell*

    LW1, When your grandboss said “he would work on it and that I should suck it up for about a week.” He was probably hoping you’d just get settled where you were and used to having a household relationship with your boss and that the problem would go away. It sounds like the plan was always for him to have the apartment with a male colleague. I’d be more vocal about it not working for you and I wouldn’t let him fob you off with timelines about “working on it” since he’s already tried that once. A hotel, or swap with another colleague that you arrange yourself can be done more quickly, so volunteer to make the arrangements.

  18. Anonforthis*

    2. If the senior management promoted a misogynistic racist, odds are they agree with his prejudices.

    1. LW2*

      LW2 here. I think the CEO was trying to “redeem” him in some way. I will say, Sanford makes less misogynistic comments than he used to, which I guess is better? Somehow? Could we maybe get to zero? The CEO is a deeply religious man with a lot of personal integrity, so I’ve been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on his judgment of character. But, as others have said, it’s still poor people management.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I used to be involved with a very similar organisation, led by a belief in redemption, and they were similarly big fat enablers of someone super intolerant. I remember saying something like “Hey, wouldn’t redemption be easier for him, if he had less opportunity to harm people? You can still be his friend or whatever.” They didn’t go for it, so I remain forever dubious of that explanation.

      2. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

        I think you need to reassess your opinion of your CEO. He cannot be a man of personal integrity and also a man who promotes a racist misogynist. I think you are trying to resolve this cognitive dissonance by making excuses for him about redemption, but in reality, I don’t think he has integrity. Deeply religious people can also be deeply bigoted, just like not religious people.

      3. Anonforthis*

        I believe you that your boss has good personal integrity, however I feel he is misguided here. I’ve seen this technique before. Give someone who is behaving badly trust and a position of responsibility, and hope they live up to it.

        It works really well with good people in a bad situation, who have suffered from disadvantage.

        But this is a man who already had a position of power – who used that power to hurt other people.

        Samford hasn’t regretted his behaviour or atoned, he’s just been bribed into (sort of) behaving better. Even in a religious context – which I would argue is inappropriate for work – this isn’t the way.

  19. Cupcakes are awesome*

    LW#2 be sure to confirm that Sanford is NOT working at one of the new places you are interviewing with!

    1. How?*

      There’s no reasonable way to do this unless Sanford posts where he’s working on LinkedIn or similar. And they could always hire Sanford in the future.

      I actually found myself interviewing for a position where someone who was a major reason I left a previous job worked. I only found out by accident despite having a lot of common contacts.

      1. Saturday*

        OP’s still at the job though – she could just ask someone in a casual way. Sanford probably told people.

    2. LW2*

      I’m honestly surprised he quit – where else will let you work 5-hour days, come and go as you please, and have no accountability? I highly doubt we’ll go to the same place, as the places I’m interviewing require you to perform to a certain standard (bigger organizations, clear job descriptions).

    1. Ellis Bell*

      I assumed female because it sounds like they are rooming based on gender rather than seniority. I’d say the plan was for two women to live together; the OP and her colleague, and it’s been changed so two men can live together; “So my boss’ boss and another male coworker can live in the other apartment and my colleague can stay where she is”. I had also assumed that the colleague had gotten the last spot in shared housing. I would much rather share a flat with a male colleague than with my boss though!

      1. WellRed*

        I don’t see how the numbers work in OPs favor of getting a change. If her boss’s boss wants that apartment, does anyone expect him to swap with her? Or mi e to community housing if there’s even a spot? I think she’s stuck unless someone leaves the project.

        1. duinath*

          If you’re going to send a whole pack of employees off on a trip it is your responsibility to give them appropriate housing.

          2. Honey*

            It is. But they may think a private bedroom and bath is enough. I’m probably not going to argue it too much while in a foreign country, and just hang out in my little space.

            1. Bitte Meddler*

              If “my little space” included my own bathroom, a small refrigerator, and a microwave, I’d agree with you.

              I don’t want my boss to know my bathroom habits or my choice of food and drink. Or what I look like when I first wake up and don’t have any makeup on. Or how late I sleep in on the weekends.

              And if everyone needs to be out the door at the same time to be at work in that other country, and there’s only one bathroom, who goes first? Does the OP have to wake up a couple of hours earlier than they normally would just so they can get everything done in the bathroom before Boss and Boss’s Husband need to be in there?

              I feel for OP. I do not think I could deal with that living arrangement for even a full week, at least not without becoming physically ill from the stress of being “on” for 168 hours straight.

                1. duinath*

                  That’s the community housing, which the coworker got moved to. LW is staying in a two bedroom condo with their boss and boss’ spouse.

          3. Filicophyta*

            I’ve lived in staff housing in several countries. There are very different ideas of what ‘appropriate’ means. When we had to move the housing once, and were looking for a new place, one location that was proposed was a larger house which was going to be divided into two if we took it. There was only a plastic folding accordion wall between our area and a family of strangers. Luckily, we were able to say no and found something else (which turned out to be pretty good). The same local co-worker who was looking for places was surprised that two of us didn’t want to share a bedroom with only a meter between the beds.

      2. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, whatever OP’s gender, since they’re living with a M/F married couple they could maybe lean on the issue that they’d prefer not to cohabitate with a member of the opposite sex.

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

        I assumed female too. What I want to know is there anyone else from the shared living area that is not a direct employee of the boss that OP could swap with?

  21. Falling Diphthong*

    LW2, at first my advice was going to be to look at how Sanford took all that positive feedback and parlayed it into a higher level job at a higher salary somewhere else, while you took the lack of positive feedback and stayed. But you’re interviewing elsewhere! For more money!

    You have an exit ramp. Don’t climb off it because maybe upper management have completely changed all the things they value and will reward.

    Also, what froodle says about what your top management will do if Sanford announces he wants to come back.

    1. LW2*

      LW2 here – you’re right, I’m sure the door is open for Sanford to come back despite his lack of production within the organization. I’ll continue my interviews!

      1. Ellie*

        That’s a wise move LW2. The problems at your company clearly go far beyond Sanford. They could end up promoting someone else into his spot who is equally undeserving.

  22. Apex Mountain*

    For the bakery, i think it depends somewhat on the type of changes the new mgr is making. If she’s just moving the croissant display to a different shelf, that’s one thing. If she’s ignoring health and safety precautions, that’s different.

    Either way though, it sounds like you’ve tried to escalate with no results, so I’m afraid you might be stuck with the changes.

  23. HonorBox*

    OP1 – You don’t say anything about any sort of conversation with your boss. Maybe she’s uncomfortable with this setup too and together you can push back.

    Whether or not she is willing, I’d push back more strongly on this. You’re being expected to cohabitate with a married couple for months. Even if that’s not your boss, the situation is uncomfortable and harder to navigate than being in a location with another single coworker. They’re married. They have married couple dynamics. They probably have a routine and you’re going to feel like a third wheel, or you’re going to be more uncomfortable because you’re trying to make yourself scarce so as not to make them uncomfortable. Your experience is going to be wholly different. What if they are fighting? That’s not going to be awesome to be around. What if you hear them doing married couple things in their room? Not to be crass about that, but I’d point out that it puts you in a really uncomfortable position.

    It is far better to be ignorant about how your boss conducts themself in their own home, in their marriage, etc. and I think I’d point out more specifically how this situation is really uncomfortable for you.

    1. Good thought*

      “You don’t say anything about any sort of conversation with your boss. Maybe she’s uncomfortable with this setup too and together you can push back.”

      This is a good perspective. If two people push back, grandboss will have it a lot harder to ignore this!

  24. Almost Empty Nester*

    OP2 – I predict Sanford will be back because he oversold himself (based on his undeserved promotions) and can’t cut it at the new place. And since your management apparently is enamored of him, they’ll hire him back. Don’t torch your opportunities for exiting this place, particularly given the opportunity to make more money. As others have said, Sanford was just the outward symptom of the dysfunction within.

    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      It’s highly likely this is what will happen. The new place hired him based on blather, a false reputation and what were probably great references. If they know what they’re doing, they’ll get rid of him within six months and the company will gladly take him back.

      Leave, LW. Once you’re in a new job, you’ll think “Why did I think of staying at that other place?” The fact that Sanford was able to thrive in your current company means it’s not a place where *you* can thrive, and that’s what’s important.

      1. LW2*

        LW2 here. Sparkles, you’re right – I should be looking for a place that I can thrive. Thank you for putting it that way. It’s my new mantra!

    2. LW2*

      LW2/OP2 here – maybe you are prophetic! I do not want to find myself in the exact same situation again. It’s time to exercise my opportunities.

  25. LivingTogether*

    I can’t imagine any situation where I’d be comfortable either rooming with my boss or complaining about it once it happened if I intended to keep the job. If my boss has a problem with it, they have more power to do something about it. If they don’t I don’t see how my having an issue with it could possibly go over well.

    The only exception to this would be if something inappropriate happened or was likely. I’ve roomed in hotel rooms where it would not have been possible to completely avoid some nudity in front of a roommate, but that seems unlikely in the setup described here. So unless spouse was being an exhibitionist or creepy or similar I’d consider myself trapped in the living situation.

    At least there’s a clear end date.

    1. HonorBox*

      What about if the married couple is having some sort of disagreement? Even if they’re not actively disagreeing in front of the LW, most of us have been around couples who are engaged in a disagreement. It is TENSE. While this isn’t something that definitely will happen, it is something that would not be unexpected.

      Or if the boss and husband are flirting in the kitchen… no one needs to see that. Even if it isn’t anything beyond PG-rated, the last thing LW needs is to feel like she can’t get a glass of water, or pop some popcorn, or sit and read a magazine in the common space because boss/husband are making eyes at each other.

      It is FAR, FAR easier to navigate a living situation like this with someone who is single, too. I also have to believe that the boss isn’t too keen on this situation either.

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

        My thoughts exactly. And the OP is working with the boss and husband. It sounds like except for sleeping and maybe eating the entire time is going to be with the boss and husband.
        It also makes me wonder if the boss is going to judge the OP on things unfairly. Maybe unconsciously. I think we have all lived with someone or been in the situation where small things bother us and we let that influence how we feel or act towards them.

        1. Honey*

          They are all working 72 hours a week. There’s not going to be much time for anything else except sleeping and eating. I’d just suck it up. They’ve already lobbed her off a few times.

      2. Bruce*

        My first job we had a big layoff and my coworker-land-lord-housemate became my grand-boss. He was single at the time, and pretty chill, so it was OK for a couple of years (it helped that he was not my direct manager so I was not in his face all day). When he got engaged he spent a lot of nights at his fiancée’s place, and when he got married he moved in with her, so that issue solved itself.

    2. Insert Clever Name Here*

      On the flip side, I can’t imagine any of my bosses being ok with one of their reports being their roommate for 3 months even without their spouse in the mix. That is a very long time for someone to go feeling like they have to always be “on” because their boss/report is sharing housing with them. And if I was hearing about it after the fact I’d have to wonder if all that shared time together means my coworker now has a much closer relationship with my boss and might get preferential treatment.

  26. Neeul*

    Aside from Up in the Air, LW4 also reminds me of an episode of King of the Hill, where Dale gets an office job. After being unsuited for most of the work, HR puts him in charge of telling people they’re being let go due to downsizing. She’s too sentimental to deliver the news, but since he’s a new employee, he has no attachment to anyone there (and he’s kind of a jerk anyway.)
    Of course, this was more of a reassignment/”promotion” than strictly hiring for that purpose, and he resigns at the end of the episode anyway to maintain the status quo.

    1. Moonlight Elantra*

      I was waiting for someone to bring that up! Plus, Dale was an exterminator by trade and could be extremely ruthless at times.

  27. Who knows*

    Re #4: My understanding is that “made redundant” means laid off, not fired. These are very different things.

  28. Jester*

    I was in a similar situation to #2. After the bad coworker left, I slowed down my job search, but the vibes were still off, as the kids say. It was nice to be able to be more selective about what I applied to since there was less urgency, but when I did get a new position, it was still an unbelievable relief to get outta there.

    1. LW2*

      LW2 here. Jester, you’re probably right. Once I get past the joy of having Sanford gone, I’d be able to see all of the other things about the vibes that are still not working for me.

  29. el l*

    OP3, there’s an rule of workplace politics:

    If you fight* with those above you, you have to be right about the issue at hand.

    So – if you took the issue up 2+ levels, would you clearly win? Are you that sure? Because unless that’s a strong yes, you gotta leave or bend.

    *I mean really fight, not just disagree a little in a meeting and move on.

  30. Ugh*

    Boss – OMG, the converstaion also shoudl include “It’s inappropriate for me to be sharing personal living quarters with my boss, and her spouse. I am unable to use the bathroom as needed, and freedoms like when I sleep and wake up have become uncomfortable. It is also not appropriate fo rmy boss to know precisely what i eat, what medicines I take and what clothes I wear – this situation has interfered with a lot of personal and legal issues. I’m now privy to my boss and her spouse’s personal relationship, which is none of my business and makes me uneasy. This needs to revert to what you had promised earlier.

  31. Kristin*

    OP#4 – I hope you send an update when the novel gets published! I and others would love to read it.

  32. Another Kristin*

    LW #4: my workplace has in fact just advertised for a position that sounds like it would be pretty much that. It’s not called “VP in charge of firing 10% of the workforce” (it’s something euphemistic like “VP of Budget Alignment”), but if you read between the lines of the job description, it’s clearly a hatchet man post. I very much hope I don’t end up on the chopping block, but them’s the breaks.

    And yes, it is a contract job, not sure why it’s not a consultant. Presumably once they’ve fired everyone else, the hatchet man’s last task is to ax himself?

  33. Sick of Workplace Bullshit (she/her)*

    OP#1: How come everyone else gets to be comfortable except for you? That is not okay. Not living with your boss is beyond reasonable! Good luck, I hope the situation works out for you.

  34. all the star wars*

    It’s not really a power struggle if one person is the boss and the other person isn’t, though? Because the non-person can just be fired. Power struggle over!

    And like, it’s a grocery store/bakery. It would be very easy to replace an employee. This really isn’t a hill for the LW to die on. Either the new manager’s changes are going to cause problems for customers (and therefore store profit), to the point that things will change back–or they won’t. And if it’s the latter, then the LW really doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

  35. AmoretteA*

    Long ago, when I worked for a large retail chain that was driven to destruction by incompetent upper management and no longer exists, I was the jewelry department manager. Our district manager wanted us to lay out our cash register in the “approved” way which included a drawing showing where everything, including the waste basket was to be. She was furious that my waste basket wasn’t tucked where it was supposed to be. I pointed out my register had a battery back-up in case of power failure that took up the spot where the waste basket was supposed to go. She wanted me to squeeze the basket in. I said it will block the ventilation for the back-up and it will overheat. She went and complained to the store manager, who pointed out HIS higher-ups required my register to have the battery back-up. I tucked the waste basket into under display storage while the DM was there and pulled out it the minute she was out the door.
    Trying to impress the next level of management never works out. Hence the destruction of two of the largest retail chains in the world.

  36. Filicophyta*

    LW #1, I’ve been in your place and it’s hard. No one should have to share housing with a boss if it’s avoidable (especially not a boss+couple). In some remote locations it’s the only option, but it doesn’t seem to be the case here. I hope it works out.

  37. Bruce*

    LW4: a long time ago I knew a guy who worked in banking, with the cut backs in that industry the only job he was able to get was to be the hatchet-man who would be sent to a branch to shut it down. Very much like Up In The Air! It was very depressing for him, I think he tried to get out of that as fast as he could.

  38. Jake W*

    The fact that a practice is illegal certainly won’t stop a lot of companies from doing it, especially if that law isn’t well understood by its workforce. There could be a number of reasons a company would break the law, ranging from ignorance to knowingly evil and willing to fool around and find out. Regardless of legality, a work of fiction should be able to arrange a way to make the situation plausible.

Comments are closed.