coworker asks someone to get him food every day, new hire took the “fork in the road,” and more

by Alison Green on March 4, 2025

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

1. Coworker asks someone to get him food from the cafeteria every day

I work as a consultant for a company and have an older male colleague (in his late 40s) who has mobility issues due to his weight. He sits almost all day and arrives very early before anyone else arrives. He cannot walk more than a few feet without pain and asks me (or another colleague) to grab meals for him at the cafeteria almost daily. He gives people money for his food, which is always junk food, and is very apologetic and appreciative.

Most people, including myself, bring packed meals and rarely eat in the cafeteria. It’s very awkward being put on the spot, especially since everyone is polite and usually willing to help anyone. I’m a classic “people pleaser”, which is something I really need to work on. My work crosses paths occasionally with this colleague so I don’t want any bad blood impacting my interactions with him. I don’t know him very well and he is not a “work friend.” Even if he were, it is still an uncomfortable situation.

While I sympathize with his chronic pain issues, I’m fed up and not his personal assistant! His boss often travels overseas and is rarely in the office. Due to my role, I work for an outside vendor with an unrelated HR team. He’s not in a supervisory role over anyone here, including me. If he needs a disability accommodation, that’s between him and his manager. How do I handle this colleague tactfully and avoid being offensive?

“Oh, I’m sorry — I’m not going to the cafeteria today!”

That’s it.

If he asks if you’d mind going anyway and you don’t want to, you can say, “I’m sorry, I can’t — I’m swamped.” He’s likely to stop asking pretty quickly.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s an outrageous imposition that he asks people for help. There are probably people who don’t mind and who see it as a kindness they’re happy to offer, and it’s reasonable for anyone to say no if it’s too much of an inconvenience on any given day or in general. I think the issue here is more that you don’t feel comfortable saying no than that he’s asking in the first place! Kindly saying you can’t do it should take care of it.

2. New hire took the “fork in the road” and now we might not be able to hire a replacement

I’m hoping to get a sanity check from you on a situation that just happened on my team. I know you generally say employees have to do what’s in their best interests, and sometimes burning a bridge is worth it, but this whole situation feels like more than just the “cost of doing business.” I work for a large federal agency in the D.C. area. Unlike many federal employees who are seeing their work slashed and burned, the team I lead has been launched from complete obscurity to being very high-visibility and is working incredibly hard. We used to be a strict 40-hour week team and now we routinely have team members staying past 8 or 9 pm to get all of our tasks done.

During this time, we put out an internal job posting to hire a senior individual contributor position. We did interviews and selected someone who seemed pretty qualified, though not “knock it out of the park” qualified relative to the other candidates. He accepted and started working on the team recently. Within a couple of days after he started, our HR informed us this employee had taken the deferred resignation option, aka Elon Musks’s “fork in the road,” and his last day would be about two weeks after starting. The employee never informed us of any of this, and what makes me particularly peeved is that he sent in his deferred resignation several days before interviewing with us and accepting the position.

All of this would fall under “not cool, but I guess we’ll just deal with it” except for one additional wrinkle: people who leave under the deferred resignation program can’t get their jobs backfilled. (Actually, my agency has to give up a billet for every single person that opted in, even if they don’t actually leave.) My supervisor is fighting to make the case that the unit he belonged to when he first resigned should be the one losing a billet, rather than our unit that he was in when he signed the final paperwork, but we don’t know how that’s going to turn out. We also don’t know, even if we can fill the position, whether we can just call up our second choice and make them an offer, or whether the rules will require us to go through a lengthy re-posting and re-interviewing process. And all the while, my team of junior employees are working their asses off without the help of a senior who could relieve some of the pressure.

Either way, there’s nothing I can do, but am I off-base in thinking this was much more egregious than a standard situation of a new hire backing out? I feel that at least, the employee should have told us he opted in to the deferred resignation when he received the offer, so that we could have made an informed decision.

Yeah, that’s pretty crappy. In fairness, it’s possible that he wasn’t confident that the deferred resignation email would be honored, since there’s still plenty of doubt about that. And he might have figured that at this point he doesn’t owe any particular courtesy to an employer that’s treated its workforce so disrespectfully (and … there’s something to that). But yeah, he screwed your team to get something for himself (which I wouldn’t say if he didn’t put you in a position where you might not be allowed to re-fill the job).

However, it’s far, far more absurd that HR didn’t tell you before the hire was finalized! That’s relevant info that you should have been made aware of, and it’s either by extreme incompetence or deliberate design that they didn’t.

3. Should I tell my employees that someone assaulted me?

Content warning for sexual assault

I wish I did not have to ask this. I live in a very small community with a staff of about 10. I am a sexual assault survivor with CPTSD and anxiety disorder from that experience growing up. Unfortunately, this weekend I had a stranger break into my apartment and attempt to rape me. While the assailant was caught and arrested and I was able to fight them off (and I’m in therapy), I am understandably very shaken up and this has opened some new wounds. Is it appropriate for me to tell my employees what happened in general terms and ask them to be careful when approaching me, especially from behind over the next few weeks as this is very triggering for me? This was all over our local media and some of them already know, and I have taken the next few days off of work because of the event.

How awful, I’m so sorry. Yes, you can absolutely share with your employees what happened in general terms so they have context for the requests you’re making (requests that will be completely understandable to anyone once they know why). “Broke in and attempted to attack me” will carry enough relevant information if you’re more comfortable with that wording.

I hope you heal as quickly as possible.

4. The lack of clarity of “Sunday at midnight”

I’ve always had a pet peeve as a student when I would get assignments that were due on, say, “Sunday night at midnight.” Does that mean you need my paper by Saturday night going into Sunday morning, or do you need my paper by Sunday night going into Monday morning? Because midnight is the start of the next day! I never asked because nobody else seemed to have an issue, but more importantly, it would only be a real issue if you weren’t completing your assignment in a timely manner. I always made a point to turn in my assignments at least 48 hours before a deadline anyway, so there was no reason to bring it up.

Now, I’m a grad student who’s a teaching assistant for a professor, and I’m responsible for writing the homework assignments for his undergrads. I tell students, “Submit this assignment by Sunday at 11:59 pm.” I feel this is much clearer than “Sunday at midnight,” and if a student were to, say, procrastinate on a lab report, a 60-second difference will not matter.

The professor, however, said that I should keep the “Sunday at midnight” vernacular because it’s industry standard (not just in our field, but in others). The actual amount of days given to complete the assignment was always correct, but I didn’t say anything because I feel like my concerns will be dismissed as mere semantics. It’s one of those weird little things where you feel silly for wanting to argue more for it, but you also feel frustrated because that means the other person is being equally silly for arguing against it. So then you just don’t argue to keep the peace but still have unresolved frustration. How common is “Sunday at midnight” in the working world? What should it mean?

It’s incredibly common!

And I am right there with you on it; you’re essentially giving a deadline that’s a day earlier than what you really mean and causing unnecessary confusion. The real deadline is Sunday at 11:59 pm. I think people are willing to live with it, though, because it’s not going to result in a student being late; if someone takes it literally, they’d be a day early instead. That’s still not particularly fair or clear … but if assignments were late as a result of it, they’d be more moved to change it.

5. Dealing with someone who’s in denial about their unreliable email

A physician I see regularly is having problems with her email. I’m sure that the problems are on her end because (a) they happen repeatedly, (b) they happen with no one else in my contact list, and (c) other people (like my occupational therapist) also have problems with her email communications. Sometimes she doesn’t receive emails that I’ve sent her, but she also sometimes says she’s sent me an email that never arrived in my inbox. (I’ve checked for these emails thoroughly). I’m not sure if the problem is that she’s very loose in how she handles her email or if there’s some technical issue on her end. In any case, it’s causing me real problems from time to time.

When I’ve brought this problem up, she’s been resistant to the possibility that the problem is on her end. She either shrugs off the missing email or implies that I somehow missed it or inadvertently deleted it — but I know, from ongoing exploration, as well as others’ communications with her, that the issue is definitely on her side. It feels quite rude to say to a professional, “I know that this problem might seem like a one-off, or like it might be a technical glitch on my end, but I have been tracking patterns for a while now, and I can tell you with confidence that some of your emails are not arriving and that you are often not getting the emails I send, and it is causing Big Problems. Could you fix it?” In some ways, I would prefer a simple workaround that acknowledged the situation without demanding that she address it: something like, “Since, as we’ve discussed, my emails don’t always make it to you, is there another way I could be corresponding just to make sure we’re communicating reliably? If I have a question, would you rather I call and leave a voice message with the question, or email you and then call to confirm receipt?” Does either of these seem likeliest to work, or most appropriate?

Sure, that’s appropriate.

But note at least for half the problem (the half where she misses your emails), you don’t even need to sort it out with her ahead of time. You can simply assume email isn’t a reliable method of reaching her and just switch to calling instead (or emailing and then calling to confirm receipt). The piece that you have a lot less control over is when she thinks she’s emailed you but hasn’t — so I’d focus on that piece of it. For example: “For whatever reason, your emails don’t reliably reach me. I don’t want to miss important messages from you, so can we switch to a different communication method, like texts or phone calls?”

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

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  2. MSD*

    Given the unnecessary information that the lunch is usually junk food it seems like the coworker’s unwillingness is more about their cowaorker’s size rather than inconvenience. I wonder if they’d feel the same if the coworker’s mobility difficulties were due to something other than weight.

    1. Lee*

      and, of course, the assumption that the mobility issues are due to weight is just that: an assumption.

      1. Wayward Sun*

        I had that thought too. People who develop mobility issues often gain weight as a result, because you inevitably end up more sedentary.

        1. Not Australian*

          Thank you for making this point. Able-bodied folks – including members of the medical profession who should know better – seem to think that ‘if you were more active you’d soon lose all that weight’ is sound advice, whereas sometimes the weight piles on simply *because* it’s impossible to be more active.

        2. Chirpy*

          And people in pain tend to eat more junk food, because pain is stressful and the body demands sugar and carbs to compensate.

          1. kalli*

            Well, that and “junk food” comes in portions, is sealed with an ingredients listing, generally requires little to no further preparation, and is usually in small or bite-size pieces. Especially if you physically can’t ask the person making sandwiches or who cooked the tray of lasagne or pasta salad or whatever, or even see the menu to know what’s available that day, and you have to tell someone what to get for you – better to go for the consistent food with known ingredients that you can be 100% sure is there and you can eat, then figure out the rest of your dietary needs somewhere you can control.

            Should there be a better option for this dude, like being able to make a lunch order and someone delivers it? Yep. Is “junk food” relevant here? nope.

            2. Spiders Everywhere*

              I wish doctors understood this better! they’re always like “ok, I want you to listen to your body and avoid exerting yourself and also you should only eat well balanced home-cooked meals with farm-fresh ingredients!” like sure so long as you’re coming over to cook for me

            3. Daisy-dog*

              I saw someone make a point that apples are widely inconsistent and may not always taste good. Doritos are always good. (If you like Doritos, if not insert your ideal packaged snack here.)

              1. Daisy-dog*

                Oh, and it’s also easier for the person performing the favor. Most everyone knows what Doritos look like and the label is usually easy to spot. Apples might be harder to find and they might rotate the fruit on offer, so not know what to substitute. And asking for something on the menu could also be inconsistent and end up being something they don’t want – and also require going through the cafeteria line when chips might not.

              2. Kiriana*

                I rarely get fresh produce anymore because I get my groceries delivered rather than picking them out myself. I don’t trust someone else to pick out produce that I want to eat, and it’s way too expensive to just write it off if I get a load of floury apples or whatever.

        3. Productivity Pigeon*

          +100!

          His weight should not factor into this.

          It’s fine to not want to help someone with an onerous task, for whatever reason.

          But I urge OP to consider whether or not they would’ve helped out if the coworker wasn’t fat.

          That will tell them a lot about themselves and how they look at the world.

          1. 1,000 Snails in a Lady Skin*

            Yep – I had a thin coworker (actually my boss) who never wanted to walk to the cafeteria and instead asked for people to bring back food for her. In this case, our food was free.
            She did not appear to have any mobility issues as far as I could tell and her job actually involved a fair amount of walking to our work sites around the campus.

            I brought her back food one or two times but then I started refusing “oh sorry I’m not going to the cafeteria today”, “oh no I want to take my time eating so I won’t be coming back to the office after and I’ll be going directly to my work station after”, and then eventually “no sorry I’m not available.” My boss learned to stop asking me and instead she asked the younger employees who were more afraid to say no.

            I didn’t like this boss for multiple reasons (she was a serious micromanager) and it wasn’t about the effort it took to go get her food — it was that I’m not your personal assistant and I won’t be treated like one. If she were a peer instead of my boss it would be the same scenario. I’d also love someone to deliver food directly to me at all times, but that’s not how it works. If the cafeteria doesn’t deliver, then you have to go get your food yourself like everyone else does.

        4. Hyaline*

          Yep—first thought was “mobility issues due to weight, or weight issues due to mobility problems?” Not that it matters in terms of LW’s obligation—or lack thereof—to serve as a runner for him, but empathy is important.

        5. JustCuz*

          Ugh I had a medical issue that caused me a ton of pain. It came on so gradual that I wasn’t really registering how bad it was getting. My life just kept getting smaller and smaller, because I couldn’t physically move around. I gained a ton of weight during this time period. I didn’t gain weight because I was lazy. I could not move my body like at all.

          1. Notasecurityguard*

            same: last year i almost died from an autoimmune disorder and part of the treatment was a dose of prednisone high enough to make the pharmacist go “holy shit”

            prednisone has the fun combo side effect of destroying muscle mass (especially in your thighs glutes and upper arms) and making you hungry (and making most foods taste like re-fried ass, sweets being a notable exception)

            the end result was I went from someone who thought nothing of a nice 2 mile walk to taking 5 minutes to make it up a flight of stairs and needing to rest afterwards while also putting on weight.

            I’m sure OP would probably have been kinda judgey about me asking for help

            (btw doing much better, after the 6 month taper off I’m slowly losing the weight and walking a mile still kinda takes it out of me but i don’t need to rest like walking the dog)

            1. ABC*

              Fellow autoimmune sufferer here, and those steroids will do a real number on you, as if the autoimmune issue wasn’t enough. Sending solidarity!

          2. Eldritch Office Worker*

            I’m sorry you went through that. I had a similar experience, that was compounded by medication and being high risk during covid. I gained a ton of weight and the same medical issues (and now long covid) are making it very difficult for me to lose it, though I am making steps towards being more mobile.

            I’m young, I appear healthy, I’m sure people judge me. Attitudes like this are why it’s so hard for people to ask for help or end up being more reclusive. I don’t think OP even realizes how judgy she’s being, but it’s really baked into the extraneous information.

            1. Notasecurityguard*

              seriously. like even when I was in the hospital and the docs were explaining to me and my family why I was kinda dying (at that phase they’d gotten my blood o2 back up into the 90s but still hadn’t figured out why my lungs were, I believe the medical term is, “turbo-fucked”) and they were explaining that it was some kind of lung inflammation and STILL my mom was convinced that it was congestive heart failure due to my weight (instead of my immune system deciding to adopt a “shoot first, ask questions never” attitude towards my blood vessels)

          3. Quill*

            I can name all three medical issues that have lead to my current size, and all of them have kept me from activity at various points. And one of them is made worse when I gain weight, which is a vicious cycle…

          4. Elizabeth West*

            Yep, I was a bit skinnier until the torn meniscus in my knee decided to rip wide open and I needed a cane to walk. Despite commuting to work three days a week (with the walking and stair-climbing that went with it), I didn’t do much the rest of the time. Cue weight gain.

        6. WhoCares*

          THIS right here. I am overweight and physically disabled, but it’s not because of the weight. I started getting disabled before I started gaining more weight, so it’s a result of mobility issues not the cause. At any rate I have issues walking and use a variety of mobility aids. That might be something this person could look into.

        8. Kiriana*

          Yeah most likely I’d be putting on weight at the moment anyway just due to my age, most people in my family have their metabolism slow at the point I’m at now, but the fact that I got long covid and can’t walk 30+km a week anymore means I’ve gone up in size probably a lot faster.

        9. Tiger Snake*

          But here is also the thing; it doesn’t MATTER which way it goes.

          OP’s coworker asks for a favour. It’s not an entitled favour or a huge favour, and their response is disproportionate. That doesn’t change even if the reason their coworker has issues is because of their own choices.

          When we start going into circles about reasons vs excuses, we’re still playing the game of ‘But SOME people deserve to be treated differently’. And they don’t deserve to be treated differently, and it’s not a problem when we start to lean into logic that tries to create those exceptions.

      2. Myrin*

        I was put off by the “junk food” comment as well but regarding this point, I assumed the coworker had actually told OP that his difficulties stem from his weight (I’ve had people say that to me so it was my automatic assumption, although I obviously could be wrong).

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          “I assumed the coworker had actually told OP that his difficulties stem from his weight”

          I wouldn’t assume that. It’s possible, but people make all sorts of leaps of judgement about disabled people and why our conditions are our own fault.

          1. Reading Rainbow*

            Making sweeping assumptions about disabled coworkers is people’s favorite past time. I made the mistake early in my career of telling the people on my team my diagnosis, a genetic disease that affects my mobility and dexterity. I found out later that they thought I essentially had some kind of nervous hypochondria*, due to one of them thinking that “syndrome” in the name meant “psychosomatic,” and that I was essentially scamming them all with a fake disorder in order to get [checks notes] no accommodations whatsoever.

            When I tried to explain to them that this was not the case, the instigator of this idea argued with me and took the stance that I was just covering my ass. Like right to my face, would not listen to me about what a syndrome was! My boss also told me she thought it was fake on account of I was too young to have a serious illness. We all worked in pediatrics :)

            *Which is real! Which is also real! But to them it was “she’s an anxious millennial who needs to suck it up and there is nothing wrong with her”

            1. Her My Own Knee*

              Isn’t it amazing how awful some people can be? It’s like they’re competing on who can be the worst.

            2. Froggy*

              yeah. only being able to walk a few steps indicates an underlying medical condition which may or may not be related to the weight (the issue may have contributed to the weight for all the op knows). the judgement in weight and junk food is way out of line. if the op does not want to do the food run for a coworker with a mobility disability that is absolutely ok, but they really need to check their judgement in weight, how much the coworker moves, and what they eat. op needs to mtob.

      3. Overthinking It*

        I don’t like hearing the judgement on the type of food he orders. That colors the way I hear the statement that “he sits all day.” Well, he has mobility problems, and it sounds like he is fortunate enough to have a job that doesn’t conflict with that.

        1. Worldwalker*

          “He sits all day” in conjunction with “he cannot walk more than a few feet without pain.”

          Tell me, if you couldn’t walk more than a few feet without pain, wouldn’t you likely … sit?

          I know I would. I know because I have. I climbed Mount Washington the first time when I was -3 months old. I grew up camping, hiking, backpacking. I used to walk everywhere just because I enjoyed it.

          Now the X-rays of my knees make my orthopedist cringe, and walking from my desk to, say, my kitchen (I WFH) takes planning and forethought. I sit all day — unwillingly — because it’s nauseatingly painful to do anything else. I don’t want to sit all day. (I’d be happy just to be able to go grocery shopping without having to cling to a shopping cart for support, actually) But it’s not my choice.

          The OP is definitely being judgey here.

          2. SimonTheGreyWarden*

            When I get out of bed in the morning it feels like my back is just bone grinding on bone. It takes all I have to get dressed, get my kid up and dressed, and make it down the stairs where I can finally do the stretches that will allow me to bend over and put my socks and shoes on. Have I gained a lot of weight because I have had back problems for over a decade that got worse when I fell 3 years ago on ice? Do I spend a LOT of time sitting? Yes to both.

      4. Worldwalker*

        Exactly. It’s equally likely that his weight is due to the mobility issues. When you can’t, y’know, exercise, and even walking to the cafeteria is difficult, you tend to gain weight.

      5. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        I am fat and have mobility issues, but the underlying cause is a hereditary fat disorder — I can’t lose weight. So lots of people judge me for using a wheelchair or walker, but there is actually nothing I can do to achieve a normal weight, so I don’t bother eating healthy. If the gentleman with the mobility issues had written in, I would encourage him to get evaluated for a wheelchair so he can get his own lunch.

        2. Another academic librarian*

          Everything these people have said and more. I have a genetic condition that causes chronic pain. Diagnosed when I was 24 years old. On bad days I am on the pain scale of a 9 feeling like all of my joints are on fire. Even after taking pain meds. Sometimes I use a cane. Sometimes I use a cuff crutch. I do not “look” disabled. I have disability plates on my car. I sometimes use a mobility scooter. I am over weight. I cannot even tell you how many time I have overheard people comment that “she would lose weight if she walked more.” WTF?
          So when you see me in the airport using wheelchair services. Please keep your eye-rolling and loud comments to a minimum. I am not “getting away” with anything.
          If someone asks you for help, the polite response is “wish I could, but I can’t”

      6. Lady Elaine*

        I’m heavy and have been for several years, but the cause of my recent mobility issues is still TBD. It’s not deconditioning – I did exactly what my physical therapist told me to do, and strength in some areas improved while strength in the target areas did not improve at all. I’ve seen two specialists and will be seeing a third in a couple of weeks. The best I can say for now is it doesn’t appear to be ALS, which was a terrifying possibility a few months ago. Walking over a quarter mile is difficult and I have a “swagger” as my PT kindly put it – I think it looks more like a waddle. I’m mentally preparing for the day someone vocally assumes my weight is the reason for all of this.

      1. lemonbalm*

        This was my first reaction too. I sensed a lot of fatphobia in the one.

        OP I would urge you to reflect on why you really don’t want to help your coworker.

        No one knows another persons health status just by looking at someone and making assumptions.

        1. Worldwalker*

          Fatodia.

          The OP isn’t afraid of fat — they’re disgusted like it. Hence the -odia suffix.

          I don’t like how we’ve come to call all sorts of dislike/disgust/whatever behavior a phobia. It’s not. “Phobia” gives the person an out — you can’t control a phobia, after all, and it’s not something you choose. My father had claustrophobia. He was not a timid man — I saw him break into a burning apartment to try to rescue the woman who lived there (no luck; she’d been smoking in bed while drunk, and flames were already pouring out her bedroom window) — and he certainly wasn’t disgusted by enclosed spaces. But he would have panic attacks if he thought he was closed in somewhere. That’s a phobia.

          “Fat phobia” doesn’t lead to someone being terrified of fat people — they hate fat people. It’s not involuntary. It’s 100% entirely their fault. They don’t deserve the pass of calling it a phobia.

          I was attacked by a stray dog when I was 8, and I grew up with a phobia of dogs, of the “don’t go outside if I see a dog across the street” level. I didn’t hate dogs — in fact, I did and do love dogs. I was just terrified of them. That’s a phobia. On the other hand, I hate broccoli. It’s vile and evil and tastes terrible. I’m not in the slightest afraid of broccoli, evil though it is; I just hate it with the fury of a thousand suns. Broccolodium, not broccolophobia. (mind you, if Thanos snapped his fingers and all the cruciferous vegetables in the world went away, I would not be sad)

          We’re giving haters too much of a break by calling their attitude a “phobia.” They don’t deserve it.

          (this goes for homophobia and all the other -phobia things too)

          1. Just In A Moment*

            Have your preferences and peeves, but the horse is out of the barn on this one.

          3. AnReAr*

            For fatphobia I would say there usually is a fear component– the ones who exhibit it the worst pretty much always have an existential dread about weight gain and losing value in society because of it. So they lash out, as a way to comfort themselves “it could never happen to me, I’m too smart and too disciplined!”

            1. Elizabeth West*

              Same with homophobia and transphobia. Maybe not fear of “I might be gay/trans,” although for some of them that could be a factor, but they’ve been whipped up into a frenzy by people screaming constant bullship about how LGBTQIA+ people are coming for their kids.

        2. WillowSunstar*

          Yeah, same as someone with hypothyroidism. I myself enjoy cooking at home and would be one bringing leftovers to work, also leftovers are cheaper, but that’s mainly also because I’ve worked in person before COVID, and am well aware of the fatphobia in-office effect.

      1. Allonge*

        OP sounds like they were never allowed to say no without a ‘good’ reason and so OP is looking for a ‘good’ reason, here.

        OP – you don’t need to feel judgmental about someone before you stop going out of your way to help them. I would guess some people do go to the cafeteria every day, maybe suggest to your colleague that they are better placed to help with this?

        As for you, you get to say you are not ok to do this regularly. You will not feel awesome – denying someone help is rarely a good feeling – but you are also not feeling awesome now.

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          OP1, If you’re looking for a “one and done” way to stop making trips to the cafeteria on your co-worker’s behalf, you might choose to describe your own needs to decline for future.

          Something like “I have realized I need the full lunch break to mentally reset for the afternoon” or “I need to spend time outside during sunlight hours” or “I have a bag lunch with [friend] to debate philosophy and Dr Who.” Key being it’s something that is true, so inarguable. And based on your internal needs&feelings and also therefore inarguable.

          1. Seeking Second Childhood*

            PS Not that you need to argue. But having an inarguable reason was something that helped me decline people I had a hard time saying no to.

            1. MsM*

              The trouble is that some people think you giving a reason is an opening for them to try and find their own reason your reason shouldn’t be a problem. Getting in the mindset that “can’t; sorry” is a complete answer in and of itself and you don’t have to argue it further helps shut that down.

              1. Observer*

                The trouble is that some people think you giving a reason is an opening for them to try and find their own reason your reason shouldn’t be a problem.

                Yeah. But the tactic also can work if you give *yourself* that explanation. It’s obviously harder to do, because a lot of what is tied up here is the idea that it’s not ok to consider your own needs. But this does mean that you have only one hurdle – ie it’s ok to consider my needs – rather than tow – ie “And I also need a reason”, since you at least do have a reason.

          2. ChurchOfDietCoke*

            No is a complete sentence. Stop expecting OP1 to explain her entire logic to refuse a request.

            1. Observer*

              True. The problem here is that the LW is the one who seems to think that they need a “reason”. You are right that they do not need one, they just need to decline politely. But if they have an issue with that, it’s fine to make that reason about their own needs, and it’s healthier than tying it to the “worthiness” of the recipient.

            2. MCMonkeybean*

              “No is a complete sentence” is for people who don’t accept “no” as an answer. It should not be your starting point in all human interactions.

              1. Boof*

                I agree – if one hasn’t said no at all it’s ok to soften it. If that gets pushed back on THEN no becomes the full answer. “Reasons are for reasonable people” well, is anyone here unreasonable? If we don’t know that they aren’t, it’s a good idea to start with presuming they are, and how they respond will tell you the rest.

          3. Don't borrow trouble*

            It’s not “stopping” as the LW has never made a trip on behalf of the co-worker. In fact, LW has never been ASKED to make a trip on behalf of co-worker.

            For all LW knows, co-worker may only ask people who have shown willingness to help or people he has observed regularly go the cafeteria. More likely, he selects people to ask who have behave pleasantly towards him. Sooo . . just keep showing that you blame him for his disability and you will be completely safe from having to turn him down . . . because he will never ask.

        2. MusicWithRocksIn*

          I would guess that the OP is sliding into B*tch eating crackers territory. She is annoyed at being asked to get lunch so often, and uncomfortable because she doesn’t know how to say no, so all those feelings are making her dislike pretty much everything about that person until she’s kind of blind to what’s reasonable and what isn’t.

    4. allathian*

      Indeed, I had the same feeling.

      That said, I find it very difficult to ask coworkers I’m not particularly close to (friends and family are easier) for favors and always think it’s odd that some people do it as a matter of course. I’ll gladly accept if someone offers, though.

      The kind thing to do for people who do go to the cafeteria would be to ask the coworker with mobility issues if they need anything.

      1. Wayward Sun*

        I think it’s a cultural thing. In some cultures you just ask and the person is free to say no. In other cultures you don’t ask unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes, and people don’t say no without serious justification. Different parts of the US are different in this regard.

        1. yvve*

          it does seem, at the very least, *inconvenient* as a long-term plan. Like, it’s one thing if this is a temporary issue like a broken leg, or if most people go to the cafeteria daily and you can ask them to grab something on their way back, but it seems like in this case he’s having to ask people who are not currently on their way to the cafeteria, daily, to see if they are going and if so can they bring him something– seems annoying for all parties!

          1. Myrin*

            Yeah, it seems like a bit of a “Everybody hates this!” kind of situation (or at least has the possibility to become one; there’s probably a combination of personalities where this would work no problem from both sides but I don’t know how likely it is to find something like that, especially in the workplace).

          2. Dust Bunny*

            Yeah, I think this is the real problem: It’s an ongoing problem that does not appear to be self-limiting. That would be annoying regardless of the person’s size and perceived eating habits (which are none of OP1’s business). Most of us would gladly help someone who was temporarily incapacitated, but if it seemed like we were being asked to do an extra task to solve a permanent personal problem, we’d get miffed.

          3. StarTrek Nutcase*

            Compounded by the fact he could simply bring his food with him to work (like many of us) but chooses to ask others to run an errand. Of course, right now apparently there are coworkers who willingly (even if unhappily) will do this for him. OP should simply refuse politely and forget about it.

            And regarding the comments about OP’s seemingly fatphobia, I find the comments explaining why they are fat unhelpful. I’ve been morbidly obese for decades, and whether from simply overeating, meds, or disability does NOT matter. To try to “justify” fatness implies some fatness can’t be justified. Fatness has no intrinsic value (good or bad), it simply is. We don’t need to justify to others our state of being – so let’s stop.

            1. ArtsNerd*

              The coworker’s fatness is irrelevant, I agree.

              The coworker *is* disabled, though, which can mean an extremely wide and frequently shifting range of what one can and cannot comfortably achieve. So maybe packing a lunch is on the “cannot” side at this point in time for whatever reason. Or hey! Maybe coworker is kind of a jerk and feels entitled to this labor from his colleagues completely separate from any mobility issues.

              It’s just not LW’s issue to solve. LW has permission from AAM and all of us to decline the request; the rest is unnecessary.

            2. FoodGloriousFood*

              I’m disabled and can’t drive and have had a ton of trouble bringing food to an office with me (spoils because it takes so long, can’t carry without making a mess because it knocks against the side of my walker, a few other issues). So don’t assume it’s so easy to bring food with him.

        2. allathian*

          That’s true, but I’m Finnish, and Finnish culture in general is very direct, at least when it comes to saying no to things you don’t want to do. The concept of saving face exists in all human cultures, but it’s much less important here than in many others.

        3. MusicWithRocksIn*

          True, a Mid-westerner would have a lot of trouble saying no to this. There would be a whole ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother’ dance where you have the option of backing out if it was another mid-westerner.

    5. yvve*

      yea, very much so. It’s not your responsibility to go get food for a coworker regardless of reason for the difficulty walking. If it’s an accommodation issue, then it should probably be worked out more officially than “ask coworkers to go get food for me”. But that is all entirely irrelevant to what disability he has and why– treat this exactly like you would if he were in a wheelchair and had trouble getting to the cafeteria

      1. Emily Byrd Starr*

        I’m not sure if it would make any difference: even if he were in a wheelchair, LW still wasn’t hired to be his personal assistant

        1. KitKat*

          That’s what they’re saying. Treat it the same as any other mobility issue, this is *not* different from if they were in a wheelchair.

      2. Emily Byrd Starr*

        Hit send too soon.

        LW wasn’t hired to be his personal assistant, and shouldn’t have to neglect their own responsibilities or lose part of their lunch to do their coworker a favor.

    6. Georgina Sands*

      Agreed. Why are so many self-described “people-pleasers”, well, not very nice people? I’ve spotted this correlation before with other “people-pleasers”, which seems a bit ironic because of the name. There’s nothing wrong with saying no, but there is in the way OP is talking about this guy.

      1. Nebula*

        I suppose it’s because ‘people-pleasing’ i.e. attempting to avoid even the slightest amount of social friction, can result in building up this kind of resentment over stuff that’s a total non-issue. If the LW felt able to just say no without it turning into this whole thing, maybe they wouldn’t be coming up with all these implicit reasons as to why the coworker doesn’t deserve their help (which was the subtext I got from this).

        1. knitted feet*

          Yep, it’s this. If LW doesn’t feel they can say no to a request without a solid reason, but they still really want to say no, they’ll come up with reasons to frame the request as a bad one. If coworker shouldn’t even be asking for X, Y and Z, then LW can feel OK about saying no. It would be kinder to just use Alison’s script and then stop stewing about this guy’s body and food choices.

          (I have mobility issues and am fat. When I go to the office, I bring salads from home because walking to the nearby shops is too painful. Am still fat and disabled despite the salads.)

          1. Smokesmiter*

            My mother’s people pleasing wasn’t kind to her kids! In the 50’s, people pleasing extended to owning an ashtray in a house where no one smoked in order to accommodate guests who did– never mind that pre-schooler me had to go to my room and crawl under covers to avoid feeling nauseous and headache-y. My mother was appalled when I got my own place and found out I didn’t allow smoker guests to smoke inside.

        3. Red*

          I’ve found people pleasers tend to be very worried about how people view them, so they can get frustrated when other people aren’t equally as concerned about their image. It’d certainly explain LW1’s unnecessary comments about their coworker’s weight and food choices.

        4. MigraineMonth*

          Yup, exactly. People-pleasing is about repressing your true reactions in order to conform to what others expect or want. At its extremes, it means disregarding your needs to do what you think the other party wants, even if the other party hasn’t asked for it.

          I have a friend who is needs more recharge time between get-togethers than I do, but was also taught by her family of origin to prioritize others’ needs over her own. Before we figured out this dynamic, she used to schedule a ton of get-togethers with me, drain all her social batteries and resent me for taking too much of her; meanwhile I couldn’t figure out why she kept inviting me to do things together if she was going to be tired and annoyed the whole time.

        5. ArtsNerd*

          ^^^^ Spot on. I had to learn the hard way how to say no, and the resentment is REAL.

        6. LL*

          This. I used to (mostly as a kid and teen) think I had to do most things that other people asked me to do and it led to so. much. resentment. I would say some pretty mean stuff about people behind their backs. When I finally started going to therapy in college I learned how to say no and have boundaries and that I didn’t have to do something just because someone asked me to, I stopped doing that so much.

      2. that hertz*

        I think part of it is that despite the name, the motivation isn’t neecessarily to ‘please’ other people by genuinely doing things to make them happy. It could be about upholding the people-pleaser’s self-image as a nice/helpful/good person, or avoiding any kind of disapproval/disappointment from others, or feeling obliged to never say no for some reason. The people-pleaser ends up feeling like they HAVE to act like this (when in fact it may be entirely self-imposed, or something resulting from their upbringing or whatever that’s completely unrelated to the situation at hand) and they get resentful and mad. And then they end up coming up with reasons why the person they’re dealing with is bad and wrong for making these demands of them, when in fact nobody actually demanded anything.

        (Yes, I did date a chronic people-pleaser for many years, why do you ask?)

      3. C*

        Because being a people-pleaser is a negative trait – the phrase suggests you put people’s requests above your needs, even if you really don’t want to and it inconveniences you.

        If you just like helping people out when you can, but you’re comfortable saying no if you can’t or if you just don’t want to, you’re not a people-pleaser. You’re just a person who sometimes helps other people.

      5. Don’t know what to call myself*

        As a recovering people pleaser, a lot of us do it in the hopes of garnering good will from the people around us. If I do things to help you and make you like me, then in the future when I need help myself, theoretically I’ll have a whole array of people who like me who will be willing to step in. However, it rarely actually works out like that.

        What usually happens is that people are nice to you in the moment when you do the helpful thing, and then over time the helpful things you do for them start to feel less like a favor they should be thankful for and more like just the way things work. So if you’re ever not able to do the helpful thing, they see it not as you not doing them a favor, but as you not fulfilling your obligation to them. Then the people pleaser builds up all manner of resentment about how we do things for everyone else (that they never asked us to do) and nobody does those kinds of nice things for us. People pleasing can burn you out and people in burnout lose some of their ability to be empathetic.

        This is precisely why I’m working on stopping my people pleasing behaviors, they don’t help anybody in the long run and I don’t want to be that bitter person who resents helping people.

        1. Colette*

          That’s part of it, but part of it can be that people pleasers are trying to anticipate needs and meet them to be “nice”, but in reality they’re more focused on what they need (i.e. to be the person who is helpful/nice/useful) than what the recipient wants.

          For example:
          People Pleaser: “Can I get you some water or tea?”
          Jane: “No thanks, I’m good.”
          PP (walks off, comes back with tea, milk, and sugar and puts it in front of Jane): “Here you go”

          2. Specks*

            Wow, this conversation has been so eye-opening. This is my mother to the tee. And then she gets bitter that people aren’t as thoughtful and sufficiently thankful, and also lashes out on me for refusing to do the same thing she’s doing. Feels like she wants me to martyr myself as well as a validation of her choices. I never really thought of the problem in this way before.

            1. Properlike*

              Agreed. Adult children of alcoholics and narcissists will do this because it’s how they related to the parent, but it doesn’t work in healthy relationships. It gets confused with that stupid “acts of service” love language and has the added bonus of making the pleaser seem heroic/wonderful… but it’s really a substitute for healthy emotional connections, and very lonely for the person on the receiving end.

              Not to say that this is OP’s motivation/issue. I appreciate the poster who mentioned the word “martyr” because it resonates.

              1. Grimalkin*

                My mother uses the word “martyr” to describe herself at times.
                Yeah, she definitely falls into the “people pleaser who does things nobody asked for, that may not be needed or wanted in the first place, and then thinks everybody else should be grateful to her and is selfish if they don’t act the same way” outline that’s being drawn here…
                Yes, I’m a recovering people pleaser myself with a complicated relationship with my mother, why do you ask? (:

            2. KateM*

              Yea, I often wonder about this when people complain that no good deed goes unpunished – was it a good deed, or was it stuff you pressed on them and now are annoyed they are not thankful?

          3. Allonge*

            This. I have a great work-friend who keeps offering to everyone to drive them to the airport, on weekend trips, home / to work etc.

            She does this when she is sick (as in, pneumonia, not the sniffles), does it despite us having great public transportation here, despite just about everyone else out-earning her (she is paid ok but most of the rest of us earn better). Large numbers of people take her up on it and then of course she is tired. Arrrgh.

        2. Jojo*

          Yep. I’m a recovering people pleaser and it’s very much routed in how I was treated growing up. When you are told that you are selfish and lazy anytime you say “no” you come to learn that you are not allowed to say “no”, so you just stop saying it. And yes, it breeds resentment when you realize that what other people want is more important than what you need. So looking for reasons to demonize some so you feel justified in saying “no” is pretty much splash damage that hits people who are perfectly willing to except a “no”.

      6. Tea Monk*

        It’s because as people say, resentment. You keep doing all this stuff and because you act like you like it, people think you like doing it and ask you even more! You gave them an inch and now they’re taking a mile!

      7. Karriegrace*

        People pleasing (at least in my case) is a defense mechanism you develop from growing up in a dysfunctional household. People pleasers maybe would be better described as conflict averse, and many situations which would cause other people to just…say no? Address an issue? can cause the conflict averse extreme anxiety. Its easy to then BLAME the anxiety on the person who’s ‘causing’ it instead of just addressing the problem like s normal person would. If you had a parent who had sudden irrational outbursts, or one who was ALSO very conflict averse (like me!) you might have learned some really bad coping mechanisms.

        1. allx*

          This. So-called “people pleasing” falls in the “fawning” defense strategy to avoid conflict, criticism, or disapproval, and thereby assure one’s continued survival. It’s a threat/trauma response. It comes from the exact same place as any other defensive adaption: fight; flight; freeze; fawn; flock; flood; flop. Culturally, fawning behavior tends to be mistakenly regarded as a personality trait (a negative one), and not an actual conditioned response to threats. Unfortunately, defensive strategies can become habituated, and it takes a fair amount of introspection/growth/personal work to recognize when the response is no longer applicable or serving you.

        2. Turquoisecow*

          This. The people I’ve known who were people pleasers and had trouble saying no also were often quite anxious in general. My husband has trouble saying no to his narcissistic alcoholic parents, probably because there were negative consequences to doing so as a kid. (And even as an adult.)

        3. LL*

          I think you’re right about being conflict averse. That used to be me. I still fall into it sometime, but I have better friends as an adult than I did as a teenager and I’ve learned that saying no to something or telling someone that I’m frustrated with how they’re acting or whatever doesn’t become a huge thing.

      8. Dust Bunny*

        They’re resentful that people don’t anticipate their resentment and actually take them up on the things they offer, or at least do not decline, to do. But it’s on them to turn down things that they’ll resent. (I’m good at turning stuff down. It’s great, and nobody hates me, I promise.)

      9. AlsoADHD*

        People-pleasers often get frustrated and resentful and act out because people-pleasing is unhealthy behavior that disregulates. LW feels like others should not ask for help or express their needs because they feel so blocked in expressing their needs or asserting themselves. It’s a viscous cycle, and people-pleasing isn’t from kindness. It’s doing things to your own detriment to avoid confrontation or uncomfortable judgment or whatever.

    7. Bob*

      If OP had not mentioned the coworkers weight you would all be shaming her for not helping a disabled person. Clarity is ABSOLUTELY required in these letters, or what’s the point?

      1. C*

        There’s a big difference between “My coworker has mobility issues possibly due to his weight” and “He has mobility issues definitely due to his weight and he only eats junk food”.

        1. Productivity Pigeon*

          No. There’s not.

          It’s fine if the OP doesn’t want to help their coworker but it’s not up to them to police someone else’s choices.
          A fat person eating junk is entitled to just as much respect and consideration as thin person.
          It is NOT someone else’s place to judge and try to improve someone else’s health for them.

          1. NothingIsLittle*

            There is absolutely a difference between the two and I’m baffled by your assertion. No, it is not necessary to clarify the reason the coworker has mobility issues. But, equally, there is a difference between presenting the coworker’s weight as “here’s some context because people might ask” and “here’s some context to justify that this coworker is less worthy of sympathy.”

            The way OP implied their judgment of the coworker’s weight is not okay, but telling us that the issue is likely related to weight is useful. It prevents people from commenting, “Does your building have accessibility issues? Is it possible that your coworker uses a mobility aid that is impeded by your building’s design.” It keeps the commenters from getting sidetracked on, “It can be very difficult to balance trays while walking with a cane. (Side note: this is true) Would it help to provide your coworker with a cart, since that would likely help with more than just this?”

            I am both limited mobility due to an autoimmune disorder and significantly overweight, this is not coming from someone blind to the consequences of weight stigma nor the differences in impact of the two as causes of mobility issues.

          2. DJ Abbott*

            When you see a person doing things to make their situation worse on a daily basis – like eating junk food when they already have a weight problem – and the person is asking you for help with that thing that is probably making it worse, it seems like a fairly normal reaction to not want to do it, at least not every day. I wouldn’t want to do it either, for this and a couple of other reasons.
            1) every minute of my lunch hour is precious time to get away from the front desk and do personal things.
            2) it’s not a reasonable expectation for me to help random coworkers every single day during my lunch hour. Maybe once in a while would be good.
            I was raised by people who made constant demands of me while not caring at all how I felt or what I needed. Being expected to accommodate random people making demands is never going to sit well with me, especially when what they’re doing seems to be bad for them. I love helping people when I have the bandwidth and it’s appropriate, but this coworker asking every day is way too much. He needs to find a more sustainable way to get his lunch. Maybe bring it like other people do, or find someone who does go to the cafeteria every day and doesn’t mind getting it for him.

            1. whatever*

              Which is why LW just needs to say, “no I can’t do that,” and walk away. They don’t need to justify it by including, “oh my coworker is overweight and probably* has a disability because of that, that’s why they can’t move and ask for my help!”

              *LW has no idea about this, which is why people are calling them out

              1. Allonge*

                LW has no idea about this

                We don’t know if OP knows or not. I have a non-zero number of colleagues who share a brutal amount of medical information on whatever ails them. OP could have heard from coworker this is so or could be making it up. But we don’t know.

            2. Colette*

              Whether the coworker is making their situation worse is irrelevant. They are an adult; they have more information about their personal needs than the OP does, so they are in the best position to make decisions about what is best for them.

              People who weigh more than you think they should are allowed to eat junk food, just like thin people with high blood pressure are. And there are probably reasons why the coworker makes that decision, whether it’s food sensitivities, financial issues, or whatever.

            3. Observer*

              When you see a person doing things to make their situation worse on a daily basis – like eating junk food when they already have a weight problem

              Except that you have no idea what the underlying issues are, and why they are making that choice.

              And none of the is relevant to the rest of your comment. You don’t have time; you’re stressed and need your scare break time to decompress; you just don’t want to; are all perfectly reasonable reasons to say no. And his weight and the food choices he makes are simply not at all relevant to that choice.

            4. different seudonym*

              Friend, you are not his doctor and you have no idea what role those lunches play in the man’s overall health.

              The idea that a total stranger can decide someone’s moral worth based on one or two data points about their body…is the definition of fatphobia, actually.

              1. Pizza Rat*

                The idea that a total stranger can decide someone’s moral worth based on one or two data points about their body…is the definition of fatphobia, actually.

                Boom.

              3. DJ Abbott*

                It’s not a moral worth thing. We have all done things we knew we shouldn’t re our health, I certainly have.
                I’m not saying he’s not a worthwhile person.
                I am saying I’m less inclined to bring him junk food then I would if it was to help him do something more healthy. But even then, I wouldn’t do it often because I need my break and he needs to manage his lunches without involving other people.

                1. Hiya*

                  But you do not know anything about his health issues or whether the food you bring will make his disability better, worse, or neither. Saying no because you don’t want to or don’t have time is fine, it’s fine no matter what your co-worker’s health is. But stay away from the assumptions and judgment. You simply do have have the information or standing.

      2. Night Yorb*

        I’m sorry – is your argument here “OP #1 ‘ABSOLUTELY’ needed to let people know that their coworker is overweight and eats junk food in order to prevent people from thinking that he deserved the same degree of kindness as a thin disabled person would”? Because I’m honestly not sure how else to read this comment.

        The coworker’s weight and diet are absolutely not relevant. How one should treat one’s coworkers has nothing to do with how much those coworkers weigh or what foods they eat. It’s perfectly fine for the OP not to be able to go to the cafeteria for their coworker and to politely decline to do so. It’s not fine to be judgy about his weight and diet, which are, again, neither relevant nor any of the OP’s business.

      3. Irish Teacher.*

        It doesn’t make any difference whether it is due to weight or disability though. The person with a disability wouldn’t be any more deserving of her help.

        Yeah, clarity matters, but it’s not like she’d be any less entitled to say no if his reason for needing help was any different.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Also, if the coworker “cannot walk more than a few feet without pain”, that sounds like he has a disability that affects mobility, whether it’s officially recognized or not. The underlying condition, or the cause of the condition, doesn’t change whether or not it’s a disability.

          1. Worldwalker*

            I can sympathize. I’m contemplating going to get a glass of water from the kitchen … and I cannot walk more than a few feet without pain. I know exactly why X-rays of my knees do not look like something that should be part of a human body, but that doesn’t make it any less of a disability. (an injury when I was 16, by the way, and decades of compensating for the results)

          2. Irish Teacher.*

            Yeah, I agree. I was actually trying to think of a way to rephrase it but it got too convoluted, so I left it.

      4. knitted feet*

        I mean, no? A disabled person is disabled no matter what the cause (and people are often very over-confident in thinking they can tell the cause by looking at the person). It literally doesn’t matter here whether the guy is thin or fat, whether he’s asking for fries or vegetable soup. The problem is that he’s asking LW to spend her time fetching him stuff when she wouldn’t be going to the cafeteria otherwise, and she wants to stop, and that’s OK. He can ask someone who is going there anyway, or he can find a way to get there himself, or he can bring meals from home.

      5. londonedit*

        I don’t think people would have been ‘shaming’ the OP for not helping a disabled person. It would have been perfectly reasonable to have written the letter with no mention of weight or junk food – ‘My colleague has mobility problems and struggles to walk far without pain. Most days he asks me to get him something from the cafeteria – and I would be happy to help if I was going that way, but I very rarely go to the cafeteria and I don’t really have time to go and get him a separate lunch. I’m a people pleaser and I struggle with saying no to people, which is something I need to work on, but in this case is it really awful if I say no? Should I be going and getting him something for lunch every day? I don’t want to be a bad work friend by not doing it, but I also don’t want to spend half my lunch break getting him something to eat’.

        It’s still an interesting question and I can still see how it would throw up a moral dilemma – do you *have* to help someone if they can’t get to the cafeteria themselves? – and I still think the answer is interesting (no, you don’t have to – it’s a nice thing to do if you’re going that way, but he can’t rely on you doing it every day and nor should you be expected to) without there needing to be any judgement about him ‘sitting all day’ or ‘eating junk food’ or having ‘mobility problems because of his weight’.

        1. Worldwalker*

          And when you come to think about it, whether or not they have to, most office workers sit all day.

      6. learnedthehardway*

        I don’t think so – even if the person was in a wheelchair, it would still be their own responsibility to figure out how to provide lunch for themselves. ie. it’s not their colleagues’ responsibility. If they were incapable of that, then they should have set up some kind of accommodation with their employer.

        It’s NICE if someone does fetching and carrying for a disabled individual, but it’s not an obligation (not unless it is in the person’s job description).

        Anyway, the comment on the junk food also struck me as unnecessary and judgmental.

      7. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        I understand the comments to mean, “OP, you are looking for reasons to justify not helping and you don’t need to do that.” and “OP, this dude is in BEC territory. You are judging his lunch choices because you feel bad not doing him a favor. You can say no and move on with your day. You don’t have to justify the moral value of his favor. You can just eat your lunch.”
        I think that if OP wrote and said that a coworker with mobility issues requested a coworker to get his lunch everyday and OP didn’t want to do that, nobody would say “well, you really should use your break time to help this person because he needs/deserves it.” They’d say, you can say no.

    8. Jenga*

      Yeah, “junk food” was a red flag for me. it doesn’t matter what he’s ordering or why he has mobility issues. He has mobility issues and needs assistance. I do think the employer has some responsibility in making sure basic needs are met, including being able to eat lunch.

      1. WellRed*

        Though I’m curious what the company’s responsibility would be here, if pressed. Because I know it isn’t to burden another employee.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          They don’t really have one. An accessible path to the cafeteria would be ideal, but he could bring his lunch from home and if the building is up to code then they’re covered.

        2. MusicWithRocksIn*

          It’s an interesting question when the employee doesn’t want additional mobility aids. If he walks to his desk in the morning, and I’m assuming to the bathroom when he needs to, instead of getting a cane or crutches or a wheelchair, which would help him move around with less pain, then how responsible is the company for bringing things to him?

          The standard is reasonable accommodations. Is it reasonable to assign an employee to go get him lunch (not on that employee’s own lunch time?). Is it reasonable to say ‘I’m gonna stay in this spot and the company needs to accommodate that?’. I know the choice of using mobility aids is deeply personal, but could a company say ‘We won’t accommodate you if you don’t accommodate yourself first’?

          1. Colette*

            He might use a mobility device as it is – he could still struggle to get to the cafeteria.

            In general, I doubt the company has any responsibility since they presumably don’t supply lunch for any of their employees. But if they wanted to get involved, they could assign someone to go to the cafeteria for him as part of their job during work time.

            1. kalli*

              He could have a support worker or family member drop him off and help him get situated and then not be able to handle stairs or whatever to get to the cafeteria without the assistance of someone who is practiced in assisting.

              Doesn’t really matter to the question though – dude’s asking for help, it’s ok to say no if it’s out of their way to do it, and if it’s something that reaches the threshold of ADA then dude can ask for accommodations if it turns out that he needs help getting lunch in order to be able to do his job.

          2. MigraineMonth*

            Accommodations is always supposed to be a negotiation. The coworker can’t say, “I demand the accommodation that a personal assistant be assigned to bring me lunch every day.” Similarly, the company can’t say, “You have to get a wheelchair if you want us to accommodate you in any way.”

            They’re supposed to discuss options. Maybe his desk could be moved closer to the cafeteria. Maybe he brings in lunch most days, but on catered staff lunch day one of his coworkers is assigned to fetch his lunch along with their own. Maybe he asks coworkers if they’re headed to the cafeteria and, if so, if they could pick him up a hamburger and bag of chips (which he pays for) on the assumption that the coworker will feel free to say no if that would be a burden.

            1. NotRequired*

              Personal services like helping someone get food are not legally covered by the ADA/accommodation requirements unless you are traveling for work or a federal employee with certain qualifying conditions.

    9. Harper*

      I came here to say the same thing: if this coworker were a thin woman who was asking people to buy salads for her, would OP have the same level of irritation?

      1. Boof*

        Well first of all that person would still have to have a chronic and major mobility issue – and possibly yes, but it might become that that person might have an eating disorder in the other direction – I think the root is really they just don’t want to do it but feel like they can’t say “no” without a reason. That’s worth the OP considering – they don’t have to catagorize helping their coworker as enabling to just say no to inconveniencing themselves chronically for their coworker’s sake, well outside the scope of their actual job duties.

          1. Boof*

            ? I know, I’m addressing the hypothetical about whether someone who is resentful fetching food won’t come up with a reason judge a thin person eating salads. I am stressing that there’s always something one can invent to judge, the point is not to judge the activity but rather to say no to the thing causing resentment / address that thing itself.

        2. Nuke*

          You don’t know that the coworker has an eating disorder just because he’s overweight and likes junk food (which is a subjective term anyways). As a “very thin” woman with mobility issues that are invisible, you absolutely cannot judge my (or anyone else’s) health by their weight. I “look fine” but I’m in pain almost every day. People literally don’t believe me when they pull the “oh you’re so healthy/young/don’t have any problems because I can’t see them” nonsense. And, being thin and eating salads ALSO does not mean someone has an eating disorder “in the other direction”. Good grief.

          1. Boof*

            I’m not saying I think this – i’m just saying someone who is resentful of doing something might displace that on all sorts of ideas about what their being asked to do

      2. MusicWithRocksIn*

        The OP does not want to go to the cafeteria on the limited lunch break she has, so she would probably still be pretty irritated.

    10. Dr. Rebecca*

      Thank you everyone for this thread,
      –a woman with mobility issues that are causing her to gain weight, who *hates* asking for help

      1. MigraineMonth*

        You may be making someone’s day by asking them for help. There are plenty of us who enjoy helping others, and who are comfortable enough with boundaries to say “no” if not.

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

      The OP and everyone else doesn’t even know that his mobility issues are because of weight. What happens when you can’t move your body? You gain weight!

    13. T.N.H*

      Yea, I wonder if she would have framed it differently if it had been an older thin woman with a cane.

    14. KayDeeAye*

      It doesn’t matter why the person has mobility issues. What matters is that moving around a lot causes this man a lot of *pain*, and it seems to me that his coworkers should help him out from time to help him avoid that pain.

      Not that one person, such as the OP, should have to do it every day, because it does involve giving up part of one’s lunch break, but yeah, I think his coworkers should band together to help the poor guy out. Maybe Sam does it on Mondays, Bilbo on Wednesdays and Fimbrethil on Fridays. Or something like that.

      If you really don’t want to do it, say you can’t manage it. But do please stop trying to justify it by thinking and saying “He’s overweight and buys junk food, so this is all his own fault.”

      2. Yikes*

        No? In what world is it reasonable to expect his coworkers to create a feeding schedule? What happens if someone is out sick? What happens if people leave, and the new coworkers don’t “get it”? this would just be creating disfunction.

        1. KayDeeAye*

          It doesn’t have to be a “schedule,” if that won’t work (although it might). All I’m saying is, the man is in pain, he needs help, and his coworkers, IMO, should figure out a way to help him, just as they would if he were in a wheelchair and the cafeteria didn’t have wheelchair access or if he’d just had knee surgery and couldn’t manage the stairs. They should do this not because it’s their job but because they work with someone who *needs help*.

          1. KayDeeAye*

            As for “dysfunction,” if you ask me, the OP’s attempting to justify not helping someone because he’s overweight, eats junk food, and so this is all his fault – that’s dysfunctional. I mean, jeez. If the OP doesn’t want to help, so be it – draw that boundary kindly and politely. While I would definitely help if I were in this situation, I certainly wouldn’t want to do it every day. But don’t justify not helping by trying to make his pain the coworker’s fault. That’s just…mean.

          2. Yikes*

            Okay, but in both of those situations, the problem is structural and needs a structural fix, not coworkers being made to volunteer, and especially not being made to use their own limited break time. And this goes doubly if this is a long-term situation with no end in sight. For example, someone getting assigned as a runner while on the clock abf getting paid. A temporary ramp put in. A permanent ramp put in. Delivery, again, from someone being paid / on the clock.

            Otherwise it’s just dysfunction.

            1. KayDeeAye*

              I think the idea of giving someone a little extra time at lunch so they can help out the coworker would be fab!

      3. Head Sheep Counter*

        Work is not about volunteering for colleagues. Accommodations and support need to be run through management and HR. Nice peers can pitch in but it is way way beyond the pale to have them do this.

        Work is not your friend and your colleagues are not your friends. Further this isn’t an infant with no personhood. This is an adult.

        Imagine how this could be abused. What if there’s a power imbalance vs being a peer? Asking for free labor in any circumstance should always be met with questions. Unpaid internships? Have questions. Unpaid errand running for your boss? Have questions and generally say no. Coming in on weekends “for the team” for free? Have questions and generally say no. Our time is valuable and having respect and boundaries for our own lives is important.

        1. AccommodationRules*

          Eating is not generally a work assignment and isn’t covered by the ADA/accommodations process unless you are traveling for work or are a federal employee and have one of a few “targeted disabilities” as defined by OPM. Look up personal assistance or personal assistance services for more info.

          1. Head Sheep Counter*

            All the more reason for this to not be a burden for the colleagues to solve.

    15. iglwif*

      I get the same impression. Also, we don’t know that the mobility difficulties are due to weight! For a lot of people it goes the other way.

      It’s 100% fine for OP to decline to fetch food from the cafeteria for her coworker, or to do so less frequently. But I would encourage OP to think a bit more about those value judgements.

    16. sulky-anne*

      I noticed this too. I’m not sure if it’s the letter writer’s way of justifying why they don’t need to help this person but it is troubling.

      To this letter writer, I would just say: I realize you don’t actually have an obligation to help this person, but I think most of us would benefit from taking a more neighbourly approach to the people around us. I understand the need for boundaries sometimes, but this coworker sounds quite thoughtful. I suspect that if he had a better option available, he would prefer not to rely on the coworkers to be able to eat during the day. Perhaps you could get to know him better. Just a thought.

      1. Despachito*

        “if he had a better option available”

        He definitely does have that option – make his own lunch and bring it to work.

    17. Festively Dressed Earl*

      I picked up on that too. Would LW 1 be willing to go to the cafeteria if their coworker was asking for a salad?

      Alison’s advice about how to say “no” is excellent, especially since LW 1 describes themselves as a people pleaser, and I don’t think LW 1 should do the cafeteria runs to prove to themselves that they’re not fatphobic. I do think LW would benefit from getting informed about size bias and challenging their preconceptions, totally separate from people-pleasing issues.

    18. So Tired*

      Yeah, my first reaction to the way LW sounded was that if the coworker’s mobility issues weren’t supposedly weight-related (because LW does not know for sure that they are) OR if coworker was requesting healthier foods, LW wouldn’t be bothered by the requests, or at least not bothered enough to write a letter to Allison.

      LW, if you don’t want to fetch food for your coworker for whatever reason, that’s fine and you’re allowed to politely decline. But please reevaluate why you feel so strongly about someone asking for help.

    19. Johnny Slick*

      Yeah if I was feeling inconvenienced about going to the cafeteria for someone, I don’t think I’d be mollified if it was for a salad instead of a bag of chips or whatever. This does feel like much was left unsaid…

    20. Froggy*

      yeah. only being able to walk a few steps indicates an underlying medical condition which may or may not be related to the weight (the issue may have contributed to the weight for all the op knows). the judgement in weight and junk food is way out of line. if the op does not want to do the food run for a coworker with a mobility disability that is absolutely ok, but they really need to check their judgement in weight, how much the coworker moves, and what they eat. op needs to mtob.

    21. See Reeves*

      I came here with the same thought. The focus on the person’s weight and eating habits are irrelevant. A colleague with a disability is asking their work mates for assistance with an accommodation. End of story. The person’s weight and food choices are not relevant.

      1. Allonge*

        An accomodation is between the employer and the person needing it. This is asking for a favor.

    22. wyhalo*

      That was my exact thought, too. The OP’s phrasing make me think they’re just uncomfortable around this coworker in general.

  3. Happy meal with extra happy*

    I find it disheartening the references to “he sits almost all day” and that his lunches are “always junk food”. The only relevance/reasoning I can see for including this information is to imply that he’s less deserving of sympathy and help because it’s his fault, and if he just moved more and ate “better”, he wouldn’t need as much help.

    1. Pumpkin cat*

      I’m fat and have trouble getting around. But the joint issues predate the fatness, in fact they were a big cause of the fatness (getting disabled at an earlyish age led to some emotional eating and also a lot less movement!). Props to this fat dude though, asking coworkers to go get his junky lunches and bring them back to him (though we only know they’re “junk” from the LW, they could be something normal like a sandwich that the LW considers junky). I never eat junk food in front of anyone as a fat person. For all anyone knows, I eat green smoothies and bean dishes 24/7.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, same. I can’t say that being fat hasn’t made my mobility issues worse, it absolutely has, but I’ve had mobility issues my whole life, as in I was almost exactly 24 months old when I finally learned to walk unaided.

        1. KateM*

          Okay, now you are scaring me, because our youngest was 22mo (and 12mo when learning to crawl)! Were there any other indicators? Say, in next years? At 7yo that kid seems mobile enough…

          1. Jill Swinburne*

            If at 7 your kid is fine, it doesn’t sound like there’s much to worry about – obligatory I Am Not A Doctor but I read allathian’s comment to mean their mobility issues were the reason they were delayed in learning to walk, not that it happened later in life.

            Some kids just aren’t that bothered about changing up how they do things, but of course see a paediatrician if you’re panicking!

          2. Emmy Noether*

            I can look up the exact reference later if you want it, but I remember there being a study referenced in Emily Oster’s “Cribsheet” that there is no statistical correlation between mobility milestones as a baby and later athletic ability. Logically, I’d expect mobility issues in a baby could lead to delayed milestones, but most of the time it’s not that. Unless your paediatrician has indicated it’s cause for concern, I wouldn’t worry.

          3. Anony today*

            Also not a doctor, similar story to allathian. While I can’t speak for them, in my case it definitely had a genetic component, hence the early onset. So there’s at least a chance that it would have cropped up in the family beforehand. In that respect I also want to underline both Jill’s and Emmy’s comment.
            For contrast: I noticed early that I would twist ankles a lot more often than my peers for example, though I bounced back fairly okay as a kid. My parents unfortunately did not take that seriously and I’m dealing with the fallout now.
            I concur with the advice not to worry about the age when they learned to crawl. In addition to a talk with your kids’ paediatrician it helps of course to keep an eye on overall patterns and to take your kid seriously when they refuse to do seemingly easy physical activities. They might not have the confidence or skill yet, which tends to vanish as their abilities improve. If there is indeed an underlying issue and they react to physical discomfort they can’t really pinpoint or explain, hearing them out without panicking will do most of the heavy lifting.

          4. Pennyworth*

            There are medical issues, and there is also overfeeding. I am fat, my mobility is 100% affected by my weight and how much exercise I do. My weight is affected by what I eat, and I enjoy junk food and carbs, even though I know they are not healthy and try to avoid them. My neighbor is in despair over her grandchild who cannot walk at 20 months because his mother hands him packets of cookies to eat. He just can’t get his weight off the ground.

            The work colleague who sits at his desk all day might need to use a mobility aid, so he can move around the office, and go to the cafeteria. Being stuck at his desk must be very depressing.

            1. Boof*

              At the end of the day, almost none of us is perfect in all things at all times. I think we all have to remember that – weght is a fairly visible aspect, just like smoking sometimes can be, but plenty of other things – diet outside of calorie excess/deficit, risky behavior, mismanaged medical conditions, financial indiscretions, so much more. We can only control ourselves and judging our neighbors doesn’t usually help them do better so might as well just assume they are adults that have their reasons for their choices and unless they are family (including close friends) don’t butt in unless maybe they ask for your opinion on something.
              I definitely feel better when I’m excercising and eating properly, but sometimes I just don’t have the reserves for it, job/kids/mood are just eating up all my oomph. Sooner or later I get fed up, push back on the creep, and try again. Thankfully no one really polices about it but definitely would only make things worse; the best is when I put out feelers people are supportive. (like me talking to my spouse “I kind of want to join the gym but it’s expensive and in theory I could just do all the exercise at home” their answer “no just do what will make it easy on you we’ll figure it out!” – nothing bullying or negative there – I’m plenty able to do that in my own head ahaha )

            2. MigraineMonth*

              As a culture, we rely on shame to police unwanted behavior, and unfortunately it’s very damaging. We spend a lot of time judging each other and then hiding from each other, because we all do “shame-worthy” things.

              If fat-shaming kept people from getting fat, we wouldn’t have any fat people. If fat-shaming helped people lose weight, losing weight would be easy. Instead it just seems to make every part of life–especially any effort to take care of one’s health–incredibly hard.

          5. C*

            IIRC, 24 months is the late end of normal. Anyway, as they always say, ‘early walker, late talker’. (Or the other way around.) Children often focus on one skill at a time when they’re toddlers.

            1. SPD mom*

              Or Sensory Processing Disorder, which is worth looking into for the OT component early on. It can have some knock on effects.

      2. Xeniati*

        Absolutely. As another fat person with mobility issues (unrelated to the fatness, in my case, though I know most people assume otherwise), I was impressed by this guy’s willingness to ask people for help. It’s hard to do, especially at work and especially when you know your coworkers are going to be judging you for what you eat. (For thin people reading this: I have never met a fat person who isn’t acutely aware of how much their thin coworkers judge them for eating anything but the blandest of salads. I guarantee OP’s coworker knows.) Doesn’t mean anyone is obliged to assist, of course, but all anyone has to do is politely decline.

      3. Her My Own Knee*

        I try to only eat “healthy” foods in front of slim people because as we know fat people don’t deserve to have occasional treats and we’re all fat because we obviously lay around stuffing our faces with potato chips & ice cream all day. Funny thing is though, even when I eat “healthy”, portion controlled foods I still feel the judgement. Also, I work out for an hour before work *every day*, which I am very certain is much, much more than my thinner coworkers, but yep, I’m a lazy glutton.

    2. RCB*

      Yes, the judging was BAD in that letter, and as a fellow junk foodee I want to add some more context: From appearances I am relatively healthy looking, I am pretty normal weight, but my diet is TERRIBLE, I eat a lot of junk food. Why? It doesn’t make me gag, I can actually eat it. I have some food issues and oftentimes normal food just makes me gag so much that I can’t eat much of it, or I’ll have absolutely zero appetite for anything real like I can get 1 or 2 bites of a cheeseburger and be disgusted and not eat more, but then be able to eat 6 cupcakes, a bag of doritos, and lots more. If it weren’t for “junk food” I wouldn’t get enough calories in a day, so don’t judge people by what they eat, sometimes it’s all they CAN eat.

      And please, I don’t need advice on what may help me with my eating issue, I am not here to get diagnoses, I have a handle on my own situation and understand my own parameters.

      1. Jill Swinburne*

        I always remember this dietician I knew who made this amazing caramel sauce, which she said they used to make for some of the geriatric (I think) patients at the hospital she once worked in to serve with ice cream. I was really surprised (cream?! Sugar?! Butter?! That’s not healthy!) until I clicked that it was about getting calories and easily used energy in, and nutrition in certain circumstances is a secondary goal.

        We’ve all been fed (lol) so many black-and-white rules about food that I think a lot of people fail to grasp that there are nuances.

        1. Ginger Baker*

          Indeed! When my mom was going through chemo, we were thrilled if she could eat anything at ALL, and her ability to mostly tolerate Ensure shakes was probably what got us through (but we did in desperation also turn to forcing her to swallow whole tablespoons of coconut oil basically as medicine because she desperately needed calories and coconut oil is packed full). When someone can’t otherwise eat, any calories at all is better than none. Ice cream is great too because a lot of times people in that situation can also develop swallowing issues.

        2. A Simple Narwhal*

          When I was pregnant I was horribly nauseous the first four months and was getting sick at just the thought of most foods. I felt so guilty that I couldn’t eat a balanced diet, and the OB and CNMs all told me that getting enough calories was infinitely more important than where they came from. If I couldn’t choke down chicken and broccoli but cheez-its were calling my name then I should go to town, guilt-free. As some one who’s spent their life agonizing over what they eat it was a real change to be told to eat whatever I wanted, and it was honestly so freeing to not have to worry about if I should be eating something.

          I also remember when my grandmother was at the end of her life, her care team told us that food was now only for pleasure and not sustenance, so anything she wanted she could have, as much as she wanted. And on the other side if she didn’t want to eat anything she didn’t have to either. There’s so much surrounding food that it’s interesting when you take a step back and outside of it.

          1. Properlike*

            I wish more healthcare teams would allow the terminally ill and those who are very old whatever they want to eat. Hot fudge sundae every day? Go for it! Shortens your (very long) life by a month? Who cares?!

            1. Worldwalker*

              Exactly.

              So many of these people are just warehoused, and then they’re limited to “healthy” foods which, if they doubled their current life expectancy, still wouldn’t make it reach a year. It’s like the joke about the “healthy” diet that is promised to let you live forever, but it just feels like forever.

              Screw “healthy” — if someone’s going to live six months if they eat that “healthy” diet and five months if they eat hot fundge sundaes every day, start warming up that fudge. I would certainly rather be happy for five months than miserable for six.

          2. Notmyusualname*

            When I was pregnant with my first I had “morning sickness” for the first 7 months and heartburn for the last 2. The only food that would both stay down and not give me heartburn was a vanilla milkshake. I ended up having one almost every single day. With it I could eat some other foods. Without it I could only be sick.

      2. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

        I hear you, and I get it!

        I think my food issues are probably less severe than yours, but I do have issues such that a lot of foods other people find delicious are inedible as far as I’m concerned, because they literally gross me out.

        I struggled for years trying to train myself to eat like a “normal” person, and it was… not fun. There came a point where I gave myself permisdion to just eat the things I actually enjoy instead of constantly trying to force down stuff that makes me gag. As a result, life is much more pleasant. Also, I am perfectly healthy – go figure! X-D

        1. RCB*

          Thank you! I have always been a picky eater, on top of the issues around literally being able to eat stuff, and I used to have such guilt around not liking the “normal” stuff and now I just don’t care, and I wonder why I ever cared why I thought it was important to fit in when it came to food.

          My husband is foreign, and from a culture where they show love by shoveling food at you nonstop, and English is their second language but they definitely know how to say ‘EAT!” because I hear it from them constantly. They mean well and are just trying to be hospitable but it gets SO draining know that I am already stuff from the few bites of the normal food they have and the thought of eating any more of it is going to make me literally sick. Sometimes when I am really grumpy and I’ve reached my limit and “no thank you” a thousand times isn’t working I’ll snap and firmly say “I’m 42, I know when I am hungry!”

      3. WhoCares*

        Yeah BUT I think…nah I’m just kidding. I bet you get people saying “oh it must be nice to eat junk and not gain weight” I on the other hand feel like you might get tired of the same old stuff and want something healthier but can’t. I’m sorry.

      4. Lenora Rose*

        A friend of mine has a serious load of dietary issues; she literally at this point cannot eat more than a few bites of green leafy vegetables so while she’s been trying to eat healthier, even her actual doctors and dieticians have told her to take at most a minuscule portion of salad, and to do that much with other foods so it doesn’t overwhelm. So yeah, assuming she’s overweight because she doesn’t eat the salad, or that choosing the salad is even a viable option, might not go over well.

      5. sulky-anne*

        I know someone who eats mostly fast food and sweets because of similar eating restrictions but because she’s very thin and a marathon runner, no one gives her a hard time about it. In fact, some people admire her for it. I find it pretty messed up that people feel so free to judge anyone whose body is outside what is considered the norm.

      6. TeratomasAreWeird*

        I went through a couple of years of gastric issues, and by the end I just couldn’t eat more than a half-cup of food at a time. I was hungry, but it was like there wasn’t enough room in my stomach for anything else. I stopped eating vegetables other than avocado because they didn’t have the calorie density I needed; I was on a fried-food and cheese-based diet. My PCP was fine with it as long as I was getting enough protein.

        When they removed the 8lb benign tumor that had been pressing on my stomach and intestines, I ordered half the hospital menu. My mom said she’d never seen someone so happy to eat a salad.

      7. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

        Eat what you like! Eat what you enjoy! I’m glad you have things you are able to eat.

        The only thing I would suggest is to consider stop calling it junk food and saying your diet is terrible. I agree no one else should judge you, and you might try to stop judging yourself as well. Good luck! I know negative self talk is hard to change.

    3. SunnyShine*

      Yeah, I agree. It sounds like OP is basically saying that he did this to himself. Which is weird because being obese or overweight doesn’t always involve a lot of pain. There’s more going on with him medically.

      I think it’s okay to say no to his requests if it bother OP, but saying no with this context just makes OP seem vile.

    4. Smithy*

      I do think a lot of the OP’s responses are tied to trying not to feel like a bad person saying no. But oddly, of all the letters I ever thought to recognize myself in…..but with entirely different motivations and sentiments, this is the one.

      I had a job for a while where my boss was the head of the organization and generically very shouty. The dynamic was a really challenging one for me in a number of ways – but she was also someone who’d very regularly ask (aka scream through the office) if anyone was going to the corner store and would pick her up chocolate that she’d pay for. Eventually I decided that I’d do this every day, because 1) it was a chance to leave the office every day and be outside, 2) I’d get a Diet Coke treat for me and 3) have at least one positive interaction a day with her.

      So clearly this was a self-serving approach, but it also meant that a task that used to be done by a number of people across the office just started being done by one. A few months in my boss asked me if I was doing this to suck up to her, and I said no – but at that point I was enjoying the fresh air and hearing her say thank you to me once a day genuinely improved my overall mood. I was under no delusion she’d truly be nice to me at all times, but it served to improve my self confidence that I could at least do one thing correctly a day.

      Before I started doing this, other’s who did it hated it, would talk about how of all people she definitely didn’t need chocolate, etc. I was certainly not morally superior person for doing this, as it genuinely suited me. The OP just saying no opens that space for someone else who might enjoy a walk to the cafeteria daily to step up.

    5. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

      Agree with you, but also came here just to say I hope your sn is an Animorphs reference!

  4. Person from the Resume*

    I agree with LW#1, but I also agree with AAM’s advice.

    If I’m not going to the cafeteria for myself, I don’t want to make a special trip as a favor to someone else. I’d personally feel bad about saying no, but I totally would say “no.”

    I’m not a person who thinks “it doesn’t hurt to ask.” If I’m asking for help I’ve often swallowed my pride and agonized about it so I feel bad about saying “no.” But I’ve learned that “it doesn’t hurt to ask” people do not agonized about this and just ask without anxiety but also usually accept “no” without drama.

    1. JR17*

      I agree that it’s reasonable not to make regular special trips to the cafeteria as a favor for someone you aren’t close to when you aren’t going yourself. But I’m not at all clear that the coworker knows OP#1 isn’t going to the cafeteria for her own lunch. It sounds like she hasn’t done anything except say yes when asked?

      1. Antilles*

        Yeah, from his perspective, I think he’s assuming OP is already going to the cafeteria (since she always says yes and has never said otherwise). So it’s basically just asking her to grab one extra bag of chips while already there.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      Yes, I’m very worried about people who don’t think they’re allowed to say no! Sure, you’re not just going to bark “no” in his face, but “sorry I can’t” will do, or simply say you’re not headed there, have too much to carry, you’re busy etc etc. Maybe this is something for OP to practice? This can’t be the only question the OP gets asked they need to decline.

      1. Marion Ravenwood*

        Having been there myself, I think this is something that is really hard to unlearn for those who are people-pleasers or have been conditioned to respond that way – the fear that even if you say “no” nicely you’ll get an overly negative reaction. If OP1 is a recovering people-pleaser, they might still be in the stage where saying “no” to this person, especially after so long saying “yes”, is going to backfire, even though that might be totally illogical. Although it doesn’t seem like OP1 is the only person they’re asking this, so chances are they’d move onto someone else. But I totally understand why they’re struggling with it.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        I think Person gets at one context: In Group A no one asks for help until they have truly exhausted all options, swallowed their pride, and admitted that they really, truly can’t solve this alone (and are correct in that); in Group B people figure it doesn’t hurt to ask, because maybe someone was going there anyhow. When the groups mix, people in A feel burdened while people in B don’t get what the big deal is, just say no.

    3. Helvetica*

      Yes, I also thought a clear and honest answer is “Sorry, I have my own lunch and won’t be going to the cafeteria.” That’s literally it.

    4. Smithy*

      I gave far too long a story above, but I do think where the OP is truly hurting themselves by not saying “no” is because the chance that there’s someone (or someone’s) who enjoy walking to the cafeteria every day to stretch their legs is just as likely as people who don’t want to be bothered.

      The types of people who don’t want a coffee but will walk with someone to get a coffee for the chance to walk and catch up. Someone who wants to see sunlight if possible once a day if their office is in a cube. Right now the OP is stuck in a mindset of wishing they just wouldn’t be asked, that they’re just seeing the negatives of this dynamic and trying to justify why the whole thing is inappropriate. If they find a way to remove themselves more from the situation, it leaves space for other solutions. One where more people involved enjoy the set up.

    5. MusicWithRocksIn*

      Good point about how it can, indeed, hurt to ask sometimes. Especially in a work situation, there are lots of things that will absolutely hurt your standing to ask. Sometimes if you are in a bad spot you have to ask your coworkers or boss something that will hurt a little. But if you get into the ‘it doesn’t hurt to ask’ mindset you can defiantly drive people away and cost yourself social points. I don’t think the OP is ever going to back this person up or go to bat for them now that they are resentful about running to the cafeteria so often. Just because someone can say no doesn’t mean the question doesn’t hurt you. Look at how many people have destroyed their marriages by asking to open them.

    6. Zona the Great*

      I cannot imagine thinking it is okay to ask someone to go fetch lunch for me, no matter how ambulatory I am or am not, except for very rare and critical one-offs like my blood sugar dropping dangerously.

      I really wish the LW hadn’t included the unnecessary details about this person.

    7. Ms. Eleanous*

      Person from Resume

      I’ve often swallowed my pride and agonized about it so I feel bad about saying “no.” But I’ve learned that “it doesn’t hurt to ask” people do not agonized about this and just ask without anxiety but also usually accept “no” without drama.

      OMG – I think this is the most valuable lesson I have learned in a long while.

      Thank you! This was also news to me

    8. Impending Heat Dome*

      I don’t think it hurts to ask, but HOW one asks makes a big difference. If I were in the guy’s position and I couldn’t manage the trip to the cafeteria easily, then the way I would approach it (speaking as a Midwesterner, heh) is to phrase it so that it’s clear the person has a choice: “Hey, you mentioned you were heading down to the cafeteria…could I ask you to bring me a sandwich from the to-go area? If you’re staying to eat downstairs then don’t worry about it,” or something like that.

      AND to not ask the same person very frequently (once a month sounds about right) AND to not making “asking someone to fetch stuff” a routine part of getting lunch. Not unless it’s the Instacart shopper or other person being paid to do that for you. The people who wind up being resented are the ones who solve their problems with “I’ll just ask for a favor every single time!” Like, no, figure out a way to do it yourself WITHOUT a favor. Nobody wants to be anyone’s daily favor fairy on top of everything else on their plate, literally or figuratively. Because when are you going to reciprocate and pay people back for all the favors they do for you? If you owe someone 58 trips to the cafeteria to bring them *their* lunch, are you ever going to be able to do that? If not, then don’t ask them to do it either.

  5. Retirednow*

    Re the Sunday midnight question: I taught university for many years and we always used the day of the week and 11:59 PM. Midnight is not an industry standard.

    1. Banana Pyjamas*

      Yep. At my current school everything that is not turned in in class is due at 11:59. When I went to a different school online, all assignments were due at 11:59. I think it’s very normal and way more clear.

      1. ElinorD*

        I’m at a community college, and all of our turn-in times are “11:59 pm.” Our course management system has the calendar set that way, too. Occasionally, in class, I might say, “midnight,” but in writing, it’s always 11:59 pm.

    2. Roland*

      Yeah, “midnight” might be common but 11:59pm is not unusual at all so keep on using it.

    4. Trick or Treatment*

      Same, both my workplace and the university I am enrolled at always use 11:59 for deadlines. Clear communication is easy, so why not do it.

    5. Student*

      If you’re setting the date and time in an LMS, I assume you’d have to be precise, so it would be Sunday, March 2 at 11:59pm. In conversation, I think you can say “Sunday before midnight,” but if I saw “Sunday at midnight” written in the syllabus, I would need clarification. Alison says the confusion isn’t going to result in the assignment being late, but I can see a situation where someone didn’t get to it on Saturday, thinks they missed the deadline, and therefore, doesn’t do it at all.

      1. Distractinator*

        Agreed, if your boss prefers “midnight” to “11:59” I’d suggest tweaking from “due before Sunday at midnight” to “due Sunday before midnight” which is more precise because it’s due on Sunday (there are nearly 24 hours of Sunday which are before 11:59pm, and zero minutes of Sunday that are before 12:00am, so that clarifies what you meant)

        1. Stipes*

          Yeah, “due Sunday before midnight” is probably a subtle enough change that your boss won’t feel undermined, but still way clearer.

          1. HB*

            Came to say something similar. I would bet that this was originally “Sunday BY Midnight” and it got changed over time. Apparently mixing up ‘by’ and ‘to’ isn’t that uncommon when people are speaking quickly.

    6. Always Science-ing*

      Agreed. I’ve spent my entire career in academia – and am a stickler for clear language. I’ve always used 11:59 PM. It avoids any potential for misunderstanding.

      1. Miette*

        And as a recent grad school graduate, I thank you. In my program, we were all adult learners, so lots of our assignments were completed on weekends, and that extra day–and clear communication about it–was vital to our sanity.

        Of course, if we in the US adopted a 24-hour clock instead of the way we do it, there’d be no confusion. But that’s not likely to change either LOL

        1. June*

          I mean I’m a US student so I might be biased but idk how a due date of 0:00 Sunday is more clear than midnight.

          1. londonedit*

            Because 00:00 Sunday can only mean the point at which 23:59 Saturday becomes 00:00 Sunday. ‘Midnight on Sunday’ would, to me, mean midnight on Sunday *night*, i.e. 23:59 Sunday. That’s the whole point – if you say ‘midnight’ some people will think it’s the ‘midnight’ at the start of the day, and some people will think it’s the ‘midnight’ at the end of the day. Using the 24-hour clock makes it clear because 00:00 can only ever refer to the start of the day, and 23:59 can only ever refer to the end of the day.

            1. June*

              I understand the confusion with midnight which is why I would always say 11:59 pm to avoid this problem. But even in this comment section I’ve seen 24:00 and 0:00 for midnight which tbh is confusing me a bit more.

              23:59 and 11:59 pm both seem clear to me.

              2. londonedit*

                I still also think 23:59 is clearer than 11:59pm – while people *should* read 11:59pm correctly, there’s still the possibility that their brain will see ’11’ and think ‘morning’, or they’ll skip over the ‘pm’, or whatever. 23:59 is totally unambiguous.

                1. Lenora Rose*

                  People accustomed to 12-hour time references using AM and PM don’t generally get those two mixed up or skip over the PM.

        2. Jamjari*

          This was my thought as well. Though you’d still be using 24:00 rather than “midnight”, which might be what the prof doesn’t like – numbers instead of words?

    7. Elf*

      When running grant programs I would advertise the closing time as 11:59pm Sunday; in the system I would have the closing time being 12:01am Monday. This avoided any issues with someone trying to submit at 11:59:30 because ‘it’s still 11:59!’ when the form closes on the minute (eg 11:59:00) and avoided any potential snafus with midnight (but wasn’t so much time as to give anyone an unfair advantage).

        1. Miette*

          Hear-hear! Also, you never know with upload speeds around the country–some rural areas can be at a disadvantage, so a second or more in either direction might be important.

    8. Language Lover*

      Adding on to all the agreement.

      At every insititution I’ve worked at or taken classes through, 11:59 PM was the standard deadline on the day an activity or assignment was due. The focus is always on reducing the cognitive load and removing any lack of clarity.

      For academics, I’d argue 11:59 PM is the industry standard. Or at least one of them.

    9. Jill Swinburne*

      This makes me nostalgic for my student years before online submitting, when our lecturers would go “your assignment is due on Monday at 5pm. As an aside, I won’t collect them until I start work at 9am on Tuesday so if your assignment is there then I will assume you submitted it on time *shrug*”

      1. Elf*

        Haha! The joys of ‘as long as I get it into the slot before 9am when they empty them all out it’ll be fine!’
        And for me it was only a 2% penalty per day, not 10% like I see now!

        1. zuzu*

          I teach legal writing, and we do steep penalties for lateness and exceeding the word limit. But we do that for a reason: you get steep penalties in court for late submissions, up to and including dismissal of your case (which you can get reinstated, with some groveling and additional submission of papers on the public docket so your colleagues and adversaries can point and laugh at you). So because we’re training professionals for a professional setting, we’re trying to give them an idea of what the consequences of not meeting minimum standards are.

          But judges do let you submit late and go over the word limit if you ask (and have a decent enough reason). I have never granted an extension of the word limit because part of my job is to teach them to write concisely, and our assignments are designed with a generous word limit; therefore, none of them have a good reason to exceed it. The only time I didn’t grant an extension of time when someone asked in advance was when one of my students asked for an extension on the day a brief was due because he had writer’s block. I told him I hated to punish honesty (because I totally would have made up an illness myself), but I just couldn’t let that be the reason I gave an extension.

      2. Disappointed With the Staff*

        I studied engineering and 7:59am or 8:59am was a common explicit deadline.

        A friend who studied architecture said that would have been torture for them because architecture had a culture of working on things until the very last minute so an early morning deadline would mean one extra all-nighter for most of the class. The architecture industry at large often has 5pm Friday deadlines for tenders etc, and a few terrible firms that strongly prefer that junior staff work excessive hours.

        1. another academian*

          Also in academia, in addition to our online course system defaulting to 11:59pm, the student counselling office recommends making assignments due slightly earlier to encourage students to get more sleep, which I found interesting.

          1. ElastiGirl*

            I’m a professor who uses “Sunday at 11:59” regularly, and my students appreciate the clarity.

            But I appreciate the point here that the midnight (-ish) delivery time is encouraging poor sleep. Maybe I will change that to 9 pm.

            1. zuzu*

              Yeah, I’ve started doing that more often, or having things due Saturday rather than Sunday.

      3. londonedit*

        When I was at uni we had essays due at the end of the second and third year, which formed the bulk of our marks for that year – so they were super important. The deadline was always 10am on the first Wednesday of May, and because this was many many years ago you had to hand in a hard copy. And also because this was many many years ago, not many students had their own computers, let alone their own printers. So there were always mad queues in the uni computer rooms as people scrambled to get on a machine armed with their floppy disk so they could print off their essays in time. Because of course no one managed to get the things done and finished and printed off the night before!

      4. Ariaflame*

        I used to do Friday 5pm and then I realised I didn’t want to spend the weekend wondering if I should do marking, and I didn’t want to deal with all the extension requests on Friday afternoon, so I made it Monday 12pm which you might see had its own problems, so now I make it Monday 1pm, which gives them the weekend, and me more time to deal with extension requests on Monday morning.
        Stuff ‘industry standard’ if the only reason you do it is because everyone else is. I certainly have no interest in starting marking at just after midnight on a Monday morning.

      5. Spreadsheet Queen*

        Ah, man! Back before email, when we were slipping under the prof’s door at what was supposed to be midnight (or 11:59:59, lol!) we were supposed to sign a hand-written pledge of the submission time. So, if you were late, you were supposed to sign with whatever time in the wee hours you submitted and accept your docking of a letter grade for being late with grace. Did people lie sometimes? (Or more likely, “forget” to include the time?) I guess? My University took their Honor Code seriously.

      6. Academic Physics*

        I really enjoyed that approach as I could always ‘forget’ that I had some buffer time, and then my procrastination to lateness was less harmful :)

      7. BigTenProfessor*

        I still do this. Assignments are due at 11:59pm, and I explicitly say that I am not grading things between midnight and 8am, so consider it a grace period.

    10. AcademiaNut*

      I went to university in the day of paper assignments, and the hand-in time was always sometime during office hours. I now work in a field that has submissions with strict deadlines, and the time given is usually during business hours of the office that’s receiving stuff, so any major tech issues happen when IT is in the office. Deadlines are specified with the time, date and time zone.

      So I don’t see anything wrong with saying that the hand-in deadline is 6 pm, or 9pm, or something simple and unambiguous. Or, if you’re really evil, 9am.

    11. anonprof*

      Yep, I’m a professor at an R1 university and I use 11:59pm for deadlines. In fact, some of the educational software we use will default to 11:59pm. It’s not weird!

    12. linger*

      I’m not actually seeing a problem with the exact phrasing used in the letter (“Sunday night at midnight”), That’s unambiguously the end of Sunday; the midnight at the start of Sunday is part of Saturday night.

      1. Phony Genius*

        I agree. The word “night” makes all the difference. “Sunday at midnight” would be ambiguous, but “Sunday night” means after nightfall on Sunday.

        And if you work where day and night are ambiguous (South Pole, International Space Station, etc.), you’re better off just using UTC.

      2. June*

        I’d agree but most professors I knew that had midnight deadlines would just say Sunday at midnight.

        I remember one class where half of my classmates missed the deadline to take the online exam because the professor said the deadline was Sunday at midnight but meant Saturday night going into Sunday morning. Half of my classmates thought the deadline was Sunday going into Monday morning. Thankfully for them, she extended the deadline once she realized why a bunch of people didn’t take the exam “on time”.

      3. HB*

        No, it’s NOT unambiguously the end of Sunday because Midnight only occurs *once* on Sunday at 0:00 AM. This is literally the entire point of the letter. Some people have taken to understand a phrase to mean *literally the wrong thing* and because the OP is aware that other people will interpret it correctly means that there is ample opportunity for confusion.

        1. linger*

          Ooookay. Do you really believe 0:00AM Sunday is “Sunday night” in any real-world use of the term, i.e. “Saturday night” flows seamlessly into “Sunday night” when the clock strikes? (Assuming we’re not in some polar winter sunless period, because I’m sure that would have been mentioned.)

    13. Falling Diphthong*

      As with weird interview questions, I feel like absolutely anything can be cited as “industry standard” when it’s actually just this one spot.

      It’s also just a weird excuse to cite for refusing a simple clarifying change. I can’t imagine any graduate students sitting around declaring “Why in my day, sonny, assignments were due at midnight! Now it’s one minute earlier, so the day is clear, but no one will understand that when it’s not the industry standard!”

    14. Not on board*

      Came here to say the same thing. I finished my degree 7 years ago and the deadline was always 11:59pm on the day it was due. Although, I’m in Canada so maybe there are different standards in the US. On another note, it seems silly that an institution in academia would be so imprecise on a deadline.

    15. StarTrek Nutcase*

      I get that it’s the industry standard, but it is wrong. In reality Sunday midnight (12:00 am) IS the last full minute of Sunday (think 12:00:00) and 12:00:01 is first second of Monday. But for whatever reason the mistake has become almost universally accepted.

      Interestingly, for Medicaid billing purposes midnight (12:00 am) is the last minute of the day and 12:01 am is the next day (seconds can’t be recorded). I had to emphasize this several times to medical staff (no one’s death should be recorded as 12:00 am). This also can affect Social Security. It may seem petty but details matter.

      1. Wonderer*

        I’m not sure why you are so certain about this being wrong. Do you have some sort of reference for declaring it?

        Everything I’ve seen other than ‘common usage’ says that midnight is officially the start of the next day. See the comments about use of a 24-hour (“military”) clock (which is also used all over the world for non-English speakers).

        1. Wonderer*

          In fact, I think your own argument is against you: if 12:00:01 is the first second of the next day, then 12:00 cannot be the last full minute of the day before. At best, it could be the last full second of the day before. But, you can see that if you talked about 10ths of a second or even millionths of a second, the same thing happens. 12:00:00.00000001 is still the next day.

      2. HannahS*

        That’s very odd to hear–in Canadian healthcare, we use the 24h clock, and 0000h is unambiguously the first minute of the day. So, Saturday at 1159h is Saturday, then the next minute is 0000h on Sunday.

    16. giraffecat*

      Another professor here chiming in to agree with this. I’ve been teaching for over a decade and midnight has never been industry standard. It’s always been 11:59pm, not midnight.

      1. Properlike*

        “The Industry in my head” standard. It’s not like the prof sits down to grade at 12:01 Monday morning.

        Bet you could change it and he wouldn’t know. And everyone saves time clarifying!

    17. Great Frogs of Literature*

      I work with a vendor in my personal life who says that orders are due midnight Monday, and they mean Sunday night! I’ll grant that it’s technically accurate, but not what people expect. It’s confusing in both directions. Literally any time other than midnight is better, in my opinion.

    18. Ursuline*

      Exactly! And the rise of LMSs has made 11:59 even more common. The prof is wrong; this is not an industry standard. Maybe it is a thing at a particular institution, sure.

    19. Mx. Snuffleupagus*

      Yeah, I always used 11:59 pm and most of the professors I TA-ed for did the same. I think some went with midnight, but they usually clarified in class and/or on the syllabus as “Sunday night at midnight.”

    20. Spacewoman Spiff*

      Yeah, this idea of “industry standard” seemed off to me! The Canvas LMS defaults to setting due dates at 11:59PM.

      1. Reader*

        Yep, I’m a high school teacher who uses Schoology and 11:59 pm is our school’s default time.

    21. Petra*

      Just chipping in to agree, midnight is not standard in academia. In the past 15 years, I’ve worked at and/or attended 6 schools in 3 US states and 11:59pm on whichever day was always the deadline. Bizarre and kind of power-tripping for someone to insist that midnight is “industry standard”.

      I will say, in the very early days of turning assignments in electronically, some teachers did use midnight as their deadline. That always caused an annoying off-topic discussion about what exactly that meant. Some teachers did actually mean midnight, as in the minute after 11:59 the previous day, causing many students to receive late penalties. Midnight is not always benignly interpreted.

    22. Knighthope*

      In this age of remote learning and world travel, I specified “11:59pm EST [time zone of location of the college].”

    23. learnedthehardway*

      I would absolutely think that Sunday at midnight meant the minute that the calendar turns over to Monday, NOT the minute that Sunday happens.

      I think the OP is far better off to put 11:59 PM Saturday, for absolute clarity.

      1. amoeba*

        Unless I read it wrong, it’s actually the way you’d think and they’re just worried about the students thinking it was earlier!

    25. Reader*

      Just another person agreeing! I’m a teacher and I always use 11:59 pm and so does every other teacher at our school.

    26. WhoCares*

      And I have to agree “Sunday night at midnight” is vague. “Sunday night at 11:59 pm” is much clearer. It’s like the difference between “reach out” and saying you called someone or emailed or whatever. The phrase reach out is not clear.

    29. Chel*

      My college implemented online submission during my undergrad and it was always 11:59PM. Same for grad school at another school, except for one professor who set it at 4PM. I didn’t like that professor for other reasons but the different submission time certainly didn’t help.

    30. Database Developer Dude*

      When the clock goes from 23:59:59 on Sunday evening to 00:00:00, it’s no longer Sunday, it’s Monday. Same for Saturday to Sunday. It’s much better to make the deadline 23:59:59 on Sunday. Less confusion.

      Of course, if you’re going to do that, just make the deadline 09:00 Monday and be done with it

    31. zuzu*

      Yep. I teach law students, and they will argue to the death if I give them any room, and I don’t have time for that.

      11:59 p.m. does not give them any room. It’s also trivially easy to set Canvas, Blackboard, what have you to whatever time you want when you’re doing electronic submissions. I’ve also had things due just before class as well, but that causes way fewer issues because 3 p.m. is a lot clearer than “midnight.”

    32. Pixel*

      I’ve exclusively had professors use 11:59 PM, never midnight – presumably exactly for the reasons the LW brings up.

    33. Sparkles McFadden*

      At my long time employer we used military time and we were still told to use 2359 or 0001 to make everything very clear. Why not remove ambiguity whenever possible?

    34. Emma A*

      Agreed – as someone who works for a textbook company, when we launched our online assessment tool we originally had the due times in units of five minutes, because that part of the system had been designed by our tech team, and within a couple weeks of the launch we’d switched to including the full range of minutes and defaulting to things being due at 11:59 in response to feedback from the first professors who started using it. I’d say that if anything 11:59 has become the standard.

    35. Sopranoh*

      I’m a nurse. We started using 11:59 a few years ago. Nothing to eat Thursday @ midnight could be confusing. Wednesday @ 11:59 was much more clear.

    36. tamarack etc.*

      In my corner of the world it’s either 23:59 (11:59 pm), or “AOE” (anywhere on earth), which accounts for time zone differences.

  6. phira*

    LW 1: I agree with other commenters here–it does seem like you are implying you would respond differently to his requests if he were physically smaller, and/or if he asked for food you perceived as healthier. Treat his disability like any other disability, stop worrying about what he’s eating, and go from there.

    LW4: Oh my goodness, I’m having so many flashbacks right now from when I worked in academia. We absolutely had to use “Sunday at 11:59pm” language, including the time zone (including whether or not it was Daylight Saving Time or not!), or else we invariably had students emailing us about what we meant, or getting upset if they had the time zone wrong and submitted an assignment late. However, we had a very, very strict late policy, including that we did not accept any weekly homework assignments late at ALL, so we had to be very specific down to the minute.

    Basically, “Sunday at midnight” should be fine unless you start getting a lot of confusion from students about it.

    1. KateM*

      I know that a course that I was on, and that has electronic submitting, had many students late because the lecturer had set the deadline “Sunday 0:00” meaning “Sunday midnight” (really Sunday 24:00″).

      1. KateM*

        And I mean, the lecturer had themselves thought it was going to be the midnight between Sunday and Monday, and so did many students – just to be greeted upon submitting with a message that they are 23 hours or so late.

        1. knitted feet*

          I work in higher ed and we made that mistake on one of our courses once. It was pandemonium, phones ringing off the hook with panicking students. I still cringe about it to this day.

      2. Retired MT*

        If you look at military time, there is no 24:00. It goes from 23:59 to 00:00. I worked at a hospital for many years( NOT a nurse) and we looked at all our work in military time.

        1. KateM*

          I have seen written it sometimes that something is open 00:00-24:00 and they mean 24h. So it’s like Sunday 24:00 is Monday 0:00. :)

    2. linger*

      I think our assignment submission system actually let assignments be submitted late, but with a flag to that effect that stopped them being graded until the instructor overrode it.
      (I generally did grade everything that was in the system at the time that I actually started the work of grading.)

      1. Hyaline*

        Yeah, there are settings you can adjust to automatically penalize students, cut off submissions, almost anything you can think of with late assignments in Canvas. Fortunately if an instructor screws up a due date they’re all reversible:)

    3. Annony*

      If the professor is very insistent on saying midnight, I think saying “Sunday night at midnight” is slightly better than saying “Sunday at midnight”.

      1. amoeba*

        I liked the phrasing that was suggested earlier in the thread above – “on Sunday before midnight”! That should be pretty unambiguous and probably not trigger any complaints…

  7. Bye Academia*

    2. I get that you’re in a tough position right now, but I honestly think what’s going on in the federal government makes his hedge LESS egregious than it would be under normal circumstances. The new employee had no idea the fork in the road deal would be honored, and no idea of the future stability of his new or old agency. Your agency may be busy and expanding now, but things are changing so fast how can he trust his new position is safe either?

    I do also wonder if the employee intended to take the fork deal based only on his old job and stay in the new one (since people were encouraged to seek other work), or even that he tried to rescind the fork deal once he got hired and wasn’t allowed to?

    I really feel for you and all the federal workers in this time of uncertainty, and I hope your workload will improve soon one way or another. Thank you for your service to the country.

    1. Eryn*

      I agree.

      We need to remember who we should really be angry at. Our fellow working class coworkers are not who caused that situation. Elon & the Trump administration did.

      Everybody whose job has been impacted, or anybody who has been impacted by these cuts in anyway (like a reduction of services), needs to be keeping documentation & calling their Reps & Senators.

      1. MassMatt*

        Likewise, was it necessarily incompetence or by design that HR here didn’t inform the hiring manager? This was elected days ago and HR is probably struggling to keep ahead of all this chaos also. Who knows, maybe some of them took the offered resignation bait.

        1. FedToo*

          I’m very involved in all of this and most HR offices did not know who opted in to this until OPM turned the lists over. Then they were embargoed at agency head and CHCO level. It would be shocking if a normal HR rep had access to the fork decisions.

          As someone watching massive, very sad, cuts happening, I cannot fault someone whatsoever for taking the fork and for how they were transferred since there were so many court cases and caveats around it. Every single fed should be preparing for potential RIFs. They are going to be very deep and people who thought they were safe are going to get surprises. This is 100% horrible but all the blame is on Elmo and not on the person operating under guidance that changed by the hour and a system not following the current laws.

    2. Not a Fed*

      Agreed. One of the challenges across government and contracting right now is that the “old rules” don’t apply. No one knows what rules and norms will be followed so people have to try and make decisions that are best for themselves.

    3. Archi-detect*

      yeah, I certainly get the desire to be paid at the higher level and to legitimately list it as their job title

    4. OP #2*

      The employee did not try to rescind his offer. He had multiple conversations with our agency HR, including the initial resignation, as well as signing a form to finalize it after he had started with our team. He did not attempt to stay after getting the offer to join our team.

      1. PurpleCattledog*

        My guess is he assumed you knew. I mean he was speaking with HR about it – it’s not like he just departed.

        I get that it sucks – but he wasn’t the one who put a redundancy in front of him, he’s not the one stopping you from filling the role, he’s not even the one who kept it secret (HR knew).

    5. Lenora Rose*

      I dunno, if I thought that I might or might not be leaving in 2 weeks, I would not apply to a new role (or not accept if I had applied prior to the Fork in the Road offer). And since LW confirms this wasn’t a case of wanting to stay in the new role but being forced to go through with the departure, I think what they did is a bit weird.

      1. Lenora Rose*

        (Though I also agree with others that the chief focus of anger is at DOGE, which is Musk’s baby no matter what his lawyers are trying to say in court).

    6. kalli*

      There’s also the version of events where someone gave someone the wrong information, or someone thought that the transfer was compatible with the FITR (since transfers are usually valid instead of a redundancy package). It’s entirely probably no-one’s fault below the tippy-top, and it just is disappoint all round.

    7. cathy*

      Came here to say basically this. The federal government is such a mess right now- everyone is just trying to stay afloat.

    8. ForktheForkingFork*

      It’s a poopy situation all around, and given how chaotic everything is, how few rules are being followed, and how aggressive DOGE is with cutting staffing to the bone, I can neither fault the employee in this situation for taking the fork and not necessarily mentioning it nor fault LW2 for their frustration about how all of this has gone down and the likely lack of resolution any time soon.

      On the employee’s side of things, there has been a lot of uncertainty around whether the fork offers would be honored, when and if the fork paperwork would come through, which positions might be ineligible, likelihood and timing of RIFs, whether or not regular severance pay would be honored if RIFed, etc.

      On the HR side of things, as I understand it, the handling of fork emails and lists has been a rollicking disaster. The fork responses went to OPM, which is currently being run by three raccoons in a trench coat, which then maybe eventually submitted those responses to agency HR offices, but some employees were deemed ineligible, others were assumed to have taken the fork because an employee CCed them on the employee’s fork email, etc.

      And, of course, LW2 is now in a super poopy situation as a result of a lot of factors out of their control, with little to no relief in sight, which absolutely sucks, and LW2 has a right to feel frustrated by what’s happening and how it all happened, and the likelihood they won’t be able to fill the forked employee’s position.

      However, I think everyone in the situation, except for DOGE, here is mostly doing the best they can in an extraordinarily awful situation, and I’d encourage LW2 to give the employee some grace, given everything that’s going on at the moment.

  8. Z Fed*

    LW#2, your compliant should be addressed to DOGE.

    #1 the resignation went to OPM and not the employee’s agency. The agency’s HR had no idea who resigned until very late in the game.

    #2 not really a jerk move because the fork in the road guidance was very uncertain. People resigned only to find out they were excluded from the offer; although, they got the email. The guy did the right thing for him to accept the promotion in case his resignation was not accepted.

    You should direct all frustration and anger at DOGE. If your office is so important DOGE should have excluded it but they’re a mess. Their goal is to die chaos and fear. Can’t blame the guy very briefly your coworker for getting out.

    2. bamcheeks*

      Yes, given the massive and devastating impacts on other agencies and services and on individual workers, it feels kind of misplaced to blame this one individual worker. I cannot really find fault with this person for trying to keep their options open in all this chaos, and I think you really try and shift your thinking. Even though your work is high visibility, you’re not insulated from the impacts of the slash and burn, and that’s firmly on the people in charge.

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, in this desparate situation with a hostile and unpredictable external agent, employees need to put their own interests first, especially wrt getting severance.

      Even feds with currently “safe” jobs regarded as essential may soon need to scramble. Other coworkers & employees are likely also looking to jump ship because of the unhealthily long hours and stress. Don’t ruin your own health trying to make this imposed chaos work.

    4. OP #2*

      The resignation went to our agency’s HR several days before this employee interviewed and accepted the job, so they were aware of it early on. Also, the job was a lateral transfer, not a promotion.

      2. Sportsball*

        So your HR crew probably could have dropped a dime on you all to let you know about this maybe??? So like they maybe should be receiving at least some of your umbrage? Along with a certain car manufacturer and his leash holder (who enjoys running companies into the ground and racking up felony convictions).

        I get that your job sucks right now but like, I just really can’t see a situation where your new employee is the sole devil here for just trying to navigate an unprecedented, chaotic situation. ESPECIALLY when there are several other more appropriate literal devils who deserve your ire because they literally created this situation and gave it a stupid acronym too (DOGE).

        1. Lenora Rose*

          Where are you getting “sole devil” from? The question was about whether this is more egregious than the usual employee, but it at no point suggests the employee alone is to blame.

        2. AD*

          Given the instability and chaos that federal workers are being subjected to right now…I’m wondering if Alison could maybe advise commenters to tone it down a little? This is a very aggressive response to the OP that (IMO) she does not deserve. Let’s have a little empathy for everyone who is in a very crappy position right now.

      3. Observer*

        OK, so your HR was at fault here.

        But I have to agree with the others. Given the lunacy that’s been going on, I can give him a pass in a way that I would absolutely not under other circumstances.

        And, your HR *is* a problem here.

    5. Anon Fed*

      Also, since it was a new position, he’d have been a probationary (period) employee – right? So he’d have likely lost the job anyway as soon as the new department/agency got orders to gut probationary employees.

      1. OP #2*

        No, it was an internal lateral transfer. He was not and would not have been probationary.

        1. Analyst*

          Except the news has been full of people getting fired in exactly this position- someone just got promoted to a new job? They’re technically on probation and can and have been getting fired. Your HR seriously dropped the ball here- how and why did they allow his hiring to go through when they literally had this information? Your new employer did in fact tell who he should have- HR.

          1. OaDC*

            “It was an internal lateral transfer”. Maybe try to accept that the LW has the best insight into this.

          2. OP #2*

            The employee was already a tenured, non-probationary agency employee. He already had a job within the agency. The only reason for him to move positions within the agency would be because he wanted to work a different job. There would be no effect on his ability to stay employed whether he took a different job internally or not. Internal moves within the agency, both lateral and promotions, do not trigger a new probationary period. This might be the case at other agencies, which is where that news is coming from, but it is not the case at mine. If that HAD been an issue, then it would actually have been more secure for him to stay put in his previous position.

            I agree that HR should have told us. I believe wires were probably crossed; we have a large HR section and I believe different sections of HR work on personnel transfers and this deferred resignation program. HR has been scrambling like hell to keep up with all of the EOs and assorted changes in guidance. The employee was best-positioned to know that he did plan on leaving. If he had given us or HR a heads-up when he received the job offer, we would have been able to make a determination in advance how the departure would affect our ability to hire a replacement. The only way his job offer would have been revoked would be if he had told us he definitely, for sure wanted to leave and was working on making that happen… which is not unreasonable?? We would have been happy to keep him as an employee if he had wanted to stay. At the same time, I don’t blame him for wanting to leave. But we hired him in good faith expecting that we would get a new employee out of the deal.

            1. Observer*

              The employee was best-positioned to know that he did plan on leaving.

              Kind of. Clearly, he thought that he might still not be leaving, otherwise he would not have cared about moving into a more interesting or “better” job.

              Your HR messed up. Maybe they are not horrible people, but *the* are the ones who messed, because HR as a whole had the most information about how those resignations were likely to play out on the one hand, *and* they had the information that he’d accepted the buyout.

              You have a right to be angry. But the hierarchy here is DOGE, then your HR, and then this guy who is leaving.

        2. Sacred Ground*

          That’s the rule today, is it?
          The rules are changing every day and the decision makers are ignoring laws. You think your position is safe? Because of its visibility? Right, because the leadership cares so much about what the public thinks of them.

        3. L.H. Puttgrass*

          Yes—in theory, in normal times when laws are being followed and the paperwork is processed correctly, an internal transfer is a “reassignment” that doesn’t trigger a new probationary period.

          But these are not normal times, laws are not being followed, and paperwork isn’t always processed correctly. It wasn’t unfair of the employee to act as if none of these things are guaranteed.

          Give the employee a break, OP.

      2. Coverage Associate*

        I think the probationary period for transfers and promotions must vary by position, based on what I read here and hear from my family member who works for the federal government.

  9. Safetykats*

    It’s interesting that you’re more peeved at someone who just exercised an option offered (a buyout) than you are at the people who set up a system in which you can’t replace someone regardless of your ability to accomplish your work without them. Or at the HR organization who continued the transfer process for someone they apparently knew was leaving. Why is that? Because it seems like your idea of who and what is egregious is pretty misplaced.

    1. Archi-detect*

      As a fellow fed, I am pretty pissed at DOGE et. all but if I was writing the letter I probably would have left that out because it is well known and while it caused the problem, it is not where the specific problem lies in the sense of the missing advanced role

    2. OP #2*

      I mean, I am exceedingly upset with DOGE and everything that’s going on with it? I’m not sure there’s many feds who aren’t. My agency didn’t make the rule about not being able to backfill; our leadership has been doing everything humanly possible to minimize the impact of all of this on the workforce. But we’re facing really immediate impacts because this employee didn’t say “hey, I sent in my deferred resignation but I don’t know how it’s actually going to work out”. If he’d said that, we could have made an effort to loop in more of our very compartmented HR and figure out what effect it was going to have.

      1. PurpleCattledog*

        But what would that have done to him? Let’s say this didn’t end in him leaving (the whole process reads bananas to me but I understand not everyone’s job ended the same) – would you have hired/appointed him? If not – then he’d have been silly to tell you, loose his chances at the position and potentially have needed it.

        You’re angry at the wrong people. He’s not the one who disappeared the role.

      2. Undine Spragg*

        It sounds like, if he had made the assumption that you were sane and reasonable, and that you would look for a cooperative solution that would be best for everybody, it might have worked out better. And that’s part of DOGe too, to make that a very bad idea, and to make cooperation less likely. He may not have fully realized the impact either, because this rule was shoved through and he didn’t know.

        It’s very natural to be angry, and if he had behaved like a normal person in a normal time, you might not be in this horrible spot. But this is the s— hand DOGe dealt you and you have to live with it. Is there any way you can push back on the workload, and say, because of DOGe’s policies, we are now shorthanded and we would love to complete this work but we can’t? Or are you, or your leaders, afraid to do that because the person you go to might not be sane and reasonable in these times, even if they had been before?

        I wish you and all federal employees/civil servants the best in this brutal time. You are doing good work, and if it doesn’t all get done, or doesn’t get done to the level it should, because DOGe is playing games, that is not actually your fault. For now, concentrate on doing what you need to do to keep your job while also thinking what you can do, inside work or out, to keep yourself sane.

      3. bamcheeks*

        You’re fighting very hard here for permission to be mad at this employee and honestly, you don’t need permission. You can just … be mad. But to be honest it isn’t really going to affect the employee, and it’s not going to bring back the headcount unless you can convince someone that the other department should lose it instead, and that’s an argument you need to have with your own HR or whoever is in charge of that decision, not with the employee.

        It sucks. The whole situation sucks. If it makes you feel better to be mad at this one person, you can absolutely do that, and it doesn’t have to be approved by the AAM readership! But it’s also not going to actually change the situation so maybe you just need to give yourself permission to be mad and then figure out what happens next.

        1. Sacred Ground*

          As an aside, I wonder why people do this so often, blaming other victims of no-win situations where everyone has to suddenly look out for themselves and nobody knows the best way forward, rather than blame the people in charge who put everyone in this no-win situation.

          I guess it feels safer to be mad at the person who has no actual power over you? Like there’s some emotional risk to placing blame out loud on those who could still arbitrarily and capriciously wreck your life and career, so you put the blame on someone who isn’t even working there anymore?

          1. Silver Robin*

            I think there are a few factors.

            1) the power dynamics you mentioned, easier to be mad at a person with less power; but also easier to be mad at the person who is outside the situation entirely, regardless of the power dynamic

            2) being mad at the final domino, even if it is tiny, because, well, they still had some choice about falling and they chose to fall

            3) vague sense of frustration/despair to see folks turning away from collaboration and/or a version of feeling like being set up to fail (if they had just said something I could have done something!!)

            1. AF Vet*

              4) Being mad at SOMEONE, ANYONE with a pulse feels less powerless than being mad at a government entity, a THING with all the power and no PERSON to yell at.

              I’ve been in this position before. Against the US Gov’t. And it only multiplies the helpless, powerless, frustrated agony when you can’t even point a finger and say that Person X (coworker, not muskrat) sucks and just ruined my life… or agency.

          2. Coverage Associate*

            I think it’s also easier to blame a person than a system or organization, or a celebrity who is a stranger. The closeness of a person you have met compared to something distant feels better. The spirit can imagine revenge or consequences for the person you know, but anger at something abstract is just blowing against the wind. (Not saying OP has such imagination, just that it’s a common expression of anger.)

      4. A*

        When things are frustrating and anger inducing generally it can be tempting to direct them towards somebody specific.

        It sounds like that is what is going on in this situation. You are working in an unprecedented and awful situation and it is easier to be mad at somebody you see than at the whole system.

        This isn’t entirely fair to him and is unproductive to you but it’s also an exceedingly common coping mechanism. One that I think most people have used at some time or another.

      5. Sneaky Squirrel*

        FWIW, I think you should be frustrated! You and your team were tricked. You were getting some much needed help on your team and the rug was pulled out from under you!

        The employee could have offered some professional courtesy at the point of interview to alert your team; however from an external perspective, those types of conflict with starting conversations are more often had with HR directly and not with the hiring manager, so ultimately I think HR and DOGE are the bigger villains here. I also kind of get why someone would keep their cards close to the chest when DOGE started threatening everyone’s livelihood too.

        I think you’re already doing what you need to do to move forward – pressuring HR to figure out how the ball got dropped and to see if they can fight the good fight to count his departure under his old position.

        1. JB (not in Houston)*

          Yeah, I also would be frustrated! This is not like a regular job situation. If he knew he was leaving anyway no matter what, then he should have disclosed and taken the chance that he would not have gotten the job. Yes, DOGE is the bigger villain, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be irritated with this guy, too.

          1. Sacred Ground*

            I can’t see how any previous norms or expectations of professionalism can be applied to people being so thoroughly abused by their employer as federal employees are right now.

            This guy is doing what he can to protect his interests from an employer that has abandoned even any pretense of keeping its promises or even complying with its own laws and policies. Doge created this problem and created the circumstances for this employees decision to even be possible.

            This guy, and millions like him, has been abused and betrayed by an employer he had every reason to trust that but we’re going to take him to task for not reacting exactly as we think he should have, because it made LW’s position more difficult?

            Whatever you think of his actions, they are a response to an intolerable and cruel situation that DOGE created. They also created LW’s problem of not being able to backfill the position. DOGE alone is responsible here.

            But DOGE could come for you and your agency any day now, so you don’t want to say that out loud, or even think it apparently.

            1. JB (not in Houston)*

              “But DOGE could come for you and your agency any day now, so you don’t want to say that out loud, or even think it apparently.” What? Is that directed at me? I’m not a fed. And it doesn’t make sense directed at the OP, either, because she has already expressed her anger with DOGE.

              Lots of people in the comments here have lots of sympathy for feds, but only if they are leaving like this guy and not someone like OP who is staying behind dealing with the mess left behind.

              1. Observer*

                No, I have a lot of sympathy for them. In some ways MORE, because they are kind of stuck in an insane situation.

                But keeping some clarity is still the healthiest thing. Because hopefully the LW will be in a better situation one day, one way or another, and maintaining their equilibrium is going to be important.

      6. CatDude*

        LW2 – I understand the frustration but this is such a chaotic and uncertain time for working in the federal government that I think we should be giving each other the benefit of the doubt. So much of this is uncharted territory that it’s hard to know what’s the right course. If I were in this employee’s shoes, I’m not sure I would have informed my supervisor, either, as there was a complete lack of guidance of what employees were supposed to do with it other than respond to the email.

        Granted, I think taking the deferred resignation was a bad idea as I think there’s very little chance of it being honored (theoretically, I am a contractor so not eligible), but everyone had to make their own calculus on whether to accept it or not.

        There’s no question you’re in a terrible situation, but keep the blame where it’s deserved – at Musk, at Trump, at Congress for enabling them. It’s easier to blame someone you actually know, but it’s not this employee’s fault that all of this chaos is happening, or that the guidance around this deferred resignation was so murky and unclear.

        1. Ariaflame*

          It certainly hasn’t been funded or approved of by Congress so it’s not looking good.

  10. Heidi*

    What kind of world are we living in where someone is able to resign from a job before accepting it?

    1. Language Lover*

      It’s unclear but since they talk about how the other department should incur the inability to re-staff, it sounds like this person may have come from a different government agency. They pursued the option while at their previous role but also continued to investigate this new role because of the uncertainty whether the resigning option would come to pass. They got the new role but shortly after their resignation was approved.

    2. TeratomasAreWeird*

      It sounds like they gave their two weeks notice to HR, then accepted a lateral transfer within the department. Somehow HR was compartmentalized enough that they didn’t realize the person they were transferring had already given notice, so they completed the transfer.

      Unfortunately, the role has disappeared from the new team and thanks to the (stupid) rules around the “fork in the road” resignations, the new team isn’t allowed to backfill for the role. So even though they’re overworked and they’d been approved to hire for that role just a few weeks ago, the position has now gone up in smoke.

  11. Cmdrshprd*

    OP3 ““Broke in and attempted to attack me”
    I would even say that just saying someone broke in to your house is enough, you don’t need the “and attempted to attack me.” to ask for people to give you extra consideration when approaching.

    I am really sorry for what you had to go through.

    1. Kim*

      I also just wanted to comment to say how sorry I am that this has happened to you and to wish you all the best with navigating a way to deal with this.

      1. anonymous survivor*

        I agree that it’s awful you had to deal with this. Our house was broken into when I was in high school. We weren’t home, but I have been extra jumpy ever since when someone comes up behind me unexpectedly. I recognize it’s less trauma than you experienced, but wanted to mention it as “this would be a believable alibi” if you didn’t want to mention all the details.
        I hope you can find the support and healing you need.

    2. Tom*

      I think including the attack party can help explain why the OP may be more jumpy than usual. “Someone broke in” can include someone breaking in and stealing your living room TV while your asleep upstairs. That would still be very upsetting, but isn’t even close to having to fight off an attacker in your home.

      But I think the word “attempted” is unnecessary. An attempted rape *is* an attack. So feel free to use the explanation, “Someone broke in and attacked me.”

    3. MsAfleetAlex*

      Yes. Hugs to you, OP. Not the same thing, but I was mugged during my first couple of months at a new job and my team was incredibly supportive, walking me to my car after work in the dark and that kind of thing. Of course you only need tell them what you’re comfortable telling them but you’re also giving them the opportunity to support you during a tough time. I have never forgotten how kind my coworkers were when I was frightened.

      1. I own one tenacious plant*

        If this happened to one of my coworkers I would want to know so I don’t make them feel worse! I would feel awful if I accidentally snuck up behind someone who had been traumatized.

    4. Lenora Rose*

      I’d keep the “and attempted to attack me” or at minimum “while I was home”, because generally most times when someone refers to a break in it’s been while they were away, which is usually in the “bad but not traumatic” range and this is explicitly about a new trauma.

    5. Arts Akimbo*

      Very true. When I was young, my apartment was broken into while I was on vacation elsewhere, and it still affected me psychologically. I stacked all my pots and pans against the door before going to sleep at night for at least 2 weeks, and I was jumpy when approached unexpectedly. No one with any empathy at all will question why OP wants consideration following a break-in.

      To the OP, I’m so sorry this happened. I wish you well.

    1. BugBear*

      In my opinion, this is uncharitable to the LW. In fact, most people are focusing on a few of her statements (junk food) and assigning a negative attitude to it. My take is the extra information like junk food and his weight are there for context. The coworker is not in a short term situation where help will be needed for a concrete period of time like healing after a fracture. Perhaps the LW feels buying junk food is contributing to ill health for him. I took it as concern — coworker is disabled and she feels like its not ok to say no. Less people-pleasing and more of taking on more of a responsibility for others than she should. OR it was a judgement call on the cafeteria and less-than-ideal options they offer (e.g., the cafeteria only really has junk food).

      Its awful how people have piled on the LW who is actually asking AAM for help on how to handle this kindly. If she didn’t care about this coworker who she doesn’t even know well, she wouldn’t have asked for help. Also, what about the responsibility of this man (and I think gender plays a role here since he is asking a woman for help) to solve his own problem? It has got to be incredibly stressful to be reliant on others every day to get food. Why is he not coming up with a better solution than relying on his coworkers? Sounds like most of them bring lunch from home.

      1. Anon for This*

        Not knowing what is available in the OP’s cafeteria, the co-worker is probably requesting food that is “grab-and-go”. Where I work, if he requested something healthy it would be more burdensome- a salad would mean making selections for him at the salad bar. A burger and chips is less of a burden on the person getting the food for him.

        1. skunkpunter*

          This is a great point. Fresh food would be much harder to transport and might take longer to get vs grabbing packaged food that’s right by the cashier for example. Also they might not know ahead of time what fresh food is being served that day, while the packaged food is probably consistently the same.

        2. mlem*

          Precisely! What the LW sees as “junk food” might be what the coworker thinks is easier to transport … or is pre-packaged and hechshered and therefore the only kosher option (or gluten-free, or reliably vegetarian/vegan) … or has carbs and the LW is a keto adherent … or or or.

          But I knew where LW was going as soon as I hit “sits almost all day”. LW isn’t as subtle as they think they are.

      2. Snow Globe*

        The comment about junk food is not context that is in any way relevant to the question. Whether or not the food is contributing to the coworker’s health situation is not something that the LW could know and it has nothing to do with whether the LW needs to go to the cafeteria to get lunch when they otherwise wouldn’t be going. No matter what the coworker eats for lunch, it doesn’t change the advice.

        (There is also no indication in the letter that the LW is a woman. )

      3. Nodramalama*

        It’s interesting that you’re saying people are reading too much into LWs comments, and then reading into their coworkers actions.

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

        I disagree. The OP did not need to make comments on his weight or his food preferences. They could have said I have a disabled coworker who has a hard time walking. Everyday they ask someone to go to the cafeteria for them…. They did not need to add the junk food, that he sits all day, and that he is overweight with pain caused by being overweight (which is an assumption the OP is making).

      6. Workerbee*

        Nah.

        Because then the letter would have just been: “Coworker with mobility issues asks me to grab lunch for him almost daily, but this is going out of my way/cuts into my own lunchtime/I just don’t want to do this anymore. How do I handle this tactfully?”

      7. Pizza Rat*

        While there are people who have called out LW1 for the judgmental comments, there are plenty of people who understand the position of the people pleaser and are offering support.

        There was no reason to provide info about his weight or what he was eating. It doesn’t matter why he’s mobility impaired and it doesn’t matter what he wants to eat.

    2. Harper*

      You make a great point about your digestive issues. I’ve struggled with IBS my whole life, and there have been many, many days that, given limited options, a fast food burger was tolerable when a salad would have wrecked my system for the next 24 hours. Food is SO personal, and there’s nothing worse than someone policing what you eat.

    3. Frosty*

      Also, I have a cafeteria at my work, but it doesn’t really have any “healthy” choices. It’s a very standard burgers/fries/fried-food-on-the-grill type place – you’d be pretty hard pressed to find options that are more fresh-produce forward etc.

      If the co-worker is finding that he needs to get food “on the day”, these “unhealthy” foods might be the only real options!

      If he’s got health or mobility issues, by the time he gets home from work, he might be too tired or sore to prep the next day’s lunch, and then struggling at work to make sure he’s eating at all.

      LW#1 does not need to run errands for him, but also should examine their prejudices at the same time

      (I wonder if the cafeteria might be willing to work with the employees to bring him a “delivery” – LW could potentially ask about this as a service and let the co-worker know that they can’t bring them food but there is another option). Cafeterias are often very thankful for the business and might be able to run up a box outside of the lunch rush

  13. Daria grace*

    #1: it is extremely plausible that the mobility issues were the cause of his weight gain (or that there’s no causation involved) but you can’t tell for sure and it’s none of your business anyway. Between the assumptions about his weight and the assumption that you’re going to have bad blood for not doing a favour for someone you know is nice and apologetic, you need to work on your attitude to this guy. You don’t have to start doing favours but you can at least have a good attitude.

      1. Pizza Rat*

        OP1 needs to set some boundaries without using the man’s weight and diet as a reason not to. “I’m not going to the cafeteria, I brought my lunch,” is a perfectly good reason.

  14. Chris*

    As frustrating as it is to OP2, I can’t really blame their newly hired colleague or HR in this situation. Everything employment-related in the federal government is so up in the air right now what somebody understands one day may be totally different by the next day.

    Wish them well and make the best decisions you can going forward.

  15. Adultiest Adult*

    Commenting in support of OP 3. I am so sorry that this happened to you, and grateful to hear that you already have good therapeutic support. I tend to also favor the “less is more” approach Alison suggested for situations like this. You don’t owe anyone details of your trauma in order to set boundaries. Please take care of yourself and know that this stranger is sending emotional support your way!

    1. Mostly Apples*

      Also, the less is more approach is a kindness to anyone in the team who may be distressed from experiencing a similar trauma at some point themselves.

      2. AnonymousOctopus*

        This. Also a CPTSD haver who experienced a later trauma made worse by all the other shit. I would really appreciate the fig leaf of “broke in and tried to attack me” without other details. Like, that’s fully enough for me to imagine months-years recovery time without anything that would trigger me or make me wonder how I should react.

      3. ev*

        Its also likely that when someone gets too interested that a “I’d prefer not to discuss it in more detail but thanks for your concern” will be useful, as some will prod at the more explicit details even if its only to basically go “I can handle it if you need to talk about that side of it”. When frankly thats usually not helpful at work.

  16. RCB*

    #3: I’ve been in a slightly similar situation, fortunately not to the extent of yours but one that left me with some PTSD that I didn’t expect to get triggered at work. It did and I ended up running to the bathroom sobbing, but lucky my boss knew the back story and I was able to ask him to discretely ask everyone not to bring up this certain subject around me again. Yes I knew that I was being discussed behind my back but it was okay, it’s what I needed, I was able to pretend I didn’t know about it for my own mental health, because the bigger goal of making sure it didn’t happen again was more important. My point though is that since you already have people in the office that know about it maybe you can designate 1 or 2 specific people as the point people to text if you’re in the bathroom crying or have to leave suddenly because you have panic attack, or can’t come in because you’re having an episode, and then they can handle informing people, that way it’s just gentler on you at work and for your own mind you can just pretend only 1-2 people know.

    1. MassMatt*

      I’m having flashbacks to the letter from someone who was attacked and traumatized but felt working was better than staying at home. She wanted to focus on work and not her trauma but her coworkers just would not let her, she was even cornered in the break room by a larger guy saying he wouldn’t “let her go” until she talked about it. Ugh.

    2. Contracts Killer*

      That’s very similar to how I shared traumatic news at my office related to giving birth. I had one very outgoing and social friend at work. I called her from home during my maternity leave, shared what I was comfortable sharing, and asked if she would discreetly pass the information through the office, in particular to the people she knew were likely to ask me about it (and letting everyone know that I asked her to share it). It worked wonderfully. No one asked me about it at all when I came back. Frankly, I was shocked at how well everyone behaved.

  17. Nat20*

    Re: #4, if your institution (and professor) uses an LMS such as Canvas to have students submit assignments, when you’re creating the assignment the software often defaults to 11:59pm as the due time anyway (which of course you can change) when you select a due date. My students tend to rely heavily on their Canvas calendars to keep track of assignment due dates, and 12am *would* show up the incorrect way on there. Just to say that a) I completely agree with you and b) an LMS can help elimate that confusion, though it certainly depends on the software.

    1. Hyaline*

      Yeah, I promise—students are paying far more attention to what it says on Canvas. It’s not actually causing confusion for them because they probably don’t notice the discrepancy if they even noticed anything other than the Canvas due date.

      2. Nat20*

        Guessing you meant 11:59 and not 11:50, in which case yes definitely, that’s also worth mentioning!

  18. Mostly Apples*

    There was an issue with a flight out of our local airport that would leave at 00:00 Sunday (or whatever the actual day of the week was, I forget).
    The airport and airline staff were consistently dealing with people showing up 20 hours late to their flight.
    They changed the departure time to 23:55 Saturday (negligible difference); lo and behold, the confusion of travellers was avoided.

  19. ferret*

    Am I missing something or is there a reason lw4 isn’t using 23:59 instead of 11:59? Because if i saw 11:59 in that format my eyes would probably skip over the pm and assume they were talking about noon Sunday. 23:59 is the clearest option as far as I can see

    1. Fushi*

      If OP is American they might only use AM/PM times. I don’t know if it’s gotten any more common in the last 10 years, but growing up in the US I rarely saw 24hr time used.

      1. June*

        I’m in my 20s in the US. I have only seen 24 hr time used if the person was in the military.

        1. WillowSunstar*

          I’ve seen it in Europe, but I was an exchange student in Germany during the 1990’s. I’m not sure if it’s standard in all of Europe or just parts, or it has changed now.

          1. amoeba*

            It’s pretty standard here! We use the 12 h format in spoken language, but basically never with anything formal/written – we also don’t really have AM and PM, if it needs context in spoken language, we’ll probably say “nine in the morning” or “five in the afternoon”. Or switch to the 24 h format. But written would always be 23.59, for sure.

        2. AF Vet*

          Yup. My kids get to live it and love it, because my brain is on 24 hour clock. They’re just lucky I’m not feeding it to them in Zulu (GMT). >:D

    2. Bye Academia*

      Presumably LW4 is in the US. The general public does not use the 24 hour clock here (it’s really only used in the military). We would always say 11:59 PM and not 23:59.

    3. doreen*

      In the US , the general public doesn’t use 24 hour time – it’s not just the military that uses it, but the other entities that use it generally operate 24 hours or close to it (police, hospitals/healthcare, some restaurants etc )

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I’ve seen a few hospitals that have analog clocks with the 24-hr time written in sharpie next to the 12-hr time (e.g. the “3” numeral has “15” in sharpie next to it), so it’s clearly still a work in progress there too.

  20. Adam*

    For LW4, I agree that “Sunday at midnight” is ambiguous, but “Sunday night at midnight” isn’t. That’s always the boundary between Sunday and Monday, the boundary between Saturday and Sunday is Sunday morning. So if they’re consistently using “Sunday night at midnight”, I can understand them thinking it’s clear.

    That said, being clearer is always better, so I would definitely recommend either “Sunday at 11:59pm” or “Sunday at 24:00”, both of which are even less likely to be misinterpreted.

    1. Eve*

      “Sunday night at midnight” is clear enough but it’s clunky. I would recommend The Chicago Manual of Style‘s practice of writing “midnight on Sunday, March 16–Monday, March 17” (or just “midnight, March 16–17”).

      1. Cthulhu’s Librarian*

        Meh. The Chicago manual makes this more complex than it needs to be – move the deadline forward five minutes and all confusion evaporates. Midnight deadlines are generally pointless anyways, since most folks aren’t able to act on anything submitted until the start of business the next day.

      2. JustKnope*

        With respect to the Chicago Manual of Style, that is just as clunky as “Sunday night at midnight” if not more so!

    2. Nina*

      Sunday at 24:00

      As of ISO 8601-1:2019/Amd 1:2022, “00:00:00” may be used to refer to midnight corresponding to the instant at the beginning of a calendar day; and “24:00:00” to refer to midnight corresponding to the instant at the end of a calendar day. ISO 8601-1:2019 as originally published removed “24:00:00” as a representation for the end of day although it had been permitted in earlier versions of the standard.

      Even ISO has flip-flopped on this enough to make it a confusing usage.

    4. amoeba*

      “Sunday before midnight” should work fine as well (and it’s not clunky, I’d say)!

  21. Ellis Bell*

    OP1, if he’s “very apologetic and appreciative”, then this is a request, not a demand, and you’re fine to say no! He is simply trying to find the most convenient way to get help, which involves finding people who are headed in that direction, or who are genuinely willing. Saying yes, and burning with resentment at him simply because you said something you didn’t want to isn’t fair to you or him.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      Right? The Resentment Clock can only start once you’ve used your words and Coworker probably has no idea you’re seething.

      Personally, I love running errands for people because I’m naturally a very sedentary person and I need the steps, so any excuse to stand up and walk around is one I’ll take.

      1. Academic Physics*

        “The Resentment Clock can only start once you’ve used your words and Coworker probably has no idea you’re seething.”

        Thank you, that’s a great expression!

  22. Spanish Prof*

    #4 – I quit doing midnight due dates after about a year of pandemic teaching. I’m not going to read the assignment until the next morning at the earliest, so why does it have to be in at midnight? So I made things due at 9:00a or even 12 noon (and I say/write “12 noon” specifically, a worrying number of students think 12p is midnight)

    Interestingly, while most students love the “extra” time (especially those who’d rather go to bed and finish in the morning), there are always one or two who say it’s confusing for a due date to NOT be midnight on the given day. So YMMV but overall I think it’s a positive change and just makes sense. What do I care if the assignment comes in at midnight? I won’t be reading it at 2am!

    1. Katie Impact*

      The a.m./p.m. confusion is unfortunately not limited to students. I once got an interview for a university-related job at 12:15 a.m. and called their office who confirmed that yes, they really truly meant 12:15 a.m. and not 12:15 p.m. I figured, well, academic types keep weird hours sometimes. Showed up at midnight and nobody was there. Yep, they meant 12:15 p.m. Showed up sleep-deprived at noon and bombed the interview. If anything like that ever happens again, I’ll have to use the exact words “15 minutes past midnight” to request clarification, I guess.

    2. Eve*

      I largely agree with you but I’ve always found the practice of writing “12 noon” and “12 midnight” odd. There isn’t an 11 midnight or a 12:30 noon, so surely there’s no harm in dropping the “12” and just writing “midnight” and “noon.”

      1. just a random teacher*

        I did once have an issue with a student who claimed not to know what “noon” meant in regards to what time something started. To this day, I’m not sure if this was a legitimate language and culture issue (student had spent early childhood somewhere in Africa but had been in the USA for longer than 5 years at this point) or yet another excuse from this particular student.

        (Individual human beings are more than just a collection of demographic categories, and it is quite possible to both have legitimate linguistic and cultural barriers and to exaggerate them to not have to do things that you don’t want to do, because teenagers are still fully capable of not wanting to do things and making excuses even if they’re from a different linguistic and cultural background than the most common one in that class. I just asked her EL case manager to make sure to review the concepts of “noon” and “midnight” with her and changed the wording in my communications to include both 1200 and noon rather than getting in the weeds about if she was “really” confused or not, and if so how much longer I should expect it to take for her to “get” the concept of noon.)

        1. amoeba*

          Eh, in German at least, “Mittag” *can* mean 12 sharp, but it’s also used for the general period between, say, 11 and 14 h. For instance, we also have a “Mittagspause” (lunch break), “Mittagessen” for lunch… it’s much more general. So I can imagine a German student translating “noon” to “around lunchtime” and being confused!

    3. allathian*

      I’m so glad I’ve lived in an area where the 24-hour clock is the norm for most of my life… One minute to midnight is 23:59 and midnight is 00:00, so there’s absolutely no ambiguity about which day midnight belongs to.

    4. FuzzBunny*

      Students definitely find it confusing to have a due date at any time other than midnight! This is especially true because many of them use the month view in the calendar, so they don’t see the time listed, and therefore default to the assumption that it’s midnight. I find it hard to fault them for this, since that truly is the norm. So I just keep the midnight due date, and then have a grace period with no penalty.

    5. Nat20*

      Yeah this is such a toss up! Pre-pandemic I’d always make due dates be the start of class, so that they weren’t still working on it by the time class began and because I’d often go grade right after. Then mid-pandemic everyone was doing 11:59pm, and students were telling me that the before-start-of-class due date encouraged them to put things off until the last minute. (Part of me thought “that’s a you problem”, but I also saw their point.) So I started doing 11:59pm and still do now, but it does feel a bit arbitrary since yeah, I’m not grading at 2am. But I still do it so that they don’t really have to think about time, and only need to know the day.

    6. Hyaline*

      I’ve considered and tried moving due dates to a day later than I would have assigned a “midnight” deadline, to noon or even 5 pm for this reason–and because students who wait until the last minute and email me, confused, are far more likely to get a response at, say, 3 pm than at 10 pm. But then I hear from students that they want the “extra time” until midnight :P No pleasing everyone, do what works for you!

  23. Seal*

    #1 – The problem isn’t the man’s mobility issues, weight, or what he has for lunch, it’s that he’s asking/relying on his colleagues to run what amounts to a personal errand for him every day. He either needs to bring his own lunch or make arrangements IN ADVANCE to have lunch brought to him. Even if his mobility issues were short-term or such that he could walk to the cafeteria on good days, he still needs to plan ahead or have a backup plan for getting his lunch.

    Having had multiple knee surgeries over the past few years that limited my mobility for months on end, I’m certainly sympathetic to the man’s situation. But I also planned ahead and took my knee issues into account when making plans, especially if there was any walking involved.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, an occasional request is OK if e.g. he forgot his lunch or his usual helper is away but people usually just want their break at lunch, or have their own personal things to fit in.

      Best solution is that he brings in his own lunch (as junky as he likes!) so he doesn’t have to ask anyone. Less good is asking a work friend to make this their daily task – but then he may soon be minus one friend.

      When disabled, always best to organise for yourself as much as poss, so that when you do have to occasionally request a favour you haven’t already exhausted the goodwill. (my longterm policy as a visually disabled person)

      1. FoodGloriousFood*

        Fellow visually disabled person here, who is now also physically disabled. Bringing food from home is not always possible, especially if you’re taking public transportation. There’s a limit to what I can carry. Many places limit what you can keep at the office. Even with a cooler I’ve never had perishable food survive the trip, and since I’ve had the additional physical limitations carrying a cooler is difficult anyway. The loss of disposable plastic bags with handles (that contain spills and can be easily clipped to a walker) at most places even nake it hard to buy items at local stores or restaurants near work or a transfer point.

        Would I ask random people I spot at the office to buy food for me daily? Probably not unless I was feeling sick from hunger that day. Would I go hungry if someone didn’t get me food? Sometimes.

        If the cafeteria was open that early I’d try to stop there on the way in if I could, but many only open for lunch. Also, a lot of the efforts to automate stuff make it difficult or impossible for disabled folks to use them, and aisles/checkout lanes are often too narrow for some mobility aids (and that’s before considering the turn radius of something like a walker).

        1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

          That’s why I said “as much as possible”. When I additionally was on crutches due to ruptured ankle ligaments (visual disability caused me to fall down some steps) I brought a compact non-perishable non-spillable lunch daily and swapped to a large breakfast and supper.

          If this had not been possible, I’d have asked for an official accommodation, so that if it was indeed a coworker who had to collect, this was part of their official taks during working hours and not part of their break.
          There is a problem with relying on coworkers every day for meals because some days everyone may refuse or at some stage everyone gets fed up and you go hungry. Also I did very occasionally need other favours and needed to reserve goodwill for those.

          1. FoodGloriousFood*

            I agree with not asking every day, and personally I only do it if it’s clear that whomever I’m asking is going to get food. For example, at a former job, I had a bunch of coworkers who would walk over to some food trucks 4-5 blocks away 1-2× per week. If I saw them at the right time I’d ask them to bring food back for me. Sometimes one of them would see me at the right time and ask if I wanted them to bring me something. These weren’t on any set schedule so I never knew which days they’d be going. Every so often I’d ask one if they were going or let them know I’d be interested in food if they do go. Every once in a while someone would say no for some reason or another, or they’d forget I asked them to grab me food, but most of the time they brought me a meal, I paid them for it, and we moved on with our days.

            BTW, eating is not generally a work assignment and isn’t covered by the ADA/accommodations process unless you are traveling for work or are a federal employee and have one of a few “targeted disabilities” as defined by OPM. Look up personal assistance or personal assistance services for more info.

            1. WellRed*

              TheADA considers eating a major life activity and you don’t have to be a federal employee for it to be covered.

          2. Purple Stapler*

            I’m not disabled but I used to live in a city with public transit and took it daily. I didn’t want to spend money for lunch so I brought a sandwich or two with some fruit. It easily fit in my bag and I didn’t have to worry about spillage or the like. What’s the saying? Unpreparedness on your part does not constitute an emergency to me? The coworker in letter 1 needs to take responsibility for himself. There are easy lunches he can bring that don’t require coworkers to get him lunch. I’m leaning towards the guy being lazy.

            1. DJ Abbott*

              Or the type of person who has always had people taking care of him, so he expects everyone to do it.

          3. knitted feet*

            I have used various mobility aids over the years and commute by public transport, and I’ve also made this work with sandwiches, crackers, cereal bars, fruit, wrapped cheese. Lightweight, non-spillable things that can fit in a small backpack, or in a reusable bag that could clip to a walker. I leave my house at 7 am and travel for two hours, and the food is still fine to eat by noon. I’ve never tried to juggle a cooler and I’ve never needed to.

        3. Brenda B*

          I am extremely confused when you say you couldn’t bring your own lunch. Even taking public transportation & using a walker you’re saying you can’t put a PB&J sandwich in your backpack or pocket? Or bring some nuts, a protein bar, granola, beef jerky, or a myriad of other options? Not every lunch is perishable or heavy. I used to take public transportation and worked 12 hour night shifts. I was able to pack two meals and a snack into a small lunch bag and carry it in my backpack or messenger bag. I did this every day for years.

        4. amoeba*

          Eh, honestly, I’d be more than happy to bring some food from the canteen for a mobility-impaired coworker every day! It’d be such a small favour to me and I know how much easier it is if you don’t have to prep your own food every day (I personally hate it, so maybe I’m biased, haha!)

          But I think the main point is that it’d be a tiny effort for me because I go, anyway, and I really think coworker needs to work something out with somebody who does that instead of asking random people who have to make an extra trip for him. I’d be annoyed to do *that* every day, for sure.

    2. AskingForHelp*

      And this is how you wind up in situations where you don’t eat for 12 hours because there are no other solutions. Which I’ve done more times than I can count because most places I’ve worked don’t have cafeterias.

      If people appear to be going to eat, there’s no harm in asking someone to bring you food back as long as you pay for it, ckearly tell them what you want, and don’t get upset if it’s wrong. They can and should say no if it’s a problem, but the act of asking us not a sin.

      Randomly jumping on people who are nearby for any reason is more questionable, but even then reasonable people will either say yes or no.

      Thanks and an occasional let me pay for your meal too this time is called for. Not asking is not.

    4. NotARealManager*

      Yes. I too have struggled with limited mobility, but at the end of the day, I’m an adult who needs to make a plan that is better than “I’ll ask my co-workers to get me something everyday.” Presumably he’s eating outside of the office too?

      OP, I’m not saying you (or anyone) need to be callous and never help him out, but you don’t need to say yes all the time either, particularly if you weren’t going to the cafeteria already.

    5. WillowSunstar*

      Agreed, even if it’s sandwiches made at home and then brought, store-bought protein bars, whatever. If they have a break room like most places, a fridge would probably be closer than the cafeteria.

  24. Dr Unavailable*

    #5: Unless the working culture for doctors is fundamentally different where you are to where I am, this clinician is being difficult to reach via email on purpose. This is not uncommon where I work and is done to try and set boundaries against a really unmanageable level of demand on their time. Switch to calling, and consider whether having timely responses is essential in whatever you’re seeing this person for – if so, the way they work might not work for you.

    1. PhoneAccess*

      Most places here don’t allow email, but since the start of the pandemic they’ve cut back significantly on phone access too resulting in no way to actually contact them. It’s infuriating, but telling people to just call may not be helpful – and doesn’t solve the “lost” incoming mails.

    2. WS*

      It’s possible that the doctor is using their precious time on clinical stuff rather than admin stuff, which is great for the doctor but really frustrating for patients, especially in these days of greater and greater administrative burden on everyone. However, most clinics have admin staff who will do this work for/with the doctor whenever possible, and calling the reception directly rather than the doctor personally is generally a good way to trigger the “this person needs admin help” alarm.

      1. PhoneAccess*

        To be clear, my lack of phone access comment was about the office staff – I assumed all communication to the office went to/through staff. They have made it nearly impossible to call these days. They assume everyone will just use their portal, bug most provider portals have major accessibility issues and there are still a whole bunch of patients who don’t computer well enough to use one.

    3. Hospital PT*

      I can attest, even emails between medical staff in the same organization are unreliable at times. Beyond that though, unless the emails are being encrypted on both ends, the medical folks will have concerns about HIPPA that most patients would not necessarily consider.
      OP is better off checking to see if their medical organization has a patient portal. Communication through these are typically monitored by more than one person and are often set up so that messages appear on the main dashboard that providers are using all day – as opposed to them having to go to a completely different program.
      That said, a previous commenter was likely right on, being purposefully unresponsive is a way a lot of us end up prioritizing our work. Its admittedly not great, but it happens.

      1. WellRed*

        Yes I was wondering why there’s no
        Mention of a patient portal. They are hardly new at this point.

        1. doreen*

          Not all medical offices have them . I saw one of my doctors yesterday, and when I asked if they had a portal the person I asked didn’t even know what I was talking about. Of course , the eventual answer was they do not have one.

    4. Nightengale*

      But if the doctor doesn’t want to be contacted via e-mail, they should tell the patient to use other contact methods.

      I’m sitting here mostly jealous of a doctor who is permitted to use e-mail. We are required to direct patients to the portal or telephone, but e-mail would be a lot more convenient for a lot of patients, especially since our portal added two factor authentication. It would especially make it easier for families to send and receive documents if we could e-mail them. Sure I would get a TON of e-mails, but I already get a ton of portal messages and phone calls. (and the portal is still much easier most of the time than playing 5 rounds of phone tag during open hours. I am still trying to reach a parent who left a message with office staff a week ago) The demand on my time wouldn’t change by permitting e-mailing.

    5. El Chinero*

      Add yourself as a “CC” to your email to the Doc … a “paper” trail with which to discuss these alleged non-deliveries. Proper e-addresses always appear. Look at all the MUCK requests for dinero!

  25. Zarniwoop*

    “ we routinely have team members staying past 8 or 9 pm to get all of our tasks done.”

    “ people who leave under the deferred resignation program can’t get their jobs backfilled”

    So you’re being given more work and fewer people to do it with? Time to stop burning yourselves out for someone else’s bad decisions and let those balls drop.

    1. fed-adjacent*

      Unfortunately, that’s the plan and that’s what they want to happen: they make everyone’s lives miserable, they burn out and quit because the situation is unsustainable, which is an entirely avoidable circumstance and is actually wasting TONS of money rather than saving any.

      There is no good option if they actually care about the government not being completely destroyed (and/or serving the people rather than the selfish whims of a self-appointed dictator), because destroying the government is the goal of all of this chaos. And it might actually work.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, use the regained hours of free time to job hunt in saner organisations

    3. EllenD*

      Fifteen years ago the then new Conservative Government reduced the size of the UK civil Service. Some departments did exercises to work out which posts/work to stop and re-allocated people – a painful process with people getting voluntary redundancy/early retirement. Other Departments just encouraged people to take voluntary redundancy, and abolished their posts with no thoughts to whether the work was necessary or not. It was a short-sighted approach and resulted in some key areas losing a third to half their staff, while other non-priority work continued as normal, as people didn’t leave. Deepest sympathy to those in US Government, it is just plain horrid way of doing things.

      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        Yes I remember that stupid Tory govt and its longlasting effects on services. However, this is orders of magnitude more cruel to employees:
        they didn’t indulge in the current horrible bullying or target particular employees to make them feel unsafe for just existing. They also gave the legally prescribed severance without buggering people about.
        I hadn’t realised until this administration that there are far worse ways to cut Civil Service jobs than we experienced back then.

      2. Duckling*

        It also resulted in many of those people simply becoming external consultants at far higher cost to the taxpayer than when they were on salary. Once it was made clear that the work was either critical or had already been paid for, most of the same faces were back doing the same work and for the same department. It’s not just a horrid way of doing things, it’s actively stupid.

        1. Cupcakes are awesome*

          Oh yes this is what the goal is here- to privatize our government so his billionaire cronies can have the business.

      3. Lenora Rose*

        My sister-in-law and her husband (who is a few years older than my sister-in-law – this is relevant) work for the Canadian Civil service; her husband started late and came in from private business, which was highly unusual at the time.

        This meant people who met him for the first time and learned how old he was treated him with an unusual amount of deference, which was a puzzle at first. Turns out it’s because people in his exact age demographic working at the Federal level were *extremely* unusual; at the time someone that age would have been interning or a brand new hire, the Federal government made one of its biggest cuts to the Civil service in our lifetime, and of course it was that entire young age cohort who were the first to go. Anyone who was that age and survived the cuts pretty much had to be a Rock Star on arrival and have a LOT of people go to bat for them.

    4. JobConditions*

      Those of us with non-governmental employers had to learn to manage this starting in the 90s if not sooner…very sympathetic about DOGE and the ensuing chaos, but unexpected layoffs and extra work at the whims of who knows who and poor decisionmaking higher up is just normal life for most people. The difference I see is the indiscriminate choices made with no rhyme or reason (or maybe to deliberately cause cgais/danage). People learn to prioritize the workload or balls drop and their bosses either accept that or let them go; conversely workers either accept that or try again somewhere else. And job conditions change; you either accept the changes or leave.

      And yes, I know the balls that will be dropped are important, but it can’t be solved by fewer and fewer people constantly trying to take on more and more.

      1. Calanthea*

        The difference here is that the work that is being done is work that supports the structures and institutions that (literally) govern people’s lives.
        If I don’t send a reporting spreadsheet to my colleague before the end of the week, that’s annoying. If I don’t submit a tender on time, we lose out on some revenue.
        If someone isn’t able to process welfare payments, or review a regulatory document, or sign off on the safety of a new housing development, then people don’t have money to live on, products don’t get to market (or aren’t safe when they’re there) and houses don’t get built, or burn down and kill people. This work isn’t optional, it’s necessary for the function of society.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          I feel like if products don’t go to market or houses don’t get built, that is the kind of natural consequence that should happen rapidly so that it starts annoying the right people. Letting people in need go without support, or letting things be unsafe is much harder to just let happen.

          1. Sar*

            The issue is that the only people with power right now (ie the only ones whose annoyance would matter to the decisionmakers) are substantially more insulated from the death of government services by their money. At base, this is a plan that inherently and structurally works precisely because the decisionmakers only care about effects on rich people and everyone else can eff off. Good times in the USA.

            1. Emmy Noether*

              Yes, in the short term, absolutely (you’d think that consequences on the economy would also discourage the ultra rich, but apparently they’re set on trying the locust strategy on a whole country. Then they’ll presumably get out and far away).

              Medium term though, voters do count, and most of them aren’t rich enough to be insulated.

              1. DJ Abbott*

                The things I’ve been reading and watching are already talking about a backlash and a big win for Dems in 2026. If that happens Congress will either turn around, or go into stall mode and not do anything. So all that might be an improvement.

    5. OP #2*

      Working on a crisis schedule is something everyone at my agency expects to do from time to time, as crises happen. We are also getting augmentees from elsewhere in the agency to help, but this is a permanent employee whose spot is now possibly gone forever. Also, working long hours and being mission-critical right now is job security… we’re not going to say no to the thing that’s keeping us all in our jobs. Especially because my team is so junior (read: mostly probationary employees).

      1. Observer*

        we’re not going to say no to the thing that’s keeping us all in our jobs.

        I hear you loud and clear. Under other circumstances, I would say that this is exactly what Musk is going for. Except I think that that’s actually giving him too much credit for having some management acumen. And I don’t think he has any clue. He is not someone who learns from his mistakes (ie the disaster of what he’s done at X.)

    6. Sacred Ground*

      LW seems to think her agency is safe because it’s suddenly visible. That just means its destruction will be done quieter than the carnage elsewhere.

      Look at the above comment, LW. They are making it difficult if not impossible for you to continue doing your job, piling more work and not backfilling *senior* positions. They want you to drop balls and/or quit. They want your department to fail. They do not care how important you or anyone else thinks your work is.

      If it’s only your agency’s visibility that’s keeping it safe, then the gutting will be done quietly. But it will be gutted.

  26. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    OP1: There’s a part of being able to just say no without guilt that takes a LOT of work, and in some cases results in there needing to be some inventing justification for why the request itself was just wrong. This is not always a bad thing by the way, but like so much else of human interaction it really is situational and not generic.

    Speaking as someone who is disabled it can take a similar or greater amount of effort to ask for help – and we routinely worry that people think we’re taking the piss and annoying them. This goes triple if you’re overweight and asking for food.

    Trust me, a simple ‘sorry, I’m not going that way’ or ‘sorry mate I’m not the right person to ask’ is going to go down WAY better than you think.

  27. Honey cocoa*

    Op3 I’m so sorry. It may be helpful to others , who most likely very much want to help you,and to you if you can state the concrete examples you gave here: no unexpected touching (maybe just no touching) no approaching quietly from behind etc. some people need things spelled out – and you really don’t want anyone trying to swoop you into an unexpected hug. Again, I’m so sorry, take good care.

    1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

      When I returned to work after being assaulted I sent round a message via IT Department Word Of Mouth that nobody was to try and touch me and don’t approach me from behind without warning.

      My coworkers were very kind and considerate and even helped me get my desk moved so I had my back to a wall and not the rest of the office (this REALLY helps).

      The exec in charge of IT tried to hug me from behind. I nearly knocked his teeth out.

        1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

          No. Nor did he get in trouble for making highly inappropriate comments to any woman with a large chest.

          He did get fired a few years later for financial fraud.

  28. SBH*

    I’m an adjunct instructor teaching online, and I always say 11:59 PM Central Time. But I generally don’t count late if it’s within 30 minutes. I believe Canvas even allows you to set a buffer on “late” automatically. If the instructor wants you to stick with “midnight,” maybe you can communicate it to students in other communication. I do a weekly update email to my class. I give informal “helpful hints” based on common mistakes students in previous semesters have made.

    1. Delta Delta*

      I also do adjunct teaching. I always have my assignments due at 4:30 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. to simulate close of business as a time to get things done. It also helps to avoid the whole “what day is it really?” problem. If my students are upset by this they’ve never said anything..

      1. SBH*

        That’s a good game plan too. I know a lot of instructors who do that. I think most students can work with either, especially if everything is set out clearly on the syllabus and it’s uniform across the semester. It’s the predictability that matters to them.

        1. Academic Physics*

          I agree, so long as it’s consistent for the entire course I think that’s a great way to go. I have had students try to convince me that 4am is the best time for submissions though! They’re so funny.

  29. TerrorCotta*

    So LW5 is unfortunately familiar from the other side, and I highly doubt it’s technical problems. It certainly wasn’t for me! Perhaps the original LW might have been delicately suspecting that as well?

    I would absolutely tell people I never got their emails or texts, that “the server hates me” or that I (totally for real this time!) already sent them whatever I was supposed to send them. I’m still working to repair the professional damage from that time, and I still feel awful about it!

    How I was best managed was by firm, brief follow-ups. “Sorry we missed that, we do need [information/project] by [date]. Thanks.” Or “Didn’t see a response re: [appointment], let me know if that works or if you need more info.”

    Texts and phone calls would have caused even more “technical issues” from my anxiety-riddled, unmedicated, in denial keister.

    1. GERDQueen*

      About half of my health care providers are at a large community health center and, while I get great care, their lack of resources for IT is very clear. It’s something I’ve adjusted to: no messaging in the portal, no online scheduling, and many duplicate reminder emails/calls/text.

      Unfortunately, they also have a lot of trouble sorting physical mail. I’ve learned that I need to hand paperwork to the desk folks rather than mail things in, otherwise it can take a month or more to get to the right recipient in the right building.

      So…I spend a lot of time navigating the phone tree and playing phone tag.

  30. r..*

    LW4,

    being unambigious with deadlines in a way that survives cultural boundaries and timezones is very common in international business.

    On this matter, “Sunday at midnight” is already ambigious within a timezone and cultural context. Imagine how it’ll be for international students, or for students that may not be in the same timezone as you; you might not think that this will be relevant to you, but occasional distance/blended learning will be a fact of the future, and people will take advantage from this by participating from … all sorts of places. Consider a situation where some of your students are currently in the US, some are in Europe, and there’s this one person in Hong Kong or Tokio or whatever just to spice things up.

    Hence I would never use a squishy phrase like “Sunday at midnight” in business comms; that’s just asking to be unhappy because you didn’t think that “Sunday at midnight” might be understood differently by your business partner in Singapore than to you.

    We instead use concrete date and time with timezone, “Sunday, 9th of March 2025 23:59 EDT”, which is a nicer way to write than 2025-03-09 23:59 EDT, which is the more technical way to disambiguate month/day vs. day/month order in dates, but IME outside of fields like engineering this tends to confuse people.

    This way there’s no ambiguity in expectations.

    Alternatively, you might just use a tool to communicate deadlines, and refer students to check the schedule there; all major e-Learning or campus management platforms offer means and ways to communicate various deadlines, and in a way that is timezone aware and can present deadlines in a way (see month/day vs day/month) the user will expect.

    1. UTC*

      At a school it’s reasonable to expect times to be in the local timezone. Your scheme would be odd in that context, and likely cause more confusion than it solved.

      1. r..*

        If you positively know everyone will be in the local timezone, you can of course leave it out. That doesn’t change anything about the other aspects of “Sunday at midnight” being ambigious, though.

        However the statement “there is a timezone that unambigiously is the local timezone” can quickly turn into an assumption that can get you into trouble. Say you’re working at a university that offers some curricula purely on their own, and others as a joint degree program or another cooperation with another university, which happens to be in another timezone (or possibly be on another continent), and you are a lecturer in a course that is part of that program.

        Often, those programs tend to be some of the higher prestige programs of the university, and leadership might be keen on making sure there’s no avoidable nonsense going, like ambiguities about deadlines.

        One of the consequences of modern telecoms is that we increasingly live in a world where we need to check that this is actually the case here, instead of to simply assume that it always has been so and always will be.

        Or, again, just use a tool for this. Scheduling/calendaring/campus management tools have solved all of those issues a long time ago, they will transparently and unambigiously translate between timezones, and display in 12 or 24 hour clock depending on the user’s preferences.

      2. No Tribble At All*

        Nah, not for online school. Lots of grad programs are geared toward working professionals. We had someone literally deployed to Afghanistan in one of my classes when I was doing my master’s.

      3. Morgan*

        What confusion do you foresee “Sunday, 9th of March 2025 23:59 EDT” causing? Who would be confused by it and what would they confuse it with/for?

        Genuine question – I can understand it being surprising or unfamiliar, but I really can’t see where it’s open for confusion – it seems as close to totally unambiguous as is practical.

        1. Lynn Whitehat*

          I always think I can be clearer by adding more details. But I find a lot of people panic and freeze at the wall of text. In this case, it’s just a few extra words. But even that, I do find people are expecting to see a date and time, see all this “extra” stuff, and decide it’s all too complicated.

        2. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

          There are people who are confused by timezones and people who are confused by 24 hour time. There are people who keep saying things like “Eastern Standard Time” year-round when they mean “Eastern Time, daylight or standard as observed where I personally live” because they haven’t thought about what “standard” means or what the acronym they use stands for. Some people’s brains seem to just shut down when the time listed starts with a number bigger than 12 and throw a parse error without trying to understand it further, which I find baffling but have seen often enough to accept is a thing to be worked around if I want to be understood by a broad audience of Americans.

          Yes, there are specifications for all of these things. Whether or not that is enough depends on your audience and how much effort they are willing and able to put in to understanding you. (Also, some time zone abbreviations can stand for more than one time zone so you have to use context and/or include the UTC offset to figure out which “CDT” is meant. Wikipedia has a list of time zone abbreviations if you want a fun listventure.)

    2. ecnaseener*

      In your experience, do people consistently use EDT vs EST correctly? I see them mixed up all the time (and can never remember which one we’re in, myself) so I’ve switched to just writing ET or Eastern.

      1. mango chiffon*

        I don’t think it’s really consistent. I also just switch to “ET/Eastern” and hope that any googling of “what time is it right now in X” or time zone phone apps will get the right time of year. But I know that doesn’t necessarily help with some of the random places that don’t do Daylight Saving

        1. GERDQueen*

          Same: I just have extra clocks in a computer widget so I can quickly add each city if I need it.

      2. Hlao-roo*

        I mostly see people using EST all year long (incorrect from March – November) or people using ET or Eastern (or equivalents for other time zones). I occasionally see people who use EST and EDT (or equivalent) correctly.

      3. Curious*

        EDT is particularly important on March 9 2025, as that is the day that we change to daylight savings time.

  31. Gertrude*

    In fairness to LW#2’s HR section, it is very, very likely that they did not know that he had accepted the fork in the road when he was hired. Agencies were getting this information late and incomplete.

    1. All things considered, I'd rather be a dragon*

      THIS. The HR the LW was working with is agency-level. The “HR” that accepted the resignation is national-level. Does anyone here really believe the national-level is making any real effort to communicate downward?

  32. Purple Stapler*

    LW 1 – I’m going to treat this one like the former coworker who always wanted me to get her food when I was going out at lunch. No! Coworker always wanted food from a certain place. I never went there. She asked when she saw me leaving at lunch. I never said where I was going. Coworker was lazy and wanted people to cater to her. She never bothered to bring lunch.

    So for letter 1, my answer is no! I don’t care if the guy has joint issues. He should be bringing his own lunch if he can’t make it to the cafeteria under his own steam.

    1. NothingIsLittle*

      If other people are going to the cafeteria and happy to help, I don’t see anything wrong with him asking. OP hasn’t said she’s not willing to do this for him, how is he supposed to know he’s making her uncomfortable if she hasn’t told him that? You’re being really judgmental about a situation you have a very limited understanding of; I think you’re projecting here.

      1. Reading Rainbow*

        Seriously. I would bring this guy lunch regularly if I worked with him because it’s nice to be nice and I don’t see people asking me to do small favors as some sort of rude imposition that negatively impacts their moral character. If someone else doesn’t want to do it that’s fine, but they should also absolutely not be upset about the concept. Being unhappy to be asked at all is strange and unnecessary.

        A lot of insistence in the comments here that having someone else do something for you is inherently undesirable and negative. It actually does not matter at all. There is nothing virtuous in never relying on anyone else. You are not a better person for never asking anyone else around you to help you, and that attitude is really unfortunate. We all have to share the world and look out for one another.

    2. Dahlia*

      I think it’s really inappropriate to be trying to instruct this coworker on how to eat. “He should be bringing his own lunch” is something he knows whether it works for him or not.

      LW is free to say no, but judgement on how the coworker eats is unnecessary, period.

      1. Yikes*

        If the coworker was just doing his own thing, I would agree, but given that he seems to require the assistance of other people… Maybe I’m the bad person, but I’d judge. If it was once in a while, or he had a backup, I wouldn’t, but constantly needing other people to do the work for you…?

  33. r..*

    LW2,

    your employee clearly chose to minimize his own financial risk at the expense of significant inconvenience for the employer, the US government.

    Given the current political context in the US, and current actions of the US government, I cannot really blame him for this.

    I understand that you, and many people in your leadership chain, are personally blameless in this, but this simply is the cost a business incurs by adopting the labor relation practices the current US administration has chosen to adopt. You’re stuck with dealing with the (frankly entirely forseeable) fallout from a top-level management decision, and this may feel unfair, or that you are being screwed over.

    If that is so, the blame really belongs with the people that made this particular set of management decisions, not with people, like either you *or* your soon-to-be-former employee that have to deal with the fallout.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, unless they don’t really need their salary or benefits, they should absolutely prioritise their own interests and well-being. Without guilt.
      (and if they don’t need them then why stay in a toxic environment at the mercy of every mad order puked down from on high)

    2. Bonkers*

      Amen! Federal employment has gone from steady and reliable to the Wild West. I can’t blame anyone for looking after their own interests in this climate.

  34. Name*

    LW 4 – I’m in grad school doing an online program and all deadlines are 11:59 pm on the respective day it’s due. You may find that some software programs (i.e. Canvas, PowerSchool, Blackboard) will mark anything turned in after 12:00 am (aka midnight) as late.

  35. Hawkwind80*

    #4, for what it’s worth, my college has 11:59 pm as a standard time for deadlines for students, and we phrase it as “end of day” rather than “midnight.” We also make sure we specify time zone for the deadline since we do have lots of online students who are not necessarily in the same time zone.

    1. Chad H*

      End of day can be ambious though. The end of the general business day? The end of opening hours? The end of my shift?

      1. A. Lab Rabbit*

        They’re college students. They’re not thinking about the business day (and Saturday and Sunday aren’t business days anyway), they’re not doing shift work for the instructor, and colleges don’t have opening hours. They’ll understand it means the end of the 24-hour period we typically describe as a day.

      2. Hawkwind80*

        We say end of day and clarity what time that means. It’s not being left open to interpretation.

    2. Nodramalama*

      End of the day isn’t good. That could mean anywhere between 4.30pm to 11.59 pm. It should be a specific time.

  36. Anonwithknees*

    2 comments:

    #1 – I’m a plus size person, due in part to an injury that was never addressed. I recently injured my other leg, and now I can’t even stand up without pain. At work, my job is mostly done at a desk, but it requires routinely getting up to get things/put things away. For the last several weeks, I’ve had to depend on the good graces of my coworkers to help me out. It’s humiliating, but I have many coworkers who are gracious and eager to help. I also have some who are not, and I learned really quickly not to ask them for help. Declining to help shouldn’t really impact the relationship if your coworker has any sense of professionalism. It sounds like he’d rather not ask too.

    #4 – Please stand your ground with Sunday at 11:59pm! As a student this always bothered me too and caused undue attention to be placed on the deadline rather than the assignment (such as checking multiple times to make sure I understood what the deadline was). People prefer midnight because it’s easier to say, but the consideration should be placed on what’s easier to understand. If necessary, you might frame it as course design accessibility. Just like using a sans serif font is better for people with dyslexia, being clear about the deadline is better for neurodivergent students or others who take things literally. And it causes no harm to anyone else.

  37. Bookworm*

    LW3: I’m sorry and I also add to Alison’s answer and wish you healing. Please take care of yourself.

  38. Apex Mountain*

    With everything going on in the federal gov’t now, it seems misguided to blame the employee in #2. I’m sure it’s incredibly inconvenient but people have to look out for themselves and their futures right now.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      I guess where I’m unclear is, did this person know that when they accepted the offer (possibly not knowing if it were real or would actually happen), and then applied for a different federal job afterward, and interviewed for that different job, and accepted that different job, that the previously submitted resignation would apply to this job too?
      Like, if the person were laid off or about to be laid off, and starting applying for not-cut jobs, then I understand applying for and starting the new job. If they thought they were about to be laid off, makes sense too. Accepting the “fork” offer, if you think it might not be real – as in, you leave but they don’t actually pay you – which is still a pretty dang likely thing, and then taking this job, and then leaving because they processed the resignation of the old one…isn’t actually looking out for yourself. That employee is now going to have to hope the funding goes through for this BS Elon put out there, and it’s very probable it’s not going to be. So in a few months that person may have neither job. Which is still their own error, and not really something to be outraged about. I buy the argument the person may have thought they were looking out for themselves, but the whole thing is still kinda weird, intentional bridge burnt or not.

  39. Unambiguous*

    I’m with you on the 11:59 thing, and I have seen many places (like conference proposal deadlines, summer program deadlines), switch to that in recent years. In the future when you are in charge of something, please feel free to go with the 11:59. :)

  40. Chad H*

    I wonder if its possible to split the baby on the deadline question

    “The deadline for this assignment is Midnight on Sunday. This means it should be submitted no later than 11:59pm on Sunday” (you could add “00:01 Monday is late” but that might be too agressive)

  43. A*

    3: I am very sorry you are a twice a victim of such tragic and traumatic events.

    I would advise you to be as specific as possible when you ask your staff how to approach you. For example:

    Do say: please say my name and identify yourself when you need to get my attention, especially if you are walking up behind me.

    Do not say: please be careful when you approach me.

    Good intentioned and sympathetic people might not know what “be careful” specifically means for you and in an effort to not trigger you they just don’t talk to you at all. This is not a sustainable dynamic between boss and employee.

    I think your employees probably want to make work as safe as possible for you but they, through no fault of their own, need specific guidelines on how to do that.

  44. A Tired Federal HR Manager*

    I’d like to defend the federal government writer’s HR team. In many cases, OPM didn’t provide the names of those who had accepted the resignation option until just a few days ago. Because of this, HR likely had no way of informing you that the person had taken the “fork in the road” email simply because they themselves didn’t know. This wasn’t due to extreme incompetence or deliberate oversight—it was a consequence of the broader chaos currently gripping the federal government. Even if your team hasn’t been directly impacted, you’re now feeling the ripple effects like in this case.

    I also wouldn’t place blame on the new hire. It’s possible they doubted the offer was real, weren’t sure they’d actually get the job, or assumed that—like much of the government—your team would ultimately face a hiring freeze.

    I completely understand your frustration. But as federal employees, let’s extend each other some grace as we all do our best to stay afloat in these uncertain, chaotic times.

  45. Stef*

    I really appreciate your answer to number 1. I think more often than we admit, people’s perception of other’s “rudeness” is just their own inability to say no. People should be able to ask for things, and people should be able to say no.

    1. Tradd*

      Should people be made to feel guilty for saying no to constant requests from disabled individuals? That’s sort of the vibe I’m getting from other comments.

      1. Coffee Protein Drink*

        I don’t think LW should feel guilty about saying no, but that can be hard to learn if you were brought up to think setting boundaries is selfish and wrong.

    2. A*

      I think the LW can’t really do anything besides politely say no.

      If the co-worker wrote in, though, I would not advise them to keep asking for this favor under the concept that other people can say no. I would advise him to find a solution to getting something to eat that doesn’t involve his co-workers running errands for him.

      If this is an open ended issue (ie: he has long term mobility issues, not he is on crutches) then it isn’t really a feasible solution that his co-workers meet his needs.

      If I was the manager, I would probably look into options for delivery from the cafeteria.

      1. Emily Byrd Starr*

        “ If I was the manager, I would probably look into options for delivery from the cafeteria”

        Finally someone said the obvious solution!

  46. RIP Pillowfort*

    I’ve read over the letter a few times and as a fat person (and caregiver to family members with mobility issues both skinny and fat) I think Alison did the right thing not commenting on it. It’s not great OP brought it all up but it is ultimately not relevant to the answer.

    If she doesn’t want to help- she needs to say no and live with it. You’re not being mean by not doing something optional. You don’t have an obligation to this coworker. I say that as someone that struggles with saying no to requests. Although I wouldn’t describe myself as a people pleaser. More of an ADHD gremlin that gets the rare dopamine rush from doing things for people that help them or give them happiness.

  47. Purely Allegorical*

    LW #2 — Like many others in the comments, I have to defend your HR. They were not likely told who took the Fork In The Road options until the last second. Everything is chaos in the federal space right now and agency leadership/HR are just as baffled as everyone else and trying to keep up with the ever-changing mandates.

    I also have some sympathy for your colleague who took the option, because of The Chaos. He’s gotta do what’s best for himself. (Though I do side-eye anyone who thought it was a real offer, and I do wish he had proactively told you all that it could impact him at some point.) He probably had no idea that him taking the offer means that you cannot backfill his billet.

  48. Nodramalama*

    LW1 you are absolutely not obliged to get your co-worker’s lunch every day. But I’d have a look at why you included some of the details in the letter and sit with whether you’re actually just annoyed because it’s an inconvenience or if there’s some judgment happening.

  49. Hyaline*

    FWIW re: turning stuff in at midnight: if students are turning things in at midnight or 11:59 PM or anytime outside of regular business hours I assume they’re doing so via an online system. And in that case, you’re setting the exact time that it is due in the assignment itself in the system. In most systems, the last time available on the menu is 11:58. So there’s really no ambiguity as to when the assignment itself is due , and, believe me, students are paying more attention to their Canvas checklist then they are to anything you say in class.

  50. AnonRN*

    Night shifter here: The calendar changes at 0000, so 2359 is March 2nd and 0000 is March 3rd. However, colloquially most people think of the day as ending at bedtime and beginning when they wake up. My co-workers and I…who all work night shift and should be used to this by now… run into this all the time: “the patient is going to surgery tomorrow. Oh, wait, today! No, wait, tomorrow-tomorrow!” “last night…I mean Monday night…the patient didn’t sleep well, but last night (Tuesday night) they slept for 6 hours.” etc…

    My point is that language (even when we think we’re being precise) is context-based for the speaker *and* the listener, and numbers are the way to go here! (No, I’ve never actually taken someone to surgery on the wrong day, but I have re-checked a lot of orders!)

    1. bamcheeks*

      I always have this trying to work out how many nights I stayed in hospital after my daughters were born. “So the day after she was born — wait, technically it was the same day, but it had been night in-between, so I’d sort of slept, but not really– so yeah, that would still have been the Monday — and then, uh”

  51. Blue Pen*

    #1 — I agree with the comments above how judgmental and fat-shaming this letter comes across, so I won’t pile onto that.

    That said, since your coworker has mobility issues, I’m wondering if your work cafeteria offers (or would offer) any kind of food service delivery for them?

  52. Sportsball*

    I can definitely understand being annoyed at the fork in the road employee (it’s a human reaction) but given the insanity of the overall situation, I think the LW needs to lay their ire at the feet of the people who actually caused the underlying problem. I’m not naming those people because it’ll just bring out more trolls. But they’re 2 fail sons with terrible fathers who themselves have become terrible fathers (and husbands, and business men) if anyone is somehow still confused. I wish I had concrete advice but: yeah the situation sucks and we’ll all be likely to make it to the other side of 2025 alive :-/

  53. Apex Mountain*

    “All of this would fall under “not cool, but I guess we’ll just deal with it”

    #2, this should still be your attitude

    1. OP #2*

      I mean, it still is. I can’t do anything about it. I’m not going to treat the employee unprofessionally, or frankly any differently, during his few remaining days. At this point there’s so much chaos going on that the only way to get through right now is just to put my head down and try to get my work done. Unfortunately this just means my junior employees have to wait even longer for real backup as we try to get other options sorted out.

      1. Apex Mountain*

        Yeah… just sounds like a shitty situation all around. So sorry this is what is happening

      2. Ellie*

        It really comes down to your organisation though – they should not be offering this to people in overloaded areas like yours. That’s not your new co-workers fault, or yours.

        Personally, I’d be dialling back your hours, and advising others to do the same.

  54. ReallyBadPerson*

    LW1’s dilemma reminded me of one I faced years ago when I was running errands on my lunch hour and a colleague asked me to buy cigarettes for him. I felt weird about enabling someone’s unhealthy habit, but in the end, I just bought them. My reasoning was that most of us have vices and guilty pleasures, and just because the consequences are more obvious for some people doesn’t mean those people are less virtuous.

    1. Notmorningperson*

      Yes, I think it’s the apparent enabling that is partly what’s bugging the OP. I say apparent because many commenters have pointed out that food may not be causing the problems.

  55. HonorBox*

    OP1 – I’m going to go against the grain a bit here and give you more of a pass regarding the comments about weight and food choices. Why? Because I’ve been in your shoes in different situations. I’ve found that when I’m trying to say no to someone, I’ll work through the “reasons” why I should be able to say no and come up with more “reasons” than necessary. Maybe I just don’t want to go to a special event. I don’t need to tell someone all the reasons I might not be able to. I can just say no. So I’m reading your letter as though you’re providing those details to us, but also using them to convince yourself that it is ok to say no. And it is ok to say no. If no one is going to the cafeteria, no one HAS to make a special trip for this coworker. Similarly, if no one is running to the corner bodega midafternoon, no one has to make a special trip to grab a coworker a Diet Coke. It is OK to just say no.

  56. Jojo*

    LW4, I feel this so much. I am very literal and very much an on time person. (I get it from my dad, who had the nickname “clock” because you could set a clock based on his routines.) I don’t know if this will help, but I tend to think of things like this as the colloquial meaning. The colloquial meaning of “Sunday at Midnight” is understood to mean “11:59 pm on Sunday” by the vast majority of people. It helps. But do not get me started on what Bi-weekly means.

  57. Plants*

    No 4: I missed a job application deadline because it was written in a vague way like this!

  58. L*

    LW 1, you’re under no obligation to get your co-worker food, especially if doing so takes you out of your way, but I would be really careful about assuming that when someone who is overweight has mobility issues, the mobility issues are caused by the weight and not vice versa. You know what’s really hard to do when it hurts to move? Exercise to lose weight. Make sure, if you’re refusing his request, that it’s about the inconvenience, not about judging his weight or food choices.

  59. Phony Genius*

    On #4, when I was in school, my professors avoided this situation by making papers due on a scheduled class day, at the end of class. Of course, this was before electronic submission existed.

  60. Dr. Rebecca*

    I set all my due dates to 5pm. No ambiguity, and the expectation is that I do not anticipate or want you to be pulling all nighters–if you do, that’s on you, but it’s not going to be anywhere in my course language.

  61. Not A Manager*

    LW2 – You were set up by the other person’s department and possibly HR. He didn’t want to leave his original department understaffed, so he was foisted on you with (someone’s) full knowledge that the loss would be absorbed by your department and not his original one.

    1. DramaQ*

      That’s what I was thinking when I read the letter. If that is the caes I can’t really blame the employee’s old department either for leveraging the situation as best they could for themselves. It’s the wild wild west out there for federal and state employees.

      Any other time I’d agree that this was lousy and it is from a normal job situation stand point.

      None of this is normal though. The rules that used to govern employment no longer apply.

      The employee is an easy target to focus on because he is the one with the least power. Yeah he accepted position and continued with the resignation which isn’t cool but it was his department, the LWs department and HR that really screwed the pooch.

      Then it’s the president and Emperor Musk who set it all in motion.

    2. Parenthesis Guy*

      It’s highly unlikely that his original department is going to be able to hire a replacement in this environment unless they’re doing something really really crucial.

    3. A Tired Federal HR Manager*

      This take would make a great movie or new story, but it’s probably not accurate. Working in federal government right now, HR more than likely did not know until a few days before the new employee got his fork contract, and his old office probably did not know either.

      I’d also like to add, that most of the federal government is being dramatically downsized even if the work they do is important or related to National Security/Immigration, so it’s very likely that no matter what the LW’s office and the employee’s old office are going to be downsized.

    4. OP #2*

      I do wonder about this. As it stands, as far as I can tell, his previous unit will be able to hire a replacement and we will not. I don’t have any clear idea whether that was a motivation or not, though. I don’t think it was an organizational motivation, as I don’t think they were aware he was job searching.

  62. Delta Delta*

    #1 – ‘I don’t know him very well and he is not a “work friend.”’ Pretty sure the coworker isn’t necessarily interested in being OP’s “work friend,” either, based on the tone of this whole question.

  63. JudyM*

    Medical admin here. I’d bet 99% of the communication issues are due to a patient portal. Example – Patient Writes: Doctor, I’m having problems! Doctor Forwards/Writes to Me: Find out what’s wrong/if she’d like to come in. I write to Patient: Tell us more and/or would you like to come in tomorrow at 10am? Somehow your response will get sent to the doctor, not me, and I wonder why you never responded (and the doctor either assumes I got your response or is too busy to forward to me). Then you get upset that you never heard back from me about wanting to come in tomorrow at 10am. All sorts of variations of this scenario occur frequently. Her and your responses are probably stuck in limbo (admin/nurse) with everyone assuming everyone saw everything. Not.

    1. Hearsay*

      This sounds quite accurate! My boss is promoting our portal and it can get confusing when he forwards the questions to us. usually a phone call would resolve it but he is adamant about using the portal for the opportunities he can directly message the patients.

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

    I just read #1 and had to come to the comments before reading the remaining letters. I really dislike how you describe your coworker. You have no idea if his mobility issues are caused by his weight. He could have mobility issues for another reason and because he is unable to move or exercise then he gains weight. Even on a healthy diet people who cannot move their bodies much will gain weight. It’s a vicious cycle.
    You seem really irritated by him asking for help? If he was not fat and say, on crutches, would you still feel the same way. It seems like you think he is lazy or something.
    You also seem to be harboring on the fact that the food he chooses is junk food. Maybe he has food issues and those are his safe food?
    Please just be polite, tell him you don’t use the cafeteria and go about your day. And I highly suggest you take a look at why you feel the way you do.

    1. Apex Mountain*

      I think you’re being too harsh – LW 1 has been helping this person out the whole time and is just looking for a way to politely decline.

      The other things you mentioned aren’t really relevant to whether they need to get the colleagues’ food or not.

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

        The OP did not need to say that they are overweight or comment on their food choices or saying that the coworker sits all day or that their overweightness is why they cannot move without pain. This reads to me that the OP is judging them.
        I have re-written the letter to leave out anything about the coworker being fat and the question is the same.
        The OP Could have left out their attitude about working with a fat person and said:
        “I have a coworker who does not leave his desk. He seems to be disabled and in pain. He asks me or other colleagues to grab meals for him at the cafeteria almost daily. He gives people money for his food and is very aplogetic and appreciative.
        Most people, including myself, bring packed meals and rarely eat in the cafeteria. It’s very awkward being put on the spot, especially since everyone is polite and usually willing to help anyone. I’m a classic “people pleaser”, which is something I really need to work on. My work crosses paths occasionally with this colleague so I don’t want any bad blood impacting my interactions with him. I don’t know him very well and he is not a “work friend.” Even if he were, it is still an uncomfortable situation. How can I tactfully tell him that I can’t get his meals for him.

      2. Leenie*

        I think the problem is that LW is looking for a way to *justify* declining, when no justification is needed. All of the details about weight and diet are in there to argue that the coworker isn’t really deserving of help, so the LW can feel better about declining. But really, there’s no problem with the LW declining this regular request, regardless of the specifics. And the details that she included to support her case ironically make her sound kind of awful. She’s been getting food for this guy all along, so I don’t think she’s really awful. But she needs to accept that she’s allowed to say no without building some case around it.

  65. HistoryBoots*

    LW4, you’ve given me something more to be paranoid about. I’m a native English speaker and I had never ever even considered that “Sunday at midnight” could mean anything but late Sunday evening, a minute after 11:59pm! I had never thought that some people may interpret it literally as being 24 hours before that. I suppose I’d only ever encountered the colloquial sense, not the literal sense. I’m fairly precise in my language when it comes to deadlines so this is something I’ll be mindful of going forward.

  66. Dinwar*

    “The professor, however, said that I should keep the “Sunday at midnight” vernacular because it’s industry standard (not just in our field, but in others).”

    Absolutely.

    One of the things you’re teaching students is professional norms. And in a lot of businesses, deadlines are deadlines. If one of my proposals is due Friday at 5 pm, and I hand it in at 5:01, it’s late and will go immediately into the trash bin. This is for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with fairness to all potential bidders–if you give me extra time it gives me an unfair advantage, and while one minute may not seem like much, it’s really common for such things to grow until suddenly you’re accepting things three days later for some people than for others. It’s not just industry, either; imagine a doctor who couldn’t give medicines on time, or an accountant who can’t submit tax info on time! Missed deadlines can have very serious consequences once you get out of school, including jail time.

    There are also standard ways to deal with confusion as well. “Sunday at 12:00” means Sunday at midnight, and anyone smart enough to figure out it could mean Saturday at midnight is also smart enough to know it’s not Saturday at midnight. Still, if someone is genuinely confused they can ask for clarification. In most professional setting this is perfectly fine–for example, I do site walks regularly and part of it is planning to spend the next day dealing with questions from the contractors. Industry standard (again, to ensure fairness) is to compile the questions and provide everyone both the questions and answers.

    Obviously students aren’t professionals, and leeway must be allowed for this–for example, a student that has a family issue can be granted extra time. You want to strive for equity, not equality. (Outside of school equality is the important thing; it prevents the sort of favor-peddling and corruption that used to be rampant.) But in general you want to be teaching kids these things, because they are important life lessons.

    1. Lady Lessa*

      If you were to write, Sunday at 12:00, I wouldn’t know whether you meant noon or midnight.
      I would probably figure it out from context, like meeting friends would be noon. etc.

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

        To avoid confusion they should just use 24 hour time (aka military time).

      2. Dinwar*

        I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this. If you’re doing college work and the difference between “Sunday at 12 am” and “Sunday at 12 pm” is significant, and you’re too lazy to request clarification, the issue isn’t the ambiguity in the terminology. The issue is procrastination on your part. College assignments are generally given out well in advance, and a reasonably well-organized student should be able to get their assignments turned in Friday or Saturday, before the partying. And if you fail to do so, well, it’s better to learn that life lesson in a university setting where the stakes are remarkably low, rather than at work where you just cost the company a multi-million dollar contract and got an entire team laid off.

        That said, most of the time the assignments I’ve seen with deadlines have been things like 5 pm, or “start of class”, or “end of class”. If the professor is seeing a lot of people confused by the timing (and I still think some of this confusion is manufactured), they can just adjust the time. Not responsible enough to handle “Sunday at midnight”? Cool. Friday at 5 pm it is.

        1. Apex Mountain*

          If the stakes are a multimillion dollar contract and a team being laid off, I would hope that whatever method the time was written would be 100% crystal clear with no confusion. You can already see through these comments that this isn’t the case here

        2. Isben Takes Tea*

          This perspective makes sense only if you assume the confusion is actually confusion and not competing assumptions. If you grew up or worked in a context where “Sunday at midnight” always meant “Sunday at 11:59pm”, you’re not going to stop and think “Did this person in this other context mean 11:59pm on Sunday or Saturday? I should get clarification!” You’re going to think it’s clearly Sunday, and you would be reasonable for doing so.

          I agree that once the deadline is clear the expectation is to get it in on time, but putting the onus of clarification on the recipient when the phrasing is largely accepted as ambiguous is harsh. It takes so little effort to be extra clear when laying out expectations; if your goal is student success, why not take the extra small step?

          (Also, I know plenty of extremely hard-working college students who turned things in at the deadline because of their workloads, not their partying.)

    2. June*

      I get what you mean about teaching professional norms but I’ve had some professors think that Sunday midnight (and Sunday 12:00 am) means Saturday night into Sunday morning and some who think it means Sunday night into Monday morning. It gets confusing trying to remember which professor has which meaning of midnight. Saying 11:59 pm is more clear and everyone can agree on what day the deadline is.

      If the assignment is an electronic submission, the computer will say Sunday 12:00 am is the end of Saturday night (and beginning of Sunday morning).

    3. fhqwhgads*

      Sunday at midnight has one actual definition, and one common misunderstanding. But you’re saying absolutely it’s industry standard vernacular, deadlines are deadlines, so use an ambiguous term because it’s standard to be ambiguous and guess whether the deadline setter knows the actual definition of the term or not?
      Even your example seems to misunderstand the terms:
      “There are also standard ways to deal with confusion as well. “Sunday at 12:00” means Sunday at midnight, and anyone smart enough to figure out it could mean Saturday at midnight is also smart enough to know it’s not Saturday at midnight.”
      If the professor’s intention is you have alllllll the way til the end of Sunday, then the prof is saying “Sunday at midnight” but meaning “Monday at midnight”. Because a submission at 23:59:59 on Sunday is on time, and a submission at 00:00:01 on Monday is late.
      If they thought “Sunday at midnight” meant “Saturday at midnight” that suggests they think 23:59:59 on Friday is on time, and 00:00:01 on Saturday is late. I don’t see how anyone could interpret “Sunday at midnight” to mean that.
      So it’s a little puzzling you threw in the “smart enough to know” bit while seemingly being incorrect yourself.

      1. Dinwar*

        “…so use an ambiguous term because it’s standard to be ambiguous…”

        It’s not ambiguous in the context I’m stating, is my point. It becomes ambiguous due to errors on your part. Either you’re applying inappropriate contexts to this, or you’re intentionally looking for ambiguity. (I’m inclined to the latter belief, to be frank.)

        And again, if you genuinely are confused (I find the idea that college students will think “Sunday at midnight” means Saturday night absurd, that’s not how standard English in the USA at least works and not how college students I’ve known have ever thought), you can ask. Professors will clarify, and it teaches good professional norms. Ambiguity is inevitable in negotiations–we all see things slightly differently–and clarifying ambiguity helps protect your company and yourself.

        If you’re too poorly organized to get your work done early enough that the precise deadline isn’t a huge problem, and are too lazy to request clarification, there’s not much anyone can do to help you. You’ve got bigger problems than misunderstanding a deadline.

        1. June*

          I had one professor who meant by the end of Saturday night when she set the online exam deadline on Sunday at midnight. The exam was unable to be taken on Sunday morning. I heard of others who agreed with this professor.

        2. Leenie*

          It’s a little odd to me that you’re pressing that all work should be done well in advance of the deadline, when deadlines are actually standard a way that busy professionals prioritize their schedules. In my experience, it’s quite normal and acceptable for someone to be completing a project right before it’s due. If you have a packed work-week, you’re not going to be getting something done days in advance. And it you have a packed class schedule, it’s perfectly fine to be finishing the project up on that last before it’s due.

        3. fhqwhgads*

          The definition of midnight is not context dependent is what I’m saying! I’m not confused, but you seem to be. You’re insisting that “midnight on Sunday” does mean 23:59:59 on Sunday, or at minimum that “standard English in the USA” means that. It doesn’t.
          And I don’t know why you keep framing things as “you’re too poorly organized” blah blah blah. A) we’re not talking about anyone running up against the literal deadline. B) Perhaps you mean the generic “you” but seem to be repeatedly insulting my intelligence? C) You keep repeatedly saying “just ask for clarification” when the whole point is there’s a way to phrase this that would not require ANYONE to ask for clarification, so why insist on the phrasing that does?
          Of course ambiguity happens in real life, and of course asking for clarification is appropriate, but it’s absurd to me you’re insisting that use an unambiguous phrase in the first place is somehow a ridiculous suggestion? The whole “too disorganized” thing you keep pushing is a straw man. Why are you doubling down on the idea that using a more clear phrase when one exists is somehow bad?

    4. Somehow I Manage*

      “Sunday at 12:00 means Sunday at midnight and anyone smart enough to figure out it could mean Saturday at midnight is also smart enough to know it’s not Saturday at midnight.”

      This is confusing and makes some real large assumptions. First, Sunday at 12:00 could mean noon just as easily as midnight. Second, just because I know it could mean Saturday at midnight doesn’t mean I know it doesn’t mean Saturday at midnight. If I know it could mean Saturday, I’m not making an assumption that of course it doesn’t mean that. Like you said, deadlines have consequences. No one can make the assumption that of course it doesn’t mean Saturday at midnight.

      Yes, students have opportunity to ask questions. But why not reduce the number of questions you’re going to get, simply by giving instructions that are clearer the first time.

      1. Dinwar*

        “First, Sunday at 12:00 could mean noon just as easily as midnight.”

        The problem here is that you’re not reading with the intent to understand, and are stripping the quoted text out of context. The entire conversation has been “What does midnight mean?” If you think a person chiming in on this conversation is talking about noon……well, I’m not sure what to say. Honestly, in any professional setting I would assume anyone doing this is trolling me and intentionally being a jerk to get a laugh. Not an unusual thing to have happen–I work a construction-adjacent job, and you get this type of humor pretty frequently. I’d respond “Sure, I’ll move the deadline to noon”; I can play that game too! (And then we’d all laugh and everyone would accept that in a conversation about being due at midnight 12:00 means midnight, and we’d all move on.)

        “But why not reduce the number of questions you’re going to get, simply by giving instructions that are clearer the first time.”

        Have you seen writing that’s designed to remove all possible ambiguity? Read a law sometime–and bear in mind that they still fail to account for all variability. Or read a scientific publication sometime. THAT is what you’re advocating for here.

        If you want people to talk like lawyers or research papers all the time, well, I suppose that’s one option. I’ve met enough people online who think that every statement can be treated the way a legal brief can. But we’ll sacrifice everything that makes English beautiful. English is an inherently poetic language–see Chesterton on this–full of approximations, allusions, metaphors, and yes, vagueness. This isn’t necessarily a flaw; it’s what allows English to be so versatile, in fact. By stripping the poetic aspects you necessarily strip English of its versatility and flexibility.

        Further, who’s standards are we supposed to use? If I’m a professor with multiple 300 person lectures, that can be well over a thousand individuals I have to deal with. And what’s clear to one person can be ambiguous to another. Look at any relationship advice blog to see innumerable examples of this. Or look at this blog and look at the number of miscommunications get discussed. The reality is professors will default to “It’s clear to most people” (and let’s be frank, “Sunday at midnight” is going to be taken as Sunday night by 99% or more of the population).

        Further, if you really, genuinely can’t figure out if the professor means noon or midnight, default to turning it in at noon. It’s not a bad thing to turn it in early, after all. A college student has a certain amount of responsibility for their own academic success–we’re not talking third graders here! My second year in my university I was running some fairly dangerous analytical equipment that could have easily killed everyone in my building, and assisting with an international research program impacting a treaty negotiation; we can assume college students are adults and can be treated as such.

        Finally, if you’re relying solely on the professor’s words you’ve already demonstrated gross negligence or incompetence. Every class is required to have a syllabus, and the due dates will be spelled out there. I’ve spoken with professors that have students manufacture this sort of uncertainty, in attempts to get deadlines shifted. It creates nothing but frustration on the part of the professor–because these students never put as much work into the actual work as they do to weaseling out of work, and because they never do the basic task of reading the syllabus. If a student isn’t willing to read the documentation, I’m at a loss for why the professor should be bothered to attempt to remove all possible ambiguity–the student has already demonstrated that they are unwilling to read the information the professor provides, meaning that any attempt to remove ambiguity will simply be ignored.

  67. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    #1 Many people who struggle to refuse a favour feel they have to justify this decision because otherwise they would feel mean.
    So they have to convince themselves that the other person is undeserving of this favour. Hence they have to criticise that person’s perceived life decisions, “vices” and character – that would not otherwise concern them.

    Much kinder to you & those around you to train yourself to give polite but firm refusals, if necessary practising before you are asked next time, e.g. in this case:
    “Sorry but I can’t collect your lunch any more because I’ve found I need my full lunch break for my own errands. Also I really need time to chill quietly before starting work again.”

  68. Parenthesis Guy*

    #2: Completely on team employee here. This situation is a complete mess and he had no idea how it was going to turn out. If you put people in a situation where they know there are going to be mass firings, then they’re going to do what’s best for them.

    I feel like you’re less upset about the employee ditching you and more upset that your team has to work crazy hours and is getting crushed.

    I disagree that there’s nothing you can do about your situation. You can have your team stop working 12 hour days and priortize what you can get done in 8 hours. In this environment, where feds can be fired at any time, killing yourself to do tasks that may be depriortized is a bad strategy. What are they going to do, after all, fire you?

    1. OP #2*

      All of my team’s top performers are probationary employees. Right now, we can justify their jobs as “mission-critical.” If we start failing the mission, then yes, they CAN fire them.

      We are taking crisis hours as job security right now. Crisis work is an expected part of the job when world events warrant it, and provides promotion and monetary award opportunities for employees. (This is not an illusory promise, this has tangible payouts.) I am not complaining about the long hours per se, but having an additional experienced employee come help the juniors with their workload complexity would have been a real help.

    2. Observer*

      What are they going to do, after all, fire you?

      Yes. Considering how many people they have already fired who should not have been fired, they will most definitely do that. And then *maybe* they will try to rehire, but that doesn’t always go so well.

  69. Jebediah Hambone*

    I’m rather bothered by how many people are piling on LW #1 for saying that they are assuming their coworker’s mobility issues are caused by his weight.

    For all we know, this is information that the coworker has revealed to his coworkers, or to whomever he has been asking to get food for him.

    Assuming that LW #1 is making an assumption is an assumption in and of itself. Letter writers are under no obligation to provide every detail of every conversation that has ever occurred.

    Glass houses, and all that.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      It doesn’t really matter, either way though. If OP1 included that thinking if they didn’t people would be like “how dare you deny this person nourishment!” so they wanted to include “btw, it’s junk, not real food” to stave that off…well now they see the other side of letters that have details to try to prevent the comments focusing on some detail, and now they’re focusing on some other detail.
      Point being: regardless of WHY the person can’t/doesn’t get their own food, and regardless of WHAT the food is, the advice is the same: you weren’t going to the caf anyway, you brought lunch, so when asked to go get someone else lunch in the caf, say “no I’m not going down there”.

    2. Workerbee*

      I said this in a comment above – the letter would then have just been: “Coworker with mobility issues asks me to grab lunch for him almost daily, but this is going out of my way/cuts into my own lunchtime/I just don’t want to do this anymore. How do I handle this tactfully?”

      No need to mention perceived cause of mobility issues, nor the food this person chooses to eat.

  70. Ann O'Nemity*

    The frustration of LW #2 is completely understandable. The new employee’s decision—while it may have been in their personal best interest—had significant negative consequences for the team.

    One way to help smooth things over would be for the new employee to express sincere regret about the outcome and offer an explanation for why they accepted the new role despite their pending resignation. However, if they are indifferent or dismissive about the impact of their decision, the bridge is burned.

  71. bighairnoheart*

    OP#3, I’m so incredibly sorry that this happened to you. I was dealing with a similar situation last year–I was attacked by a stranger while I was jogging on a public trail, was ultimately able to fend him off, but it was very traumatic even so. I also needed to tell a few people at work for logistical reasons and wasn’t sure how to approach it. My manager needed to know a little because she was new to the organization (having only been hired a month ago) and I really wanted to give her some context because she wasn’t familiar enough with me to know if any behavior/productivity changes were uncharacteristic for me or representative of my overall work ethic. I also told two coworkers I trusted because I wanted someone to accompany me to and from our parking garage for the first week or two I was in the office (for some reason, the garage really freaked me out).

    Ultimately, I settled on something close to what Alison suggested, although modified for my situation. I told them that I was attacked while out running, the worst didn’t come to pass, but I was still shaken up about it and physically recovering after a trip to the ER and a few days off work. Then I told my manager I’d probably be “off” for a while, and I needed an extra hand at an upcoming work event I was putting together, because it would involve a large group of people and I anticipated needing to step out occasionally to collect my breath. She offered to do that herself, and it definitely helped. For my coworkers, I asked for their help getting from my car to the building in the morning and back around in the evening, which they were both happy to do.

    If I were you, I’d focus on the most important things:
    1) Covering the basics to help those who haven’t already heard about it the the situation without getting into details.
    2) Tell people what you need from them so they can feel empowered to help and you can benefit from it–SA is often very isolating, and this kind of small support from your team can be so impactful to your mental health. Your suggestion of asking them to be careful when approaching you from behind is a perfect example. If there’s anything else along those lines you want to ask for, please do so.
    3) Think in advance of how you’ll respond if they ask follow up questions about what happened. This is common, and usually comes from a kind place, but can still be tricky to navigate. Since I think these are people you manage, you probably won’t want to get into it with them, but a response like what Alison often advocates for can be great. Try something like: “Honestly, I’m happy to have work as a refuge where I don’t have to think about this, so I’d rather not get into it more–thank you for understanding.” I didn’t have to use this, and hopefully you won’t either, but it doesn’t hurt to have a canned answer prepared.

    I’m so glad you’re taking some time off and working with a therapist. I personally found EMDR therapy to be incredibly helpful, but everyone is different, so take or leave my perspective on that as you see fit. Regardless, you are not alone and I’ll keep you in my thoughts.

  72. Owl-a-roo*

    LW5 – I work in healthcare IT and can tell you that computers and electronic communications in general are a sore spot for a portion of healthcare providers. Folks in this camp often feel like they spend too much time dealing with computers and thus tend to avoid training and communication about the system, which creates a vicious cycle of taking longer to get things done and feeding the avoidance. (and I don’t say that to pass judgment – electronic charting can be VERY unnecessarily complicated – it’s just a common phenomenon)

    If they’re literally sending emails and not messages on a secure platform, I’m guessing their email domain has some safeguards set up to prevent protected health information from being sent via email. There’s probably a process to get that information properly sent to you (either by encrypting the email or using a secure messaging platform like a patient portal), and your provider probably doesn’t always remember to take the extra steps.

    It’s also possible that they’re really just forgetting and feeling defensive about it – for all of their intelligence and skill, doctors are humans too.

    Nevertheless, you know that this person is not great with electronic communications, so you’ll be better served by picking up the phone. If you find that your provider’s missed emails (the ones from her to you) start causing issues like late refills or missed appointments, you can loop in the office manager/administrator for assistance. They can work with the provider to figure out a better communication method so care doesn’t get missed.

    1. anon for this - doctor bad at email*

      thank you, healthcare IT specialist for all you do! LW #5 It’s clear that your doctor is very bad at email. There are also a lot of issues around using email in the context of HIPPA compliance and there are absolutely additional filters, etc, that are supposed to be used in these settings that your doc may either be using or attempting to use that are affecting the function of the email. Honestly, you are lucky you are allowed to email your doctor at all. This is sometimes straight-up prohibited.

    2. Coffee Protein Drink*

      I remember when the hospital I worked in got a new program to check lab results. None of the doctors made it to the training, so it was left to people on the unit, usually the clerk (which I was at the time) to show them how to use it.

      One memorable conversation:

      “To complete the task, press the F2 key.”

      “F2 key? I want and FU key!”

  73. DJ Abbott*

    #2, don’t let the long hours and shorthandedness make you and your staff burnout or quit. Look for ways to cut back to normal hours. I’m not in that situation and don’t know the details, but there may be things things you can put aside till later, or not do at all.
    Good luck!

  74. fhqwhgads*

    LW4, oof. I am team “Sunday at 23:59:59.997”.
    I feel you that it’s annoying that a professor is explicitly wanting to use an incorrect value because it’s “industry standard” to not know when midnight is…harumph.

    1. Somehow I Manage*

      Industry standard would also include learning where there is confusion and fixing the directions to increase understanding.

      Also team Sunday at 11:59:59!

  75. MSP*

    Look you whippersnapper! Late 40’s is not older. It’s wiser, it’s more experienced, it’s SME. LOL

  76. I'm A Little Teapot*

    #2 – You’re focusing on the wrong thing. The issue isn’t that this one guy quit on you, the issue is that you’re not properly staffed for the work you have and you’re not being given the staffing you need.

    Why are you working until 8 or 9pm? No, really, why? You’re working for an employer that is actively firing NEEDED staff all over. Great that your team isn’t being actively fired (yet), but you are also not allowed to hire the staff that you desperately need. This is NOT a situation where you sacrifice yourself. Go home at a reasonable time. Do not check emails or answer calls when you’re off. No weekend work. Take your time off if you need to. If management wants this work done so badly, then they will ensure you are appropriately staffed. If they aren’t willing to do so, then clearly its not important enough for you to harm your home life over. In the meantime, the work will get done within reasonable hours and the rest of it won’t get done.

    And yes, I get it, government services blah blah blah. THIS IS NOT NORMAL TIMES. Normal rules don’t apply. People may be hurt, but frankly, people need to be hurt in order to push the kinds of changes that are desperately needed.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I agree with this in spirit, but when jobs are being axed around you left and right that might not be the most realistic option for someone who needs to stay employed.

    2. A Simple Narwhal*

      I agree. If the company suddenly has all this extra work, the solution is not to grind their existing employees into the dirt to get it done.

      If you’re a crab in a bucket, you shouldn’t be mad at the other crabs trying to get out and drag them down with you, you should be mad at the jerk that threw you in the bucket.

      1. Parakeet*

        There’s a wild number of people in these comments who seem to assume that LW2 and their teammates can afford to lose their jobs by drawing lines in the sand (and LW2 has clarified that in normal times they do sometimes work “crisis hours”). Also a wild number who seem to think the LW2 isn’t performing sufficient anger at DOGE in a letter to an advice column and that must mean they don’t understand that DOGE caused the situation.

        LW2, this sucks. I’m sorry you’re in this situation, and I understand that all the anger in the world at DOGE doesn’t help with the day-to-day concrete problems. My first thought is that HR messed this up, but based on some of the other comments, it sounds like they might not have known.

  77. Somehow I Manage*

    Not 10 minutes ago, I reached out to someone to schedule a part-time contract worker. Hours were given as Sunday from midnight to 8am. I was asked for clarification, because is Sunday at midnight the 12:00am between Saturday and Sunday or Sunday and Monday? I said Sunday 12:01 am to Sunday 8:00 am.

    The professor may think that it is standard that Sunday at midnight is accepted industry standard, but I also think that they’re opening themself up to more questions than necessary as people try to clarify.

    Teaching professional norms should also include teaching people how and when to ask for clarification. I just had to answer a question myself about this very same subject. BUT, I was asked one question. I don’t have a classroom full of students who might all have the same question. And I think professional norms should also include that we learn how to better communicate, too. My request could have been more clear to begin with. Just as this professor could learn that saying Sunday at 11:59 pm leads to far fewer questions and misunderstanding by students.

  78. Ann O'Nemity*

    The details about his limited mobility due to weight and eating junk food aren’t actually necessary to justify feeling uncomfortable. If someone has a permanent mobility issue, they should have a long-term solution that doesn’t depend on daily favors from colleagues.

    When I have trouble saying no, I’ve found it helps to have a few prepared lines in my pocket so I’m not fumbling when asked. Here’s a few I’d use:

    “I won’t be going to the cafeteria today. I usually bring my own lunch, so I’m not really able to pick things up regularly.”

    “I know it can be tough to step away. Maybe there’s a way to set up a delivery option with the cafeteria staff?”

    “I bring my own lunch, so I’m not the best person to ask.”

    “I’m not able to help with that, sorry!”

  79. SadandScared*

    RE LW 2 and the Fork in the Road email, it’s likely that HR didn’t know. We are actually past the date that FITR employees are supposed to be on leave and we still don’t have a list of who took it, so we have no idea unless they told us. I cannot explain how poorly all of this is being handled.

  80. Moose*

    LW 1, I would not focus on his weight or judgement of the kinds of food he’s requesting. You can rightfully say you aren’t able to help without those elements.

  81. Literal doctor who is bad at email*

    LW #5 – I’m a doctor who is bad at email. FWIW, I do make sure to tell my patients this. some of them email me anyway. It doesn’t go well.

    Part of the problem is that there are more than *seven* ways that a co-worker or patient could potentially contact me and I’m expected to track ALL of them ALL THE TIME.

    Of these seven, email not the priority as it is not HIPPA compliant and, therefore, the least likely to be 1) *life-or-death* or 2) your-patient’s insurance is {nasty word removed} and you must act immediately to attempt to counter their {nastiness}.

    Please use the patient portal or call. I know neither of these are fantastic, but they are more likely to yield a result.

    1. MassMatt*

      I’m sympathetic to your situation, but skeptical that the Dr. in the letter will do better with the patient portal than email.

  82. I'm dressing as a fork for Purim*

    #2: You got those emails too and you know how they have been constantly pressuring people to make decisions without giving them information about the decisions and what it would mean, and there is no information whatsoever about what diabolical whim will strike them next. I just got off a call where leadership repeatedly had to say that your concerns are understandable but we literally have no information about the RIF other than the email we all got. Over and over again, leadership does not know, no one knows, and so the employee answered an email, without any idea of what would happen, because that’s on purpose.

    So, I’m sorry for you, but this is not the employee’s fault, at all. We got told that 3 people here were eligible for the fork and took the fork. How many took the fork and then were told they weren’t eligible? We don’t know.

  83. Harpo*

    I am a veteran. We were required to keep time logs of everything we did. This was before computers, so it was all typed on a typewriter. Navy Standard back then was that NOTHING happened at midnight – it was either 11:59 pm or 12:01 am. I’m now a retired college Prof and my assignments have all been due at 11:59 pm.

  84. Head Sheep Counter*

    LW1 has allowed the resentment to make them literally BEC… by being asked to get their colleague food… they’ve gained insight (probably unwanted) into the colleague’s diet. By being asked daily… they’ve developed opinions.

    Whatever is going on with the colleague is not the LW’s to fix. Unless their job is to parent colleagues or to run intimate errands the colleague is way way out of bounds. Presumably, they are peers. This isn’t how you treat peers. Its how you treat someone you don’t respect.

    Resentment makes us less kind. In a perfect world, “No” would have been deployed long before resentment.

  85. Fellow Fed*

    OP # 2 – Yup, crappy move by candidate, but I also am sympathetic in that the Fork in the Road resignation program isn’t guaranteed. My agency is still waiting on their official list since we aren’t one of the “big ones”. More importantly OP’s HR completely dropped the ball – so you have an excellent argument to have the position clawed back. Sadly, it will be months if not a year before you can re-list the job opening. Fight to call the second person in your selection list.

    Folks who aren’t familiar with Fed hiring practices, the OP was hiring someone internal to the agency – the candidate isn’t switching agencies (only one HR to deal with). Internal transfers do not restart the probationary clock and even if it was a promotion, that doesn’t restart the clock either.

    Since this candidate was internal, the HR group responsible for hiring is the same group for managing the Fork in the Road participants. The fact that the candidate told HR (good on the candidate). Bad on HR for not passing this along to the hiring manager. Fed HR’s are fully aware of the hiring freeze and the HR recruiter would know that if this person left, there’s no backfilling. HR dropped the ball entirely.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Not at all crappy by the candidate. They were looking after their own interests in a crisis situation and don’t need to risk these for possible future coworkers .

      We usually recommend against sacrificing oneself for coworkers or job, so I don’t see why feds caught in this rolling disaster should be held to a higher standard than normal here.

  86. Shellfish Constable*

    Re #4: I’m sure this has been said upthread, but as a professor who uses both Blackboard and Canvas I always said assignment due dates for 11:59 p.m. Then there’s no midnight end of day mix up that leads to late assignments and groveling.

    Anecdotally, I have found this generation of students to be both very literal and (bless their hearts!) to struggle with any ambiguity. A firm deadline is one with a time and date…and — based on how my midterm papers were submitted last week — still a vague concept, apparently lol.

  87. AdminGirl*

    For LW 2, I just want to say that I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. It sounds frustrating and demoralizing, and while some commentators have mentioned giving the employee grace, I want to give you grace too. It sounds like you need this job and can’t just cut back on your hours or quit. It sucks that it seemed like you and your co-workers were going to get some relief and now you aren’t. It really sounds like a no-win situation and one where you’re really powerless to change anything, and that is such an awful feeling. I hope you are taking the time to take care of yourself and recharge. I really hope somehow, someway, things get better for you and your co-workers, even if only a little bit. Sending you support and strength!

  88. Nancy*

    LW1: Just say you aren’t able to stop by the cafeteria that day. It doesn’t matter what his reasons are and what he orders.
    LW4: I work in research and this is why we always use 11:59 pm. I thought that was the standard, but if it’s not in your field and no one has had an issue with lateness, let it go.

  89. HushedGalaxy*

    tbh I don’t know specifics but if I were hired for a new role and offered the federal gov’t “fork in the road” before I even started I probably would take it too. You’re basically being told your brand new job is at risk of getting eliminated and you laid off right away. Idk if there was open communication with the new hire re: the position of your team compared to a typical federal worker. But if I hadn’t heard any reassurance at all from my new team I would assume that my job wasn’t safe and make my moves from there

  90. Danielle K.*

    #1) Try not to guess that the movement limitations of your colleague are weight related AND that it’s due to what they eat.

    A lot of “hidden disabilities” have weight gain/retaining weight as symptoms and/or side effects of treatment.

    It’s none of your business the “why” behind the ask. :-)

    This response is coming from having a good friend who has Multiple Sclerosis have weight gain and retention from steroid treatments.

  91. Ugh*

    Um, coworker can also bring their lunch to work just like the rest of you, and eat it at their desk, no? It’s ok to ask maybe once every other week for a favor like this, but every day? No way.. Not even if appreciative. Lunch time is precious, and if you are not going to the cafe anyway, and are taking 15 minutes of your break to accommodate them while they take the full hour, that is not fair, and requires a little chat with HR, if only to ask how to politely avoid doing this. This is going beyond people pleasing if you ask me. It’s becoming their servant, which is demeaning. I’d just say outright, “I don’t mind getting you something once in a while, but it’s cutting into my lunch hour, and I keep the time to do a few personal things.” Coworker has gotten too used to this cushiness. Their size and food prefs are beside the point.

    1. Observer*

      coworker can also bring their lunch to work just like the rest of you,

      Maybe yes, maybe not. A lot depends on details we don’t have.

      requires a little chat with HR, if only to ask how to politely avoid doing this

      No. The LW is presumably an adult, and they can say not without getting permission from HR. Now, if CW were being rude or demanding about it, that would be a different thing. But otherwise? This is not an HR matter. All the LW needs to do is to politely say no. And Allison has already provided perfectly fine languge for the purpose.

  92. NigelsMinion*

    Federal HR here. Employees may be required to serve a new probationary period when they receive a new appointment. Mostly that’s because they’ve applied to a job open to all U.S. citizens (rather than limited to Federal employees only), so different rules apply.

    A lateral transfer (probably officially a reassignment) doesn’t fall under the part of the statute that requires a probationary period. It’s very likely that the massive HR IT system the agency uses wouldn’t have allowed you to place the employee on a probationary period if you tried. So this move would not have shown up as a potential red flag to anyone pulling data to ferret out probies.

    The lack of information flow on The Fork has been beyond terrible, even for government norms. The HR facilitating staff moves very likely works in a different organization than the HR processing resignations, and probably had no idea that this person was on the Fork list. I’m hearing about supervisors learning about employees departing after the fact, employees not knowing when their resignations are supposed to be effective, and Fork resignations being “denied” at whim and without telling the actual employee or their manager. We found out which probies were fired based on who told us they’d gotten letters from our Department HQ, and in a few cases, whose IDs didn’t work the next day. Managers were not informed ahead of time (or afterwards) who was let go.

    Please be kind to HR. Every day is an attack on everything upon which we have based our careers. We come to work to preserve meritocracy and we never imagined it would crumble so quickly or dramatically.

    If anything, the employee was remiss in not telling you themselves, though it may not have been clear to them yet when they’d be placed on admin leave. Everybody’s in a bad spot, visibility or no.

    Best of luck to you, OP #2.

  93. TMI About Textbooks*

    I can actually speak to #4 with specific expertise: I work in tech support for one of the publishing companies that provides online coursework/classes to higher education. Automated assignments, if you will.
    If an assignment deadline is set by the professor to be 11:59 PM, depending on the assignment type, settings created by the professor, and class type, if the student does not submit the assignment before the deadline one of the following outcomes will occur:

    1. The assignment will automatically submit for the student with whatever work they have already completed and the automated grading system will grade them for the completed work and count any incomplete portions off their grade.

    2. The assignment will NOT automatically submit and the student will not be able to finish the assignment. The automatic grading system will mark the assignment as not completed and grade it at a 0.

    3. The assignment may have been set to allow late submissions in exchange for a percentage off the assignment, in which case the student will be allowed to finish the assignment but will receive a penalty to their score for the tardiness.

    It gets even more complicated if the school uses our platforms in conjunction with a Learning Management System like Canvas or Blackboard. If the deadline on for the online coursework for the textbook is 11:59 PM in both the course and the Learning Management System, grades sent from the coursework to the Learning Management System (Canvas, it’s always Canvas that does this) can be delayed by a few minutes as all of the grades are sent at the deadline. Especially if it’s a large class. When those grades arrive at 12:01 AM to the Learning Management System, they may get marked late and suffer a penalty to their score if the professor set it up that way in the Learning Management System.

    tl;dr: 11:59 PM is 11:59 PM. 12:00 AM is late and may negatively impact their scores.

    1. TMI About Textbooks*

      Addendum: Of course the professor can choose to override the scores in any of the above scenarios, but they don’t have to (most of the ones I speak with would not as a matter of policy), and they don’t get any type of notification from our systems about how or when an assignment was submitted. They would have to be contacted by the student or actively go look at each student’s scores, which is not common in larger classes.

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