bad vibes from my new boss, I got in trouble for sending mail with upside down stamps, and more

by Alison Green on March 12, 2025

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

1. I get bad vibes from my new boss

A new director recently joined my department, and I’ve had an immediate bad feeling about her. I’m not typically quick to judge, and I recognize that she reminds me — at least in some ways — of a family member who is a bit of a narcissist. I want to stay professional and give her a fair chance, but I also don’t want to ignore my instincts if they’re picking up on real red flags.

I’ve just been having a gut feeling and maybe, unfairly to her, I am reacting to speech patterns and mannerisms that remind me of my relative. I don’t think I’m imagining all of it though. For example, despite us having met several times in person, she has made no effort to introduce herself to me or ask any questions about me or my role. I suppose I could have taken more initiative myself to engage, but since she is the leader of our team, it feels like initial outreach is her responsibility. I have a fair amount of influence and seniority at my company, but that is not obvious to new people, and to me it feels like she is ignoring or snubbing people who she perceives as having less power. There is probably a more generous way for me to look at this complaint (e.g., bosses can be introverts too) but something just feels off.

How can I balance professionalism with due diligence in assessing this situation? And how do I determine whether my concerns are valid or just baggage from my past experience? I don’t want to accidentally start a whisper campaign over something as subjective as bad vibes.

Keep your eyes open, but until you have actual signs that there are real problems, treat her exactly the way you would if she weren’t setting off your alarm bells.

It’s very possible that you’re reacting to baggage from a family member. It’s also possible that you’re not, and instead your gut is picking up on something real. But until you know for sure, there’s no action to take! After all, if you decided to just blindly trust your gut, what would that look like? You definitely shouldn’t go around sharing your concerns with other people (which I’m assuming is what “accidentally start a whisper campaign” refers to) when she hasn’t done anything! And if you let your gut affect the way you interacting with her, there’s a very high chance of making the relationship worse than it otherwise would be — like not taking any initiative to engage with her even though taking that initiative could help you professionally. (We can argue over whether that should be her responsibility, but the fact is she hasn’t done it herself — so the more relevant question is whether it’s in your best interests to initiate some contact yourself, and in many cases it would be.)

You asked about how to balance professionalism with due diligence in assessing the situation, and the answer to that is easy: professionalism wins out, because it’s in your own interests to remain professional. As for due diligence, that just means being willing to give the situation time. At some point, once enough time has gone by, you’ll have learned more about who she is and how she operates, and you’ll know whether your concerns are valid or not. But you won’t know that from day one, just like you wouldn’t know it about someone who wasn’t setting off alarms for you either.

2. I got in trouble for sending mail with upside down flag stamps

I’m an admin who processes our outgoing mail. We buy rolls of stamps that over the last couple of years have had a three-flag design. For whatever reason, my brain has trouble with orienting them — I often place them on the mail upside down. (You can see here that they have even been posed for purchase upside down.) It’s not intentional, it’s not a political statement on my part, it just happens when I’m peeling them off and working in a hurry. My supervisor, however, has gotten very upset about it several times. I’ve tried to do better, but he wrote me up today for “making political statements in the company’s name with company materials” when he saw one I accidentally placed upside down.

I want to speak to his boss about this to explain and ask if this can be removed from my file. Do you have any suggestions? My coworker suggested I go to the optometrist and get some kind of note but that seems like overkill.

Yes, a note from the optometrist would be overkill.

Your boss isn’t wrong to tell you that you need to place the stamps right-side up. I know it seems like a small thing that might not matter, but because the upside down flag is a symbol of distress, there is a movement around placing flag stamps upside down to make a political statement. It’s reasonable that your boss doesn’t want company mail going out with what could look like a political statement on it, whether or not you intended that way. Or just looking sloppy, for that matter — it might not be something you personally would notice or care about, but other people do and some will read it as less polished.

You can certainly try explaining that this was a mistake, not an intentional act, and asking that the write-up be removed or at least if you can add a response to the write-up explaining it was a mistake. But your boss isn’t wrong to be concerned that it’s continued to happen after he’s told you to stop — whether you intended it or not, you’re still sending out mail with what looks like a political statement on it, and you say it’s happening often — and so you do need to figure out a system for making sure it doesn’t keep happening. (Can you lay them out correctly oriented before you start applying them?)

3. Using inappropriate passwords when someone else might see them

I work for a large organization as the LMS manager. Someone recently reached out to me because they forgot their password. When I looked it up, I was surprised with the word they chose. I’m not offended but I felt that it was inappropriate for a workplace (mild swear but not offensive — “asshat”). I let them know they need to change it to a more workplace-appropriate word, reset the password back to the default, and they changed their password right back to the inappropriate one. (Makes me wonder how they could forget that!)

I know passwords are to be private but if you forget it and have to ask for it, I do see them. Is using swear words in password okay for work? Should I not have said anything and just laughed it off?

Well, first, in a secure password system, no one should be seeing anyone else’s passwords, even IT.

But in a system where someone else can see the passwords and might need to retrieve one for someone, it’s pretty bad professional judgment to use a swear word (mild and ridiculous as “asshat” is; it’s really on the far fringes of what qualifies as a swear word, but we don’t have a good name for the work-inappropriate category it is in). It’s even worse judgment to refuse to change it after being directly told to.

It’s not something I’d bother pursuing any further (unless you’re the person’s manager and there’s a pattern of bad judgment, in which case it’s the pattern that would matter more anyway), but I’d certainly think of them as someone with questionable judgment after this.

4. How to say thanks to a senior leader doing a great job in a terrible time

I’m in an industry that’s been very hard hit by the insanity around the executive orders. The actual policy changes and funding cuts, combined with the sheer chaos, volume of new directives, and inconsistency around what’s going on have been brutal. Everyone at my organization has been working around the clock for weeks to try to figure out how to navigate the next meteor that has come crashing through from the government.

With a few exceptions, people inside the organization have been amazing about this. We’re exhausted and confused, but people are pulling together and trying to problem solve as much as we can. We have a couple of senior leaders that I don’t work with regularly, but I’ve spent a ton of time with recently. One in particular has been nothing short of heroic. He’s been kind, patient, always available, expert, and fundamentally decent in every single interaction I’ve seen. He manages to combine a strong leadership steer with an ethical grounding and a recognition for the humans he’s working with that is not easy to figure out in the current nightmare. I cannot imagine how he’s doing it, and I shudder to think where we would be if he weren’t here. Is there any way that it would be appropriate to thank him for this? I know gifts are supposed to flow downward in the workplace, but this is so far above and beyond that I’d love to give some token of thanks for what he is doing. Any recommendations? A bottle of his favorite drink? A gift card to a meal out? Something else?

I’m a broken record about this but: a personal note telling them everything you said above. That will have more far more meaning, and probably be kept and cherished far longer, than any physical gift you could give him.

5. My company is violating the state law on paid sick time

Our office is in California and has three full-time employees. We’re paid by the hour, at the end of the month. In 2024, we were only allowed 24 sick hours and now this year as well. If we’ll need more than 24 hours, we must use vacation time or log zero hours. I’ve told the owner in mid-2023 and again in December 2023 that when we received the employment law posters employers are required to display, they clearly showed that as of January 2024, California employers must provide 40 hours of paid sick leave per year. I’ve also called our payroll company and asked them about this, and they stated our employer is not in compliance. They called and spoke to the owner’s daughter, who reports our monthly hours, yet nothing changed. What do we do about this? My two coworkers will not deal with this and are afraid to rock the boat.

File a report with the California department of labor. California happens to be a state that is very assertive about enforcing compliance with its employment laws, and they’ll handle it from there.

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{ 594 comments }

{ 594 comments… read them below }

  1. WHAT*

    LW3, I work in IT and who in the blazes set this system up??? No wonder we get so many requests from people asking us if we can give them their password if there are still companies out there whose password system actually allows that.

    Are you working for Neopets?

    1. WHAT*

      (Just for the record, I am not attempting to out the LW, just referring to a hack that occurred because Neopets stored usernames and passwords in a plain text file.

      Coincidentally, this is why you should not save your password in a browser: a lot of browsers just store it in a plain text file on your computer that is always in the same place. Frankly writing it down on a post-it on your screen would be more secure than saving it in a lot of browsers because at least then someone needs to be actually in front of your screen to see it, though obviously I’m not advocating for that practice either.

      Obligatory mention that I have not tried every single browser)

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        If it’s of help to anybody, I tend to write only clues to my passwords, stuff that is obvious to me but would make no sense to anybody else, like “Gmail password: Hotmail password but in Irish.” Like if my Hotmail password was “dog” and my Gmail one was “Madra,” the Irish word for dog. (None of that is close to anything real; it’s just an example of how vague the clues are to anybody but me; they aren’t things like “my date of birth” or “pet’s name.”)

          1. Misty*

            Maybe this ìs regional, but when I was growing up an upside-down stamp means ‘Love’. You would put it on birthday cards upside-down to say you were sending love.

            1. BatManDan*

              Yes, but an upside down flag is the problem, not the stamp itself. And, I agree, that design is terrible.

            2. Sleeplesskj*

              Yes! Grew up in Chicago and using an upside down stamp meant “love”. I had lots of long distance boyfriends in college and used a lot of upside down stamps. :)

            3. Really?*

              Flying a national flag upside down is an international maritime sign of distress. In New York City, hotels frequently fly foreign flags in addition to the US flag to honor foreign visitors. One of my former bosses, who trained as a British mariner, delighted in calling the management of major hotels to ask if their hotel was sinking whenever they flew the Union Jack upside down — which many of them did – inadvertently, I’m sure. Put him in a good mood for the rest of the day!

              2. DeeJay*

                The British flag is notorious for being inadvertently flown upside down. It looks symmetrical but isn’t quite. And even the average Brit probably couldn’t tell you how to check. I’m a Brit and had to google to make sure.

                For the record, the broader (wider) diagonal white stripe should be at the top on the side of the flag nearest the flagpole.

                1. Princess Sparklepony*

                  I always thought it was symmetrical. I never looked closely. Thanks for the info – learn something new every day!

        2. Elizabeth West*

          I never save them in my browser no matter how much Google bugs me about it. I do have them on the computer, but I use KeePass because I can’t remember all those passwords. It’s locked with an awesome password (sorry, can’t tell you what it is, lol, but it’s awesome).

          (and yes the KeePass file is backed up elsewhere)

        3. Lenora Rose*

          Yes, I have a plain text file… of CLUES to my passwords. If you can figure out my passwords from “Editorializing little other fruit, a third”, “Fish!” and “A Capella”, well, kudos to you.

          1. Bitte Meddler*

            Mine are in my phone but equally opaque…

            “Cindy’s middle name, full”

            “Cindy’s middle name, full, a, three”

            …where “Cindy” is my cat and her middle name is a nonsense word not found in any dictionary, “full” refers to a set of numbers, letters, and symbols I habitually use, and “a, three” is code for a modifier I add to make a password extra complex.

        4. Lemon*

          Look into a password manager! You’ll be able to use very secure long passwords, and only have to remember one (your main login). I use 1password and it’s great.

          1. Beth*

            I worship my password manager in secret midnight rites involving chocolate. Seriously, I couldn’t do my work without it.

            1. JustaTech*

              Just last night my husband was explaining our password manager that we self-host on a computer in the garage (BitWarden) to all of my aunts who are concerned about internet security.
              You don’t have to self host it, but if you’re a super nerd, you might.

        5. Dusty Facsimile*

          Depending what grade of attacker you’re dealing with, even that might not be a great idea. Someone who captured a hash of your password but doesn’t have the plaintext is going to have a much easier time if they know all they need to run is a dictionary attack with Irish words.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I think it unlikely they’d both create a hash of my password and read a notebook in my bedroom though. The clues aren’t saved anywhere online or on a computer. They are simply written in a notebook, so they’d have to hack one of my passwords, then find my notebook and then use an Irish dictionary or whatever.

            1. Irish Teacher.*

              And most of the clues are vaguer than that anyway. One is “back up password in Irish with ending from irish rail.”

        6. Kangaroo for Two*

          Ha, I also use Irish words the basis for passwords, and one of my most frequently used passwords has a typo in it, due to my clumsy typing. Now I feel like it’s another layer of security*, because an Irish dictionary wouldn’t even be helpful.

          * I know it’s not another layer of GOOD security, just another layer. :)

      2. SheriffFatman*

        Which browsers, so I can avoid them? Google Chrome, MS Edge, Safari and Firefox all store passwords encrypted (or at least, they all claim to). Surely that must cover the great majority of browsers in common use?

        1. andy*

          You can decrypt chrome passwords and read then. It is in the settings, passwords section.

          The issue with OP setup is that severs should never have password like that.

        2. WHAT*

          So I just rechecked and I was misremembering: they do store them in encrypted files.

          With the encryption key stored close by. Both of these files are in predictable places so writing a script to get them is pretty trivial (I’ll post a video in a reply). It’s basically the equivalent of locking your front door and leaving the key under a flower pot (with the added security loophole that everyone knows the key is under the flower pot).

          So I was wrong about them being in plain text files, but functionally they might as well be.

          2. Thegs*

            I just want to should out the Firefox feature where you can instead set a “Primary Password” that the browser will then use to encrypt the password database, instead of the easy discovered auto-generated key. Make and save a random 32 character key in your KeePass database and use that as your primary password, and whambo blambo increased security against malware!

            (I’m sure Chrom* based browsers have something similar but I don’t use them so I don’t know it off the top of my head)

        3. Mongrel*

          You’re better off shifting all your passwords out of your browser to a Password Manager. Have one, secure, password and let the software sort everything else for you.

          And like the username, is that from the song of the same name from the band that no-one else seems to remember?

      3. Emmy Noether*

        I have different security levels for my passwords. Unimportant ones (like access to a comment section, or newspaper paywall,…) get a simple password system and stored on all my devices. There are a gazillion of those, I’m not remembering them, and I’m not losing much if they get hacked. Accounts that have payment info connected, or my main email accounts, get individual passwords that don’t get electronically stored, but are written on a postit hidden at home. Bank accounts and the like get MFA.

      4. Quill*

        That is in fact our current argument for the existence of logs of passwords at work (these are to non-internet connected machines): You would need to physically break into the building, at which point you would probably be carrying off the equipment and not trying to get into an analysis software that you would have to cross reference with a case number in a different password protected (not shared!) system to get any info.

    2. nnn*

      I have to admit, I would be tempted to set a new password that comments on the fact that it’s bad security for anyone to be able to see anyone’s password.

      1. WHAT*

        I’m honestly wondering if that’s why the employee used the same password again.

        Do the employees know some people in the org have access to their passwords? Because I can definitely see someone picking that password thinking “easy to remember, and no one should see this anyway” (well apparently not so easy to remember I guess) and then when confronted setting it to the same to make a statement.

        1. Bilateralrope*

          Then planning to complain about the LW looking at employee passwords with a good reason if they complain about it.

          1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            They shouldn’t be able to look at passwords for ANY reason. Passwords should never be stored in plain text.

            1. Johnny Slick*

              Yeah this is the part that freaked me out. If other things were bad, learning that my passwords somewhere were being stored in plain text for anyone to see / hack into might be enough to quit that place on the spot. Like, this is extremely basic cybersecurity. You scramble a password using an algorithm and whenever you check it, what you do is you scramble a password attempt using the same algorithm and see if it matches. Even that of course is far from perfect but once that password is scrambled up it is never ever ever unscrambled. If you forgot it, you have to make a new one. Period. End of story.

            2. I Have RBF*

              This.

              At my company, no one can read your password. If you need it reset, they will issue you a temporary password and you have to go change it then.

              I frequently use swears and snark in my passwords. One of my past passwords was “Still2D@mnShort”, referring to the fact that we have to change passwords every 45 days. I will never use that password again.

              At one job, I kept a file of three and four letter words – several hundred of them. I would then use a dice roller to pick which four or five words I would mash up for my password – 1337 changes, deliberate typos, etc.

              Other times I get lazy and let KeePass generate some line noise password for me.

          2. iglwif*

            Yes, but also, there are NO good reasons for LW to be looking at (or even have access to) employee passwords!

            It is 2025!!!!!

            1. My Mother Didn't Know My True Name*

              I haven’t rechecked recently, but when I forgot my online access password at my (Very Very Large) Bank about 10 yrs ago, they verified me through security questions (some of which were ambiguous and answers near-forgotten!) and were able to easily retrieve it and read it back to me. I hope they’ve changed their system since.
              One recommendation I received for securely storing passwords is to make a numerical list of all the institutions and store it in one corner of your house (ie. under the placemats), and a corresponding numerical list stored in the far opposite corner of the house that lists the passwords without reference to their sites. An easy enough key if both are found, but neither quick nor obvious in case of attempted theft.

              1. Johnny Slick*

                One old trick I heard but tbh haven’t ever used is you make a sticky note of an algorithm you use and then you (initially) memorize a word. So, like, you might write something down like:

                First 3 letters + number of vowels + last 4 letters + number of consonants

                And then you just remember, say, “cowpie”, which leads you to…

                cow3wpie3

                Eventually if you enter that in daily you’ll memorize it anyway but even if someone gets the algo, they won’t know what to do with it if they don’t also know the word you used.

      2. Calamity Janine*

        it’s really a situation begging for increasingly obnoxious malicious compliance. not that this is what the LW should do in any way, mind you. but i would be very tempted to comply in the direction you suggest!

        …it’s far more classy and impactful than my initial impulse which is to simply remove the cuss in as absurdly overwrought a manner as possible. goodbye Asshat, hello Rectumchapeau! (what a word i have now burdened autocorrect with the knowledge of)

          1. bamcheeks*

            Ahh Rectumchapeau, the mouse famously created by beloved Victorian children’s author S. S. Fry, and immortalised in the 1948 Disney film of the same name.

              2. Beth*

                This comment thread has made my day!

                On a serious note: ANY unaltered word in English, especially an obscenity, is going to be so easy to crack that it might as well be a blow-glass eggshell.

                1. Observer*

                  On a serious note: ANY unaltered word in English, especially an obscenity, is going to be so easy to crack that it might as well be a blow-glass eggshell.

                  Yes!!!!!

                  But also, it’s only SIX letters long. I don’t think that passwords need to be 50 places long to be reasonable. But this is *ridiculously* short.

      3. Wendy Darling*

        I would be so tempted to set my password to something like “StopLookingAtMyPasswordJan”, as a person who just… assumes no one’s ever gonna see my passwords because that’s how that’s supposed to work!

        2. Selina Luna*

          That would be a relatively secure password, actually. Much more secure than the BS Google recommends: a random string of 12 numbers, letters, and symbols that I will never, ever remember, so I depend on Google, who has been hacked at least 2x, to remember for me.

          1. amoeba*

            I use the first letters of sentences – so, like, I’ll probably be able to remember “second verse of song XY” and if I just take the first letter of every word, it makes a great “random” string of numbers (and even some special characters if there’s, like, commas or exclamation marks in there).

            1. Dr. Vibrissae*

              I just make my passwords straight song lyrics if the progam allows for a long enough word. Really hard for computers to guess “If you’re Happy and You know it!” (not a real example).

          2. red dog*

            The string of 12 random characters (x987%$#yfy5^) is hard for computers to hack, but easy for computers to hack.

            Length is the key to making passwords hard to crack. Most hacking is done by computers, and the longer you make the password (no matter how simple the words) the harder it is for a computer to crack.

            “Mary went to school and took he lamb kiki with her on a bike” is a better password than “x987%$#yfy5^”.

            1. I Have RBF*

              My minimum password length these days is 16 characters, and sometimes more for banks.

          3. Quill*

            Every time I am prompted to come up with a password the XKCD “correcthorsebatterystaple” (or whichever – apparently it is not THAT easy to remember!) comic comes up in my head.

        1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          They should not be able to look up a password in any modern system, only to reset it.

      5. Strive to Excel*

        If someone were reading my passwords they’d be able to tell how obnoxious the website they belong to is. The rudeness of my vocabulary is directly proportional to how much of a pain the sign-up is being. Some of my govt passwords would cause *significant* pearl-clutching if someone were to read them out loud!

        1. Grimalkin*

          Oh, absolutely. Especially when the password restrictions are a) numerous and b) not clearly listed, it becomes more and more likely that my password for your website is going to involve an obscenity or two.

          1. JustaTech*

            Especially if the website honestly doesn’t really need a password (no money or personal information beyond an email address).
            It’s a free website, why do I need a password with upper case, lower case, numbers, symbols *and* no repeating characters?

        2. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

          I once set a password to “ohnonotagain” on a site that made me reset it every three months. I’m comfortable posting this here because that was multiple pointless changes ago, so even if you know who Gollux is IRL it won’t get you anywhere.

    3. Tiger Snake*

      Hashes. Salted. Hashes.

      I can’t say anything more. I can’t. Alison would have to delete my messages if I tried.

      3. Madame Desmortes*

        I was screaming too. How in the world, in this year twenty-twenty-five, can ANYONE think…

    4. Certaintroublemaker*

      For real—the system should only allow the admin to reset it to default for recreating a new password, not view the passwords in plain text.

      Not to mention, they’re allowing a 6-character, all lowercase password, no capitals, numbers, or special characters.

      1. WHAT*

        Yup. Or even better, not have a default at all – ours is set up so that way. If the user forgets their password they get a randomised code to set up a new password.

      2. KJC*

        Actually, it’s a myth that all those characters and capitals make it more secure. Machines that are used to break passwords don’t have any difficulty going through all the characters just like they would lowercase letters. It’s based on old ideas that just will not go away! What actually makes a password more secure is it being very long, such as “peanutmanagerllamarainbow.”

        1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          And yet SOOOO many websites require all those characters and stuff when you set up a password. I’ve always found it to be a pita, but if it really doesn’t make things safer, that makes it even more annoying!

          1. Disappointed with the Staff*

            And many of those websites don’t accept some special characters. Nothing like a discovery process… no backslashes. Ok, and no angle brackets. Hmm, no forward slashes either. And no non-ASCII characters, not even high ASCII. And it has to be long, but not more than 21 characters.

            The best ones don’t tell you that when you’re setting the password, they just don’t let you log in with them.

            1. Tea Rocket*

              These are especially annoying for me since I use a password manager. It’s easy enough to set it up to follow rules, but you have to say what they are—and ideally validate the proposed password before it’s set.

              I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who has been allowed to set an invalid password and then been locked out of an account because of it.

              1. Tea Rocket*

                ^I use a password manager which lets me generate new passwords.

                I always submit my comment too soon.

                1. Uncertain about everything*

                  You’re not the only one! Two sites I must use at work do the same kind of thing with security question answers–they’ll accept a response of any length, but they secretly chop off everything after, say, 9 characters. And when you enter an answer longer than that, it’s automatically rejected. I learned the actual limits by trial and error.

                  When I was shadowing my predecessor at a job that required many logins across multiple platforms, she pulled up a spreadsheet of all her work passwords, and I saw that all of them–every single one–was some variation on… um, a phrase to do with mutual oral pleasure-giving. But I didn’t yet understand the systems she was working with, so I assumed that this was a shared spreadsheet with shared departmental logins! I sat there, quietly mortified, wondering how strange my new department would turn out to be. She didn’t seem to notice my reaction, just kept doing her work and explaining bits and pieces to me as she went.

                  Turned out to be an otherwise normal department.

            2. nnn*

              I’m not OP, but this is why my work password has profanity in it in the first place – I got so frustrated with trying to guess the requirements!!

          2. bamcheeks*

            And then don’t tell you when you’re signing in, so you can’t remember whether you need the surprised version of your password or not!

          3. a bunny*

            It’s not quite true that they don’t make it safer.

            The thing that makes a password strong is “entropy” – essentially the number of different possible passwords at the same complexity level. For example, if your password is four numerical digits, there are only 10,000 possible passwords.

            If you pick an English word, there are about 20,000 commonly used words to choose from. So not much better. Add in obscure words and you’re up to somewhere over 100,000.

            Choose a few English words at random and you’ve got yourself a strong password (or passphrase) with many billons of possibilities. But that only works if the words are truly random. “I love my cat” is a terrible password. “Correct horse battery staple” was fantastic until it became a popular example.

            Using more different types of characters (like numbers and symbols) is one way to add complexity, so can make a password stronger, but it’s not the only way.

            2. AlsoADHD*

              Yes, and people need to understand “more secure” will never mean “perfectly secure” too.

        2. Nodramalama*

          Also, they run into the problem where the more complex the password requirements, the more likely it is for people to write them down

        3. Tiger Snake*

          It’s not a myth, it’s a simplification.

          The more character sets your password is permitted to contain, the greater the entropy. The longer the password, the greater the entropy. Greater entropy means brute forcing takes longer. If my password uses 16 sets, its going to be just as effective at stopping a brute force as a really long password.

          But that’s going to be harder for me to remember, probably. And then I’m more likely to use an insecure method to store it – getting the browser to remember, writing it down, etc. A really long password you remember avoids that problem.

          Our passwords will also have to constantly get longer, because processing power can funnel big words just as easily as complex words and that’s always getting faster. One day, we’ll also reach a point where it’s not reasonable to expect people to remember passwords at all because of sheer length. Goodness knows I already have my C-suite screaming that they can’t possibly be expected to type more than 16 characters without mistyping it.

          1. Disappointed with the Staff*

            Once you accept unicode the complexity of the character set stops mattering. Especially if you also don’t limit the length in an unreasonable way.

            One of the test passwords we use is pure unicode non-printing characters. Just because we can :) And some fun printable ones, including bobby tables and ‍‍‍‍

            1. Disappointed with the Staff*

              askamanger does not like non-ASCII unicode so that’s missing above. Sorry.

          2. Beth*

            My C-Suite are all required to use a password manager, yay! Especially since our use of password managers was started by the founding CEO. He has retired, but I can still require the password managers.

        4. Roland*

          It’s not either-or. A six letter password is never secure, but a 16 character password with just lowercase letters is still faster to crack than a 16 character password with some other characters too. Trying only lowercase combos first is the most obvious optimization ever for a cracker.

          1. JSPA*

            So long as most people forced to add a special character will replace an a with an “@,” or S with “$,” (etc) or add punctuation at the end, rather than adding or subbing a random letter / random symbol, you’re not adding as much entropy by requiring those, as one might naively assume.

        6. Observer*

          Machines that are used to break passwords don’t have any difficulty going through all the characters just like they would lowercase letters.

          Yes and no.

          For one thing, “dictionary” hacking is still a thing, because *when it works* it requires fewer resources than brute force. Also, the larger your set of possible and required characters, the more work there is for the system to check. It’s actually the same principle as length.

          If all you can put in any give place is eg 10 characters (so using number based PIN) then you only need to iterate 10 x Y time for each place. If you up that to 26, you just made the number of iteration jump significantly. If you triple that (ie case matters AND you do both numbers and special characters) there is just that much more that the hacker needs to get through.

          So *absolutely* you need to have a minimum length. But requiring something that widens the number of possible characters in a given spot is also useful.

          And then you should STILL have 2FA on any sensitive system.

      3. Observer*

        Yeah.

        Also, not to mention that the LW does not seem to have the most *remote* inkling that this may not that good of an idea.

        I know that the LW did not come here for security advice. But hopefully the deluge of people having fits over this will help them realize that this is a Problem. Or rather a PROBLEM (which should also be in red, but I don’t think there is a code for that.)

        LW, what other systems does your employer have no security / showboat security on? Are you sure you want to them to be storing stuff like your social security number and all of the other highly sensitive data that employers tend to have?

    5. allathian*

      Yeah, the whole system is insecure. A more secure system where nobody ever sees anyone else’s password, including IT, is liberating in another way as well, you can set as rude a password as you want with nobody knowing.

      At one point I had to use a very annoying system that required us to reset the password once a month and we weren’t allowed to use the same password again within the same 12-month period. So I kept a list of passwords in an encrypted file (this was before password apps were a thing) and the first one was anodyne but they got ruder as the year went on. I think it was a 20-character string of alphanumerics and special characters, totally impossible for me to remember without help.

      1. WHAT*

        Yeah once a month is usually overkill, unless you are dealing with really really really sensitive stuff I suppose (and even then to be honest – as you point out this just leads to less security. Most people won’t have an *encrypted* file).

            1. Crypto-no*

              Also because with MFA there’s significantly reduced risk in the first place.

              If it’s not protected by MFA, then you have some problems.

              1. WHAT*

                That too.

                Though I can say from experience people really resist being told they need to use MFA.

                Funnily enough those same people also tend to quickly discover why MFA is a good idea.

                1. Lenora Rose*

                  I don’t like being pressured into it on random websites I will use once in a blue moon (and usually use a disposable password on that won’t connect to the important stuff), but I accept the need at work and financial stuff. Even if it did turn the day my phone was destroyed into a bit of an adventure to get into my work account…

                2. commensally*

                  In my experience people who resist being told to use MFA do so because they have a pretty good idea of how badly it works in the real world.

                  I work in a library as a technology liaison and we have two kinds of experience with MFA:

                  People coming in to the library who can’t access important accounts or files because they were forced into MFA that wasn’t appropriate for them – for example, MFA being turned on without fully explaining to the user what it was so they set it up in an unusable way, or mobile-phone based MFA being forced on people for things like social services where half the people using them don’t have a stable phone number. (The third kind is “MFA” where the workaround if the MFA doesn’t work is they just email you a login link, and everybody has to use that on every login, or you call a phone line and a human resets you without needing any further ID, and at that point it’s not MFA at all, it’s just annoyance.) We spend a significant amount of our workdays helping people try to workaround bad MFA implementations.

                  The other way I interact with MFA is explaining to IT that if they don’t provide a secure workaround for staff members who forgot to bring in their 2fa dongle, the staff will figure out insecure ones without them, and they are always wildly surprised that our staff might do things like “use someone else’s login for the day”, “call home and have somebody read them out what the dongle says”, and “use the tech backdoor I’m sworn by IT not to tell anyone about even though it’s super obvious”.

                3. MFA casualty*

                  MFA is my nemesis.

                  I had the same phone number for >10 years, but had to change it for unpleasant reasons about 6 years ago. I foolishly didn’t subscribe to a digital service to keep my old number just in case, and have since found that a bunch of my less-used accounts auto-enabled 2FA with my stored info i.e. my old number, despite the fact that I never chose to authorize 2FA on any of those accounts. Given that there’s no appeals process or whatever, and I literally can’t talk to a human in tech/customer support nowadays, I have permanently lost some very old accounts with important-for-sentimental-reasons documents in them. I keep my ACTUALLY important documents well backed up in multiple places, but there’s stuff I didn’t even think about because when I was creating random accounts in the ’00s and ’10s, it didn’t occur to me that even if I had my username, my password, and the email linked to the account, I would still be arbitrarily locked out anyway because it’s not “secure.”

                  Plus, I don’t want my current phone number to be linked to every account I have, both from a doxxing perspective and from a single-point-of-failure perspective—someone would just need to hack my phone to get access to literally everything in my life.

                  Sorry, but I’m never going to support MFA as long as it’s implemented the way it is. If one phone number change can throw the whole system into this much disarray, then the system is not robust enough for general use.

                4. Iranian yogurt*

                  I have a similar experience to commensally. I’m a social worker, so also deal with a lot of people who don’t have a stable phone number.

                  As one example, I was trying to help an unhoused person access their unemployment benefits, but their phone service was turned off due to nonpayment…because of the issue accessing their unemployment benefits. We were completely unable to get into their online account because their phone number wasn’t working, and when we tried to call in, there was no option to talk to someone while the client was sitting in my office – we had to leave a number for a call back at an undetermined time, so I couldn’t even leave my number as the client would probably not be present when they called. He wasn’t able to get another job because he didn’t have a working phone number, and passed away a few months later. I can’t say for sure whether accessing his unemployment benefits would have changed that, as his health was already fragile. But I’ll always wonder.

                  I understand why MFA is necessary, but the way it’s currently implemented can actually be devastating for some of our most vulnerable populations. I don’t mean that hyperbolically.

                5. Observer*

                  @ commensally In my experience people who resist being told to use MFA do so because they have a pretty good idea of how badly it works in the real world.

                  Your description is not “how it works in the real world” but “how it works when badly implemented”. SMS/Phone number based 2FA stinks. So much so, that I have disabled it on all systems that I control. So, we allow an app *and* we provide a Fob for anyone who can’t or won’t use a smart phone. It’s that simple.

                  But the reality is that most people who complain are not talking about that. I cannot tell you how many people have told me that it’s “too inconvenient” and “So and so who knows about this stuff says you’re being paranoid” (my response to them is to point to whatever the most recent high profile, high impact breach is.)

                6. commensally*

                  At the moment I’m in the middle of an ongoing war with our IT because they promised we would never need to use personal phone numbers for work accounts (they agreed to this after I gave them a short summary of how many sketchy apps and unsecured wifi I choose to use on mine on a daily basis and they thought about how many other staff do that unknowingly) and then they didn’t realize that order to change our passwords we need phone-based 2FA (despite the dongles, because that’s a different piece of software) and then they required us to change our passwords every three months, so now every three months I have to call them to temporarily set my phone number to IT’s emergency cell number so that they can read me the 2FA code so I can change my password and then they can clear the phone number again.

                  You may think your system is better implemented than that but I guarantee there’s something just as stupid in there somewhere.

              2. Jackalope*

                What is MFA in this situation? I’m assuming it’s not a Master of Fine Arts but I could be wrong.

                3. Lemon*

                  Also called 2FA (two-factor authentication) it’s the thing where the system sends you a code on your phone you have to enter to log in.

                4. Xantar*

                  In many online places I frequent, MFA is “Mother F***ing A**hole” but that’s probably not what is meant here.

              3. Observer*

                @MFA casualty Plus, I don’t want my current phone number to be linked to every account I have, both from a doxxing perspective and from a single-point-of-failure perspective

                Agreed. Which is why you should use an app or a keyfob. And if you are (legitimately, imo) worried about single point of failure, good systems actually allow you to have more that one MFA token. So you could have your app *and* a fob, so that if your phone got stolen, for instance, you would be able to get in *and* delete the phone as a key.

          2. Strive to Excel*

            NIST found that requiring long passwords or expiry tended to lead to password post-its, which are SIGNIFICANTLY less secure than a mid password.

        2. The Cosmic Avenger*

          If it’s that sensitive, you should be using a token generator on an airgapped network.

          I still want to know which LMS this is that’s so poorly designed, I know it’s not Moodle.

          1. Anonymouse*

            We use Relias and it works the same way, the admins can see your password. And it does a poor job of notifying you of that, so the risk for things like this is pretty high. I wouldn’t expect an ordinary user to know that anyone could see their password, and thus sure wouldn’t scold them about it.

        3. I Have RBF*

          Once a month? Holy spitballs, Batman! I though my company was bad for making us change them every 45 days. NIST doesn’t even recommend frequent changes anymore, just 2FA.

      2. commensally*

        Yeah, my passwords at work are all snarky commentary on how bad our system’s computer security and password policies are. (Not in an obvious way, but in ways you could tell if you know our system). I figure if IT ever sees them, then they deserve to, and I sure don’t have trouble remembering them.

    6. JM60*

      #3 For those who don’t know, not only should IT not know your password. In a secure system, your password shouldn’t even be stored anywhere. Instead, the system should create a “hash” of your password by passing your password through a one-way hash function, store that hash. Then when you later enter your password, passing it through the hash and checking if it matches to determine if you entered the right password.

    7. hedgewitch*

      Agree, the IT security failure of the password being discoverable at all is a much bigger problem than whatever the content of the password is.

      1. KateM*

        Agreed. The questionable judgment and unprofessionalism of the password-owner is absolutely insignificant compared to the questionable judgment and unprofessionalism of the IT.

      2. IT password123*

        What has been grinding my gears a lot has been systems that will let me set passwords but won’t make users update them. In those systems I usually will provide the passwords and then say “ok to update the password go to my account…” and give instructions. I kept getting “can’t I keep it?” No it’s a common temp password.

        And I tried doing random password generators for the site then got complaints that the password was too hard. But if I brought it up to the developers they refused to work on it. At least until we failed a security audit. Now that system has a button that sends a pw reset link to the email on file for the account. It’s so nice.

        1. hedgewitch*

          Yeah in a secure password reset process, that temp password should be a one time password that leads to a password change GUI that forces you to change the password on the spot.

    8. Lemon*

      There’s also a 100% chance that person uses the asshat password for every login. Don’t do this, people! LW3 could now probably log in to that guy’s bank account if she wanted.

      1. amoeba*

        Eeeh, I guess most more secure site won’t actually accept such a short, all lower-caps password. However, there’s probably a decent chance it’s “Assh@t!” instead…

      2. Observer*

        LW3 could now probably log in to that guy’s bank account if she wanted.

        Probably not. Because most banks have finally gotten to the point that they make it a bit hard to do this.

        Generally, they either require 2FA or they actually check your IP or even a more specific “fingerprint” and if you try to log in from somewhere other than your computer, it’s going to push back. And that’s in addition to most banks not allowing such a simple and short password.

      1. Geriatric Millennial*

        AGREED. If anyone is working for Neopets, please make it an app already. I’d pay real money to play Meerca Chase again.

        1. Dahlia*

          They’ve been working on the mobile version for a few years now. You can play all the Meerca Chase you want.

    10. red dog*

      The way passwords are supposed to work in modern IT:

      1. User sets a password
      2. The system runs it through an algorithm that produces a “hash-key”–an encoded version of the password that bears no visual relationship to the actual password and that CANNOT BE UNENCODED.
      3. The encoded hash-key is stored in the system.

      When a user puts in their password:
      1. The system runs it through the same algorithm and produces a hash-key.
      2. They system compares the just produced hash-key to the stored hash-key; if they match the user is allowed into the system.

      People haven’t stored passwords in plain text in decades. Find your IT people and tell them to take a refresher course on system security. Storing passwords in plain text is a huge security hole.

      As to using foul language in passwords: Since the password is supposed to be stored in an unreadable encoded form, it really doesn’t matter, as nobody else should ever see the unencoded password.

    11. George*

      General question for the nerdling folks here: I’m pretty careful with passwords but do wonder just how often passwords are legitimately compromised by brute force attacks vs. social engineering (tricking you or, more common, finding the post-it on your monitor)?

      I guess, overall, I’m not convinced to worry too much by solid passwords since I don’t see bad actors getting into my accounts because I’ve got a weak password. They’ll get in because they’ll trick me, threaten me, or find my PW doc (which really exists, though itself password protected as is my RoboForm).
      Thanks!

  2. Eric*

    LW5, are you sure the plan is a violation? If you look at questions 20 and 21 in the link you provide, they are allowed to count vacation time towards the sick leave requirement if they let you use the vacation time when you are sick.

    1. Meat Oatmeal*

      I think questions 20 and 21 are referring to workplaces that combine sick leave and vacation into a single all-purpose type of leave. Those workplaces typically don’t also give specific sick leave.

      I would still encourage the LW to file the complaint with the state government. If the state thinks there’s no violation, they can tell the LW so, and there’s no penalty.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        That’s my read on it as well, bolstered by the fact that their payroll company agreed it was a legal violation — but filing with the state will tell them for sure.

      2. HRinCA*

        It’s not. The state doesn’t care what you call it… as long as you give 40 hours that can be used as sick time. PTO, earned time, doesn’t matter. CA is more concerned about HOW it accrued.

        A ton of companies didn’t up their sick time in 2024 because they had sick and PTO and it meets the requirements. The law is that 40 hours is available to be used as sick time… not that it’s called sick. Companies with unlimited PTO meet the legal requirement as long as they allow 40 sick hours.

        It’s in section 20 on that link “…an employer may provide sick leave through it’s own existing sick leave or paid time off plan…Each plan must satisfy the accrual, carryover and use requirements of the paid sick leave law.”

        It’s a COVID holdover as during COVID CA upped the sick time requirements on businesses in CA but one those rules backed off the 24 hour thing returned.

        The payroll company is reading the law in the strict sense which they tend to do as they are usually not based in CA.

        Obviously if OP wants to go to the state on this they absolutely can… but as long as the employer can show they provide 40 hours of time that can be used as sick, OP won’t prevail.

        CA is…weird. We have a LOT of laws like this that specify what must be provided but leave weird amounts of leeway for how each employer gets to the point.

        1. doreen*

          Also, I haven’t dealt with one in a long time – but aren’t there still payroll companies that strictly handle payroll and don’t necessarily know anything about any other laws? I mean the OP should absolutely file a complaint with the state, but if the payroll company strictly prepares paychecks, remits taxes withheld etc, they wouldn’t necessarily know about the sick leave law.

          1. HRinCA*

            100%

            And the strict “I’m not in CA” read of that law is you need to give 40 hours of time off that is specifically called sick…which just isn’t true.

    2. Runner up*

      20 and 21 refer to paid time off (ie one bucket for sick and vacation) policies, not what LW5’s employer is up to.

      1. HRinCA*

        OP’s employer is good on the sick and PTO combination.

        The payday thing is another issue.

    1. Jinni*

      That was my first thought! Whenever I’ve used a payroll company, they’re pretty good about flagging new state laws because, at least in my case, they provided liability against claims (from the state/employees). Odd that they’d process violations….

    2. HRinCA*

      Unless the employee is admin and exempt, the requirements are wages earned from the 1st to 15th must be paid by the 26th and wages from the 16th to end of month need to be paid by the 10th.

      I would bring this up to the state. Sick time CAN legally be combined with PTO

    3. Coffee Protein Drink*

      I didn’t know that was illegal anywhere. Interesting!

      I only had one job, in the late 1990s that paid once a month. It was the last day of the month, so rent always got paid. It was a hell of a lesson in budgeting and I hope I never have to do that again.

      1. 1-800-BrownCow*

        I work at a company that does monthly pay and I hate it. Our pay is the 25th of the month. We were bought out by another large company a few years ago and I was hoping our pay schedule would change, but since payroll is handled by HR within our facility, nothing changed. So, 12 years now I’ve lived with getting paid once a month.

        The company is starting to standardize some of our systems globally. I’m really hoping payroll will be one of those that they decide to standardize, and they’ll change us to biweekly. I’m not sure how our sister facility in the states handles pay, but I keep hoping we change.

    4. amoeba*

      Completely irrelevant for you, so I apologise in advance, but I always find that so fascinating – wages in all parts of Europe I’ve ever worked are always, always monthly (usually paid towards the end of the month, 25th for us). It’s so ingrained that the idea of getting paid twice monthly is really super weird for us (or maybe just me? Haha!)

      1. londonedit*

        Yep, monthly is totally normal here in the UK too (for salaried people, at least, which the vast majority of office jobs are). There are some differences in when pay day is – some companies choose a fixed date like the 25th, some do the last working day of the month, some do the last Thursday of the month. But a monthly salary is completely normal.

      2. Blueberry*

        That’s interesting – I live in Europe and get paid every two weeks, but I was paid monthly when I worked in California! (I was a teacher, which is one of the fields where it’s allowed.)

      3. Always Tired*

        Even weirder, I am in the states and always worked placed that paid every two weeks or bimonthly (very similar but different, it turns out.) But now I work in construction, and it’s very common for construction to pay WEEKLY. So I process payroll every Monday, and we all get paid every Friday.

      4. Generic Name*

        I’m in the US and I get paid weekly. First job that does it this way in my 20 year career. It’s glorious.

    5. a good mouse*

      That jumped out to me as well. I hope LW5 mentions that too when calling (and I hope they actually call!).

  4. Andy*

    #2, if it’s that exact stamp, I can see a faint year on the bottom left (top right in the image where it’s upside down). Could you use the text for orientation?

    1. Certaintroublemaker*

      Or a visual mnemonic, like, “Stars go in the sky, so top left stars is how it goes.”

    2. Cmdrshprd*

      Could buying the sheets instead of the rolls help, you only have to orient the entire bigger sheet? They are all the same price based on total stamps, 500 stamps in sheets of 20 costs the same as 500 stamps in rolls of 100.

      But at the end of the day you have been told this is a problem and need to find a way to fix it. While it might not seem like a bid deal and I don’t think it is, some people might see it as ” if they can’t even put the stamp the right way, how can I trust them to be competent in X job/service.”

      1. Coverage Associate*

        Or request to buy one of the styles that doesn’t have as much of a top and bottom. There are first class Forever stamps of round flowers or sea creatures, for example.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            I mean, honestly, with all that’s happening in the US right now, probably not a bad idea for them to use non-flag stamps anyway. OP could ask their manager about that, an easy solution to this problem.

          2. MassMatt*

            Was going to say this. No one is likely to care if a flower or fish is upside down.

            IMO the supervisor is being kind of ridiculous, a write up over an upside down stamp? But some people are very particular about images of the flag.

            1. Cmdrshprd*

              Eh I think partially it is more about disregarding, intentional or not directions from the boss.

              If boss says use purple ink (just because boss likes purple or it’s easier for them to read) for the TPS reports and OP refuses, or even just forgets repeatedly/accidentally and gets talked to it about it, after the 3/4the time it is not unreasonable to write something up.

              One of the benefits of being the boss is you get to decide how most things should be done and subordinates need to follow along.

              So if OP kept forgetting to use the purple ink it would it be unreasonable to write them up after repeated warnings and conversations about it.

            2. Observer*

              IMO the supervisor is being kind of ridiculous, a write up over an upside down stamp? But some people are very particular about images of the flag.

              The second sentence is what takes the manager from ridiculous to sensible. There are actually a whole host of rules about how to display the flag, although most people don’t realize that. But most people *do* read an up-side-down flag as a statement. So the manager has a good reason to be concerned.

              The fact that he has already talked to the LW about this makes it worse, as well. Because even if there were not a real potential issue here, the boss still has a right to expect that they will follow instructions.

            3. Different Name This Time*

              Often what’s going on with writeups like this is that a supervisor is trying to get someone to correct a much broader lack of situational awareness and attention to detail.

              1. Chauncy Gardener*

                Came here to say this. Are you not following up on other feedback your boss gives you, OP?

        2. Hyaline*

          This—was going to say, when this roll is used up, buy a different style. They’re all the same price and you don’t get a bulk discount.

        3. LaurCha*

          At my PO they only forever stamp rolls available are flags. Otherwise you have to keep track of a bunch of sheets and frankly it gets messy.

          But also the new design is a bit tricky since the flags are waving and one has a darker background.

      2. getaway_grrl*

        I was wondering about this as well. I’m left handed, so a roll that orients with the way I do things is always going to be upside down.

        1. Reba*

          I was thinking that handedness and what makes sense with the motions of peel and stick are behind this, when OP is working quickly. My suggestion is to cut a chunk of stamps off the roll to work with, so you can more easily get them the right way up before peeling.

          1. Reba*

            And if your business does a lot of mailings, it could be worth looking into a metered postage system. There are monthly costs but you get discounted postage. And the machines are fun :)

            1. Slow Gin Lizz*

              This, actually, would be the best solution, IMHO. Saves a lot of time, because you can just go “ka-CHUNK” with the machine and do a whole bunch in a row quickly instead of manually peeling and sticking stamps. Any company that does a lot of mailings should have such a machine anyway.

              1. Millenial*

                My mom was the volunteer receptionist at my church growing up, so I was practically raised in that office. She often just set me loose to play with whatever I could find. One day, I found the automatic stamper and Ka-CHUNKed it on every piece of paper I could find. Apparently that cost the church a lot of money and I wasn’t allowed unsupervised playtime in the office any more.

            2. Annie*

              Right, I can’t imagine if the company is sending out a lot of mailings that they don’t have a postage machine. It’s so much better than affixing stamps to envelopes.

            3. Observer*

              it could be worth looking into a metered postage system.

              Yes! This is an excellent solution.

              But in the meantime, the LW needs to get this right.

            4. Nonprofit Lifer*

              Yes! If you are sending out so many letters that you need to buy stamps in a roll and you’re not able to pay attention to every stamp you press you probably will save money in the long term with a postage machine.

              Research the options, do the math, and if it’s more affordable, present it to your boss. You don’t even have to mention the stamp orientation issue; focus instead on saving time and money.

      3. just tired*

        I have co workers who can’t spell worth a damn, but this is considered important? Wow.

        1. Bottled Rage*

          Exactly. I can’t say that I have ever looked at the stamp on any business mail I have received. Making this an issue is completely bizarre.

          1. Xantar*

            I think it’s bizarre BUT ALSO that we live in really bizarre times and so unfortunately it’s important. As Alison notes, an upside down flag is used as a signal of distress and has been hung in national parks among other places as a form of political protest.

            It is bizarre and unsettling that we live in a time where such a thing happens. But that is the way it is, and LW has to figure out how to account for it. Frankly, if this is the biggest issue LW has to deal as a result of the current political environment, they should count themselves lucky.

          2. Zephy*

            The people most likely to (1) notice, (2) care, and (3) make it A Thing are, unfortunately, an awful combination of stupid, loud, and have lots of stupid loud friends. So. I get where LW’s manager is coming from.

            LW, can you just…flip the roll over?

            1. Ama*

              Yes and I suspect that’s why the boss is trying to get OP to stop – I don’t agree with how they are going about it, but I don’t agree with workplaces that “write up” employees in general. But it’s entirely possible Boss knows certain people receiving that mail are the kind of people that will make a big stink about the flags being upside down.

                1. Leenie*

                  It did. But most recently it’s being used as a protest against the current, incredibly right-wing, administration. After the cruel and senseless job cuts, flags have been hung upside down in national parks as a more traditional sign of distress. So the boss is almost certainly afraid of the reaction of right wingers, not with being associated with right wingers.

                2. Blueberry*

                  That’s interesting – in the recent instances I’ve seen it, it was meant in protest of the current administration.

        2. Targ*

          I’m so embarrassed for OP2, to be honest. This is such an embarrassing hill to die on/get fired for. Put more effort into getting the damn stamps correct.

          1. Nodramalama*

            It’s embarrassing that people care enough about the orientation of stamps for it to be a firable offence.

        3. Snudance Prooter*

          If someone was repeatedly making typos that resulted in inadvertent cursing – say, misspelling shut or can’t – they’d suddenly get a lot of attention.

      4. Pixel*

        I could understand that argument, but that’s not what they’re getting written up for. They got written up for making political statements, which isn’t true (and I think a more serious accusation than just “use of stationary needs to be more tidy”).

        1. amoeba*

          Well, it’s not but intent doesn’t equal impact and if customers perceive the letters as a political statement, it doesn’t really change anything for the business that LW didn’t intend it as one! So I do understand the boss in this scenario, LW does need to find a way to stop this.

        2. Blueberry*

          LW may not have intended to make a political statement, but the recipient of the letter isn’t going to know that. And this isn’t the first time it’s been pointed out to them – if it was, I’d understand not knowing what the upside flag means, but now they *do* know and are continuing to make the same mistake.

          It would be like if I heard the slogan “all lives matter” out of context and thought it was just a nice sentiment about how all human beings have value, and decided to put it in my work email signature. My boss could (rightfully) tell me to take it out, even if I genuinely didn’t know the subtext and wasn’t trying to make a statement. That’s a more extreme example, but same principle.

      5. Blue M&M*

        It’s kind of like that old rock star tour rider about the brown m&ms – if they can’t get the small details right, how can we trust this crew with important stuff like the pyrotechnics?

        It’s only a small portion of your job but it signals to your boss (maybe unfairly!) other problems with attention to detail

      6. GammaGirl1908*

        Or mark the top of the roll, so you know they are oriented correctly before you start.

    3. Suus*

      Maybe a visual reference could help that you could keep in sight, like a photograph you take with your phone? You could also print a picture and write “up” on top and “down” on the bottom and keep it on the table. That way you can check before stamping.

    4. Cohort1*

      #2, somewhere in this list of ideas to help you get the stamps on right side up, I hope you’ll find the trick that works for you. Here’s another possibility: those stamps say “Forever” up top. Every time you stick a stamp on, say (in your head) “Forever up” when you stick it down. Don’t just think it, say the words silently to yourself and make sure your fingers are obeying your orders. After the 20th time you’ve said it to yourself using your words, keep saying it until that batch is done. Tedious, I know, but you need to get it right and it does work for some brain malfunctions.*

      *I have trouble with numbers. The phone number ends 5703? In my head I’m saying “five-seven-zero-three” and watching my fingers to get it right. What adult needs to do that!? I do.

      1. gyrfalcon17*

        As I understand the stamp when correctly oriented, “Forever” is not at the top. Rather, it runs upwards along the left side.

        The visual cue for me would be that the top of the stamp has a flag all the way across.

        1. Parrhesia25*

          The fact that we cannot even determine what the correct orientation of the stamps kind of proves to me that “one neat trick to always put these stamps right-side-up” is not the solution to the problem.

          Buy some different stamps, already.

      2. Lady Knittington*

        Yup, I have to add numbers to a spreadsheet. If I mentally say: category one, 3 people; category 2, nine people; category three, five people etc, then I make fewer mistakes.

      3. Emmy Noether*

        I have the same thing with numbers! I cannot remember numbers at all, I can only remember the words for them. To memorize phone numbers, I have a little song in my head and have to listen to myself sing it, in full, to retrieve the number. If I have to say it in a different language, I have to internally sing it and translate on the fly.
        Even for numbers I only have to remember a few seconds, like to enter a code, I have to repeat the words to myself on a loop.
        Brains are weird.

        1. metadata minion*

          Yup, same here. On the plus side, my brain remembers songs *really, really well*, so I will forever remember my early-childhood address (it’s not even where I lived most of my childhood!) and phone number. And I am forever grateful for the high school math teacher who taught us little songs to all the formulas.

        2. Nightengale*

          I have the same problem with pictures or anything visual. I can only learn and understand it once I convert it into words or someone else converts it into words for me. Then I memorize the words. This is how I (sorta) read maps, how I (more or less) made it through anatomy class and how I learn dancing. In my case it’s almost definitely an undiagnosed non-verbal learning disability.

        3. MigraineMonth*

          I think my working memory for unrelated numbers is something like 3. I am amazed by people who can do mental arithmetic; I can’t add two-digit numbers together unless I’ve memorized the answer, and I’m terrible at memorizing numbers.

          Bizarrely, I’m great at math. Just not numbers.

    5. Natalie*

      I have a similar problem as LW#2.

      My brain simply can’t seem to remember which corner gets a return address sticker, and which gets the stamp. Both seem equally plausible to me.

      My solution was to get an envelope that I knew had both applied correctly and take a picture to use as a reference. Maybe try something like that, that you can refer to and make sure that yours looks the same as the picture?

      Good luck; sometimes brains are just bad at braining. :)

    6. JSPA*

      IMO it’s questionable design, because we’re used to seeing things receding in the distance ABOVE the closest object. Naming that problem may help override what your eyes and experience are telling you: in this case, we’re looking from below, and the largest flag is on the top.

      I don’t know if it’s legal (or would mess with scanning) but another option might be to lightly run a highlighter along the top edge of the roll, such that there’s a tiny bit of yellow on the top of the stamp.

      If you have diagnosed dyslexia and/or left-right “blindness” and/or macular degeneration or cataracts or stroke aftereffects or something definite that, in your case, makes it hard to distinguish or process details in an image, I actually do think you might want or need to go the route of accommodations! Buying stamps that are not objectionable regardless of up/down orientation seems like an incredibly reasonable accommodation.

      1. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

        Yeah, having a flag on the stamp is already a political statement, just one so embedded in the current order most people don’t recognize it as such. Getting a stamp with a seashell or a picture of some folk art on it solves the problem nicely.

      2. Antilles*

        I don’t know if it’s something OP has any say over, but this feels like the easiest answer. If the stamps are just a bouquet of flowers, people might still notice that if it’s upside down, but it doesn’t carry any sort of political implications.

      3. Rex Libris*

        Assuming they’re buying the larger rolls of first class stamps that businesses often get, those are generally only available in the flag design.

        1. Lemon*

          Yeah, I just poked around the USPS site, and can confirm the coils are only offered with flag designs.

    9. Lemon*

      Most of the flag stamp designs come in coils/rolls, just start ordering one that’s easier for you! Several have text on them, so that will make it easy to orient.

    10. Names are Hard*

      OP, can you mark the top of the roll so you know it’s the side that should be up? Like with a highlighter or if the roll is big enough take a marker and write “up” on the roll? I don’t think when you pull the stamps off it would be visible to see at that point.

    11. BobCat*

      An upside down flag is a symbol of distress however that has to with a REAL flag actually flying in the wind. That is not the case here. It is just a tiny picture of a flag on a tiny piece of paper. There are four directions that a stamp can be attached. An intelligent person would realize that there is a much higher probability that the stamp was simply attached in one of the other three ways instead of it being a distress or political statement. Unfortunately, nowadays there is also a higher probability that people’s minds will automatically go the worst-case interpretation rather than seeing the other more likely possibilities and just letting it go. If I saw an upside down stamp, the thought would never cross my mind that someone was making a political statement.

      1. Rex Libris*

        Me either, but many people nowadays make a hobby of looking for things to be offended by.

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          The idea that people are actually looking at the orientation of the stamp on the paper mailing they receive in order to complain…kind of boggles my mind. I don’t even know which side of the aisle this particular crew is on!

    12. Aldabra*

      Isn’t there some kind of stamp dispenser specially made for those rolls? Surely there is.

  5. Tiger Snake*

    LW1 – Also don’t forget that this director has come from outside. They’re used to a different work culture.
    For example, in my current organisation introducing my team would feel like I was overreaching; that I was speaking for them instead of giving them room to speak. I’d never introduce them in the meeting and instead let them introduce themselves. That’s not a snub, it is a culture clash.

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      I think the issue is the boss has not introduced themselves to OP, not that they don’t introduce OP in meetings.

      Aka boss has not said: “hi OP I am jane your new boss nice to meet you, what do you do?”

      But I was a little confused by OP saying:
      .”For example, despite us having met several times in person, she has made no effort to introduce herself to me or ask any questions about me or my role.”

      If they have met several times before IMO it would be weird for boss to introduce themselves. I only introduce myself to people I have not met in person before, or like someone Ive emailed with but never personally met. If by introduce OP just means saying hello/checking in I can see it being a little off but not red flag level.

      OP 1 i would caution you not to create a self fulfilling prophecy, I would say you should be extra friendly/warm. Based on the letter there really isn’t much if anything here. If you are on guard/lookout you might already be looking at this with dark colored glasses/sunglasses (opposite of rose colored ones) and subconsciously act a little colder, and she acts slightly colder and it creates a feedback loop that proves your hunch. I would try give them the benefit of the doubt.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I really agree with your last paragraph, even as someone who places a lot of weight on gut instinct. If you have food gut instincts, it’s an opportunity to look at what’s going on with clear eyes, and see how the person is affecting things in the usual context. If you change the context yourself, you miss the opportunity to control the experiment. OP’s feelings are a sign to be aggressively normal and to behave with the benefit of the doubt, regardless of feelings.

        2. DJ Abbott*

          Give the benefit of doubt, but don’t give an opportunity for the new Director to hurt or compromise OP. Practice CYA, just in case.

          1. Great Frogs of Literature*

            I’ve had a new director I neither liked nor trusted (he was perfectly friendly and said all the right things, but over time I became increasingly sure that he’d be friendly and collegial right up until the day that he’d toss you out on your ear) and you’d better believe that I was cheerful, outgoing, and polite whenever I interacted with him. And also made VERY sure that any of my work that landed on his desk was impeccable.

            Because I didn’t trust him, I worked very hard to make sure he thought I was a model employee, and projected Friendly And Competent as hard as I could whenever I was near him. As a result, he probably has no idea I dislike him. Heck, he may think I’m an extrovert.

            1. Cmdrshprd*

              Did you instincts prove correct?

              “that he’d be friendly and collegial right up until the day that he’d toss you out on your ear)”

              You say that like it’s a bad thing, but I actually think it’s good thing. sometimes companies need to fire people, and I would hope/want the people doing it to be friendly and professional.

              If you mean that you would be let go for performance reasons without being given feedback and chance to improve that is different.

              1. Bitte Meddler*

                I got a new boss last summer. He reports directly to the CEO, so, high up there.

                He has made noises about wanting to make cuts and, at one point, seemed to be eyeing me and a person whose role, on paper if you glance quickly, appears to be the same as mine. It very much is not, but if you’ve never worked in a company with a role like my peer’s, you wouldn’t have an existing frame of reference to show you that the role is, indeed, very valuable and very distinct from any other corporate role.

                Also, a boss who knew the difference in our roles would choose to keep my peer and let me go, if push came to shove.

                But because I don’t trust my boss and therefore have done exactly what Great Frogs did [be cheerful, outgoing, and polite whenever I interact with him], he started lining up reasons to let my peer go.

                My peer hasn’t ever been disrespectful to him, or even negative in any way, but their natural style is like my natural style and they haven’t masked it in favor of what our new boss prefers.

                Thankfully, several senior-level people intervened and let Boss know that removing either one of us would be very costly in the near-term, let alone the long-term, so it looks like we’re safe (for now).

                I’ve also talked to my peer about changing their style and subtly selling themselves and their role to Boss in their weekly 1:1’s (which is something I’ve been doing since shortly after Boss started, when it became apparent that he had only a partial idea of what my role does).

      2. Nightengale*

        I was picturing this as, OP, several teammates and Director were in a meeting together but the director never stopped to introduce themself or ask people to go around the table introducing themselves. And then a week or so later, they were in a meeting together. And then again. So they “met” several times in the sense of co-attending a meeting but didn’t do formal introductions at any point.

        If that is the case, I would probably be miffed too. We had a new directory person come in two steps above my manager who was charged with making a lot of decisions that affected my work, but never took the time to introduce herself or more crucially reach out to me, the only person who had the information she really needed to make the decisions.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          That’s how I read it too. They’ve been in the same room/same meeting several times, but haven’t done the introduction thing.

          In my experience, it’s best when new people are introduced by a third party. It’s hard for a new person to keep track of whom they’ve met. For the same reason, without hierarchy considerations, it’s usually more on the person who has been there longer to introduce themself. This is complicated when the new person is the boss, in which case one may expect them to take the initiative. Maybe in this case, both are expecting the other to introduce themself first…?

        2. PettyWap*

          I’d be miffed, too. I’m also a tad petty and would plan an opportunity to introduce myself to the new person in front of their boss.

      3. Miette*

        OP, this is good advice. I would also add, in the words of the great Ice Cube, to (chickity)check yourself before you wreck yourself?

        You say you “have a fair amount of influence and seniority at my company, but that is not obvious to new people, and to me it feels like she is ignoring or snubbing people who she perceives as having less power.” Could it be you are feeling snubbed by her not (yet) recognizing your influence and seniority and are attaching bad vibes to that?

        Perhaps she’s very busy–perhaps she just hasn’t yet had the time to focus on doing one-on-ones with everyone on the team yet. Not ideal for a newcomer, but I wouldn’t say this is the behavior of a raging narcissist either.

        Before you start this “accidental whisper campaign” and make a potential enemy our of someone who is going to be way more valuable as an ally, you need to take the aam advice above and be sure you haven’t misread the situation or seen motives where there are none.

      4. learnedthehardway*

        Agreed!! The new director hasn’t done anything to warrant being compared with the narcissist family member. And how “recent” do you mean by “recently joined”, OP? If it’s within a couple of weeks, give them some time. Often people are being onboarded and acclimatized for a bit before they take charge.

        Honestly, the person who should have introduced the new director really should have been THEIR manager. That would be the polite and supportive thing to do for a new hire.

        It’s also possible that your director expects that her team will introduce themselves to her (something like parents expecting the kids to call them, rather than the other way around). If no introduction from your director is forthcoming, why not request a team or individual meeting to “get to know your expectations and make sure we’re aligned”?

      5. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I think what OP meant was that the director didn’t introduce herself the first time they met, nor has she asked OP anything about what OP’s role/tasks are. The first part isn’t that strange, especially if the director was already introduced to the whole team by other management, but the second part is a little odd. You’d think a new manager would want to know at least a little bit about what her team does in their day-to-day, wouldn’t you?

        In any case, my advice is to trust but verify. Great Frogs of Literature has good advice below about being a model employee. I did similarly with a nightmare director at my last job, always doing the things the person asked for – because she didn’t actually do any work, she almost never asked me for anything but would then bad-mouth me to leadership, saying that I didn’t do anything she asked me to do. The one exception to this was when she asked me to do a thing in my last week on the job – something she’d been promising to get me for, I kid you not, 6 months – and I asked my manager if it was ok if I was “too busy” to do the thing. Manager was like, oh hell, yes, you are definitely “too busy” to do it. That “thank you for your patience while I work on transitioning out of my role here at org” was one of the most satisfying emails I’ve ever written.

        Your instincts may be sound, OP, but in every way you should act like you don’t have these suspicions.

      6. DragoCucina*

        I think this is all really good advice.
        “she has made no effort to introduce herself to me or ask any questions about me or my role.” If she’s new she’s has a lot of things going on. We have a “acting” big boss right now. He’s been in this position since January and was the deputy to the big boss before he left.

        Current big boss knows the division I’m on. But, he finally had time in his schedule to have a meeting with our whole division so that we could give an overview of what each do. It wasn’t a slight. It was simply making room on his over filled calendar for us.

        The mannerisms thing also stuck out. My husband has been judged negatively for being a big guy. He is supposed to have clavicle reduction surgery to be less “threatening”? How a person moves and speaks is influenced by so many factors. Which may have nothing to do OP’s relative.

    2. TheBunny*

      Yes. I always let my team speak first in meetings or volunteer first for projects. This reads like this to me as well.

    3. moql*

      I came here to say this. In my workplace anyone new is taken around the office and introduced to everyone else, even if they’re quite senior. If that is what they’re used to it’s possible they’re feeling a bit out of place themself! It really feels like some superficial similarities are coloring OP’s perception of something that’s not that odd at all, and not really that big a deal even if it is strange for their company culture.

  6. Calamity Janine*

    LW4, if you feel like you should still be doing more… why not encourage others to do the same thing? it’s highly unlikely that you’re the only person who has noticed this excellent leadership, and i also bet that people may want to thank others similarly. it might be a rather nice way to take a breather in the chaos! and as far as fads to try and induce in the workplace, you can do way worse than “what if it’s en vogue to write personal notes to people who you sincerely appreciate for their work during this uncertain time” :)

    …plus it’s potentially an excuse to buy stationary, and who doesn’t love an excuse to buy stationary (she says, with her pile of nicely printed pretty cards that are blank on the inside and she will get around to using someday she swears)

    1. WoodswomanWrites*

      LW4, it wounds like we’re in comparable circumstances. Like you, I’m at a workplace that is caught in the unpredictable landscape of executive orders.

      Coincidentally, this very thought of expressing appreciation for a leader at my organization came up today. For logistical reasons, I’m unable to give them a physical card. Instead, I sent them an email about how much I appreciate their above and beyond leadership during this tough time, and copied our CEO to elevate the person’s recognition.

      I timed my message so it could be in their inbox first thing tomorrow morning. If it’s buried with everything they’re dealing with, it will no doubt be appreciated when they find it. And I know our CEO will see it.

  7. New job anon*

    Oh OP1, this just happened to me last week. A coworker at my new job, for lack of a better word, triggered me with behavior similar to that of the coworker who was responsible for leaving my last job. He hijacked a team meeting with complaints and unfounded accusations and just overall pompousness and rudeness. Alison’s advice is what I am doing (I don’t have enough info yet!) and I also spoke with a coworker who saw I was activated. I was like “this is probably me being activated about x,y and z but is this something coworker does” ? like i was sitting there wondering if every team meeting was gonna be this dude’s ranty ego fest. it threw me.

    I didn’t make it a bigger deal than it was because I was mortified that I was visibly upset (even though I was still within reasonably professional norms and the triggering coworker was objectively being a jerk) and the context from this coworker helped. I wish it hadn’t happened so early but on some level I was because the coworker who talked me down gave me info I needed to pump the brakes and follow through with just recognizing how I feel but not acting.

    1. Malarkey01*

      I guess I don’t understand what following your gut looks like here? Are you finding a new job? If your new manager isnt great, is narcissistic, is a bad personality match…you still have to work with them professionally. You definitely don’t start a whisper campaign.

      1. Dasein9 (he/him)*

        Leaving is the most extreme option. Most people can’t up and do that so we use less extreme options. We can protect ourselves by not opening up or giving the person causing our unease any information they could use to hurt us. We can learn their patterns and how to navigate their moods and pet peeves.

        Working for a supportive boss means we can focus on our own growth and our team’s growth.

        Working for a narcissist or volatile boss means we focus on navigating the minefield that is our work landscape.

        1. Dasein9 (he/him)*

          Oh, and a whisper campaign is sometimes needed when we need to protect each other.

    2. just tired*

      IMO there is a difference between a co worker who is triggering ( I have one of those he looks EXACTLY like an ex of mine who caused no ends of anxiety, but I can handle that) and someone who set’s off warnings in your intuition. It’s a completely different feeling, and if it’s genuine intuition pay attention. Don’t say anything but be careful. Intuition is usually right.

      1. Aggretsuko*

        One time we had a temp start in our office and I just had BAD VIBE right off, like I immediately thought, “I don’t like this person.” I don’t normally do that, but the one day I had to share an office with her, it’s not like she did anything wrong, but she just gave off…something. I then was out for a few days and when I came back, the temp had already quit the job! I was told by someone else she’d worked with the temp before and the temp was horrible!

        If you have bad vibe right off, it’s not just “so-and-so reminds me of,” it’s probably unfortunately a legitimate feeling you can’t shrug off.

      2. Malarkey01*

        My question is okay your gut is right and this is a bad manager….what’s the issue or next step you’re looking for here?

    3. Leenie*

      This sounds like a different situation from the first letter. You have someone who is actively acting like a jerk. But the LW has someone who seems to be behaving within norms, and LW is putting the worst possible read on it. Doesn’t necessarily mean she’s wrong. Just that her case is way more open to interpretation than yours seems to be.

  8. Nodramalama*

    LW1 I am also confused what “doing due diligence” would look like. Even if they have narccisistic traits, I’m not sure there’s any due diligence to do. That doesn’t mean they can’t so their job. But for now it appears that all that’s happened is that the new boss hasn’t been particuarly friendly. There’s really nothing to do.

    LW2, I don’t know if this is an American thing, but can you ask to buy different stamps so you don’t run into this issue moving forward?

    LW3 it seems pretty weird to me that 1. There is a security system where you can see people’s passwords, which seems like a quite obvious security flaw. And 2. That you’d direct them to change it to something else. OK, so it’s unprofessional to use that as a password, but why does it really matter?

    1. Chirpy*

      re: stamps: most businesses just buy the generic Forever stamps that come in rolls, which have mostly just had flags on them for years, ever since they were introduced. It’s the most cost effective option (and avoids any controversy over stamp choices).

      (For non-Americans: The Forever stamp is purchased at whatever the current rate for a first class envelope is, but remains good forever even if the price of stamps goes up. So a Forever stamp purchased 15+ years ago for 34 cents can still be used even though the current price is 73 cents, and you don’t need to cover the envelope in one cent stamps to make up the difference. Typically, the fun designs come in sheets of 10-20, and the one the OP uses comes in rolls of 100, which are more commonly used by businesses and are much easier to use when you’re stamping a lot of envelopes.)

      1. Nodramalama*

        Yeah ok that’s good to know. When I was buying stamps for work we just bought whatever from the post office, which usually are decorated with native plants or animals. I cant imagine anyone being upset by an upside down wombat.

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          There’s a possible spatial issue with that solution. Many businesses have a stamp dispenser designed for the roll. Wombats would only be on the sheet stamps.

      2. allathian*

        I’m in Finland, and we have a similar system with forever stamps. The value at the time of purchase is irrelevant so it’s not even posted on the stamp.

        That said, the last time I did any mailing, I worked for a customer survey company. Most of the time I cold called people, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds because all of the people I called had opted in to accept customer survey calls from whichever client we worked for.

        Some of our surveys were written questionnaires, and when I had to mail those, I was so happy to use a franking machine instead of stamps! It was bad enough having to put the questionnaires and cover letters in the envelopes by hand… So many papercuts! Most of those are probably done online now.

        1. Bird names*

          I was really stoked the first time I learned of franking machines.
          My last workplace at least used one and it made things so much easier. They were also always set to the current price, so no checking required before digging out old stamps.

      3. Wendy Darling*

        As a person who has not bought stamps in 10+ years, I’m sorry stamps cost WHAT now? (I am on my last forever stamp from a sheet of 20 forever stamps I bought sometime in something like 2012.)

        1. WHAT*

          I’m afraid that’s exactly why stamps cost more these days – they’re used much less so the prices need to go up in order to maintain the service at a profitable level (personally I’m of the opinion that public services shouldn’t need to be run like a private company because your profit comes from a functioning economy but you know).

          I’m pretty sure prices for physical letters will be going up next year when PostNord stops delivering them and private companies take over, because they’ll likely charge the same as delivering a small package.

          Not sure how much I like that decision to be honest.

        2. londonedit*

          First-class stamps in the UK will cost £1.70 each from next month, if it makes you feel any better! Of course businesses will usually have franking machines rather than using stamps, because if you’re sending a lot of post then you can get a better deal on postage costs if you have a franking machine for the post room. But yeah, sending things in the post is ridiculously expensive here these days.

        3. metadata minion*

          I buy stamps slightly more often than that, and I was startled, too! I notice what the sheet costs when I buy it, but because they don’t have the price printed on them, I don’t actually *remember* what they cost, or ever bother to calculate what they cost per stamp instead of per sheet.

        5. Elizabeth West*

          Same. It’s a good thing I still have a bunch of stamps left since I hardly ever mail anything.

          What worries me is if they decide they’re not going to honor them anymore. It could happen because, well you know why.

      4. Emmy Noether*

        Thank you for the explanation!

        In systems that have both forever stamps and fixed-value stamps, why would one ever buy the latter? Just for a pretty design and immediate use?

        Germany doesn’t have forever stamps because it was thought that people might buy and hoard stamps as an investment (and with the development of postage prices in recent years, stamps would indeed have quite a nice return – if you could manage to find a buyer).

        My husband is French and used to always buying forever stamps. I had to explain the concept of complement stamps to him.

        1. CTT*

          The Post Office regularly does temporary releases of stamps with special designs that people buy even if the value may not be enough in the future. For example, last year they put out a Jeopardy stamp that looked like a clue from the show (I bought a sheet the day they came out). Or I know people who always buys a sheet of whatever winter-specific stamps are out to put on Christmas cards.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            I can definitely see Holiday stamps and the like to use right away – especially if the forever stamps have more boring designs.

            I just always end up buying a sheet of ten (with pretty designs!) and then using it over the course of about three years – by which time there have been two price increases. Maybe I should just always buy two sheets of 5 cent stamps at the same time to be prepared.

          2. PieAdmin*

            I have the Jeopardy stamps, The D&D stamps, the things under a microscope stamps, the Appalachian Trial stamps, and am currently eyeing the manatee stamps.

            Help.

            1. anonprofit*

              I mean hey, the AT ones are forever stamps! (They’re on the desk in front of me right now.)

            3. JustaTech*

              If you buy them online directly from USPS then they’ll start sending you their yearly philatelist (stamp collector) catalog which is filled with pretty limited-issue stamps, but also stamp books and notebooks and memorabilia.

          3. ThatGirl*

            All first-class stamps are Forever stamps now (Jeopardy, Ansel Adams, D&D, etc) – exceptions being things like airmail, postcard, international etc.

        2. Insert Clever Name Here*

          The limited time releases are often fun and sometimes fandom-related, so if I’m at the post office I might buy a sheet of 10 “Women’s History Month” with influential women from US history, or the space themed ones. It also helps support the post office to buy the valued stamps.

        3. perstreperous*

          Yes – fixed-value/commemorative stamps are sold exactly for those reasons, and also to collectors which nowadays, I suspect, is the bulk of sales.

          At least in the UK commemorative stamps are rarely seen because you have to go specifically to a Post Office to buy them – definitive stamps (the small single-colour ones with the King’s head as a large part of the design) can be bought from all sorts of locations.

          We had the problem noted by the German authorities but neatly solved it by invalidating all existing forever stamps a few years ago and releasing replacements. To rescue sunk costs there was an official swap scheme – send old forever stamps to a particular address by post and get the same number of replacements, not a cash equivalent, sent back to you a couple of weeks later. As I now rarely use stamps I had about 20 replaced.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            I don’t think there’s actually a real risk of people hoarding stamps as an investment (and doesn’t seem to be a massive problem in countries that do have forever stamps). It’s just too hard to sell quickly in any significant quantity.

            Possibly the concern was about use as an alternate de facto currency if hyperinflation occurs (as it had within living memory at the time the decision was made).

        4. Beany*

          Even when I buy limited-released first-class stamps from USPS, they’re still Forever stamps.

        5. Seeking Second Childhood*

          Forever stamps are good for a first class letter of a standard weight and size.

          If you are sending an oversized heavy letter or greeting card you’ll need to add on.

          You may put a forever stamp on a postcard–or you can do a specific value stamp and pay less.

        6. Chirpy*

          When they introduced Forever stamps, hoarding was a concern, but I think they decided that was ok since it meant people were still going to buy a bunch and inject money into the post office at the start, if I remember correctly. There was also a rate hike right before- I still have a bunch of one cent stamps laying around and sent at least one envelope covered in stamps just to get the right postage.

        7. Blueberry*

          Yeah, it’s mostly for the pretty and limited-edition designs. And you *can* still use fixed-value stamps; you’d just need to use more than one to make up the difference.

          They’re also useful if you’re mailing something larger than a standard envelope that might require a weird amount of postage. Oversized envelopes start at $1.19, which is more than one forever stamp (73 cents), but less than two. You might be able to get the exact amount (or only slightly over it) using fixed-price stamps, but you’d overpay by a lot if you only used forever stamps. They also make one-cent and ten-cent stamps for this purpose.

      5. Nina*

        (Non American here – it’s much more common for businesses in my country to buy blocks of postage-included envelopes if they do a lot of mailing – the postage is included in the envelope price, and pre-printed on the corner where a stamp would normally go. Actual stamps are very much for personal/domestic mail nowadays, so there are lots of fun ones.)

        1. Chirpy*

          Back when I worked at a small nonprofit, we purchased bulk mailings like that, but still used a lot of stamps for individual letters because not everything needs to get mailed to the whole member list. Either the post office had a minimum bulk order, or it just wasn’t cost/time effective to use for everything.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            I think Nina is talking about something slightly different. The ones I’m familiar with are just a standard envelope with a stamp already printed on it, that’s it. There’s no reason one couldn’t just take one and use it like any envelope for an individual letter (just skipping the stamp-applying step). They’re available in like packs of as few as ten here.

            I don’t actually think they’re very common to use for companies here, though. They usually have franking machines, or some kind of online franking code generation system.

            1. Chirpy*

              The ones we used had to go through the post office’s bulk mailing process. They weren’t like a regular stamp, they weren’t valid for postage otherwise. And my workplace was too small to get their own postage machine. We were often sticking a regular stamp over the preprinted envelopes.

      6. EventPlannerGal*

        Do offices in the US ever use franking machines? If they’re sending enough letters that this is a recurring issue, might that be a worthwhile investment?

        1. Insert Clever Name Here*

          My department no longer has an admin, but when we did she kept a role of stamps for one-off mailings. Our company has a franking machine but then you have to go through the whole convoluted mail services workflow.

        2. Great Frogs of Literature*

          I’ve never seen a franking machine, but mail from nonprofits and other institutions that send out a LOT of mail often have some sort of “postage paid” indicator in lieu of a stamp. But it’s not a thing that a “normal” business that doesn’t send out enormous mass mailings is likely to have.

          1. doreen*

            I think a “franking machine” is another name for what I know as a “postage meter” , which is how that “postage paid” indicator gets on the envelope or label.

          2. bishbah*

            It’s another term for metered mail. Lots of U.S. businesses still use franking machines, aka postage meters, which print evidence of the paid postage (an “indicia”) and subtract the cost from an account with an authorized vendor. The fancier models will also seal envelopes and print addresses. You can send a single piece of mail this way if you want to.

            The “postage paid” imprint you are refering to is used by commercial bulk mail companies, and their accounts are managed by USPS. They follow all sorts of special rules for presorting and automation to qualify for reduced postage rates (by doing some of the post office’s work for them).

      7. Amy*

        There’s a gazillion choices of Forever stamps. All the choices are online or post offices usually carry 20 or so different lines that change out seasonally.

        They have the new 2025 Love Stamp, Year of the Wood Snake, and then ones like National Parks, orchids, baby wild animals, and Betty White.

        No reason to just stick to flags. Especially in this political environment, I’d go with baby koalas.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          Absurdly, the way it’s going, national parks, endangered species, women/minorities and love can also be read as political (even rightside-up). Especially if they are replacing a flag *gasp*. Cute animals do provide good plausible deniability at least, though.

      8. Beany*

        I don’t get the issue over the stamp thing. I’ll naturally stick it on the right way up, but if I made a mistake it wouldn’t occur to me that anyone could possibly take offense.

        I confess, as a naturalized US citizen, I find some attitudes to the flag to be borderline obsessive. If I have the option, I’ll almost always avoid buying flag stamps.

        1. ecnaseener*

          It’s not necessarily about anyone taking offense, it’s (as was explained in the response) that an upside-down flag is a recognized signal with a specific message that the company doesn’t want to be sending.

        2. Don’t know what to call myself*

          There’s definitely some idolization of the flag that happens in some American communities, but the political statement comes from putting the image of the flag upside down. There’s a tradition of having a flag upside down if you’re under siege or in distress. There’s a movement in America right now that’s using upside down flag iconography as commentary of our current political situation, so to the LW’s boss, putting the flag stamp upside down makes it look like their company may be taking sides in a political conversation that most companies are still trying to remain at least publicly neutral about.

          1. Nola*

            Yes, several of my friends changed their online avatars to upside down flags after the election. They DEFINITELY meant it as a political statement.

      9. bishbah*

        A coil of U.S. stamps costs the same as the same quantity in sheets. The advantage comes in ease of dispensing (either by hand or machine). You can even get a coil of 10,000 stamps—if you’re willing to plunk down $7,300!

        I worked at an event office once where whenever we were doing a smaller mailing (under 200) or if we were running too late to use non–first-class postage (which happened a lot!), we would hand-apply our own stamps. At that point, we would usually buy a commemorative design that matched the occasion or mood of the invitation. The trade-off was dealing with either sheets or booklets, depending on the design. For a mass mailing, the former was much easier than the latter! I would sometimes have to visit multiple post offices just to acquire enough.

        One year there was a design that *perfectly* matched our organization’s history and mission. Unfortunately this was before forever stamps, so we couldn’t stock up TOO much, lest we have to deal with add-on postage later.

    2. Account*

      Yes get the manatee stamps or the Darth Vader stamps or whatever! Obviously the LW isn’t in charge of the buying of them, but it would solve the problem.

  9. Cmdrshprd*

    OP 5 IANAL but if you have “vacation time” that you can use for sick leave/time, and that time is at least 16 hrs, plus the 24 hrs of “sick time” they are in compliance, because you have access to 40 hrs to use for sick leave. As I understand it, California does not require paid vacation time. So really the requirement is just 40 hrs of paid leave that can be used for sick/health care reasons. What it is called I don’t think matters as much. So 3 days of official sick time and 2/3+ days of “vacation time” still meets the requirements. But any cali labor lawyers correct me if I am wrong.

    “My employer provides paid time off which I can use for vacation or illness. Will my employer have to provide additional sick leave?
    No, as long as your employer provides the minimum of at least 40 hours or five days per year of paid leave that can be used for health care and that meets other requirements in the law.” From Allison’s link to California sick leave FAQ.

  10. RLC*

    LW4: A personal note of appreciation/gratitude is the most enduring thing you could give! Sorting through the personal papers of family members after their deaths has clearly shown me the value of a simple yet meaningful note. People will literally keep a note like that until the day they die, it’s so special to them.

    1. iglwif*

      100%!!!

      I have been in the paid workforce for more than 30 years and I still have notes and cards from very early in my career that contain messages of appreciation, and they are treasured possessions. I take them out to look at on bad days.

    2. HR Exec Popping In*

      I actually just ran across a note from a ex-team member from several years ago that I had stashed in a book and it warmed my heart rereading it. I actually texted her to let her know I just read her note and how much it still meant to me.

      I hand written thank you note means the absolute world to people and I’ve saved every single one I’ve ever gotten at work.

  11. RCB*

    #2, regarding the stamps: I am left handed, though do somethings as a right hander would do, so I can’t remember which is the issue in this case, but everytime I stamp a bunch of envelopes from a roll of stamps, the natural way my hands grab a roll of stamps and peel them off and put them on envelopes has the stamps upside down. I bet that’s your problem, and it’s super easy to solve, you have two options:
    1) Retrain your hands to do it the other direction. (flip the roll of stamps the other direction and then learn to peel and stick with the other hand.)
    2) flip the envelopes 180 degrees clockwise so they are upside down now.

    Personally I would, and did do #2, just flip the envelopes over so they are upside down, the stamp is upside down, the two wrong make a right.

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      But for option 2 you have to make sure you retrain your self to put the stamp on the bottom left instead of top right. For mass mailings that might be harder.

      1. Allonge*

        Obviously only OP will know if this is a solution or not but ‘which corner’ may be easier to remember than ‘check the stamp orientation’ seems to be.

      1. RCB*

        Personally I think everyone should start using the Betty White stamps for everything when they come out in a few weeks, but that’s just me pushing my Gold Girls agenda :)

        I think that when it comes to rolls of stamps, which they specifically said they use, there are limited, maybe no, choices, it’s the flags or nothing? But the owner sounds like they may be wanting the flags too as they are definitely aware of the message they send (when used wrong), and thus may be choosing them for the message they send (when used correctly). But again, I just don’t think there are a lot of options when it comes to rolls, anything specialty is usually in the booklets.

      2. Presea*

        In the US, not really – thats what basically all of our Forever Stamps look like and it would be really weird for a business to use basically anything else for a whole bunch of reasons that other people in this comments section have articulated better than I could

        1. Iranian yogurt*

          Huh? There are lots of non-flag forever stamp designs on the USPS store. Whether they’re as cost effective as the flag design is another story, but as others have said, having a flag stamp at all might read as a political statement to some, and the org may be willing to pay a bit more for their stamps to be 100% neutral.

          1. Dara*

            The only unique feature of the Forever 3-flag stamp is that they’re available in coils of 100. Most other 1st class Forever stamps come in sheets of 20, but 5 sheets/100 stamps are $73, just like the coil of 100 flag stamps.

            If the office insists upon flag stamps, the Freedom Forever stamp is still available – It’s just a simple US flag with “Freedom” across the bottom, which would be easier to quickly place with the correct orientation and is also available in coils of 100.

            1. Iranian yogurt*

              Yeah, I actually commented further down that my workplace recently switched to the “Freedom” stamps, which do seem like a better option!

          2. RCB*

            OP specifically said they buy rolls, and having been in these positions before I know that’s very common because when you send out lots of letters rolls are the easiest option to use, and flags are the only option available in rolls right now. There are certainly plenty of other options not in rolls, but that’s not what we are talking about here.

          3. Blueberry*

            “Fun” stamps cost the same as the flag ones – all forever stamps currently cost 73 cents each regardless of the design. But the flag ones are the only ones that come in rolls of 100 (or 3,000 or 10,000) instead of 20-stamp sheets, which is more convenient if you go through a lot of them.

  12. Samwise*

    OP 1
    If she’s been there long enough to interact with you several times, a likely explanation is that for some reason she didn’t do it the first day or the r first time you met (forgot, assumed she’d already done it because she’d already introduced herself to a lot of others, got distracted…), and now doesn’t even know she didn’t introduce herself. You’re making quite a big drama about quite a small thing which is easily explained.

    For what it’s worth: it’s appropriate to introduce yourself first. When we’ve had a new supervisor or new hire, I’ve just always walked up to them and said, hi, I’m samwise, the widget specialist. You must be New Person’s Name — pleased to meet with you. I’m not the only one to do this. After all, you have the advantage— she’s new and has to learn a lot of names and faces, whereas you only have to learn hers

    1. el l*

      Guts do tell us true things. But frequently its not what we think.

      You’re primed to think narcissism. Eliminate far more likely explanations like, they’re shy/awkward. Or really busy. Or even wired benign but different.

      1. Allonge*

        This – sure, it’s not a bad idea to listen to (y)our gut but that is just one data point and in this case, LW has and can get other information.

        Not to mention the relationship is not optional; this is not like a first date after which you have a bad feeling and so will not go on a second one. Manager is here and likely to stay.

      2. Smithy*

        First – when it’s someone new, this is really good advice. People who are shy/awkward/quiet – particularly when new – can still maintain those aspects, but when you know them better the working dynamic is actually far different.

        I will also say that your gut can also be right and wrong. I had a bad toxic job, and there was a woman who worked there as a consultant. She had no specific “negative” qualities as a consultant, but she was very close to our CEO who was uniquely awful in 101 ways. I got a new job, and about a year later that consultant became the VP of our department.

        When she started, I had a gut feeling she wasn’t to be 100% trusted because of my previous experience – but I also knew nothing specifically problematic. It turned out that the overall experience of working on a department under her leadership was 50/50. She wasn’t wildly toxic, but she also wasn’t a wonderfully worthwhile mentor. She had specific flaws that I’d learn over time, but at the end of the day she was just a mixed bag. For the right job I’d work on one of her teams again, but I’d have one eye open and would know I was using it for a specific set of opportunities.

      3. Elsewise*

        That’s an excellent way of putting it. People like to say that intuition never lies, but it sure doesn’t give much in the way of context! Most of the time your gut isn’t saying “this person will be difficult to work with because xyz”, it’s just saying “BAD!” It’s up to you to figure out what you’re reacting to.

    2. LaminarFlow*

      Yes – it is really easy to make an introduction when I feel like I have skipped over that part. It also comes in handy if I can’t recall someone’s name.

      One part that stood out to me in this letter is the LW doing due diligence to determine if this manager has narcissistic tendencies. What would that even look like? And, what would LW propose to do about it? Narcissistic people walk among us every day, just like every other personality trait. Unless this is a mental health clinic, and LW has the necessary certifications to diagnose such things, they should keep the diagnosis of their new manager quiet.

    3. Olive*

      Yes, unless someone is amazing at remembering names and faces, meeting a lot of people at one time is disorienting. Someone at a director level might meet literally hundreds of people in their first week. If she’s seen you at several meetings, it wouldn’t be odd at all for her to think that you were one of the hundreds of people she’d already been more formally introduced to.

    4. HR Exec Popping In*

      I’m a big believer in giving people grace. We don’t always show up as our best self all the time, so don’t expect others to. Remember that joining a new team or organization can be overwhelming. It is highly likely the manager doesn’t remember who they have had one-on-one conversations with and who they have not. They should, but since they have had several interactions with you it could have easily been overlooked. Assume the best.

  13. TommieGuard*

    #2: You’re lucky you haven’t been fired – yet – for a repeated offense…unless that’s the plan. What is the problem?

      1. Nodramalama*

        They’re lucky they haven’t been fired because they keep putting stamps on upside down? Come on now.

        1. red dog*

          Given the current atmosphere, companies are jumping through hoops to avoid political statements.

          An upside down flag is a political statement. She may not mean it as such, but the company’s customers might.

    2. WoodswomanWrites*

      That’s an unkind comment to the letter writer. They wrote to receive help solving a workplace problem, not to receive criticism.

    3. Irish Teacher.*

      There are two problems. One is that this is not deliberate; it is accidental and they are worried it could happen again. And the other is that they got a write-up that wasn’t really accurate. It accused them of making a political statement which they had not done.

      And one can’t really “plan” to do something accidentally.

      I can see why the manager is concerned, but honestly, firing somebody for putting a stamp on imperfectly, even repeatedly, would be overkill. Yes, it could happen if the manager thinks the LW is doing it deliberately as a political statement and that is a major problem, that they could lose their job over something any of us could easily do without noticing at any point.

      1. KateM*

        There are two problems with what you wrote, too. One, if something keeps happening accidentally, it is quite understandable for their boss to wonder if it is accident or “accident”. Two, if you know you keep accidentally doing something wrong, it’s your problem to make sure that this accident will not happen in the future, and again it is quite understandable that failing to do so may be grounds for a write-up.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yes, it is grounds for a write-up but the fact remains that the specific write-up is inaccurate. It is understandable that the boss would wonder and I never said anything to suggest otherwise, but there is a big difference between wondering and writing it down as a fact.

          The problem isn’t that they got a write-up – well, I guess that is a problem in the sense that it’s something nobody wants, but it’s reasonable that they should get one. The problem is that the write-up is not accurate about what happened.

          1. Archi-detect*

            eh, it is making a political statement whether its an intentional one or not, I don’t think the intentionality of it is required.

            1. metadata minion*

              That’s a stretch, I think. I consider myself pretty in-tune with political messages and active in resistance activities, and if I saw a flag stamp upside-down, in the unlikely even that I even paid any attention to the generic stamp long enough to notice it was upside-down, I would assume someone had put a stamp on upside-down by accident. Or not even “by accident”, just whatever way it happened to be oriented when they grabbed it from the roll; it’s not like it doesn’t work as a stamp if you put it on upside-down.

              In today’s climate, sure, the LW needs to put the stamps on right-side up, and would even need to do so if their boss was just unusually concerned with stamp placement. But if the LW is making a political statement, it’s one that will be read only by a pretty narrow subset of people.

              1. UKDancer*

                Yeah I hadn’t realised this was a thing and receive very few things with actual stamps on as the little mail I receive is actually from businesses who use franking. I think the last one was a letter from an elderly relative. I’d barely notice the stamp, let alone which way it was on.

                I think as you say only a small proportion of the people would actually notice which way up the stamp was on. I think it depends how active you are online and on social media.

                1. MsM*

                  The kind of person who would notice is the kind of person who’s going to make it into a major headache for whoever they can get hold of to complain to, though.

                2. juliebulie*

                  The upside-down flag (and upside-down flag stamp) is a symbol that predates social media.

                4. Kevin Sours*

                  It’s *old*. It comes from the maritime tradition in the age of sail of flying the ship’s flag upside down to indicate a ship in distress and need of assistance. I have no idea when it was co opted as a more general political statement but I’m guess it’s not that much more recent.

              2. Nola*

                Last month protesters displayed an upside down flag at Yosemite to protest federal job cuts. You personally may not know it’s a sign of protest but a lot of other people do.

                1. Lenora Rose*

                  A giant upside-down flag at Yosemite, yes. A hastily applied stamp sent to a random address? Not so much.

                  I mean, now their boss noticed, they need to try the various techniques suggested for making sure it doesn’t repeat, but honestly, even holding the letter in my hand, I’d be unlikely to think much of it and not assume it was politics that made it so.

                  I’ve gotten (and sent) letters with stamps upside-down and sideways and didn’t think it meant anything. The most I thought the last time I put a stamp on upside down myself was that it looked a bit ridiculous — it was a stamp with Superman on it and it’s pretty obvious which way should be up.

            2. cloudy*

              This reminds me of my first job ever (which was at a state park). We had a long-time military veteran park manager who would sometimes come into the room and greet everyone with a salute and one time I casually returned his greeting with my left hand… He asked me “Do you know what that means????” I did not but I sure learned then!

              Fortunately he just thought it was funny but the reality is some of these things are taken very seriously and depending on who you are interacting with it’s better to pay careful attention to them.

              It doesn’t surprise me that people would be taking the upside down flags so seriously, given that it is often taken as a very serious act of disrespect if they’re even so much as folded incorrectly.

                1. cloudy*

                  It was explained to me at the time as equivalent to flipping someone off but I’m sure there is more nuance / context that I’m not aware of given my only source is this one job.

                2. Bella Ridley*

                  A left-handed salute is a sign of deliberate disrespect and flouting of the rules. More or less, saying “I know what the right thing is but I’m not doing it on purpose to piss you off.” There may be some very occasional, specific circumstances where it is acceptable but these are extremely few and far between and limited to certain branches of certain militaries.

            3. Christmas Carol*

              Heck, in today’s political climate, sometimes I feel as if I am making a political statement simply by being an employed female.

        2. Kotow*

          I think this sounds like a variation on the person who kept buying non-vegan gifts for the vegan co-worker. When you’ve gotten it wrong repeatedly and have been made aware of it, you really do have an obligation to correct that. I doubt I would notice this as a recipient, but some people would (especially now) and think of it as a political statement. It’s reasonable for an employer to not want any type of political statements going out of their office. If I were an employer raising it as an issue and then it kept happening, I would start to wonder whether this truly was an “accident.” Overall, whether it’s reasonable or not the OP really needs to find a solution to make sure the stamps go the right side up.

      2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        In the US at-will environment I suspect that the write-up would happen anyway, whatever the reason for the OP’s error, because the upside-down stamp risks causing the org embarassment – at a time of great instability and finger-pointing.

      3. Observer*

        nd the other is that they got a write-up that wasn’t really accurate. It accused them of making a political statement which they had not done

        Not correct, and not helpful.

        The LW did not *intend* to make a political statement. But that is still what they wound up doing. Now, the first time it happened, it’s possible that they didn’t realize so, OK boss does the right thing and speaks to them about it.

        But at this point, the boss has made sure that the LW is aware of the issue and it’s *still* happening. This is a classic example of “intent does not erase impact.”

        And one can’t really “plan” to do something accidentally.

        Sure, but generally you *can* plan to *not* make that mistake, once you realize that it’s happening. And the LW has not found a way to avoid the problem. It doesn’t sound like they have even tried.

      4. Blueberry*

        I’d agree with you if it was the first time they’d been called out for it – but their boss has already told them it’s an issue. Regardless of whether they’re trying to make a political statement, they now know that it’s coming across that way and they’re continuing to do it anyway.

    4. just tired*

      ok i can understand having issues putting them on the right way, what I don’t understand is why the hell it even matters in the first place.

      1. RagingADHD*

        Displaying the US flag upside-down is a traditional / official distress signal (if a fort were captured by foreign enemies, the remaining forces would use it to signal out or warn of an ambush). Derived from that, an upside-down flag has been used for many years as a sign of dissent and protest against government policies or whatever administration is then in power: the subtext is “we have been taken over by the enemy.” This usage has been very prominent on social media since January.

        The employer’s concern is not unfounded that the mail appears to be making a potentially inflammatory statement of public protest. You never know how business contacts could react to that.

        I think it’s unfair for the boss to insist it’s intentional and mischaracterize it in the writeup, but given that they have been directly instructed, the LW does need to figure out a way to make sure the mistake doesn’t keep happening.

        1. just tired*

          Hanging flags in national parks and putting a stamp on an envelope are two completely different things. I would never notice a stamp, who cares? It’s a ridiculous thing to get written up over.

          1. RagingADHD*

            The boss noticed and the boss cared.

            I’m sure there are a lot of things your boss notices and cares about that I would not. But I don’t have input on your performance review, bonus / potential raises, or career advancement. So whether or not I would notice something is irrelevant to you, and whether or not you would notice the stamp is irrelevant to LW.

    5. Smithy*

      A while ago there used to be an Egyptian brand of tea that I bought regularly, and just had the company tea box in my office and thought nothing of it.

      The tea brand happened to be named after an ancient Egyptian deity, which in English ended up sharing the same name with a violent extremist group. For ages, I genuinely thought nothing of it but then our CEO once saw it and said I needed to remove it from the office immediately. Initially, I genuinely thought she was being a bit jokey or sarcastic about the coincidence, but then she came back the next day to make sure it was gone. And it was clear she found there to be zero humor in the situation.

      In this case the solution was pretty easy (move the tea bags into another container, discard the box), but I have some sympathy for the OP for initially finding the dynamic somewhat baffling. As part of an intellectual debate, I’m sure I could have made a case for why there was no need to see the tea and extremist group as related, and that level of worry over optics was not needed. But she was the CEO, I was very junior, and of all the things not worth spending workplace capital on – that was one.

      1. glib_result*

        My college had a bunch of systems named after Egyptian deities, and the student portal was named after that particular one. I think some pundit once noticed that a lot of people in my state were googling a terrorist organization, when it was a bunch of students looking for the student portal…

        1. Aggretsuko*

          Ah, my old boss went to work at that school and I heard about that issue!

          I always liked that deity and I’m bummed that a terrorist group co-opted it.

          1. Smithy*

            I will say – around that time I really struggled to be able to buy the tea in the US, but just did a quick search and it’s back on places like Amazon. Glad the brand weathered that time.

            If anyone is looking for a solid brand of tea for hibiscus tea bags for when using whole dried flowers is too much – it was a good one.

  14. Anastasia Krupnik*

    Op2, you say the issue happens when you are in a hurry. You have to take the time you need to do this task. Do it more slowly and build in a checking step.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I don’t know that we can just say, you have the time you need to do this task. What if they in fact do NOT have the time

      1. Meaningful hats*

        I used to work at a non-profit that insisted on mailing everything by paper mail. It was not uncommon to have 900+ letters dropped on my desk at 3 pm and being told they needed to be folded, stuffed, addressed, stamped, and mailed by 5 pm. They’re lucky the stamps made it on the correct side of the envelope!

      2. Anastasia Krupnik*

        Then it seems like they might lose their job.
        Telling the supervisor that time is needed to do this without error seems the smarter move here.

        1. Nodramalama*

          Asking for more time is different to just deciding LW HAS more time. If their boss drops 30 letters on their desk at 4.30 to seal and post by 5 before the post comes, then no, they can’t just magically get more time.

              1. KateM*

                If it was to fold letters, stuff into envelopes, address them and glue on a stamp, then yes, not enough, but we haven’t been actually told how long time and what exactly are the duties. Back when I was a student I did work sometimes as an envelope-stuffer and it definitely didn’t take half a minute for each.

          2. Allonge*

            But then OP can maybe take some time to stamp blank envelopes in advance and add just the address label after. Sure, if it takes more time, that time needs to come from somewhere but is it better to find that time or to lose a job over this?

            1. Broadway Duchess*

              That would be my suggestion, too. Pre-stamp some envelopes to reduce the urgent nature of making sure you get the task just right. I do think the write-up was overkill, even as someone tapped into the US obsession with Old Glory and the meanings of its various dispositions, but we all have to do things the way our supervisors want, even if we think it’s silly. I wouldn’t want to lose my job over this, especially because it’s a mistake.

      3. Jamjari*

        I think this is something they can mention to their boss then when they talk to them about the write up – it’s not intentional, it happens because they’re rushed, any suggestions on how to be less rushed.

  15. Kella*

    OP2- I can’t articulate what it is but looking at the stamps, I understand why your brain keeps wanting to put them on upside down. There’s a lot of tools you could use. If it’s enough just to remember that the blue goes up, you could focus on that. Or you could place a stamp that’s correctly oriented and tape it to the wall and reference it each time you’re unsure. Or make sure whatever you’re peeling the stamps off of is oriented the correct way and practice the physical movement from stamp to envelope that doesn’t flip it/results in the orientation you want.

    1. WS*

      Same, they look correct the wrong way up in the image OP linked! Maybe because it feels like the sky should be at the top? But either way, it doesn’t matter why, it just matters that OP finds a way to train themselves to do it the right way.

      1. Emmy Noether*

        Yes, I think it’s that we’re used to having sky be at the top, and larger, visually “heavier” objects at the bottom. The largest flag reads almost like a landscape when it’s at the bottom, and it’s cut off so it doesn’t immediately read “flag”. All the shapes and colors want it to be flipped.

    2. WoodswomanWrites*

      Exactly this. Create an envelope with the stamp on it correctly that you can use as a template, and then just look at that example every time.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Yes, making yourself a model envelope to reference is probably the way to go.

        (I agree with WS and Emmy–that example of the stamp does look correct to me upside down–Maybe that the darkest part should be in the lower right corner so that the lines flow right and down into it, rather than out of it from above? Something about the color saturation and the diagonals in the design is throwing me, where a standard rectangular flag would be easier to orient.)

    3. Paint N Drip*

      I’ve used these exact stamps at work and had the exact same problem as OP, aside from the boss caring. Interesting visual trick, and I empathize with OP!

    4. Nack*

      OP2 when I started reading this letter I knew exactly which stamps these were because I have done the same thing on my personal mail many times! Thankfully I can just shrug and think “ha! I wonder if people will think I’m making a statement.” It’s a weird design and it definitely does something odd to my brain/eye connection.

      Unfortunately since your boss has brought it up more than once, it does seem like you’ll have to find a way to make sure you get them right side up, silly as it may be.

    5. JustaTech*

      Yes! Thank you!
      OP2 knows that they do it wrong some of the time. So this is an instance where just saying “do it right” isn’t enough to get it done correctly every single time.
      What OP2 needs are 1) engineering controls 2) process controls and 3) quality control.

      1) set up the workspace so that the stamps are oriented so that they are most likely to go on right-side-up based on the motions OP2 makes when peeling the stamp off the roll and applying it to the envelope.
      2) Walk through the process out loud (I know this sounds absurd) and see if they can find the moment or motion when the stamp is most likely to get flipped. See if they can change the process to eliminate that motion/moment.
      3) Have examples up of what the envelopes should look like, and then, painful as it sounds, go through every single stamped envelop and hold it up to that example to be *completely* sure that the stamps are on right side up.

      (And then go see if you would be allowed to buy other stamps, which might not be possible but would fix this specific issue.)

      I work with very technical manufacturing and I know from way too much experience that telling people “just do it right” does not eliminate errors, and also that even the best trained person will occasionally make mistakes because it’s pretty much impossible for the vast majority of people to maintain perfect concentration on a boring repetitive task.

  16. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    OP3: There are a few, very old and not externally connected, systems we look after that do have visible passwords to us in IT. We’re talking systems older than some commentators here for reference. And yeah, sometimes it’s profanity.

    But as an IT professional the rule is ‘whatever you saw, you didn’t’. Same mentality for seeing private data. If you can’t change the system then forget what you saw.

  17. hedgewitch*

    #2 reminded me that I haven’t seen actual stamps on mail from a company in ages. All the stamped mail I get is from family, friends or really tiny charities.
    Commercial mail usually has a matrix/QR code next to the address that proves that postage has been paid for that letter through some kind of online system.
    If something like that exists with USPS, maybe you could advocate for switching to that? It won’t just fix your stamp orientation problem (which likely isn’t a sufficient argument), but would make the whole mailing process more efficient, leaving you in less of a hurry.

  18. Ellis Bell*

    Not a diagnosis, but a clarifying question for OP1; you mention how your brain works, and you also mention an optometrist – are you talking about visual processing disorder or dyslexia? It’s my understanding that an optometrist can’t diagnose that, they can only raise the visual issues for further investigation, so if that’s what you mean, I would investigate thoroughly first. Discarding that outside chance for the moment, if you’re struggling to visually check at speed for any reason, don’t rely on visuals. Place the roll of stamps a particular side up, unroll them in a certain direction which benefits your dominant hand (If you struggle with left and right that’s a different symptom to be checked out! But a trick is to wear a watch). Or, just set them out in advance when you have time. Keep true to the orientation you set them out in, and build in time to double check them afterwards (or you and a colleague could check each other’s). Good luck, whether our brains are diagnosably awkward or not, there’s usually a workaround and check points you can build in for any and all levels of blind spots.

    1. Parrhesia25*

      I think you are referring to OP2 but you are definitely on to a serious issue that seems to have gotten lost in all the discussions of stamps and flags and one neat trick to “help” the OP put the stamps on correctly. There are a lot of forms of neurodiversity that can cause problems with directions and orientation: dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, visual processing disorders to name a few. The OP could also be colorblind or have some other visual disorder that makes hard to discern the pattern on the stamps. If she is being written up or her job threatened because of a disability that’s a violation of the law, and generally a crappy thing to do. I think the co-worker was closer to being right than Alison was.

      I have a life-long issue with spatial relations and directions, which caused a postage related issue. I worked in an office that had a postage machine. We were allowed to use it provided that we paid for the postage. We paid by putting money in the petty cash box in the office manager’s office. The box was stored in a cabinet that had two unmarked file drawers next to each other – one had the petty cash box and the one next to it that contained the personnel records. I didn’t use the postage machine often and nearly every time I did I forgot which drawer had the petty cash box and opened the wrong one. But all that happened was that I occasionally got a sharp “what are you doing!”. No one wrote me up, much less threatened my job.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I did mean OP2! Yeah, when responses to a mistake is widespread bafflement that someone just isn’t taking more care, or that it must be deliberate it’s because their brains do this automatically and can spot when they haven’t. That other people are responding this way, that actually adds to the “what else is going on” element for me. I’m great at masking my own neuro divergence because if I’m not, people assume I don’t give a shit.

        1. Observer*

          when responses to a mistake is widespread bafflement that someone just isn’t taking more care, or that it must be deliberate it’s because their brains do this automatically and can spot when they haven’t

          The issue is not that it must be deliberate etc. It’s that for whatever reason this thing is happening and it *does* represent a problem. And, from the manager’s pov, he’s spoken to the LW and it is still happening, so he now has a situation on his hands.

          So the LW needs to understand that the problem here is legitimate and could really be a threat to their job. And they need to either figure out a way to do this right, or find some sort of accommodation.

          1. Parrhesia25*

            No, the problem here is that the manager is being unreasonable and possibly breaking the law. And by “unreasonable” I mean “resorting to a write-up for an non-existent issue (making political statements) rather than working constructively with the OP to determine what is going on and coming up with a solution”. I think “buy different stamps with a less confusing design” is probably a textbook example of a reasonable accommodation. Unlike a special chair, it involves no additional expense to the company and a minimum of effort to decide on a different stamp design.

  19. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, while I’m not not ignoring the possibility that you are picking up on something vague that you can’t really express in words, there is nothing in what you have said that would indicate narcissistic tendencies. The director’s failure to reach out to you could indicate a lack of interest in her job or specifically in yours or it could be that she is feeling overwhelmed and hasn’t had time to talk to you. It could even indicate that she isn’t very competent or invested in her job. But I really don’t think that it would be indicative of narcissistic tendencies.

    Even if it is that she isn’t interested in talking to people she perceives as being in lower roles, I don’t think that would necessarily indicate narcissism. Narcissism has become a bit of a buzz word recently and I think it’s starting to get overused. If she is arrogant and ignores people she perceives as less important than her, it’s an obnoxious trait but unlikely to be much more than an irritation. I had a manager once who basically did that and kind of asked the mid-level managers to get information from lower level people when he could have done it himself but…it was no skin of anybody else’s nose. He was really only making his own life more difficult.

    But I don’t think that is the most likely explanation anyway. It is far more likely she is just trying to get to know everybody and overlooked you or that she is overwhelmed adjusting to a new job and is dropping balls or that she isn’t very familiar with the expectations of her role or a whole load of other things.

    Most people are focussed on themselves.

    Again, I know that was just an example and it is possible to just get a sense of something “off” that is hard to put in words and it is very possible there is a tone that gives you the impression she is deliberately ignoring you, but…I’m not sure there is much “due diligence” to do anyway. Even if she is a bully or a manipulator, there isn’t much you can do about it at this point.

    Due diligence in this case would probably look like not accepting anything she says about other people without question and not allowing yourself to be taken advantage of, but until/unless she starts making unreasonable demands or trying to set people against each other or isolating people, there isn’t anything to do.

    LW4, as a teacher, I 100% agree on the note. Teachers often get presents from students or parents and honestly, a lot of them get regifted or forgotten about. The things I keep and remember are the cards from students with personal messages and occasionally (though this would not be relevant in the office!) the random things, like a friendship bracelet a student made me or a random gift from a cereal packet that a student brought in for me for some odd reason, because those are things that showed the student was really thinking of me and not just that the parents felt obliged to buy an end-of-year gift.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I msan also, people have narcisstic tendencies. Doesn’t mean they ARE a narcissist, and doesn’t mean they’re a bad boss or bad person

      1. Kat*

        I’d say that a good example of a narcissistic tendency is being annoyed because someone else hasn’t properly respected how much power and influence you have.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Y, narcissism is a leap on this evidence:
      Not bothering much with lower level people usually indicates either snobbishness or not investing more than the bare minimum in those who can’t accelerate her career.

    3. Donkey Option*

      I completely agree. She may just be a bit overwhelmed with her new position, or have a plan in place to move at a certain pace, or maybe she received a full briefing about who does what and so doesn’t need to ask employees themselves. But lately it seems like everyone wants to paint a person they don’t like as a narcissist, even though it’s not a common actual diagnosis. And I know that there’s a difference between calling someone a narcissist and saying they have narcissistic tendencies, but it’s a really blurry line. May I’m defensive since I can be introverted and a bit stand-offish with new people, and I’m sure people have labeled me as having narcissistic tendencies, but I would hope that people would give it more time.
      Don’t attribute to malice what can easily be explained for other reasons. And the idea of accidentally starting a whisper campaign is really off-putting.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Yeah and while it doesn’t necessarily apply in this case, some of the times I hear people call others narcissists or claiming they have narcissistic tendencies, the complaint doesn’t relate to narcissism at all. They are just using it as a generic term for bad behaviour. Like “my ex cheated on me, so he’s clearly a narcissist” or “my boss never honoured her promise to promote me so she’s a narcissist.”

        Like people can be jerks without being narcissists and not everybody who does something that annoys somebody else is a jerk anyway. I completely agree with the idea of not attributing things to malice when there are more likely explanations. Sure, narcissists and abusers or manipulative people exist, but the number of people who are just lazy or thoughtless or distracted or just not people you happen to like is larger.

    4. londonedit*

      I think the OP is definitely letting their feelings cloud their judgement. Why can’t they simply go to the director themselves and say ‘Hi, I feel like we haven’t been properly introduced yet – I’m Sarah and I’m the lead on the teapot spout decorating team. It’s not always obvious how my team intersects with all the others, so I just wanted to say hi and let you know that if you have any questions about our work, I’d be happy to answer them’ or something like that? It feels to me like they’ve decided there’s a problem with the director, so they’re sitting there stewing about the fact that she hasn’t formally introduced herself and building that up into a big ‘she clearly doesn’t like me and is obviously narcissistic like my relative’ thing. When one thing that could probably help to ease those fears would be just speaking to the director and saying hello and making sure she’s aware that the OP’s team exists.

      1. UKDancer*

        This would definitely be my approach. Be proactive, introduce myself and sell what I do and why it matters and offer to speak further. The director doesn’t have to follow up on it but I’d always be proactive rather than stew about why I’m not being contacted.

      2. KateM*

        You reminded me now of the cheap ass rolls story – one of that OP’s things was also being forgotten to be introduced as the new guy.

  20. Mrs. Pommeroy*

    LW2, I have no idea how stamps in the US work, since I’m in a different part of the world, BUT couldn’t your company simply order stamps with a different motive and same value??
    That would be the easiest solution by far. So maybe you could ask the office admin about that.

    (If you can’t or they won’t, other commenters have already given lots of great ideas for how to tackle your problem :)

    1. Insert Clever Name Here*

      There are lots of different picture options for Forever stamps, but I would imagine they 1) have several rolls of the flags already purchased and aren’t going to buy more (especially if the cost has gone up) just because LW1 has trouble putting them the right way and 2) may feel like the flag version is more “professional” than the baby koalas.

    2. metadata minion*

      That particular style is usually the only one they sell in massive rolls instead of smaller sheets.

  21. Other Alice*

    #3, you store your passwords in plain text and have a default password, but your main concern is someone using a mildly rude word in their password?? That is not your main problem!

    1. juliebulie*

      Wondering why OP3 looked at the password after the employee “changed” it. That hardly seemed necessary.

      My employer doesn’t let us reuse passwords. That seems a reasonable policy.

      1. KateM*

        Yeah, LMS manager looking at current passwords of people sounds like a bigger problem than a mildly rude word.

      2. Mid*

        Given that passwords are stored in plain text, I doubt their system blocks users from repeating passwords.

      3. Johnny Slick*

        I mean, my first inclination would be to take this to the CIO or equivalent and if I was brushed off to consider finding new work. This is INSANE for the year 2025. It would have been a very bad practice in 2005. If you happened to use the same or a similar password for your bank, for example, boom, your bank password is now compromised too if your company gets hacked (or even if they put an unscrupulous person in IT).

        2. KateM*

          The insane “this” that you’d be taking to the CIO is passwords being kept as plain text, or did I misunderstand you?

    2. just tired*

      Of all the things in the world to be worried about, whether someone uses a swear word in a password is not one of them. Now I am tempted to use one when I have to change it again.

      1. vincent*

        Totally agree. This is such a non issue that I’m surprised Alison agreed that it mattered, frankly. Literally who cares! Passwords are by definition private! They could be dropping the nastiest swears I can think of, and it still wouldn’t be anyone’s business. The judgement call I’m worried about is that the LW looked at what they changed it back to!

        2. Dr. Vibrissae*

          Exactly, it’s seems like such a non-issue and such a silly over-reaction to a non-problem that I’m tempted to add a nice swear word the next time I have to update my password. While repeating the same password is not good policy, if I were that person, I’d probably have just changed it to something like a**hat (assuming you can use symbols) or buttwipe as a mild form of malicious compliance while rolling my eyes so hard it hurt. And I’ve rarely been accused of having questionable judgement (I disagree that this password alone is evidence of that).
          LW, stop looking at people’s passwords, they’re supposed to be private.

    3. Observer*

      That is not your main problem!

      This reminds me a relatively famous reddit thread where the tag line everyone remember was “The Iranian yogurt is not the issue here”.

      This is a similar situation.

  23. Expectations*

    LW1, I’m confused why you think it’s her job to reach out and ask about you. In most places I’ve worked I might never (or very rarely) even meet a director unless I was a direct report, and if I did it would likely be in a large meeting with no 1-1 time. Unless I ran into them in a line or elevator or somesuch and one of us started social chitchat to pass the time I likely wouldn’t converse at all. Further, in my experience, it is far more common for folks to introduce themselves to a director (or other bigwig) if/when the opportunity arises.

    These are gross overgeneralizations, of course, but unless you work in a top heavy environment or a tiny organization, a director often has too many people in too many layers underneath to actively try to get to know every person in their department.

    An example: I once started a job in a group with 8 employees. My boss was the equivalent of a Sr Director. A few months later we were a group of ~12 and she brought a manager in to manage about 8 of us including me. She was still polite if we met in the hallways, but I only saw her once a week in her staff meeting which, by virtue of my role, I was still attending (it was her direct reports + me) but when that new boss left after a few months, the new boss was more senior (more director level) and had me excluded. I almost never saw my original boss again. As we grew more, the new boss built some management structure although, by virtue of my role, I continued to report to him and work across the other teams. He wasn’t really interested in having non-managerial direct reports, though, and point blank told me my work wasn’t a priority for him. When we had about 30 people in the group under 3 different managers, he decided to hire a 4th manager to oversee people in a specific role across all of the teams and shoved me in that management structure. I almost never saw the director-level boss again.

    Both my original boss and that director-level boss remained in my reporting structure until I was laid off, and the director remained my boss’s boss. I had very limited contact with either and, had I been a new employee coming into a 20-30 person group, I likely would have never met the original boss and had limited enough contact with the director that he wouldn’t know much about what I did.

    In general, unless I work directly with or for someone, I don’t know that much about them personally or what they do for the company at any company. If there’s a legitimate business reason I think they need to know more than they do, it would be my responsibility to try to ensure they hear it. I wouldn’t wait around until they think they need to know it as that may never happen (especially if they don’t have the information that would make the need clear).

    So if you think your director needs to know more about what you do and you have the opportunity, tell her.

    So while there may, in fact, be something weird going on, but it’s totally normal for folks you

    1. Bast*

      I agree that it depends on the company culture and size of the job. In my current job, and last one (both 15 people or less), a new partner not introducing themselves, even in a small way, would be seen as standoffish and rude, or like they “think they’re above everyone else.” This could be compounded by other factors, such as tone, keeping their door shut, and/or being, or appearing to be, otherwise unapproachable. In the larger companies I have worked in that new people join, it was typically announced during the Friday meetings. “Joining us this week we have Jane, our new Director of IT.” Jane might only remember Bob, Kevin, and Mary, because those are Jane’s direct reports, so it would have been seen weird for Jane to not interact with, or bother to learn her own teams’ names or work, however, it wouldn’t be odd for Jane not to remember all of the other departments, unless it’s someone you interact with frequently or someone really high up the ladder– trust me, you want to remain on good terms with the HR Director! However, I can see this being more difficult with a team that is spread out over multiple locations and perhaps different time zones, though not impossible. A quick, “Hi all, my name is Jane and I’m the new Director of IT. I look forward to working with each of you and my door is open with any concerns” type of message, while not a direct introduction, takes away some of the perceived aloofness.

  24. Turingtested*

    LW 1, I’m in a similar position to you that I don’t have a high title but I’m well respected at work and my opinion holds a lot of weight. I try really hard to not use that power on things that aren’t concrete. It sounds like you get a bad feeling from the director but can’t put your finger on any clear cut bad actions. I’d hang back, be careful around this person and try to reserve judgement.

    A few years ago we hired an intern. Intern simply would not speak to me. Asked how she was settling in, blank stare. Hi at a meeting, blank stare. She reported to the CEO who asked me what I thought of her. I said nothing, she won’t speak to me. I was hoping he’d coach her on proper office behavior (acknowledge people when they speak to you, not kiss my ass or anything) but he was extremely unhappy and ended her internship. I assume there were a lot of issues but I always felt like I used my power for bad. I should have said she needs coaching on office norms!

    So be careful how you use your capital and influence this person’s success at your organization.

    1. So Glad I'm Outta There*

      Is it possible this person had an invisible disability? I had a job once with an older man who had a very deep, raspy type of voice and sometimes I couldn’t immediately understand what he was saying so I would freeze for a second in trying to figure out what he had said in conversation. I have hearing loss and that includes having a harder time understanding people with deeper voices.

      I remember telling both this man and my boss this more than once, but I’m pretty sure they both used it as an excuse to eventually hate on me by the time I left that job. Sometimes it’s not about you, but about their insecurities.

      1. Turingtested*

        it’s certainly possible, but we made eye contact and I observed the intern speaking to other people (higher up the chain than me) when spoken to without eye contact and a smile on their end. And I was literally saying Hi or Hello, not giving complicated instructions.

  25. DJ Abbott*

    Haha, One of the outside companies I access would never take my password. I’m sure we’ve all had that experience where we know the password, but the program keeps saying it’s wrong.
    I changed it to “[Company initials] sucks”, and after that it always worked until the next password change cycle came around, when I changed it back to normal password. :D
    With one of the other outside systems I access, the password has to be typed *t h i s s l o w l y* or it won’t take it. It’s a slow, glitchy, and balky system, but management loves the bells and whistles.

    1. Bird names*

      Now I’m envisioning a stamp design that looks the same no matter which way it’s applied.

      1. Lab Boss*

        For that you’d want US International stamps, which are circular and (at least the ones I’ve seen) are either radially symmetrical or so close that it doesn’t matter. Of course they also cost something like 5x a normal domestic stamp, so it’s up to you how much that ease of application is worth to you :D

    2. Blueberry*

      They probably want to use up the ones they have before buying more, and the flag stamps are also the only ones that come in large rolls instead of 20-stamp sheets. If you’re using a lot of stamps, the rolls are more practical and a lot less wasteful.

  27. Apex Mountain*

    I never knew putting stamps upside down was some kind of political statement. I can’t think of anything less petty to get burned up about. Jesus Christ I wish people would focus on the things that matter

    1. Insert Clever Name Here*

      I know that flying the flag upside down is a distress symbol and now a political statement but if I saw an upside down flag stamp I’d just think “oh someone was in a hurry.”

    2. londonedit*

      It’s an urban myth in the UK that it’s illegal to put a stamp on upside-down – because our stamps have the monarch’s head on them and allegedly putting that upside-down would count as treason.

      It’s not true – the Royal Mail doesn’t mind which way up the stamp is, as long as there’s a stamp – but apparently Buckingham Palace hasn’t confirmed or denied either way, so there might be a slim chance that you could actually get arrested and thrown in the Tower, I suppose.

      2. Curious*

        Wasn’t there a poster (from the US) a couple of years ago whose coworker got all upset over lese majeste shown towards one of the UK royals?

        1. londonedit*

          Yes, some sort of joke about Charles or something! Which 99.9% of the UK population wouldn’t give two hoots about.

    3. Pierrot*

      It’s not about the stamps, it’s that the stamps have an image of a flag on them. Q-anon/Q adjacent people were displaying upside down flags after the 2020 election.

      1. Apex Mountain*

        Yes but normal people have been putting stamps on letters for decades without giving a single second’s thought to the orientation of the stamp It just seems like a weird thing to even notice in the first place, let alone to get a write up for.

        1. Lab Boss*

          But nothing happens in a vacuum- once enough people have made a meme of “I’m going to put a flag stamp upside down as a reference to flying the flag upside down and indicate my displeasure with the government,” an upside down flag stamp will automatically carry some suspicion of being a statement rather than an accident.

          1. Apex Mountain*

            But think about how absurd that is – who is checking the physical mail for proper stamp alignment?!

            1. Hlao-roo*

              who is checking the physical mail for proper stamp alignment?!

              Evidently OP2’s supervisor is! Are any of the recipients of the letters checking for proper stamp alignment and reading political messages into upside-down flag stamps? We have no way of knowing, but I think the point in moot. The boss notices, the boss cares, so OP2 should figure out a way to put the stamps on right-side-up.

              1. Allonge*

                Exactly. There are plenty of things I find absurd that a lot of other people seem to care about a lot.

                In a work scenario, I don’t get to decide that they should not care. Especially when they are my managers or clients.

              2. Apex Mountain*

                Yes of course they have to listen to their boss, but I am very comfortable saying it’s idiotic regardless

                1. Allonge*

                  Of course it’s idiotic, it’s just also a political statement.

                  The manager is – most likely – not thinking ‘let me make OP’s life more difficult’.

                  The manager is thinking ‘there is this small thing OP should do in a consistent manner and then my clients, whose money the company operates on, will not be sending me upset messages over something that has nothing to do with the product we sell’.

                  To be honest, unless I had more clients than I knew what to do with, I would not pick the fight with them either. And so OP needs to figure out how to do the stupid thing right.

            2. Texas Teacher*

              Well either the boss or someone else noticed, more than once. Regardless, they need to make sure it doesn’t happen again at this job.

          2. Seeking Second Childhood*

            Alas for the teenage girl I used to be, for whom an upside-down stamp meant “I love you!”

            1. Lab Boss*

              The minds of teenage girls have mystified me since I was a teenage boy, and this bit of information just reminds me how true that is :)

        2. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Flying the US flag upside down as a means of protest has been a thing for over 50 years (I just looked it up). I can totally understand why a company wouldn’t want to give off that vibe in their mailings. Do I think it’s an overreaction for OP’s boss to write them up about it? Also yes.

          Different people notice all kinds of different things, so I don’t think it’s at all weird for at least one person to notice it. What is weird is if someone who got the mailing noticed and then complained to the company. Some people just have a lot of time on their hands, or like to stir the pot, or something. Anyway, I think it’s both petty and valid, if that makes any sense.

      2. Isabel Archer*

        An actual flag and a postage stamp with a rendering of said flag are simply not comparable. We don’t salute postage stamps. Burning stamps isn’t illegal. Stamps aren’t lowered to the middle of envelopes when presidents die. People don’t decorate their porches with giant postage stamps on patriotic holidays.

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Putting flag stamps on envelopes upside down has been a sign of political protest since the Vietnam War. Anyone is welcome to think it’s stupid, but it is indeed a known symbol of resistance/distress (whether or not any individual given person knows or would notice it) and it’s reasonable for a business not to want its mail going out that way without their explicit decision to convey that message.

          1. Apex Mountain*

            I didn’t know about the history of upside down flag stamps, but I still find it strange that even with that, someone would interperet an office envelope as being a protest rather than that’s just how they applied the stamps.

            As an aside, I might have to start buying stamps with the UK or Japanese flag to avoid this confusion

            1. londonedit*

              Watch out with the Union Flag, though, because it absolutely does have a right way up and certain people do get very annoyed if it’s displayed upside-down (though it wouldn’t be seen as a particular political statement).

            2. Elizabeth West*

              I think most people probably aren’t cognizant of the history of it, especially since most business mail is metered these days and we don’t send handwritten letters much anymore.

              But I think that people also need to consider we’re not in a normal situation here in the U.S. For example, a large number of companies have shuttered DEI programs to avoid pissing off You-Know-Who even though the edict against them was technically directed to federal agencies and not private enterprise. Obeying in advance (which you should not do, btw) is a separate conversation, but the OP’s manager (or company) may not want to rock the boat if they can help it.

      3. Lenora Rose*

        And people on the more left/liberal spectrum are doing so now. Up here I’ve seen upside-down maple leafs (the flags not the hockey players, and not maple leaves, which grow facing in any direction) from both the Truck Convoy types AND the people who oppose the convoys, and both are still using them right now, as well as everyone with sentiments about Trump’s threats. For the US, the current timing, if taken seriously at all, implies one set of political beliefs but doesn’t actually guarantee them.

      4. Kotow*

        And now a lot of people are also changing their social media pictures to show an upside down flag since the 2024 election so it’s widespread enough that more people are seeing it as a political statement. I said above that I doubt this would register if I saw an upside down stamp but there are definitely people who would notice it!

        1. Strange the Librarian*

          Can confirm that this is definitely something I’d notice. My mom, who was in her 20s during Vietnam, definitely hammered into me as a child to never, EVER put a flag stamp upside-down. I had an automatic “omg nooooooo!” reaction to the LW saying they were putting them upside-down, lol. For the most part, I assume it’s a mistake if I see it. But I definitely understand LW’s boss not wanting official mail to go out like that.

    4. Bast*

      When I first read the letter, I was thinking “Wow, what a micromanager” and was surprised that this was taken so seriously. I can’t imagine myself noticing if a stamp was sideways, upside down, what have you, because I am more concerned with the contents of the envelope than the stamp itself.

      1. londonedit*

        Well, exactly. With our standard ones, which just have a portrait of the King on them, I might have a brief ‘Ha – look at the King upside-down’ thought, but flags or pictures or anything else? I doubt if I’d even notice.

      2. Allonge*

        Ok, but imagine it’s something you do care about. A religious symbol, a political statement, a family heirloom, a friendship memento, an ethical issue, whatever.

        Maybe it’s not which side a stamp is up or down, but we all have our limits. The customers of the company OP is working at have theirs here.

        It’s not an impossible request; OP is not asked to do anything unethical. Sometimes we do things at work because we get paid for it and not because it Makes Sense in the Greater Scheme of Things.

        1. Apex Mountain*

          I think we all understand that – it’s a very simple request and should be an easy one to comply with. It’s ok to call it out though as being a waste of time and irrelevant to the work

          1. Allonge*

            But the point is – if it’s something clients complain about, it’s not a waste of time. It’s time spent to ensure clients are not actively unhappy. That’s part of the job just about anywhere.

            Sure, it’s not connected to whatever gizmos OP’s company is producing or servicing. But neither is spelling client’s names correctly or providing coffee or whatever else they are doing to keep clients happy.

            1. Apex Mountain*

              Yes, but I would think it equally ridiculous if LW got written up for providing the wrong coffee

              1. Allonge*

                Look, I am not going to be able to (I am not even trying to) convince you it’s not ridiculous. It’s just – what you or I think does not help OP.

                And there are probably many other cases where you or I would consider something important that others think is ridiculous. Some companies will have to deal with it our way.

                Overall, this is a good thing! I tend to find a lot of expressions of e.g. organized religion absurd. It’s not a bad thing that I would be expected to nevertheless accommodate bits and pieces of it at work (for others). Even if it means I need to arrange for a specific type of coffee and pay attention to who gets it.

          2. moql*

            Is it irrelevant if it’s something that will make customers complain or unhappy? It sounds petty but some people care and we would definitely get phone calls if this happened where I work. Not many, but enough that an employee doing it more than once would be irksome to management and the reception folks having to answer those calls.

      3. doreen*

        The issue is not whether the manager on their own would take this seriously. They might not but I can guarantee that there will be certain recipients of the mail who will take it very seriously , to the point of complaining at least and possibly taking their business elsewhere. It’s not a matter of the stamp being upside down, it’s a matter of it being a stamp depicting the flag being upside down. From the company’s point of view, it’s no different than sending out mail with envelope seals making a political statement – it’s going to offend some people so why do it ?

  28. Corporate Goth*

    LW4, those notes really are appreciated, especially if you can do a physical form someone can take with them as they leave. I found several notes yesterday from a past job that articulated how I’d positively impacted people without even realizing it, and recently received a personalized retirement invitation from someone who really wanted me to be at the ceremony.

    I haven’t been in that job for years, but those notes put me on such a nostalgia trip that I also had to create a list of why no one should ever work at that organization. (Why yes, we did bond over shared trauma.)

    On a few occasions, I did give a select few a bottle of their favorite alcohol, which fit with the unfortunate culture at that org. I ultimately regretted it each time for various reasons. That said, they were mostly peers, plus I was in a position to afford it, was expected by position to express gratitude, and wouldn’t have been able to write a sincere note.

    1. Lab Boss*

      Seconding this about the notes being physical- I once jotted off a quick thank you card to my boss and I’ve noticed it’s still displayed on one of her shelves several years later. I assume part of that is just standard shelf-clutter-inertia, but I like the idea that now and then she notices it and it makes her happy again.

  29. Sammy*

    If upside down stamps are a political statement, then rightside up stamps are ALSO a political statement.

    1. Just Chill*

      I guess a ‘whisper campaign’ (?) which of course, will totally not cause the OP professional issues. It’s always a great idea to gossip and start rumors about someone senior to you in a professional setting.

      /End Sarcasm

      1. Kat*

        The way the LW brought that up out of nowhere is a little weird. It reminds me of how, as a child, I would preemptively run to my mother and tell her that I didn’t hit my sister.

        Believe it or not, this tactic never worked.

      2. learnedthehardway*

        Yeah – that bit about an “unintentional whisper campaign” makes me think that the OP is the problem, not the director.

        I mean, seriously – do they think that the powers that be will fire the director simply because one of their team members doesn’t think the director is adequately acknowledging their existence and apparent influence within the company?!!?

        I’d be more inclined – as a bystander in this company – to think that perhaps the Director has considerable buy-in from senior management (having just been hired), and that perhaps part of their role is to stop drama from happening….

    2. Aggretsuko*

      OP has a terrible time with the manager/job and either ends up getting a new job or gets in trouble with the manager :/

      I second the “prepare ahead of time for dealing with a bad manager” advice above on that one.

  31. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    Also, OP1. I think you’ve fallen into a quite common trap that those of us with non standard brains and a lot of experience do. That is, assuming that all the literature, training, psychological help etc. tell you is ‘normal’ is true for all other humans. And it really really isn’t.

    ‘But I put SO much effort into acting like everyone else but here’s someone not obeying the rules!’ – if this sounds familiar then I’m here in solidarity. I still don’t understand human interaction (which is why I stayed in IT).

    If someone is behaving not according to the rules but isn’t causing you or anyone else direct harm or being utterly revolting then accept it as one of those things that shows people cannot be predicted.

    1. Office Plant Queen*

      If it were just that I’d agree, but that’s not actually the reason LW gives – the real reason is just bad vibes! The example given is them searching for anything slightly more concrete to back up their gut feeling, but not having much to go on because they haven’t known their new boss for very long. I don’t think it’s too generous to tell them not to dismiss their gut feeling yet, but not to act on it either

      1. NotBatman*

        Yep. I really don’t like how quickly that letter concludes someone has a highly-stigmatized mental illness based on “vibes.” There’s a term for thinking you know everything about a person based solely on their appearance.

    2. a bright young reporter with a point of view*

      Also… This whole thing about narcissism and NPD these days has all the hallmarks of a moral panic. It is better to concern oneself with the behavior a person actually exhibits and not some possible psychiatric diagnosis. The vast majority of people that are casually labeled narcissists are usually some combination of selfish, entitled, and misogynistic, none of which are clear indicators of NPD. Calling a relative “a bit of a narcissist” gives us as readers no information about that person at all.

  33. Office Plant Queen*

    LW2, I clicked on the link the look at the stamps and see two quick ways to make sure you’re orienting it right, depending on which is easier for you. 1) you can look at just the top left corner to make sure it’s deep blue (or the bottom right to make sure it’s sky) or 2) you can look for the design date, which is on the bottom of this design. If the year 2022 is upside down, so is the stamp!

    But in the medium/long term, please ask your work if they can start ordering literally any other stamp design. The cost shouldn’t be different and there are other designs that would be perfectly appropriate for a business

    1. Anne Shirley Blythe*

      LW2, I came here to say something similar. In addition to what Alison said about pre-positioning, try using some kind of easy phrase like “blue on left.” As someone in a state with a challenging flag (Maryland) and in advertising/marketing, simple phrases help. Even native Marylanders sometimes position the flag incorrectly in designs and images!

  34. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    LW4 – in addition to the handwritten note, another option would be to share your positive feedback with whoever their supervisor is, or another leader whose opinion they deeply value. I’m a fan of the “email the person I’ve worked with; cc their manager” or “email their manager, cc the person I’ve worked with” approach so the appreciation is visible to both.

    Because in a company in chaos, sometimes managers don’t realize just how much their direct reports are stepping up as they’re preoccupied with problems in their own scope (even if this is, say, a CEO supervising a VP). And this is the kind of thing that can really matter in performance assessments, bonus considerations, next career steps, etc. Or it might just be their manager taking a moment to share some appreciation for the person you feel has gone above and beyond in a moment where there may not be much capacity/brainspace to share positive feedback, and that can make a huge difference for resilience in these hard moments.

    1. iglwif*

      Yes, this is a great point!

      When I’ve managed or mentored younger or more junior people, one piece of advice I always give is to start and maintain a “praise folder” — my original one was a physical file folder, but it can just be a subfolder in your email — where you store nice things people have said to and about you. As well as being great to lift your mood and encourage you on difficult days (which is a good enough reason in itself IMO), this collection of nice things can be really valuable in advocating for yourself with your manager and for your manager to advocate for you further up the chain of command.

  35. Delta Delta*

    #2 – If you’re also the person who buys stamps, pick some that have a design that’s easier to see. I recently finished a sheet of stamps where I genuinely couldn’t tell which end was up. Alternatively, see if your company will get a postage meter and just feed things through it so you don’t have to do anything with stamps. It’ll save a boatload of time, too.

    1. Lucy P*

      At our local post office, if you want to buy a roll of stamps there is usually only one design available.

      Given the fact that OP said the rolls last a couple of years, I would assume that their outgoing mail volume is low. Doing a quick search, the cheapest postage meter at one of the leading companies is $30/month. For two years that’s $720 for the meter vs $73 for a roll of stamps.

      As to the design of the stamps, I do find it weird. I’ve accidentally put the flags upside down several times. I’ve also turned them on their sides so that the text faces up.

      1. Delta Delta*

        OP said, “We buy rolls of stamps that over the last couple of years have had a three-flag design.” I don’t read this mean the stamps last a couple years, I read this to mean that the design over the last couple years has been the flag design.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            Yeah, I think it used to be just one flag. I looked and this design is visually wonky — it’s not surprising OP put it on the wrong way around. Even if you’re not going fast, when you have a lot of mail to process, it gets repetitive and it’s easy to zone out a little bit.

            Stamp OP, I would just take a minute to orient the roll so it’s correctly positioned and in the easiest way for you to grab it right-side-up before you start stamping.

  36. NotBatman*

    LW1, I would encourage you to drop the word “narcissist” from how you think about your new boss. It’s not a scientific term, and many of its uses online are sexist and/or ableist. (Source: I’m a psychologist, with some experience in NPI research.)

    It sounds like she’s off-putting. Or not great with people. Or socially awkward. So anything you can do to mentally (and verbally) refer to her as “Jane, my off-putting boss” or “Jane’s being off-putting again” is going to be a favor to you and to her.

    As you noted, off-putting could mean a perfectly competent manager who isn’t socially skilled, or it could mean an awful bully. But either way, please PLEASE do not attempt to diagnose people with pseudoscientific conditions.

  37. Ohio Duck*

    LW2, I’ve done the same thing on accident with those stamps! I sympathize.

    I figured out that part of the issue has to do with how I hold the roll while placing stamps. You are supposed to go from the middle of the roll. Hold the roll in your left hand, pick up the stamp with your right hand, and place on the envelope. It is a smooth right-to-left move, going from the edge of the backing paper towards the stamps.

    If I instead pull stamps from the outside of the roll, and I go from the edge of the paper towards the stamps, they will be upside down.

    The other part of the issue is that the design is very visually confusing, but there’s nothing we can do about that.

    1. Dek*

      I think this is a good idea.

      TBH, I don’t see the design as that confusing, because blue in the upper left corner seems like the default to me.

      BUT.

      It’s a problem for LW, and quick visual cues aren’t working for them, so altering the motions they use to put the stamps on will at least help slow them down enough to be certain, and will probably help them default to the right way up.

  38. pally*

    For #2: perhaps management can look into procuring a postage meter to remove the issue altogether.

    Personally, I don’t pay any attention to how I affix postage on any letters I send. Being a lefty, I’m sure the stamps are oriented incorrectly as they are peeled off a roll. Figure the important thing here is that the letters bear stamps. I have been known to omit this at times.

    Further, until today’s letter, I have never paid any attention to the orientation of the stamp on any letters I receive, be them business or personal.

  40. Nodramalama*

    LW2, could you try turning the envelopes upside down instead? Then theoretically you’re putting the stamp on upside down but it goes right way up.

  41. HailRobonia*

    #2: I agree that the design looks hard to orient – based on the location of the “forever” text I would probably do the same as you. However count yourself lucky that it is something like stamps.

    In a previous job we had watermarked special paper for official documents like letters of recommendation which I was often responsible for printing. The watermark was the circular seal of the university and I would often have the paper either upside down or print on the reverse. It was very hard to notice…. but once you notice it, it was really annoying. Luckily my boss was pretty understanding but because we didn’t have a dedicated printer for these letters I had to print them ad-hoc and we had three printers each with a different way of orienting the paper.

    I must have killed a whole forest trying to get the letters right. Normally I would keep misprinted documents to use as scrap paper but obviously that is not an option for things like recommendation letters.

  42. a clockwork lemon*

    LW3 – The whole point of a password is that for it to be unique/memorable to the user while being very difficult to guess by a human OR a bot. Swear words fit the bill. You should be way more concerned about the fact that there’s apparently a list of passwords just hanging out on the system somewhere that users can see than you are about whether an employee is using a mildly naughty word as a password–and frankly you should have looked away while they were typing it in to begin with.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      Swear words, any dictionary word, are extremely easy for humans and bots to guess.
      You’re not wrong about the real problem here: that they’re process involved anyone looking up anyone else’s pw. Unless the pw is actually a long string of multiple curse words, it’s very crackable.

      1. Little Bobby Tables*

        A lot of the German Enigma communication got broken because sailors couldn’t resist using abbreviations for swear words for a supposedly random user generated code.

        Also, I think the correct classification for the word “asshat” would be a vulgarity.

  43. JLC*

    LW3 You can try working around the problem too. As many have said it is incredibly bad security practice for anyone, even the person themselves, to be able to see their password as it means it is stored in plaintext and extremely vulnerable in the event of a hack/leak. Generally passwords are stored in a “hashed format” meaning they cannot be see and can only be matched if the correct password is supplied by the person. That’s why most sites don’t let you retrieve your password but rather reset it and pick a new one, they legit do not have your old password available.

    If you can’t get IT to make the change necessary to protect your entire organization, you can at least address it on an individual basis. https://www.passwordmonster.com is a site that will show you how long it would take to crack a password. According to it, “asshat” would be cracked in 39.2 seconds where as a password similar to my own would take 4 million years (never a good idea to put in your actual password but rather something similar enough).

    This comic also explains how to make easy to remember and very hard to crack passwords https://xkcd.com/936/

  44. Wednesday wishes*

    Gift are not necessary but if you want to give one-
    My go-to is a succulent in a small ceramic pot. My son recently brought one to someone senior to him at his internship company a thank you for their mentorship.
    Its neutral and can stay in the office or be brought home. It also is a nice gesture that doesn’t have much monetary value so it can be appropriate for anyone.

    1. Dust Bunny*

      No, please just write a note/send a card. Some of us are certified brown thumbs, and we’re not allowed to have plants in our offices (they can attract insects), and I’m not taking it home where my cats will eat it. Don’t give a gift that requires care.

  45. pally*

    For #2: maybe management can invest in a postage meter?

    Seems kinda harsh -and misplaced – to punish the OP because postage stamp positioning is now construed as a political statement. What’s next? One’s writing hand implies one’s political leanings?? Find a better answer, management!

    1. kanada*

      Honestly, it’s bad enough OP’s boss is banging this drum but to back him up (beyond “yeah, you probably have to do this because your boss said so”)? People are being ridiculous about this one.

      (I mean, ostentatious displays of the American flag are also used as a dog-whistle by the right–does that mean whoever is purchasing the stamps is making a political statement, too?)

    2. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      Right? They are very inexpensive and you don’t have to worry about making any kind of statement.

    3. Looper*

      I think OP’s boss is in fact the one making a political statement. He’s reaction is so paranoid and over the top that he would instantly go on my “watch closely for biased behavior” list.

  46. Brian the librarian*

    I once used a mild swear word as my bank password. Then I ran into my bank teller at a party and she drunkenly announced my hilarious password to a bunch of strangers.

  47. Just Another Anonymoose*

    #2 : Note to self – send all letters with *cough*upside down*cough* stamps. Am feeling somewhat distressed.

    1. juliebulie*

      Careful with that. Upside-down FLAG stamps indicate distress. According to comments above, upside-down non-flag stamps apparently mean “I love you.” Not sayin’ you shouldn’t spread your love around…

  48. HRinCA*

    OP#5

    From what you’ve said, your employer probably is in compliance with CA law.

    In CA as of 1-1-24 an employer is required to provide 5 days of paid time off for employees to use as sick time. Usually this is 40 hours but it can vary.

    The law in CA doesn’t require PTO or holiday time.

    In your employer’s case from what you’ve said they provide 24 hours of sick and then PTO. This does meet the requirement of the law provided the following:

    1. 40 hours of time (regardless of what it’s called) accrued and available for use by day 200 of the year. (24 hours need to have accrued by the 120th day of the year the employer uses.)
    2. Once the employee has used their “sick” coded time, there are no barriers to using the PTO time as sick…such as a requirement to request it 30 days in advance so you can’t use it if you wake up too ill to go to work, for example.

    Essentially the law places no requirement on what the time off is called as long as it’s provided.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      That said, one thing that stood out to me about #5 is LW5 mentioned being paid monthly at the end of the month. If you’re paid monthly in California, you can’t be paid later than the 26th for the entire month’s work (including the work that hasn’t happened yet).
      I can’t tell from the letter if they are being paid on the 26th, or the last day of the month, but if LW5 is concerned about compliance with California stuff, that may be something to confirm.

      1. HRinCA*

        I was going to address that in a different comment but saw that someone already had

        OP says they are hourly. if this is the case you are correct that the bigger issue is that they are in violation for this reason.

        The fact that the payroll company hasn’t caught this does call into question the accuracy of their info on the sick time. (Which is wrong.)

  50. Vocab Rehab*

    >we don’t have a good name for the work-inappropriate category [asshat] is in

    I believe the word you’re looking for is “vulgarity.”

  51. I can't squat to Paul McCartney*

    Stamp OP: Can you take a picture of a properly-oriented, stamped letter, and have it on your desk as a reference?

  52. Andromeda*

    The weird thing about Stamp Letter to me is not that Manager seems to think LW is doing it deliberately, but that Manager seems to think LW is lying about not doing it deliberately. A write-up about “making a political statement” seems much worse out of context than one about “keeps making silly mistakes” (which is what is actually happening). And if Manager doesn’t trust employees in general, that’s kind of concerning to me.

    I wonder if LW has issues with orienting pictures in general, or if it’s just these stamps? If it’s orienting things in general, I would say proactively explaining that to their manager isn’t a bad idea, along with a proposed solution for the stamps thing. (I was thinking maybe an arrow and a THIS WAY UP on the top or back of the stamp sheet.)

    I don’t think they need a note or anything, but if a medical issue is causing it, might it be a good idea to say “I have a medical issue that causes [me to have problems with visual processing occasionally/difficulty with seeing small details in images] but I’m taking these steps to fix the problem”?

  53. A*

    “I have a fair amount of influence and seniority at my company, but that is not obvious to new people, and to me it feels like she is ignoring or snubbing people who she perceives as having less power.”

    I think it would help the LW to really dig into this. It sounds like the LW feels insecure about the amount of validation they get relative to the importance of their role. It might help the LW to think about what, specifically, they actually want from their employer. A more distinguished title? Moving up on the org chart? A raise? Is the bad vides for the new boss a more convenient target than any of those other things?

    1. Mad Scientist*

      I completely agree. It sounds like she’s craving validation, didn’t get it from her new boss in a small and informal way, and is now projecting a lot onto her new boss as a result.

  54. r..*

    LW3,

    you do not have a problem with people using swearwords as passwords. You have a considerable information security problem because the ways you are using passwords is inadequate, and has been inadequate for more than thirty years.

    NIST and similar guidance has been, for more than 30 years, that login systems should store passwords in a salted and hashed form. In laypersons term’s a password hash is a way to store a password so you can check if the typed-in password is correct, but that for all intents and purposes it is mathematically impossible to extract the password from the stored hash.

    The primary problem with someone choosing ‘AKnobheadIsReadingThis’ as password primarily isn’t that a reader might be insulted by it, it is that there shouldn’t be a reader in the first place!

    Is choosing such a password unappropriate? Yes of course it is! Is it bad judgement? Absolutely!

    But it completely pales to the sort of bad judgement that leads to this type of issue in the year 2025 CE. One thing may be inappropriate to individuals; the other puts *all* students, employees and the organization itself at risk.

    I used to work for academic software on both sides of the isle, both from the point of running a campus software landscape, and managing campus software development for a commercial vendor.

    I exited this space about 15 years ago, but even back then, if a LMS vendor had this sort of security practices we’d have told them to go away and not come back, and if our software did have this property we would have expected to be thrown out.

    1. Dr. Vibrissae*

      But why is choosing such a password inappropriate or bad judgment? No one is supposed to see it, we have a lot of training around this. Yearly. If I have naughty pictures on my underpants, is it bad judgement to wear them to work?

      1. Annie*

        The words in other contexts are usually used as a put-down. Therefore, because it’s an unkind thing to say to another person, it’s unwise to use in a work context where it has a non-zero chance of being seen by someone else.

        With your underpants example, one could argue that you run the risk of someone taking offense if your outergarments somehow got ripped, pulled down, etc.

  55. ILoveLlamas*

    OP #1 – I get where you are coming from, but instead of waiting for her to come to you, why don’t you ask her for 15-30 minutes on her calendar for an intro meeting? How she responds to that request may speak volumes — was she happy you took initiative, did she blow you off? Not to be a downer, but once upon a time, I had a new boss and I realized within the first 30-45 days that I was on the chopping block. I gave her a birthday card (no acknowledgement), sat with her to explain my work focus (no comprehension – what she repeated back was not what I said), the list goes on. It took her 6 months before she fired me, but that gave me time to be ready to move on to better things.

  56. Postage Gal*

    I’d like to note that that website for the stamps is a fraud. Those are typically not real US postage stamps, but rather counterfeit. Please be careful when buying stamps that are not from the USPS or an authorized seller.

    1. Observer*

      True. I just went to the USPS web site, and the images for both of the rolls with a flag design are properly oriented.

      Looking at the images it strikes me that perhaps instead of looking at the picture, you look only at the text, especially the year. You simply cannot mistake either of those.

  57. A*

    2: political meanings aside, stamp orientation is something a boss is allowed to have a preference about from their admins.

    It is not necessarily what I would prioritize but I don’t think it’s so out of bounds for the role that it’s inherently a bad decision.

    Sometimes at work (most of the time at work) your job is to do what your boss wants even if you don’t think it’s a priority. So find a way to orient the stamps correctly or find a new job.

  58. fhqwhgads*

    LW2, FWIW even your example of the stamps being “upside down for sale” is a little misreading the orientation of the stamp, which may help with learning to orient them. Yes, the flags themselves are upside down in that image, but the STAMPS, are not. The stamps are rotated 90 degrees to the right in the image. The word “forever” should be left-to-right across the top. It seems to me that the flags should appear vertically when the stamp is oriented correctly. In other words, the flag pole is horizontal. For the flags to be right-side-up, the stamp would need to be rotated 90 degrees to the left, which isn’t really right either.
    But, long story short, since this has been a repeated issue, I think you gotta focus on the word “forever” across the top. That’s your easiest solution moving forward.

    1. Katy*

      This is incorrect. Look at the date at the bottom. LW knows which side is up on these stamps, they just have trouble processing it when working quickly.

      2. fhqwhgads*

        I don’t know what date you’re referring to. There isn’t one in the image linked.
        My point is, if you have trouble processing it when working quickly, my suggestion is trying to focus on something other than the flags, eg, the word “forever”. It’s a suggestion to make it easier. They don’t have to take it. But since they’ve been repeatedly told to get this right, they need to do something differently than what they’re doing now.

        All that said, fwiw, if the page or roll of stamps is oriented the right way up relative to whatever OP is putting the stamps on, it shouldn’t require looking at the stamps at all to get them in the right orientation, nor should it be likely to get some right and some wrong. Which I mention mostly because that aspect may be why the boss didn’t believe that it wasn’t intentional.

        1. Hlao-roo*

          I don’t know what date you’re referring to.

          The date Kary is referring to is “2022” (the year for this particular stamp design). It’s in the linked image but it’s faint because of the glare. Just above the letter “F” in “forever” there’s an upside-down “2022” in the white border of the stamp.

          You can see the “2022” more clearly in the link I left in my comment above, in the second image of a single stamp on the white envelope.

          1. I Have RBF*

            The “2022” on that stamp is right side up in the white space on the lower left edge.

    2. toolegittoresign*

      I was coming to comment the same. I would even print out the page of them the USPS website and ask if the picture there is a political statement. After seeing that picture, I would also be inclined to put them on just as they are in the picture. What an odd design!

  59. Dust Bunny*

    LW2: The stamps are depicted sideways on the website, not upside-down. The lettering is at the top and bottom and the flags are hanging down from diagonal poles, like the ones that are often mounted on the fronts of buildings.

    If you do a lot of mailings I agree with above commentors that a metered system would be a good idea, but otherwise, slow down a fraction and notice where and how the lettering is oriented.

    (We used to do a ton of mailings by hand, which we all dreaded, but part of the whole process was making sure that the stamps were correctly oriented and mostly straight on the envelope so the whole thing didn’t look sloppy.)

    1. Frigate*

      This is wrong — LW2 is correct that they’re upside down in the picture. You can see them right side up further down the page. But it goes to show how hard they are to orient!

      (I would accidentally put them upside down too, I think because my eye would gloss the blue part of the flag as belonging with the flag below it.)

      1. Dust Bunny*

        Maybe, but if they were oriented according to the lettering the argument could at least be made that they weren’t upside-down. The way the LW is apparently sticking them on, they’re oriented neither according to the lettering nor the flags.

      2. I Have RBF*

        At this link, https://store.usps.com/store/product/us-flags-2022-stamps-S_121704, all of the pictures are right side up. All three pictures.

        The word “FOREVER” is running from the bottom up on the left hand side. The “USA” is oriented bottom to top on the right hand side. The “2022” is right side up on the lower left hand white space.

        The problem is that the top flag is only a partial, and seems like it should be on the bottom. But the blue starfield on all three flags is at the upper left of each flag when properly oriented, as displayed.

        The stamp is very disorienting, and would probably cause me to put some on upside down if I had to deal with them in a hurry. I would have to remember that the biggest starfield on the stamp went in the upper left corner.

  60. pally*

    For #1, I’d like to read an update. It would be interesting to learn how this plays out.
    Thank you.

  61. Dust Bunny*

    LW1: I have a coworker who reminds me of several people who made my life miserable in the past, but in real life . . . she hasn’t done anything. She hasn’t done anything to me, personally, or to anyone else as far as I know. We’re just very, very different personalities with very different approaches to and expectations of life. My being a bit on edge with her is about my own baggage and insecurities; so far there is no actual reason for me to be on guard.

    Which doesn’t guarantee that your boss won’t be a problem, but until you have concrete reason to think she will be, don’t go looking for trouble.

  62. T'Cael Zaanidor Kilyle*

    #1: I think flag stamps are usually in rolls, so I’m going to run on the assumption that a roll-based solution will be better than a sheet-based one.

    Can you process the orientation correctly if you stop and think about it, but it’s very hard to do it instantly? If so, then it might help to “batch” the outgoing mail — save it all up and stamp all the day’s envelopes at once. I find that if I am holding the roll in a particular way and repeating the action of peeling the stamp off and applying it, as long as the roll is in my hand it’s pretty hard to reverse the orientation without realizing it. The ACTION becomes what’s repeated, not the visual orientation of the stamp.

    I was also thinking that different stamps could help — you can have trouble orienting an abstract design, but a very easy time correctly orienting a human face — but if your supervisor is accusing you of sending a political statement and lying about it, he might also be offended by the idea of not using the flag.

  63. Nilsson Schmilsson*

    So using a “swear” word in a password is unprofessional…but the regular use of the word, “f*ck” at work is not?

    1. Massive Dynamic*

      Usually it is? I guess it’s all in where you work – I haven’t worked anywhere where regular Fbombs are the norm.

  64. Emily (not a bot)*

    LW1: It’s unclear to me from this whether they’re having substantive conversations or not. But if they are, I would document each one and send follow-up emails recapping. It’s not unprofessional, and it’s a small thing you can do that reduces the chances of later issues arising from conversations being misreported, which is a major way that someone can cause problems for you. And if this all turns out to be nothing, no harm.

    1. A*

      The harm is in the documented conversations discovered by somebody else. This could easily be interpreted as surveillance without a substantive reason.

      Imagine this letter:

      Dear Alison,
      I just started a new role. When screen sharing documents with somebody from another department they accidentally brought up a document they made detailing every conversation we ever had. I asked if this is standard operating procedure for them. Do they document every exchange with everybody? They said no. I can’t think of any reason for somebody to document my actions this throughly. Is this normal or should I dig into it a little more?

    2. Allonge*

      The harm is waste of time and giving a very obvious sign of mistrust. OP has ‘she did not intentionally seek me out to introduce herself’ (not great, but there are dozens of benign explanations) and ‘bad vibes’.

      This is not evidence of anything that needs documentation.

      Why go into a relationship with a manager with the assumption that they are out to get you?

  65. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

    LW1, the only thing that’s going to help you figure out whether the bad vibes are legit is time. I get the sense you want answers soon, but unless something egregious happens, you just won’t know for a while. See how she operates with things that are important. Maybe she’s actually fine. Maybe she totally sucks. Maybe it’s somewhere in between.

    The only way to manage this on your part is to be scrupulously professional. Keep an eye out, but behave as though the vibes are fine until and unless something happens to change that. As others have mentioned above, if it turns out that she is awful, playing nice is how you protect yourself. If it turns out that it’s mostly that she’s just triggering something in you and you behave poorly, the only one that hurts is you. In school, our orchestra teacher said to fake it until you make it. I think that applies here. I mean, I have colleagues that I don’t like because we have very different approaches to things. My goal in interactions is for them to have no idea that I’m not a fan. I fake it because that’s the best strategy for me in this situation.

    At this stage, I would say absolutely nothing to any colleagues about any of this (again, until and unless you have something concrete). You can’t accidentally start a whisper network if you don’t say anything to anyone.

    1. Coffee Protein Drink*

      Exactly. Past experience colors our perceptions, so the OP needs to see how the new person acts.

      When I first read that letter, I was reminded of a boss who was absolutely horrible. She yelled at people, slammed a door in someone’s face, would start in on the questions before you got your coat off, didn’t listen to people, would demand tech support when you were in a Teams meeting, and didn’t try to understand anyone’s perspective. She also didn’t introduce herself, so my brain went immediately to, “red flag.”

      Reading the comments, where others have mentioned there are reasons for not introducing yourself, I’ve lowered it to yellow. I agree with the OP that it’s on a new manager to initiate the introductions.

    2. Generic Name*

      Wholeheartedly agree. It’s taken about a year and a half for the bad vibes I got from my current boss to play out. The other time I got bad vibes from a coworker, it took about a year.

  66. Kara*

    I mean .. no you’re not supposed to put unacceptable words in your professional passwords, but a few years ago our password system upgraded (again) and required an absolutely ridiculous level of complexity. I kept following the rules listed for length, upper and lower case, “special characters”, etc. and the system kept rejecting my efforts. Finally in a fit of pique, I typed in: “I hate this f**king system [my birthyear]!” (not redacted) and it accepted it as my password.

    And because it was long enough and varied enough, it stayed my password for 180 days. ;)

    1. Mid*

      I’ve done the same thing for the same reason. One password system wouldn’t tell you all the rules you needed to hit to be acceptable, but after trial and error, it needed to be at least 18 (EIGHTEEN!) characters long, no sequential letters or numbers, no portion could repeat a previous password (so if dogcarairplane1923 was a previous password, you couldn’t use dog, car, air, plane, lane, airplane, 1923, 192, or 923 ever again), contain at least two capital letters, two numbers, and two symbols, but the symbols couldn’t be @ or !. And we had to get new passwords every 90 days. It was a nightmare. I used multiple variations of “fuck this password.”

    2. Kevin Sours*

      Not that these systems are not in compliance with NIST guidelines and haven’t been for years.

      1. I Have RBF*

        Me too. Like for websites that insist on you making an account before they will show you prices, or let you leave feedback, or even read an article.

  67. Workerbee*

    #3 – I mean, come on. A password is a typed-in collection of characters for a specific system. So what if it’s a swear word? I would not immediately jump to side-eying this person’s professionalism. Instead, I’d think they’re giving themselves a little relief in this workaday world.

    OP, focus on the fact that your systems are hideously insecure and that you are overly invested in what people choose to use in this insecure system.

  68. Phony Genius*

    On #2, I’m tempted to suggest getting some Inverted Jenny stamps and driving your boss crazy, but that would be way too expensive.

  69. AngryOwl*

    Password OP is overreacting and I don’t think had any standing to direct employee to change their password to something more “appropriate.” Absolutely no one should see passwords and as such their appropriateness is irrelevant.

    (I would be reacting differently if it was an actually offensive thing like a slur and I’m comfortable with my spectrum of feelings on this.)

    1. fhqwhgads*

      Yeah, Password OP should’ve been directing the employee to change their password because that’s how forgotten passwords should be handled. You reset the person’s password and click the “must change” box. Their current password shouldn’t be involved at all.

      1. hello*

        honestly, given that they’re apparently storing the passwords in plain text, I wouldn’t expect there to be anything like a “must change” box…

    2. HRinCA*

      Because I’ve already committed to being in HR today, LOL, I’m going to weigh in on this and say that I would have also said it needed to be changed because, with the way passwords are handled in that company, more than one person will see that password.

      And someone WILL complain. And then it will become a much bigger deal than it should be because someone will have made a complaint.

      It’s just not worth it.

    3. Kevin Sours*

      It’s not that nobody *should* see passwords. It’s that passwords should never be stored in they system. What OP did shouldn’t be possible even without any limitations whatsoever on accessing the data.

  70. WantonSeedStitch*

    LW #4, in addition to the personal note, if you have get any time with this leader’s boss, making mention of how amazing he’s been in that conversation would also be great. I love hearing from my indirect reports when their managers are particularly helpful and doing a great job!

  71. Casino Royale*

    Oh my god, just buy new stamps–either get the Forever stamps that are only one flag (so it’s more obvious if it’s upside down), or stamps that are not at all flag-related. Get flowers or something, IDK. The USPS website has Forever stamps that are just flowers right now (called “Celebration Blooms” series or something like that), they’re very pretty and inoffensive. And anyone who would take offense at them is a nutbar anyway.

    I mean, I’m not unsympathetic to the OP here. Many jobs ago, I accidentally put some stamps on slightly crooked on outgoing mail–as part of donor solicitation mailings, no less. They were right side up but not fully straight. And I think they were Forever stamps (with a single flag so I didn’t have the excuse that there were too many flags to keep track of).
    The political times were less contentious (so you weren’t generally seeing upside down flags around everywhere as A Statement), it wasn’t something I did frequently, but there were other issues at that job so when this single instance of upside-down-stampening happened, it was just one more piece of evidence that Casino Royale was too stupid to function (according to my then boss). And their crankiness about it just pushed me even further into BEC mode with them and the job as a whole.
    So man does this letter bring back some memories. I do really feel for the LW here, especially about the write-up.
    But yeah, you gotta just get some new stamps that ideally aren’t flags at all. Because I clicked through to the photo you linked to and that is a hot mess that would trip up most people. But you can’t keep making that mistake even in “uncontentious” political times.

    So again: Go to the USPS website, click on the “Shop” tab, filter out by “stamps” and then “forever” stamps, and see what’s available. I’d still just stick to the flower ones though, and call it a day. Or someone can make room in the budget for a postage machine. Or the LW and their office can just keep doing what they’ve been doing and everyone continues to be frustrated when nothing changes.

    1. Observer*

      Go to the USPS website, click on the “Shop” tab, filter out by “stamps” and then “forever” stamps, and see what’s available.

      I did that to get a look at the *actual* image of the stamp the LW is using, and yes, they actually *do* have a roll that is a flower (tulip to be precise.)

  72. Elevator Elevator*

    LW2 – What would help me in that situation is lightly taking a Sharpie to the bottom of the role so that there’s a (very) thin black trim along the bottom of the stamps that you know to always orient to the bottom. (If having that visible on the stamps themselves would also be an issue, my second-choice solution would be adding a thick Sharpie line at the bottom of the roll paper left exposed after the last 2-3 stamps were removed, so you’ve got a couple of inches worth of visual “this way down” indicator adjacent to the stamps you’re peeling.)

  73. Observer*

    #2 – Upside down stamps.

    You are not making a political statement. But you *are* failing to follow a specific and legitimate instruction from your boss. Even if it were not all that reasonable, it would still be something that you need to do.

    Also, you are not *intending* a political statement. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not being made. This is not you saying “purple” and someone hearing “green”. It’s more like you are saying “green” but mispronouncing it as “grin”. The difference is that in that kind of context most people will understand what you actually meant. But with the stamp? There is just no way for them to know that. Which means that what you *intend* to do and what you are *actually* doing are not the same thing. Which means that you really need to find a way to fix this problem.

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

    #1. Give it some time. Have you actually seen the new director treating people differently than those who would have more power, or is it that you just think that because she didn’t treat you a certain way that she has this attitude. You certainly need to treat the new person with professionalism.
    #2 I disagree with Alison here. I think the boss is being extreme and weird. Who even looks at the postage stamp (besides stamp collectors) and which way the stamp is on. I think the OP should show the boss the picture of how its shown and explain why she gets them upside down sometimes. Its so weird that he jumped right to this is a political statement. I wonder, OP could you see if you could use stamps with different design? There are other flag designs that might be better for you.
    #3 is odd but I’d leave it alone. It’s not hurting anyone and it just shows you what type of person they are.
    #4 I’ve been in the same boat and we did a nice card and some folx ( the assistant director and other higher levels) got the person a nice university branded sweater (because we’re always cold!)
    5. Oy that sucks. I’d be looking for a new job. But yes, file a complaint.

  75. Yellow Light*

    LW1: your instincts may be dead on but you going out of your way to give someone you don’t know a stigmatizing medical label for not paying enough attention TO YOU in the way you feel you are owed, and as a consequence considering starting up a preemptive “whisper campaign” (which are rightfully used against sexual harassers to protect potential victims) based on incredibly subjective *vibes*, makes you look like the problem here. In general it’s best to judge people based on their own actions, not the actions of whoever they remind you of.

  76. DE*

    For the second one I think they should just get some different stamps that can work placed either way. That will sidestep this particular problem.

  77. Iranian yogurt*

    LW2, my org also buys the flag forever stamps, but they recently switched from the 3 kinda wavy flags to one more blocky flag with the word FREEDOM underneath. Would having a prominent word that you can easily check is right-side up be helpful? If so, it may be worth asking to make the switch from one flag design to the other.

  78. The Office Vegan*

    LW2 – I have the same stamps and do the same thing CONSTANTLY. It drives me nuts. No one is giving me a hard time about it, but I look at the envelope and realize the stamp is upside down. I don’t have any real advice for you, but I just want to validate you because it’s an annoying design and gives me the same trouble – you are not alone!!!

    I have done it enough times now that I try to stop myself and *think* about the orientation of the stamp, but when I’m in a hurry and just slap it on there it is always upside down.

  79. Katrine Fonsmark*

    No. The word forever should always be at the top and the USA is at the bottom. The flags aren’t oriented with the stars on the top. Look at them – the poles are supposed to be sticking out horizontally as though they’re attached to a building and therefore the flags are hanging down. How is no one seeing this lol. Even the way they’re presented on the roll of stamps shows that this is the correct orientation.

    1. canuckian*

      Nope–they are not building flags. When you read the blurb beside the stamps: “The stamp art is a painting of three flags in a circular formation, reminiscent of the 50 flags encircling the Washington Monument. The artist used three separate photographs of the same flag taken seconds apart as reference and stitched together the images into a single composition.”. According to images on the internet, those are all flag pole flags, so it should be the largest flag at the top.

      Plus, if you look at other flag designs on the stamp pages, none of them are entirely consistent in the placement/direction of Forever or USA.

  80. Daisy-dog*

    For me, the thing that stands out with #3 is that the person *forgot their password*. Then when they got the chance to change it, *they kept it the same*. Like maybe they’ll remember it now because they have the fun story about how they were told not to use it…? But it clearly wasn’t memorable in the first place.

  82. Colorado*

    The stamp design shown with the multiple flags I can see being easily disoriented. I will admit though, if I received correspondence with the flag upside down, I would smile to myself and want to do business with such company.

  83. Generic Name*

    #1 I actually have first hand experience with this! I had a weird gut feeling about my current boss when I first met her. While she has been good to work for in some respects (advocates for me to higher ups), she is deeply problematic in other respects (complains about colleagues to junior-level staff, tells different people conflicting stories, is emotionally volatile, etc.). I seem to be her “Golden Child”, but I walk on eggshells.

    So, my advice is to tread carefully. Observe if her words match her actions. Trust but verify. Meaning, don’t just take her word for things and get outside confirmation first. I’m not saying to treat her as a liar from the get go, but don’t blindly trust that she’s telling you the truth either. Make sure you have solid relationships with company leaders that aren’t mediated by her. Make sure your track record of good work is known to others, and communicated via channels that don’t go through your new boss exclusively. Be careful what you share with your boss and how you share it.

    I’ve ignored my gut about coworkers before, and I ended up regretting putting my trust in that coworker to do their job because it affected me and the project I was leading negatively. So I promised myself I would never ignore my gut feeling again. You don’t have to intentionally torpedo your relationship with your boss, but keep your eyes open.

  84. WillowSunstar*

    I just put all my passwords in my iphone into a “note.” Maybe not entirely secure, but I never leave my phone attended and I don’t have the 4 digit thingy in the list.

  85. eXtradiol*

    Regarding inappropriate password, at one point I included inappropriate words in my passwords as a way to discourage *myself* from telling someone the password. Revealing that my password has a swear in it would be mortifying in a professional context and my thinking is that I’d be too embarrassed to share it with anyone.

  86. Veryanon*

    The stamp thing: I was today years old when I learned that people are deliberately putting stamps on mail upside down to make a political statement. That manager really has too much time on their hands if they’re nitpicking over stamps, IMO.

    1. anon4eva!*

      I agree- saying putting a flag stamp upside down is a protest to the current government is objectively dumb.
      I mean you could say wearing “red” in the 1980s was showing allegiance to Russia during the Cold War and we’re saying if “enough” people agree with this sentiment, then it magically becomes true/real.
      Scary times…

  88. Devious Planner*

    LW2 I was confused by your question at first, figuring “how hard could it be to place a stamp correctly?” and then I clicked on the link and I get it! Wow, that’s a really bad stamp design. The way the three flags recede in size messes with my brain too.

    I wouldn’t care at all if I got a letter with a stamp upside down. But ultimately, you still should get it right if your boss really cares about it, just for the sake of keeping your job.

  89. STEM Admin*

    Have to admit that I once had a very offensive term (were it directed at a person) as my password. It was the password to a system we only access once/year. With a rule that the password has to be changed every 6 months. So literally, every single time I had to get into it, I had to start with a fairly lengthy questionnaire and then wait for the system to reset and then change the password, and then finally access the info I needed in the first place. So I considered my response to be provoked.

  90. DJ*

    LW#4 I agree with Alison a personal note is the way to go. He can keep it to use as testimony to his great work should the axe fall, or simply when he’s seeking a transfer/promotion or new employment!

  92. RagingADHD*

    LW2, at one of my early legal secretary jobs my attorney would literally measure the stamp placement with a ruler to verify it exactly, and I got in huge trouble if it was off by a millimeter. She also counted the asterisks in the headers of court filings, even when I used a template.

    She was a public defender for criminal appeals, and she claimed that the court clerk was constantly looking for far fetched reasons to reject her mail and filings. I don’t know if that’s true, or if she just had issues. I never saw it happen, but maybe it happened before I started?

    Nevertheless, she signed my paychecks, and it was a mostly-good job, so I started measuring stamps and counting asterisks.

  93. Narcissist boss*

    LW1, I just wanted to say your post resonated so much with my experiences with my ex-boss. He was an external hire and while we were briefly introduced on his first day, he only chatted with us (his direct reports) superficially for 30 seconds before going off to find other managers. I also got that immediate bad feeling – he just struck me as completely artificial. In his first week, he never asked us any questions about ourselves, just sat at his desk and started working, occasionally turning around to ask us how to access a software or where to get pens. He scheduled a meeting with us a WEEK after he started, but halfway through us showing him a presentation about our plan for the year – he leant over and closed the lid of my laptop and told us he didn’t care about that because he was going to shake things up. I walked out of the meeting with huge bad vibes, and I was correct! He was excellent at faking friendliness and professionalism and was very talented at “managing up”. All the directors loved him, but he was a nightmare to work with, made nonsensical business decisions and made multiple people cry. Turns out he had lied about his whole CV, didn’t have any management experience and had a totally different, much less senior job title than the one he boasted about at his prestigious former company. Obviously, your situation could be different, but personally I wish I had listened to my gut and left earlier. I also don’t have any advice because my grand-boss was the one who hired him and LOVED him, dismissed any negative feedback as evidence of poor performance on our part, and he didn’t get fired until years later when 5+ members of his team had left (one extremely loudly and dramatically). I sincerely hope your experience is different!

  94. E*

    I’m not American, so I have never seen that stamp before, but looking at both pictures I can understand how it makes more sense to you upside down. I think both that the flag arrangement is confusing, but also the text is running in the wrong direction. When you see text set sideways on a book spine it runs top to bottom, not bottom to top as it does on this stamp.

  95. Database Developer Dude*

    The idea that something so petty and minor as placement of a stamp can get someone in trouble at work when it has literally no effect on the mailability of the envelope is wild. This is appeasing someone who’s being 100% unreasonable just because they have power.

    If this had happened to me at any job, I’d be job searching, and they wouldn’t know anything until I put in my notice. This is wrong.

  96. Southern Violet*

    1. Absolutely trust your instincts. They are there for a reason. The way to do that is what Alison said – keep your eyes open, and be cooly professional in the meantime. If they are an ass, you’ll see it soon

    2. That boss is the one making a political atatement. The only people upset about upside flags are MAGAts. Kesp your eyes open for other tells, and see if you can change jobs if they escalate. In the meantime, if they keep going after you, keep a record of it.

  97. Religious Nutter*

    LW3 – Whatever system you’re currently using to manage those passwords really _really_ needs to stop. No one should be able to see a user’s password other than the user. Your ability to retrieve the passwords means you functionally have the ability to pass yourself off as any employee. This violates chain-of-evidence in the event of an incident, and gives a savvy employee a way to muddy the waters in an investigation “It wasn’t me! I bet LW 3 did it using my password!”

    You need to talk to your IT department about this setup. If you’re in IT and this setup is in use, then your IT department is incompetent. This is a violation of all the basic best practices around security and it puts your job at risk.

    This is a great example of something that seems like it’s “not a big deal” because nothing has broken _yet_, but when it becomes a problem it will be come a huge problem. You need to get out ahead of this before it bites you and your company.

  98. Yikes in NYC*

    I put American flag stamps upside down and was called out on it, too. It was an oversight. I was working ridiculous hours, caring for a very demanding relative who didn’t live with me, and volunteering to help out with a mailing from a trade organization that was short staffed. I wasn’t thinking, just exhausted.

    One of the men who was running the small group called me up and brought it to my attention. I said it wasn’t intentional, that I was rushing to get everything done coupled with the demands of my work life and the relative, and apologized. I also stepped back from volunteering for the group and said that it was best for someone else to handle these tasks. I never made that mistake again.

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