should I check if my boss is OK when she’s late to work, coworker is using parts of my resume as their own, and more

by Alison Green on April 8, 2025

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

1. Should I check on my boss when she’s late to work?

I have autism and this falls into the realm of social norms that I struggle to navigate. My department is made up of just my supervisor and myself. We’re in public-facing roles and our office is open 12 hours a day, so we alternate shifts. Each day one of us opens and one of us comes in four hours later and then closes for the day.

On the days my supervisor closes, she sometimes comes in late with no notice. I’m currently sitting at my desk wondering if I should check in with her because she was supposed to be here 45 minutes ago. She’s in her late 60s and lives alone, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that something could have happened and I’d be the only person to realize it. She’s a bit prickly and guards her personal time carefully, though, so I don’t want to intrude if she’s just choosing to sleep in or run an errand on the way to the office. When I’ve made comments to her in the past about wondering if I should have texted her to make sure everything is okay, she has brushed it off and seemed annoyed so I let it go.

At what point is it my responsibility to make sure she’s okay? I don’t want to reach out to her manager because I don’t want to get her in trouble. She’s really good at her job and is the sort of person who never stops working once she’s here so I don’t think it’s a big deal for her to come in a bit late. It doesn’t impact my ability to get my job done. I just don’t know the etiquette around checking up on her when she’s not here.

It’s not your responsibility to make sure she’s okay if she’s just an hour or two late, and because you know she has a pattern of sometimes coming in late without notice, it doesn’t need to set off alarm bells when she does it. (That would be true regardless, but it goes double because she’s seemed annoyed when you’ve inquired in the past.)

So from this point forward, assume all is fine unless it’s close to the end of your shift (like within an hour) and she’s not there; it doesn’t sound like she’s typically that late and so that would be an aberration that you could treat differently (plus, it raises a looming coverage issue that you’d be right to flag).

2. My staff wants me to attend events with them — but it’s not my job

I am a manager of primarily part-time staff. They are the outreach team, and I oversee outreach in addition to a bunch of other duties. My problem is that I seem to have done too good a job making them feel like they’re my first priority, because during the mid-year check-in (which was done by anonymous survey), multiple staff complained that I am not doing enough to support them because I am not actively attending outreach events like they do.

I check in periodically but I don’t spend the whole four-hour shift with them — probably only about a half hour as I do rounds, check in, and see if they need anything, etc. But the thing is, it’s absolutely NOT my job to actively participate in the outreach events. That would amount to about 20 hours of my work week, which simply is not feasible considering my other responsibilities. But everything I try to think of how to phrase “it’s not my job to do that” it’s feels like a deflection or like I’m trying not avoid taking ownership.

How do I handle this? I’m thinking of just printing my list of job duties and sharing it but that feels passive aggressive. Help!

I think your opening for this conversation will be easier if you focus more on the fact that they feel unsupported and less on the specific thing they’re proposing as a solution to that. Talk with each of them and say you’ve received the feedback that people would feel more supported if you attended more outreach events, explain you can’t do that because you’re also charged with doing XYZ and your job is specifically designed not to include time for attending events so you can handle other priorities, and ask if they can brainstorm with you about other ways for them to get the support that currently feels lacking.

If it’s literally just a matter of wanting you at events and they don’t really feel unsupported beyond that, this conversation will bring that out — and hopefully help them understand why you can’t do that. But it’s possible that you’ll hear they wanted you at more events because, I don’t know, the public asks questions that they don’t know how to answer, or there’s not enough coverage for them to leave their booth for bathroom breaks, or who knows what. They might be thinking the solution is “we need Jane here more often,” whereas you might have a dozen other ways you can solve those problems once you know they exist. Either way, approaching it as if the problem is “people feel unsupported” and not just “they want me there too much” should make it easier to solve.

3. My colleague is using parts of my resume as their own

I used to work for one of the agencies that the current administration has gutted. It was a great place to work and many employees stayed there for a long time, so they haven’t been on the job market in a while.

My field is small, so I shared my resume with any old coworkers who asked in the hopes that it’d help them get their resumes up-to-date. One former coworker openly told me they stole my formatting and alluded to copying things like the awards, too! I was too shocked to say anything, but I wish I had, because I don’t know the extent to which they ripped off my work.

Now my agency is up on the chopping block and in this small field, I’m inevitably applying to the same places they are. I have asked to see their resume, but they demurred, instead offering generic job search tips. While I know there are only so many ways you can format a resume, I don’t know if I’m applying to places that have already seen “my” resume (whether just format or contents as well), I don’t even know if the former coworker bothered to change the typeface! Do I need to rebuild my resume from scratch? What would you do here?

Their copying your formatting is no big deal — people copy other resumes’ formatting all the time and that’s not going to set off any alarm bells for an employer and it’s definitely not going to make them think they’ve already seen “your” resume before. But if they’re listing awards that they didn’t receive, that’s wildly unethical! It still doesn’t mean that you need to somehow rebuild your resume to avoid having similar content (and presumably more than one person can receive those awards over time) but if your coworker is directly competing with you for jobs, claiming your accomplishments as their own would be extra awful.

As for what to do, don’t worry about the formatting at all, but you could go back to them and say, “Hey, when you said you copied my awards, do you mean you claimed awards that you didn’t actually receive? If so, can you correct that for both our sakes? You could end up having a job offer pulled over it once they do a background check, and I of course didn’t show you my resume intending for you to copy the actual content.” If you want, you could add, “And I don’t appreciate you doing that when we’re applying for the same positions.”

4. Airline mix-up means I’m missing my first day of work

I am out of state, and the airline had a mix-up with my ticket. I am set to start work Monday at a new job and now I can’t fly back home until Monday. No other option. What is the likelihood that they will “fire” me before I even start due to this? I have left a voicemail explaining the situation to my new supervisor already, but I’m worried.

I didn’t get this in time to answer it before Monday but: they’re not likely to tell you “never mind then” just because of an airline snafu. Stuff happens. Decent employers know that.

Exceptions to this would be if you had already seemed flaky to them before now and this was a final straw moment, like you had already rescheduled multiple interviews with little notice, or if you’d already asked to push your start date back a couple of times.

(That said, I admit to being curious about what “the airline had a mix-up with my ticket” means! If it was their mistake, I’d think you could push pretty hard for them to find you a seat on another airline — but by the time this is publishing, it will be past the point where that would be helpful.)

5. How to list contractor to employee on your resume

I’ve recently gotten a new job and started as an employee after a few months as a contractor. As a contractor, I was employed through a completely different staffing company. I have the same title, team, and responsibilities, but now I’m employed directly through the company. I’m not sure how to list that on my resume, if only because I’m pretty sure the staffing company would probably have to be the one to verify employment, etc, during that time. I’m not planning on job searching anytime son, but I like to keep my resume up to date.

I would do it like this:

Taco Institute, Taco Strategy Coordinator, July 2024 – present
(contracted through Tasty Foods Contracting July – November 2024, then converted to employee)
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

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{ 309 comments }

{ 309 comments… read them below }

  1. Artemesia*

    If the airline screwed up your ticket then you absolutely should calmly but firmly insist they find a way to get you there to start your job. I ended up in first class one time when they cancelled a flight and wanted to schedule everyone for the next day. I was giving a speech at a conference and needed to be there. I was calm but insistent that they needed to find a solution. I was the only one of the 15 or so people in the gate area who got out that evening. They had no coach availability and so I ended up in first.

    If you messed up the ticket reservation then keep it vague and make sure you contact someone directly not by voicemail asap. Voicemail is notorious for being ignored. I’d at minimum text if you can’t get them on the phone. No showing the first day and the boss not having listened to email would be a potential disaster. Calling and explaining — probably not a big deal.

    1. SaeniaKite*

      When I started my current job I agreed a start date the day after a transatlantic flight. Except I forgot about the time difference! And I was actually landing that day. The minute I noticed I contacted them and thankfully they were very forgiving and I was allowed to start the next day instead. I spent the first month or so trying to prove this was a rare mistake and I’m not normally so disorganised and it must have worked because here I am 11 years later still with the same company

      1. Meep*

        I was going to say who doesn’t leave a day as buffer, but then I remembered I started my internship like that. Got in at 10 PM, had to drive another two hours home, and then drive an hour into the office…. Ah being young.

        I am also at the same company 8 years later, but am looking to change companies.

        1. AnotherOne*

          In law school, I started a summer class the night my family landed from vacation (and I’m pretty sure that I started my internship the next day.) Literally, left my family at the airport with my suitcases, grabbed a taxi and was watching the time on my phone going “am I going to get to class on time?”

          That wasn’t why I don’t remember that summer. But it didn’t help.

        2. Annony*

          I didn’t do it for my first day but I did schedule the drug screen/fingerprinting for the day after my move for my current job. It had to be done in person at least two weeks before my start date and I was moving from out of state. Our movers were a day late so I ended up having to leave my husband to coordinate everything and go ahead in order to make it to the appointment.

    2. Lexi Vipond*

      Is it usual for there to be another way? The only place I’ve nearly been stuck is Gibraltar, where there usually is one non-BA flight a day to London but if the BA flights were overbooked it probably would be too, and I had the impression that a lot of US flights were on that kind of scale.

      1. darlingpants*

        You might have to do something convoluted, like fly from a small town to a hub to another small town instead of a direct flight, but usually there are 2-3 ways to get somewhere spread out over the entire day. This is why I always try to take the first or second flight of the day from small airports though. If you find out at 4 pm that something is wrong with your flight you have a lot fewer options than if you find out at 8 am!

      2. Fly on The Wall*

        We live in a small area and have had this happen, there are only a handful of flights into our airport in a day and they only fly to and from two airports.

      3. Frosty*

        Yeah I feel like the advice that there are other flights available is a very US-centric one. There are lots of places where I’ve been where getting alternate flights to a location is a non-starter because there are literally only a few leaving that location every day.

        Once I was driving across the continent from the US into Canada and our car broke down in the middle of nowhere – I was late to start a job because (like in “O brother where art thou”) it seemed like we were 3 days from everywhere at that point. They were okay with it! But it was stressful for sure.

        OP I feel like generally people are very understanding about travel issues and I hope this wasn’t a big problem for you. Maybe next time don’t cut it so close! :)

        1. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

          The question did specify that they were “out of state”, so it’s not out of line to take it as an American situation.

        2. Strive to Excel*

          There’s plenty of US-based locations where that’s true as well. Lots of teeny tiny regional airports. I once flew out of an airport in Southeast Washington that labelled itself an ‘International’ airport. They had occasional flights from Canada. That was it. Otherwise they had a grand total of 3 flights/day to and from Seattle.

          1. Mad Harry Crewe*

            That is an international airport – international means it can handle international flights (customs and border control). It doesn’t say anything about the routes or destinations available from that airport.

          2. AVP*

            Hell, I got stuck in Portland OR for like 4 days one time that way (at a fancy hotel, on my employer’s tab). Airlines like JetBlue will just reschedule you for 3 days later if they see bad weather on the horizon, and everyone who was supposed to fly in that window is all frantically trying to rebook at the same time so it’s hard to fix.

          3. Elizabeth West*

            My old city airport had three or four legacy carriers, but you went on regional jets to the carrier’s hub and from there, to your destination. The only time I ever took a direct flight was on Allegiant, to L.A.

            They rolled up everything at 10:00 pm. If you arrived after that, you were stuck until the next day.

        3. Annony*

          I would say it is more major city centric than US centric. I have had alternate flights easily identified from Paris and London and also been stuck in small regional US airports that don’t have options.

        4. Bruce (not that Bruce the other Bruce)*

          We were on Orkney last September, that airport shuts down when it gets foggy and there were a LOT of us tourists waiting around until the fog lifted! We were lucky to get out on a flight, had to go to a different destination and arrange to be picked up…

      4. RIP Pillowfort*

        Depends on the airport. Like if your airport is a major hub, there are generally several flights going to places that might connect back to your original destination.

        My husband has had some close calls with being stranded but generally the bigger airports have options. Even if you have to be insistent about it. I’ve had to really insist on a gate agent to find a solution for a connecting flight because my husband got bumped to standby due to issues on their end. They ended up giving him a seat on the original flight but we had to really discuss options because this was 2006 and they didn’t want to compensate him which we would not accept as a reasonable outcome.

        1. JustaTech*

          That said, if it’s a big problem, like weather or power outage you may be out of luck even at a giant hub.
          Back in like 2019 Sci-Fi author John Scalzi was stranded at O’Hare trying to get back to Ohio, when there were no flights for days and no cars to rent. He ended up taking a Lyft all the way to Ohio. (“My 300 Mile Lyft Ride”)
          I remember this mostly because a few months later I had to do the same thing when I got stuck at O’Hare (though I was going to a conference in Wisconsin).

          1. The OG Sleepless*

            I didn’t even travel much when I was younger, and I have had to drive from O’Hare to Madison, WI twice because I got stranded at O’Hare.

          2. StephChi*

            Summer of 2023 my flight from O’Hare to Portland was cancelled, and the airline was able to get me to San Francisco. I booked a rental car before I left Chicago in case I couldn’t get a flight from SFO to PDX. That turned out to be the case, so I got off the flight at around noon, picked up the car, and drove straight through to Portland. When I say that I drove straight through, I mean it – I only stopped a couple of times to put gas in the car and to take a nature break/buy snacks. It probably took only around 30 minutes for two stops, so I drove for nearly 10 hours straight. It’s a good thing that I have a lot of music and podcasts available to me! Kept me awake!

            1. New Jack Karyn*

              If you drove from San Francisco to Portland in less than 10 hours, including 20-30 minutes for gas & snacks, you were driving very fast.

      5. Chirpy*

        Yeah, I’ve been on trips where there really weren’t multiple flights per day/weekend for certain portions of the trip. I almost got stuck at a pretty big American airport because my flight was late, missed my connection and the next flight I could have taken, and there was only one flight (from anywhere) left to my destination (a small airport) for the night. I almost had to rent a car and drive instead.

        1. AnotherOne*

          I had a flight cancelled from a major airline. It was a vacation to visit family so I just flew out the next day.

          But some other people on line with me got together and rented a car. The next available flight wasn’t for at least 18 hours, probably more. And it’s less than a 15 hour drive.

      6. The Starsong Princess*

        Not always. This happened to me during some storms in the Midwest. I was coming home on a Friday night and there were storms. A lot of flights got cancelled and they were offering rebookings for Monday and Tuesday. There was nothing available because everyone was in the same boat. There was one flight they offered to get me back to Toronto on Saturday but it went through Düsseldorf, Germany! And it was gone before I could book it! I regrouped with my company’s travel department and ended up with something late Saturday but without them, I likely would have flown out on Monday because it was a three to five hour wait on the phone with an agent to even talk with someone, let alone get a flight. ✈️

        1. Lexi Vipond*

          I can see exactly how this could happen, with Toronto and some of the big German airports both being hubs for all kinds of things, but it’s still very funny!

      7. Beth*

        Sometimes there isn’t another way. You were booked on the last flight out, or it was a major weather day and there are already 3000 other people trying to get the few open seats on the few flights that are able to sneak out, or whatever. In cases like that, you’re truly out of luck–which makes me nervous to schedule flights too close to anything important to me, I try to leave at least a day of wiggle room in case something goes wrong. (Sometimes you don’t have a choice, though!)

        Other times there is an option, but the airline doesn’t want to offer it. They’d have to bump you to first class and eat the loss of not being able to sell an upgrade, or they’d have to work with another airline to get you to your destination, or whatever. In those cases, if you keep pushing, they may find something for you eventually–especially if you’re polite and have a compelling reason that you have to be at your destination on that day. If the issue was that your flight was overbooked, and not something that caused massive travel upheaval, I’d lowkey expect this to be possible.

      8. Baunilha*

        Once I had my flight from São Paulo to Johannesburg canceled. Back then (not sure how things are now), there were only two flights a day doing this route and the airline couldn’t acommodate everyone from the first flight in the second one. I was one of the passengers that had to wait for the next flight the following day.
        Maybe they could’ve flown me to Ethiopia and then from there to Johannesburg, but that would probably take just as long and would definitely be more exhausting. I just explained everything at work and they were very understanding.

        1. Baunilha*

          Just to add that this was the situation that taught me to book flights a day earlier (if possible) if I have something important the next day.

          1. getaway_grrl*

            True, but if you’re flying a budget airline because that’s all you can afford, you might not have the option. My daughter had a Thursday flight get canceled due to weather, and the airline didn’t have another flight until the following Monday. She needed to be back home Monday morning, so that wouldn’t work. Budget airline wasn’t inclined to help her find another route; they would only refund her fare. She ended up taking the train. Fortunately, she has a better job now and can afford better flights.

            1. BadMitten*

              Yes, something similar happened to me with Spirit airlines. It’s very unfortunate.

            2. Totally Different Name*

              With budget airlines it’s not always an affordability issue, it’s sometimes which airport they fly into that’s the limiting factor. An airline with “New York” flights into EWR rather than JFK, for example limits your options if something goes wrong.

      9. Frequent Flier*

        The last time I had an airline snafu, I was stuck in Hawaii for 3 days! (First world problems, I know). There was no way to get me and my family home any sooner. Even getting us home 3 days later required splitting us onto two separate flights. We had left a buffer day before we had to be back at work/school, but it wasn’t enough.

        I have also been delayed by weather many times. If there is a storm that shuts down all
        a region’s airports for a few days, it won’t matter how vehemently you argue, no flights are going out until the storm clears. And then there are going to be thousands of people also trying to get rescheduled for important reasons.

        1. Frequent Flier*

          In the Hawaii situation, it wasn’t even a storm or anything. It was the end of President’s Day Week and every flight was completely booked if not overbooked. Every flight that was canceled because of a mechanical issue or problem with an incoming plane, would be a planeload of people who had to get distributed over the next few days into other flights that were already full.

          1. JustaTech*

            I was in Hawaii on vacation when Aloha airlines shut down and you can imagine the panic at the airport because it’s not like you can rent a car and drive home!

    3. CubeFarmer*

      I’m curious what the airline’s mix-up was.

      I’ve had flights back to the US re-routed from JFK to Newark because the airlines seem to think it’s NBD to move a flight from one airport to another that’s 30 miles away (spoiler: it is a big deal–airlines stop doing that. Would it be okay if I, as a passenger, decided that I needed to board a JFK flight at EWR? I didn’t think so.)

      I’ve also had one airline decide that the scheduled flight on one day was too much of a hassle to operate so, they canceled it. Instead, they planned to fly us the next day with another connection. It was surely because the original flight wasn’t full, and some bean counter noticed that they could combine flights and still get the same number of people to the final destination. In that instance we were notified weeks in advance.

      1. JustaTech*

        I had a flight that was canceled at like 11pm the night before because there weren’t enough people – thankfully the airline re-booked us, but they also re-booked us to a flight that took off at like 6am (3 hours earlier), with a tight connection in a new airport. It ended up fine but it was very stressful!

      2. AVP*

        Not a mix up, but I had a flight that was going into JFK re-route to Boston and they just…left us there to figure out our own travel home. There was a backup at JFK and they didn’t have landing rights at Newark so they just figured ehhh it’s in America, close enough.

        Luckily it was a European carrier so they fully reimbursed Amtrak tickets and cabs after I emailed them the receipts.

      3. badger*

        I had a flight from Dallas to Milwaukee that stopped in St. Louis. Didn’t change planes, just stopped. Except that there had been a couple of delays in Dallas that meant that by the time we got to St. Louis, the crew had timed out and it was the last flight of the day so we were stuck overnight.

        They rebooked us for the next day and put us up in a hotel. I was just about to fall asleep when I got an automated call telling me that my rebooked early morning flight to Milwaukee had been canceled…and they were sending me back to Dallas to pick up a direct flight from there to MKE. Not my favorite trip ever.

        1. Anonym*

          I can top that! (Using a different pseudonym than my normal because for those who’s recognize it, this story would identify me as one of maybe a couple dozen people.)
          Temple youth group trip to Israel, back in my high school years. (Well before current stuff happening there.)
          Plan was to fly from O’Hare to Heathrow to Haifa to Tel Aviv.
          It’s winter in Chicago, so there’s snow, and that delays things… long enough that our trip misses the connection from Heathrow to Haifa.
          We spend several hours twiddling our thumbs in Heathrow while the chaperones try to figure things out.
          Then we get on a flight… to Amsterdam. To take a connecting flight the next day.
          We spend the night in Amsterdam. (Chaperones make it VERY clear that we are NOT to leave the hotel in Amsterdam…)
          The planned connecting flight falls through somehow, so rather than flying to Israel the next day, we instead fly to Amman, Jordan.
          Spend the night in Amman, Jordan… as a Jewish youth group. Definitely an experience in and of itself.
          Then the next day we finally fly to Tel Aviv.
          That’s two night spent in unexpected non-Israel stops before we finally got to Israel… and then very few of us had our luggage follow us through all these extra legs of our journey, so our first stop after landing was an unplanned stop at a Tel Aviv mall so we could get clothes to wear. Some folks didn’t get their luggage back until after the trip ended, and it was two weeks long!
          The part I’m most miffed about is that we were compensated for our hassle by a voucher on an airline that doesn’t really fly much near us, and it was only good for something like two years, so it went to waste.

    4. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

      I think that #4 did make a mistake here and if I were their new manager, I’d be pretty concerned. It would not be out of the realm of possible for this to be a dealbreaker if there were any other red flags during the hiring process. At the end of the day, it reads as flaky (regardless of blaming the airline for a reservation mixup which is honestly kind of sus). I hope that OP has gained enough experience that they will always allow at least one day if not two for travel mishaps. They sound like they might be newer-career and didn’t have much experience in starting a new job.
      I assume the commentariat won’t like this comment but I have hired and managed many people so I don’t think I’m an outlier.

      1. Frequent Flier*

        You’re right, I don’t like this comment. On behalf of the commentariat I’ll place you in the bucket of “not decent employers”

      2. JustaTech*

        Out of curiosity, what information could the new hire provide to support their statement that the airline made the mistake?
        Also, when you are hiring early-career folks, do you tell them that you expect them to be in the area at least one day in advance?

      3. Meaningful hats*

        I have an upcoming trip at the end of April. My return flight was initially scheduled for the Saturday morning before I’d expect to return to work. The airline has changed my return flight FIVE times since I booked it. First it was moved to late night Saturday. Then it was moved to mid-afternoon Saturday. Then it was moved to mid-afternoon Sunday. Then it was overbooked, and they told me I was going to be cancelled and have to book a new fight. I called them and complained about that one, mainly because they tried to cancel my ticket but not my two minor children, who apparently were supposed to fly home alone the day before their mother did (??). Now my flight is scheduled for Sunday night.

        I told my boss that I plan to be in at regular time on Monday morning, but if JetBlue has other plans for me then she’ll be the first to know. This is how airlines treat passengers now. There’s nothing sus about OP’s situation.

      4. A mathematician*

        I was very nearly in that position once, back in about 2017 I think.

        I was on a round-the-world trip that was partly personal and partly work. We’d agreed how much I would pay for the ticket price and how much would be covered by work, but because work was paying for some I had to book through their preferred travel agent. To get back home I had to take a domestic USA flight from the city I’d been working in to LAX, and then connect to the international flight home. I got to the airport, and discovered that someone at the travel agent had cancelled my domestic flight and no-one had told me anything about it – and now the flight was full. And because it was the travel agent who stuffed up rather than the airline there wasn’t much the airline ticket agent could do.

        Firstly I was lucky that they hadn’t cancelled the international flight, because apparently that would have been really hard to fix. There was one later domestic flight that might have made the connection, so they booked me on that and put me on standby for the flight I was supposed to be on – and then it turned out I had the top level of frequent flyer card with the airline’s partner, which entitled me to a free upgrade, so I could go on standby for those seats as well, and they were easier to get. And sure enough one seat did become available and I caught the plane.

        At LAX I discovered that the later flight they’d booked me on had problems and ended up being cancelled – so if I’d been stuck with that one I wouldn’t have caught my international flight and would have been waiting 24 hours for the next one.

    5. fhqwhgads*

      There have been A LOT of airline rescheduled flights or cancellations that result in consolidation in the past couple years. Way more frequent than my experience was before. If the issue was morning-of or night before they said “actually that 2pm flight is now an 8am flight” and OP didn’t get that message in time to go for the new departure, they’re screwed. Or if it were something like “we had an 8am and a noon, and now we’ve got a single 10am”. Who knows. But these aren’t delays, they’re the airline straight up changing the flight. I don’t know that I’d call that a “snafu” but it’s the first thing that comes to mind based on what OP said.

    6. BadMitten*

      I’m thinking this depends on the airline. With Spirit, they do not care at all about customer service at all. That being said, if it is an emergency type situation I’d book with another airline and then push HARD for a refund (+more given the last minute ticket cost). That being said, this strategy did not work with Spirit, I still only have a credit that expires in a year.

  2. Santiago*

    #3 seems like a misunderstanding to me, because I’ve had friends flat out tell me to copy their formatting (ie they got it from a career agency), and I have given my resume to others for them to explicitly copy my formatting. Given OP’s focus on the formatting, I feel like the awards section is more likely a miscommunication than plagiarism or falsification of data.

    I understand that it’s jarring and you are all competing right now, but I would put it out of mind.

    1. Double A*

      Yeah, I’m hoping it was a misunderstanding that the colleague meant, “I copied your formatting, including the fact that you have an awards section,” not “I copied what it said in your awards section.”

      Actually in trying to wordsmith this it’s fairly awkward to word clearly! I could definitely see saying, especially in conversation, “I copied your formatting, including your awards,” and meaning the sentence I wrote above.

      1. amoeba*

        Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for as well!

        And as for the formatting, I know my boyfriend copied the exact formatting of my CV, and also actually some sentences/turns of phrase from my cover letter. When you read mine and his side by side, they both clearly say different things (because we actually do have different experiences) but you’ll also see the difference. And as we’re in the same field, we have actually sometimes applied to the same places! I also have multiple friends/former colleagues using a CV that basically has mine as a template – and I got that from a more senior colleague in the first place, although I did rebuild/adapt it a bit, but I’m sure the similarities are still visible.

        I honestly don’t worry about it at all – as long as the actual content is personalised, it doesn’t seem different from downloading one of the many templates available online. Or the many cover letters written with ChatGPT companies are getting nowadays… (It’s also not anything “creative” or very unique, so I’m not too worried about them going “Ahaa! Calibri again! They must have copied it!”)

      2. He of the Nine Million Awards*

        As a fed manager who took the fork, the awards thing sounds like potentially Not a Big Deal. Generally, there are two or three generic names of awards (things like “Special Act or Service” or “Mission Achievement”) that managers throw at people to show gratitude on a regular basis. And if you were a good manager, you’d find ways to spread the budget fairly, which meant Oprah-style, “you get an award! You get an award!” until they were almost meaningless.
        Literally, I’d sometimes rack up four awards in a year just for normal work. I’m thinking this person likely borrowed that section and, if it listed a specific year or number, adjusted those. But look: there are very few federal awards like the Gallatin Medal. We’re mostly talking things that feel like gold stars. In many agencies, it’s no longer even a physical certificate.

      3. Annony*

        I agree. If the colleague were falsifying their resume, why would they tell OP? In that scenario it makes so much more sense to stay quiet.

    2. Meg*

      This seems so likely to be the case that I think it is not worth burning a bridge by reminding the colleague not to claim to have won awards they don’t actually win.

      1. Antilles*

        I agree.
        Maybe there was more to it, but reading OP’s post, it doesn’t read to me that they’d copied the awards themselves (i.e., claiming they won OP’s 2023 City Employee of the Year trophy) but instead just “and I saw you included an awards section, didn’t think of it, but totally using that idea”.

      2. learnedthehardway*

        I would offer to review the resume – something people should always have done anyway to check for typos.

        That would give the opportunity to see if anything was copied directly and to object to it.

    3. Emily Byrd Starr*

      Good point. If the coworker was literally taking credit for the accomplishments of LW, I highly doubt that they would’ve told the LW.

    4. Lady Danbury*

      My resume has a format that was fairly common about 20 years ago. Although I’ve updated it frequently since then, including with a career counselor, the basic format remains very similar from when I started. There were lots of resumes with the same format circulating back then (including online resume templates) and I’m sure I’m not the only one who still uses it. All that to say, format is no big deal, stealing your content is a very big deal!!!

      1. Sneaky Squirrel*

        I assume that most resumes out there are based on one of a few standard formatting styles that was considered common at one point, varying mostly based on the time periods where the writer learned how to draft a resume and what’s considered standard for the career path. It seems extremely silly to me that anyone would get offended by their format being used, when it’s very likely that LW learned to use that format from another source.

    5. rusty eulberg*

      #3 I disenvowel (remove all vowels) from my resume when I share it with anyone that I’m not applying to.
      It’s a simple macro (replace ‘a’ with ”, etc.) so it takes me about 3 clicks, and presents what they have asked for without tempting them into cheating.

    6. Great Frogs of Literature*

      It’s very possible that you’re right, but I do feel like the fact that the colleague refused to share their resume when asked makes things a little more questionable. Maybe it’s a weird dynamic because they’re now competing; maybe this colleague just isn’t very good at sharing, but if I did a specific, concrete favor for a colleague, and then they refused to do the same favor for me (at no cost/inconvenience to themselves), the BEST interpretation I’d be likely to put on it was that this is a person I could not rely on for anything and might want to reconsider doing favors for in future.

      I wouldn’t necessarily jump to “they’re up to something shady,” but given the context, it doesn’t seem entirely implausible.

      1. Mockingjay*

        I would go with weird dynamic. The awful, terrible, unfortunate truth is that a lot of very talented folks with similar training and experience are now competing for a handful of private job listings, when they thought they were in government careers for life. OP3, I’d focus on making sure your own resume is the best it can be, tailored for each position and extremely accurate.

        I’d also rethink the awards section, unless you’ve received an industry-specific, publicly known award. I don’t list awards on my resume; while I’ve received several very nice ones from my company and priors, these are corporate recognitions as a retention tactic and don’t mean anything outside of my company. Instead, use that extra space to highlight more skills.

    7. LW3*

      Yeah, in reading the responses from Alison and here, I think I’m being needlessly paranoid. What concerned me enough to write in is when I asked to see what they did with it, they refused…I leapt to conclusions. I don’t know what they are using exactly (and in our visual design field, things like layout and typeface choice do matter), but it’s probably not worth the worry or the work to completely revamp my own just in case.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Ah, that you’re working in a visual design field does make a difference. That’s the one case where layout/typeface/formatting might matter.

        However, I agree that they’re unlikely to actually be comparing the resumes to check for similar formatting, and they may not know to attribute the design choices to you; lots of people use published templates for resumes.

        1. Santiago*

          Yes, I do agree that if you are a graphic design adjacent role than this may change the calculus a bit.

      2. Productivity Pigeon*

        I totally understand why you would feel wary!

        But I’m the kind of person who finds it incredibly personal to show someone my resume. (I’m not reasonable, I know) so I get why someone might be cagey about showing theirs.

        But I also believe in reciprocity. You showed them yours, after all.

    8. RagingADHD*

      My first assumption about “copy awards” would be that seeing the LW’s award jogged their memory that they won the same award in a different year, or made them realize that listing similar awards would strengthen their candidacy.

      Most work-related awards aren’t a one time thing that nobody else ever wins. They recur.

    9. MCMonkeybean*

      Another agreeing here. Honestly I’m not entirely sure why OP would have shared their resume at all if it wasn’t their expectation that people would copy the format. That’s why I’ve shared mine with someone in the past.

      I made my first real resume in a business communications class in college, where everyone in the class was given a specific format to use. I have been updating that same document ever since! I’m sure my resume is identical to many others visually. Only the content needs to differentiate you–and hopefully that part was just a misunderstanding.

  3. Long time reader*

    #1 In my first job out of college, my supervisor was getting super stressed out during a meeting me with on account of everything on her plate and eventually got up and walked out of the room. I just sat there; I had no idea what to do. When she eventually came back, she told me off for not following her & making sure she was okay or notifying the front office because “she was an older woman (50s) and she could have had a heart attack in her car and no one would have known.” I thought about the possibility that I should follow her but I’d ultimately decided she was an adult with decades of work experience and if she needed a minute to collect herself, she might not want an extremely junior coworker finding her bursting into tears etc. Overall I liked her a lot as a supervisor (minus some huge lapses in judgement regarding discussing religion at work, etc) but this was one of the low points.

    1. Despachito*

      I’d consider, the same as you, that following her would be a huge overstep.

      Also it would never cross my mind to think that someone in their fifties is likely to have a heart attack.

      She was the weird one here.

      1. JSPA*

        Especially pre-cellphone, “Someone is in evident physical distress and leaves precipitously in a way they’ve never done before, and only I know about it” (regardless of age) was generally a “check in or let someone know.”

        Not because a heart attack or stroke is so likely at a specific age, but because “suddenly too unwell to otherwise summon help” can be a thing at any age.

        These days, texting “you OK?” is probably the right first move.

      2. Madre del becchino*

        My dad unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack in his mid-50s…and I still wouldn’t have thought to follow her.

        1. Ally McBeal*

          Right? People die of heart attacks at 6 months, 7 years, 19 years, 30 years, 50, 60, 70, 80… Most people aren’t at risk until they get older but I would never assume someone storming away from their desk due to work stress would increase their risk to the point where I should follow them for medical purposes. That’s between them and their doctor.

      3. CatAdopter*

        Agree that I probably wouldn’t follow someone in this situation (at least not right away), but they do tell you in first aid training to check on people who unexpectedly leave the room while dining. People who are choking sometimes step out to cough in private and end up with a blocked airway and no one around to help. I also once had a young colleague who left a meeting abruptly because she felt funny, then fell in the bathroom where she’d gone for privacy. She was found when someone went looking for her and she needed help getting up – it was an early episode of a medical condition she didn’t know she had yet. Sometimes it’s worth risking embarrassment to make sure someone’s alright.

      4. Spiritbrand*

        She was probably having a panic or anxiety attack and may have felt heart attack-esque. My guess is her thinking wasn’t totally ordered when she said that and was still a little in the moment.

    2. It's me, Margaret*

      I’m in my 50s (which is not older, WTF) and if I needed to leave a meeting like that, having the person follow me would be much much worse.

      1. WeirdChemist*

        Yeah, if she needed to leave because she was overwhelmed/stressed by work, then having work continue to follow her out of the room would be the opposite of helpful…??? I would have 100% done the same and not followed her!

        1. Totally Different Name*

          Yeah. If someone who wasn’t great with social cues did that to me at work, I would seriously consider looping my manager and maybe HR in. Not from a tattling perspective but more of a “how do I push back on boundary issues without getting us dragged for potential discrimination issues” angle.

      2. Skytext*

        I agree. It would be one thing if it was a roomful of people that she left—I could see ONE person following to make sure she was alright. But in a meeting with only one person, where she deliberately leaves that one person behind, I would assume she wouldn’t want that person to follow her. Otherwise, she could’ve just said what was wrong to that person! But then to return to scold for not reading her mind? What a beyatch! Reminds me of women who storm off from their romantic partner, then get mad when he doesn’t follow! If I storm off from my husband, it’s because I need a break from him and I absolutely DON’T want him to follow me.

    3. Ellis Bell*

      This sounds like word vomit from someone whose brains have been scrambled by stress. I really dislike it when people dump their stress onto others. If you had treated her like a delicate flower you probably would have been much more offensive.

      1. allathian*

        And she probably would’ve been just as offended, if not more.

        Lots of people become actively unpleasant when they’re stressed because their method of stress relief is to vent their spleen on anyone who can’t easily fight back. There’s no pleasing such people.

    4. tommy*

      i’m in my mid-fifties and i think you did exactly the right thing by not following her!

      1. LifebeforeCorona*

        I’m older as well. Our workplace is fairly remote and the concern is people getting lost in the woods (it’s happened). We encourage the buddy system because we’ve had people being sick and alone and it may take hours before their absence is noted. We’re adults and there is a fine line between concern and someone in distress for hours.

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          This is not old, and even someone much older should not be followed and checked on in case they had a health event unless 1) they have told you they have a health issue and 2) they have told you, or you know, that being checked on would not infuriate them. It would be one thing if the job involved going into the woods or something like the above, but it’s totally unnecessary in most work environments.

          Ugh, this site has had a LOT of OPs/commenters making wild assumptions about the poor health, delicate nature, and general incompetence of anyone over about 40 lately, and I appreciate the time Alison and other commenters take to shut it down. Folks, if you’re 20something and your 40-50something parents aren’t healthy, can’t do their jobs, or refuse to use technology, I’m very sorry. But, they are anomalies.

    5. Seashell*

      Unless someone said, “Follow me” or showed signs of being physically ill, it would never occur to me to follow them if they suddenly walked out of a room. Anyone could have a medical emergency at any time, regardless of age, but that doesn’t mean we have to follow everyone around the office every moment of the day.

      1. Yankees fans are awesome!*

        Also, it sounds like one of those no-win situations where had the LW gotten up and followed her, Boss would have yelled at her for that.

        Sorry, LW.

    6. peony*

      When she eventually came back, she told me off for not following her & making sure she was okay or notifying the front office because “she was an older woman (50s) and she could have had a heart attack in her car and no one would have known.”

      That sounds like a You problem, ma’am (to the commenter’s supervisor).

    7. Eldritch Office Worker*

      50s? Really? I’m not worried about my 50 year old boss. The 50 year olds in my office are probably in better shape than I am (33).

    8. learnedthehardway*

      That was an unreasonable expectation. I mean, if someone is walking out during a meeting, odds are it is because they want a moment to themselves.

      Also, how freaking condescending would it be to assume that an adult is unable to handle themselves?

    9. A Simple Narwhal*

      Was your supervisor actually Craig from Parks & Rec?

      “Somebody follow me, I’m distraught!”

    10. The OG Sleepless*

      Good lord. I’m 57 and I would be really confused if somebody ran after me because I’m so old and infirm I might randomly drop dead. Honestly, I wouldn’t even do that for my 86 year old mother. I’m fitter and healthier than some of my 30-40 year old coworkers. This boss just sounds like a giant drama queen.

    11. Artemesia*

      Checking to see if the boss is ‘ok’ is creepy. The only time this kind of fussy behavior would be appropriate is if they were no show for the job. Twice I have been involved with ‘no show’ colleagues and each time they were in fact lying dead on the floor at home. But if they are an hour or two late or leave a meeting to go to something else? No don’t act like their fussy mother. It reads as trying to micromanage the boss or pry into their personal decisions/life.

      AND if they were no show for work, probably other people would notice and it would not be on this subordinate to initiate a query. ESPECIALLY having been told once it was inappropriate.

      1. Skytext*

        Yes, I’ve had that happen as well. One of my reports at Walmart, an older man who worked in the deli, was a No Call/No Show. He lived alone and his only kin was a daughter who lived out of state. My boss (second in command of the store) actually went to his house and found him dead. Now, of course we don’t do this for every NC/NS, but the combination of circumstances: usually extremely reliable, lived alone, no family nearby, older, didn’t answer the phone when we called, etc. made this a situation where we were very worried. And rightly so, it turned out.

  4. Magdalena*

    Re:1.
    When your boss is two hours late, it means it’s two hours until the end of your shift, correct?
    After two hours I’d start getting worried she won’t come at all.
    Are you required to be there for the full 12 hours if she’s not there?
    Are you able to get in touch with your manager’s manager at short notice if that happens?

    1. JSPA*

      If it were getting worse, sure! Ditto if the LW can’t take a bathroom break.

      (LW1, if her tardiness means you don’t get physically-necessary or legally required breaks, then this IS affecting your ability to do your job, in the greater sense of the concept.)

      But “only 2 hours of overlap” is nowhere near “time to panic that she won’t come in at all.”

      If she’s usually 30 minutes to an hour late, I’d ignore it / plan around it. Longer, and I’d point out that it’s physically draining to be the only person there, and ask them to let me know their ETA, so I could plan on taking a break. If there’s an upward trend that gets to 3 hours, I’d escalate, keeping in mind not to be too narrow in the definition of “doing the job.”

      However, if there is any way the Lw can find out if this is her standard mode, or something specific to working with the LW? If the latter, you could clear the air by asking her if you have any unconscious habits that are making her want to minimize shared time–we hear often from people who can’t handle a coworker’s burping, pen clicking, humming, sniffing, chair squeak [or whatever] but can’t face bringing it up.

      Also, late 60’s may feel old to LW1, but it’s a) legally-problematic to treat older coworkers differently, and b) highly unlikely that the boss has randomly keeled over at home. (People at any age can have lethal medical conditions; people in their 60’s, 70’s etc run marathons.)

      I know I’d feel like it was a passive aggressive move, if a report were all concerned about “you’re old and alone, I thought you’d died” if I had [say] a series of dental appointments or a sick pet. (I mean, I’d also let them know if I were going to be late.)

    2. LifebeforeCorona*

      That stood out for me also. What happens if they don’t show up at all without notice? What is the protocol?

    3. Not on board*

      Yeah, I’d contact someone if it’s within 2 hours of the end of my shift. It can take more than an hour to sort this stuff out.
      As it’s been said, what is the protocol if something happened to your boss and nobody was coming? Who fills in? You can’t possibly be expected to work 12 hour shifts until it gets sorted.

    4. Pharmgirl*

      I think they both work 8 hr shifts to cover a 12 hr day. So 2 hrs late means 6 more hours for the LW.

      1. Pharmgirl*

        Sorry it’s too early for math! Yes 2 hrs late is 2 hours before lw leaves which is quite late!

    5. Old Lady manager*

      The other thing I noticed was this.
      Example, you open at 8am and the office closes at 8pm.
      To have everything open, setup, bathroom break, etc., you have to be there at 7:45am.
      Let’s say that she is supposed to be there by noon and work to 8pm.
      If she is an hour to 2 hours late, what happens to your bathroom break or lunch?
      With the doors open, you are basically stuck from 8am until 2pm on a really late day with no break.
      Six hours straight in a public facing role with no break.
      Is the plan that you close temporarily for breaks and lunch?
      What if you need to use your lunch for an appointment?
      What if she or you needs to call in sick?
      Contingencies of what happens to coverage if either of these things happens should be hashed out by management.

      1. A Simple Narwhal*

        That’s a good point. OP1 says the lateness doesn’t interfere with her ability to get her work done, but is it preventing her from taking care of herself? Like does she need to close the office to take a bathroom break or have to eat at her desk and be prepared to stop if someone comes in? If she has to step out and close the office because her boss didn’t come in on time and someone complains about it too many times, is she risking her career?

        I’m not trying to write any fanfiction here, and there might be literally zero affect from her boss showing up 4 hours late, just something to consider. I know I can downplay the effects something has on me, I can see a world were someone says “oh yea I process all the widgets and attend all the clients so there’s no issue, I can just eat when I get home and go light on drinking to avoid bathroom breaks but it’s not a big deal, the job is getting done so it’s not worth risking my boss getting in trouble”.

      2. Ann O'Nemity*

        This is where my mind went, too.

        The LW focused primarily on wondering if the boss is okay. Since this sounds like a pattern of behavior, assume the boss is fine.

        But I also think the LW should raise concerns if there is an operational impact. This is a very lean, high-coverage environment, which usually means that each person’s presence is vital! Not just as a formality, but to ensure breaks, support, and a sustainable workload. I think it’s reasonable to be thinking, “How does this affect my day when my supervisor is late? Can I still take a lunch or restroom break? Am I expected to stay late? How does this impact the customer experience?”

        I can tell you that my short experience with being a two-person team with coverage expectations did *not* go well. It really sucks if the other person is unreliable at all! And more than that, there is so little slack for normal things like the common cold, doctor’s appointments, or even just traffic. Without good communication, this becomes untenable.

      3. The Person from the Resume*

        Based on letter as written, I assume that the LW or boss can at least take bathroom breaks/quick breaks because they are both scheduled to be alone for 4 hours.

        Having someone there to serve customers doesn’t necessarily mean sitting at a desk prepared to greet customers for the whole 12 hours.

        1. Justin D*

          A lot of small shops and offices work this way. If a customer or member of the public comes in and no one is there, the person just waits. Sometimes the employee has a little “be right back” sign. Maybe they have a chime or bell on the door to alert them, or there’s bell on the desk to summon them.

          The business just accepts the risk that the occasional customer will walk away instead of wait. Depending on the goods or services provided they might almost never do that.

          The business might also have long stretches where no one comes in so employees just eat at the desk and use the bathroom at will.

          1. Totally Different Name*

            I can see someone who’s autistic or even just anxious and inexperienced having trouble navigating those expectations and risks. In that light, the OP wanting their supervisor to be as available as possible looks a bit different.

    6. DisneyChannelThis*

      Let’s assume it’s a 9am – 9pm office. Obviously might be some shift in time stamps for breaks, opening/closing duties but let’s estimate:

      LW would arrive 9am, leave 5pm.

      Boss would arrive 1pm, lave 9pm.

      So 2hrs before LW leaves is 3pm, which is also 2hrs late arriving for Boss.

  5. John*

    For #2, have you ever been to one of these events with this group of staff? This is just one possible reading of the situation, but maybe they’re thinking “Boss is telling us X and Y about running the events, but they don’t understand what we’re facing because they’ve never even been to one.”
    Obviously spending 20 hours a week is not at all viable, but could you go to say one a quarter and stick around for an hour or two?

    1. Daria grace*

      Yup. There’s a lot of possibilities likely worth exploring between don’t go to any events and go to 20 hours a week of events

    2. Myrin*

      I thought that’s what OP’s doing here:

      I check in periodically but I don’t spend the whole four-hour shift, with them — probably only about a half hour as I do rounds, check in, and see if they need anything, etc.

      Did you read that as something else, like her checking in on the team during a different, non-outreach-event time?

      1. Jackalope*

        That was my reading – she was checking in with them while they were at the office, not out at the outreach events. Say maybe they spend half an hour each day getting supplies together, grabbing forms, filling out preliminary paperwork, and so on, and a part of that is the OP checking in with them. Then they go out into the field sans OP and do their thing.

      2. KateM*

        I read it as OP checking in at the start and maybe for a minute later as well, but they could still miss some crucial events. They may never see what it is like during the top rush hour for example, or maybe they wouldn’t know how it is to close after the event. From that point of view, it could be worth to be just once for all the four hours, to get the best picture of what and when is actually happening.

    3. Smithy*

      I do think that digging into this further is really helpful, because I think there’s just such a broad range of issues that may be present.

      One potential possibility that came to my mind is that unless the OP is present there’s no one “in charge”. This may lead to an assortment of issues around who can decide to make mild changes that wouldn’t warrant a call to the OP or provide redirect behavior. Not to say that anything inappropriate or problematic is happening, but rather that decisions happen slower and there may be more needling of peers. Say if an event is happening outdoors and it starts raining, if the OP can make a quick call to relocate the event or run to a drugstore to get ponchos/umbrellas – but for the team there, they only feel like they can make that call when the rain really starts to come down.

      Obviously, there may be a point person in charge and the issues are entirely different. But I do think that’s where this really seems to be a case of the OP needing far more information.

      1. Ally McBeal*

        Yep. I’ve run many corporate events and usually end up being a floater, even when I’m the primary organizer, because there are so many little fires that need putting out and people don’t always feel empowered to give the final word, especially with demanding attendees. That said, empowering employees is the answer, not OP having to attend each event for more than half an hour. They should do more training, including role-playing, as part of event prep.

        1. KateM*

          But having just once actually been through one even in full would help OP with knowing what to even train for.

    4. commensally*

      Yeah, I can’t tell from the letter if LW is dropping by events a few times a day (This would be odd, though, because usually they’d be offsite, and driving around like that would be a huge waste of time if you *weren’t* staying) or has just literally never observed their staff doing the main part of their job.

      LW, you don’t need to attend every outreach event. But if supervising people running outreach events is a major part of your job (sounds like it might be your primary job?) you should attend, and assist at, outreach events once in awhile. Nobody can supervise effectively if they don’t know the job, and nobody can know the job if they’re never there for it.

    5. Just Thinkin' Here*

      Agree – this was my thought. Two items: are things happening or not happening when they show up to these events? And how does the manager appoint a leader while they are onsite? Someone needs to be empowered to make onsite decisions and be trained to do so.

      Walking around desks in the morning isn’t going to elicit the response. OP should consider doing a weekly meeting where you prep for the next week and de-brief any issues from the prior week.

    6. Trenchman*

      I have been on the other side of this kind of request. If my manager would have worked even just one shift, they would have seen for themselves what the day to day challenges were. They were trying to get the info from just asking questions of the people in the trenches. (That said, there was a specific issue with this supervisor that they would ask questions but not quite understand the answers. It was quite frustrating.)

      There’s also the appearance of solidarity, working side by side in those trenches, that could have morale effects.

      If what the LW2’s employees are seeking is working an occasional shift, it might be worth fitting into LW2’s schedule.

      1. anonmousie*

        Yes, I’ve been at the end of a request like this, too, and my manager followed through! It was a situation where I really felt it was important to be on the other end to understand the situation and not just hear it after the fact, and it was also one of those situations where employees benefited from troubleshooting with someone with decision-making power as things happened. I think the shift she worked with us showed her a lot of things about the nature of the work and work flow etc.

    7. Hyaline*

      My reaction exactly. This may not be an all or nothing (attend ALL events or we feel unsupported) but a “if we don’t see you at events at least once a quarter/a couple times a year/sometime since the Clinton administration it’s hard to express what we need or for you to see and understand the problems we raise.”

      FWIW I read “check in periodically” as checking in while in office as part of her daily routine tasks, not going to events. If that meant going to events occasionally, it may be that the staff feels longer check-ins or seeing the whole run-of-event could be helpful?

      Also…if you’re “in charge” of outreach, I kinda feel like you should go to at least a few events a year or you risk really not being plugged into the needs and realities of the process.

      1. Endless TBR Pile*

        This is where I land. If you are in charge of outreach, or even if you only manage the team (which would be odd, but we’ve seen stranger things here!), and you aren’t going to outreach events, I can see why your team feels unsupported.

  6. JSPA*

    #2, “Dear [volunteers listed by name];
    My assigned schedule has me supervising your team for 5 hours a week [or whatever’s reasonable] including background tasks like scheduling [ditto]. [Institution] has planned your roles as essentially self-supporting during the events themselves, with planning support immediately before, pressing real-time questions by [text / calls] and debriefing and troubleshooting by email. I have made a point of swinging by between other tasks, as well. (I have 35+ hours a week of job duties unrelated to my supervisory role.)

    As always, if there’s ever a pattern of problems–unclear instructions, understaffing, harassment from visitors, missed maintenance, unresponsive paid staff, demands that take you beyond your expected hours–let me know, so I can address it. But you should only expect to see me in person before the event, plus occasional brief swing-throughs as my other duties allow.”

    1. Agent Diane*

      This is a terrible idea. Do not send an email like this.

      OP2: your staff are feeling unsupported by you, and that’s what you need to tackle. Have you held one to ones with them, or any conversations to find out what’s not working for them? Or has it all been by surveys etc? If they feel they can’t talk to you because they only see you when you deign to drive by their outreach event, they are going to feel unsupported.

      Your whole email made me feel you consider managing this part time team a minor part of your role. But if they are doing the hard outreach work, their enthusiasm for work – including how supported they feel by you – is critical for your organisation. Make time for them. Maybe do a couple of events one week, for the full four hours, making sure you spend time with the whole team. Use the lulls to talk to them. Do a coffee run for them.

      Then make sure that once a month or so you have an actual conversation, one to one, with each of the team. That’s basic management practice and will be better for morale than you swinging by for half an hour whilst giving off impatient “I’m a busy person you know” vibes.

      Do less drive bys, and more sit down one-to-ones. Overall you’ll spend the same amount of time managing your team, but you’ll get better results.

      2. JSPA*

        I may have done too close a reading, or accepted the LW’s summary of the comments.

        But when I read,

        “I seem to have done too good a job making them feel like they’re my first priority […] multiple staff complained that I am not doing enough to support them because I am not actively attending outreach events like they do”

        I read that as:

        “Something, maybe something I’ve said, or my engagement before the events, has led them to expect me to be there much of the time, so my mere absence makes them feel intrinsically unsupported due to the mismatch in their expectations vs reality”

        rather than,

        “they feel unsupported, and to fix that, they want me to be there more.”

        It could of course be either! Or both!

        But it’s so easy for people to imply more support than they can give.

        More often than not, if I staff an event (admittedly, in my case, that’s as a volunteer or friend), I’ve had an organizer tell me, “I’ll be around, if there are any issues, just grab me” only to disappear for the next hour or two. If I knew that they’d be passing through once or twice at most, I’d naturally ask a couple more “how to” questions in advance, and then not need to lean on them in real time.

        See, I’m not new to the world; if you tell me I’ll mostly be on my own, I’m fine with that. In contrast, if I’m assuming you want to be notified, so I should find you for any little bingle, so I waste time looking for you, plus that means I’m putting people on hold while I do so? Yeah, my stress level goes way up.

        That’s why I figured it was useful to start from the correct shared reality. Especially as the surveys are anonymous, which means:
        a) we don’t know what percentage of staff have flagged the issue;
        b) we don’t know how many staff members there are
        c) we don’t know how often each staff member is around, outside of the event prep time.

        If there are six people, and four have this issue, then six conversations is clearly the right answer; but if it’s 30 staff and eight people with the issue, the calculus changes dramatically.

        1. commensally*

          Having both volunteered at events and done outreach as a staff member: an organizer who is “around” at an event *is* there. (If it’s an event at the main location, it’s generally not called outreach. If it’s an offsite outreach event, then if there at the offsite location, they’re there.)

          If this team’s job is 75% “attending offsite events” and 25% “planning and prep time at the office” (which is what it sounds like it is) and the boss is always hanging around during the office time offering advice but never actually goes to any events (which is also what it sounds like) it’s extremely valid that they want boss to either come to events occasionally or back off when they’re in the office.

        2. MigraineMonth*

          I think that it’s possible there is simply a miscommunication about the LW’s availability. However, there are a lot of other possible reasons that the team wants the LW to be present at events, and I think it’s on LW to dig deeper. They’re signaling a problem; even if the proposed solution doesn’t work, the problem is still there. I think the LW should ask the team members individually *why* they might want her at events.

          LW, it is probably worth the time investment to attend a couple of events for the full length to observe. Are the events understaffed? Are there conflicts between team members that come out when you’re not directing them? Are there gaps in their training that leave them scrambling? Does setup or teardown take forever?

          An email, particularly one with this formal tone, is not going to come across as collaborative or problem-solving. I don’t think it’s the right way to go.

        3. Myrin*

          FWIW, your “when I read … I read it as…” is exactly how I read OP’s letter as well, simply because of her wording.

          I still wouldn’t write an email/message like you proposed in your top-level comment, but I actually think something along those lines is a good baseline for OP to have in mind before approaching the employees more personally, if only to be very clear in her own head where she’s coming from.

        4. Agent Diane*

          I am also not new to this world, and I am confident as someone who has managed multiple teams – paid and unpaid – that an email like the one you suggested is a surefire way to get people’s backs up. The OP says they manage a small, part-time, team so the hypathetical “but what if it was 30 people” doesn’t apply.

          Managers need to make time to talk to their teams, individually. Anything else and they are not being a good manager.

        5. sparkle emoji*

          On your point about size of team and keeping the number of conversations reasonable– it sounds as if there are already people raising this as an issue. LW should know who they are. Why not include them(and a few others as a gut check) in a small sample if the whole group is too large to meet with everyone. Go to the people who you already know have concerns and try to get to the bottom of what the real issue is. The “non-complainer” group is there to see if the concerns are founded.

      3. umami*

        Agreed. It seems strange that this team wants more supervision from their boss at events, so there clearly is some gap to address! Getting a message like this one would be so discouraging. I say this as someone who has long supervised staff who do outreach events and other events, and I always make a point of checking on the team and supporting them at events until they finally say they’ve got it. They really appreciate it!

        1. Old Bag*

          Maybe I’m wrong but I got the vibe that they find it… offensive? that she doesn’t come to their events? Like they don’t realize how self sufficient they are actually supposed to be? And if that is the case, asking them “what kind of support do you need / why do you want me there?” is not going to elicit an answer because who is going to tell their boss “you’re a lazy cow who doesn’t even bother to show to events when you’re supposed to be our supervisor!” No one. Even if it was their boss’ job to do that (and it’s not OP’s job) no one who wants to keep their job is going to say that. There’s no diplomatic way to say that even.

          If the problem actually is that the team finds it …rude? that she isn’t coming to events, not realizing this is genuinely not her job, then a major course correction is in order.

      4. Smithy*

        Agreed.

        Far too often with emails like this make complete sense to the staff members who are unbothered/feel fine with the situation at hand. And those who currently do not feel good or supported, etc feel far far worse.

        The head of our department recently sent out a kind of email like this about our department – and the interpretations of that email I’ve heard back have been a wide range of very negative interpretations. The concept of “this meeting could have been an email” is one that I feel wildly misses the mark when there are more emotions involved.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Email is the wrong medium for “I want to hear what you have to say and will keep it private.”

          1. StarryStarryNight*

            Definitely! This should be a two-way conversation aimed at finding out what exactly is going on – not an email essentially telling people “this is how it is, deal with it”.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      I think there are lots of situations where just clearly laying out the boundaries and guidelines is super helpful, but OP’s response here needs to be an actual conversation. If the team were just saying they felt unclear about her availability, and when to expect her, the email outline would certainly do the trick. However they’ve said they don’t actually feel supported; an email simply laying out that things are how they are is going to further impress upon them that OP has no time to listen to them. A two way conversation has the advantage of giving people a chance to pitch the perspective from the other side, and raise problems OP might not be aware of. Even if there’s nothing of that sort, they’ll feel heard, and therefore supported.

    4. Bella Ridley*

      If I felt my manager was not supportive, and I got a snotty email from the manager saying that ackshually they DID support me, and we didn’t NEED that support anyway, and they had lots of other more important stuff to be doing, and that we should shut up until there were much worse problems, and nothing was going to change? I’d quit.

      1. Pizza Rat*

        I would quit as well. I don’t think this manager is as good at the job as they think they are.

    5. Hyaline*

      Oh absolutely not. Way to say in two paragraphs “Your concerns are not of interest to me, I know better than you, and I don’t want to hear from you about this. Actually, I don’t want to hear from you about anything unless you can articulate it as a ‘pattern of problems’ so good night and good luck ya’ll.”

      This is truly, as the advice says, a time for a *conversation* not a one-way communication like email.

      In addition, this feedback was done by anonymous survey at a mid-year check in, so this approach could also have the effect of “what you say in the survey can and will be used against you even though it was ‘anonymous’ andplusalso it ticked me off to read what you really think.”

  7. Metal Gru*

    Letter 1 – should you check if boss is OK. She was probably annoyed when “I’ve made comments to her in the past about wondering if I should have texted her to make sure everything is okay” because this comes off as passive-aggressive snark commentary about her being ‘late’. It’s like saying oh good you’re finally here – I was wondering whether to send out a search party. If one of my direct reports said this to me I’d be having a conversation with them about rigid expectations, when is it appropriate to ‘enforce’ other people’s schedules etc. Perhaps your boss is less direct.

    1. Yankees fans are awesome!*

      If I were the manager, I’d be pro-active and let the person know I’m running late. Even before that, we’d have an agreement that if I’m more than a half-hour late, I send employee a text, phone call, or e-mail.

      To keep people, especially employees, uncertain is unnecessarily cruel.

    2. Area Woman*

      I agree that while the OP is probably not wrong in asking that generally, it may be misinterpreted by the boss as sarcastic like your examples. I would just ask more clearly, “hey just wondering, your start time varies sometimes, what should I expect?”

      To be fair the boss should have been clear about it if they said “I start at 12” but they don’t actually do that. None of this is the OP’s fault and they probably do not need to worry about her.

    3. commensally*

      If someone is an hour late to a shift at my workplace without calling in, everyone is 100% going to tell them “oh thank goodness, I was starting to be afraid you were dead in a ditch somewhere!”

      This is not being passive aggressive about their lateness, this is expressing our legitimate worry that they’d been in some kind of accident. (which is reasonable, as 90% of the time if someone is that late without calling out, they were in a car accident on the way to work.)

    4. Perkins*

      So you’d rudely avoid doing what you said you would without notice, rudely assume the person was being passive-aggressive, and rudely respond with aggression?

      I’d say this is unhelpful, but it may be helpful for the LW to be aware of the levels of unreasonableness that some people, perhaps even their supervisor, operate with.

  8. Sparrow*

    Question related to #5, if anyone has an opinion: I work in an industry where freelancing directly with companies is by far the most common form of work, and full-time (or even part-time) staff roles are hard to come by. When I started working for my current company, it was as a contractor; four months later, a full-time position opened and I was lucky to get it. It was basically the exact same work I had been doing already.

    In a situation like mine (contracting directly with the company, not through a staffing agency), should the same format that Allison suggested in the letter work? Right now I just list my employment dates starting from when I came on full-time, partially because my company is notoriously bad with keeping records on contractors and there’s a very good chance that anyone contacted to verify my employment would give the date I became FT as my start date—but it would be nice to have those extra few months!

    2. Lisa*

      Yes, I would do similar to what Alison suggests to this LW! It gets you the full credit on your resume for how long you’ve been doing that job, but also is honest and will prevent issues when an employment check happens.

  9. bamcheeks*

    LW3, definitely don’t worry about people stealing your format. A good CV formatting is when someone doesn’t notice the formatting but finds all the information they needed at first glance. If your CV formatting is sufficiently unique that someone could think, “wait, blue headers and grey shaded boxes? Haven’t I seen this before?” I’d argue it’s probably too fussy. You want people to be remembering, “she’s the one who’s slain four Jabberwocks and is certified in Mimsy Borogrove Handling”, not what font you used!

    1. amoeba*

      Oh, wait, you mean all the stuff they told us about standing out with your unique resumé that shows your language skills as pie charts or whatever was a lie? Lol.

      1. Cthulhu’s Librarian*

        Yes. And so was the special paper.

        Every time I got a person coming in and pitching a fit about using their special resume paper in the public printers, I knew they’re in for a nightmare of a job search. I tried to direct them to our career services offerings (resume reviews and interview training), but they were usually the most resistant folks to all the advice that would have helped them (“you’ve been in the workforce for three decades now. No one cares if you were valedictorian in high school, sir. Let’s try focusing on something more recent.”)

        1. bamcheeks*

          I don’t think the special paper was a thing in the UK, but my dad was horrified that I got my first professional job in 2001 with a printed cover letter instead of handwriting it. How could he eliminate the people with weak characters if he couldn’t see whether their handwriting sloped backwards?

          1. knitted feet*

            I’m UK and I’m fairly sure I remember getting the advice about special paper, sometime around the turn of the millennium when I was traipsing around town every Saturday dropping CVs in to all the recruitment agencies. I never tried it though. Who knows, maybe that’s why the only teenage job I ever got was mucking out stables.

        2. Ama*

          I have been reading AaM long enough that I remember when Alison was still regularly asked whether special resume paper was important (she always said no).

      2. bamcheeks*

        Here’s a bar chart showing my level of expertise in six programming languages! No, I haven’t labelled the Y axis and this is entirely self-assessed, what do you mean it’s not helpful?

        1. Sneaky Squirrel*

          The self-assessment rating charts in resumes kill me. I’m either going to think you’re someone who is overexaggerating if you rate yourself too highly on everything, or I’m going to think you’re self-sabotaging if you’re showing off bar charts that make it look like you don’t actually have much skill.

        2. amoeba*

          Hah, I mean, I can see that actually being helpful for the hiring manager, just maybe not in the intended way!

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Lol, yes. I’m not a hiring manager, but I’d toss any bar chart with an unlabeled y-axis into the trash. Along with the ones that have a labeled y-axis, but it starts at 8 and goes to 8.5 to make the effect look enormous. (Also those stupid infographics that have images instead of fixed-width bars, so when they’re twice as tall they are also twice as wide.)

    4. Great Frogs of Literature*

      Are you looking at the resume that the job search coach made for me after I got laid off a few years ago? I’m pretty sure it had both blue headers and gray shaded boxes.

      (Don’t worry, I’m not using it — I took one look at it, went, “OH HECK NO,” and went right back to my nice, legible, clear formatting and decent negative space resume.)

      ((Also don’t worry, I wasn’t paying for this service, although I do occasionally wonder how much my former employer paid for it.))

  10. NZReb*

    #4, Obviously this depends on the type of work, but in my work the exact start date doesn’t matter. If this happened to someone I hired, I’d just ask whether they wanted to start on Tuesday or needed more time for jetlag etc. I wouldn’t be worried by it at all.

    1. umami*

      That seems … unusual. Lots of companies start new hires at the beginning of a pay period, so if someone doesn’t start on time, it creates other issues. For the OP, I get that they are saying it was unavoidable, but really it feels like poor planning to have been scheduled to be out of town up until the day before starting a new job. Not unforgivable, but I would hope their job doesn’t have a strong emphasis on planning or project management, because it’s an inauspicious start to a new job.

      1. Fly on The Wall*

        Perhaps the trip was already scheduled when they took the job? Or perhaps a family emergency came up?

        1. umami*

          True, that’s why I say it feels like poor planning, not that it necessarily is. It might not have been, but you really only get that first chance to make a good impression, so if it truly was unavoidable, I would go beyond leaving a voicemail to make sure my new boss knows this is not the first impression I was hoping to make. I’m not saying it’s dire, but it’s definitely not hand-wavey either.

      2. Frequent Flier*

        I’ve worked a (large) place or two where all new hires were supposed to start on a Monday for an orientation. That said, I don’t think anyone would have gotten fired for a snafu like OP’s. They might have had to wait until the following Monday.

        One time, I got horribly lost between the orientation (in HQ) and my work location a couple towns over. I didn’t get fired though I did get a talking to. (This was before cell phones, but even so, it was still my fault; I should have stopped and asked for directions much sooner!)

      3. Plate of Wings*

        Agree, my company and greater industry are famously informal, but new hires start on Wednesdays only, and we have facilities-related reasons for that. They would have to start the following Wednesday if they changed it at the last minute, and the manager would have a bunch of rescheduling.

        That said, if they explained the issue the week prior to start, a Thursday or Friday start could be arranged. But not at the last minute.

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

      I think the problem isn’t the start date, it’s that it doesn’t look good to a new employer if you miss the first day. They may think you are unreliable.

    3. Hannah Lee*

      At one of my previous jobs, I arrived on the first day almost 3 hours late – missed the new hire orientation, badge picture taking, etc.

      There was a bad snowstorm that started Sunday night and went through til Monday midday.
      I’d left plenty of time for ‘slow traffic due to weather’, I’d thought.
      I didn’t account for ‘tractor trailer jackknifed across entire highway for hours. I was able to message my direct manager and explain … I think she was a bit exasperated, but there wasn’t anything I could do at that point. And it was … fine.
      I was extra extra conscientious about attendance, arriving a little early especially in the first month or so, so that she wouldn’t worry that it was a thing with me. Wound up working at that company for years with no issues.

      OP should just be sure to be consistent with attendance, and meeting commitments, and if the boss, employer are at all sane, it shouldn’t be an issues.

      (And though a lot of companies prefer people to start at the beginning of a pay period, it often is NBD if they come in on some other day. It just may require some manual calc’s of PTO accruals or pay for that first period, unless there is something very particular/rigid in how payroll/labor allocation/contracts work there for some reason)

    4. Ally McBeal*

      I mean, at my company, the new hire’s manager takes them out to lunch on their first day, traveling into town if they have to (my manager drove 3 hours each way for my first day), and if flights/hotel are involved then the start date DOES matter.

    5. HiddenT*

      I once was supposed to start working on a Monday after a transatlantic flight that involved a 12-hour layover in Iceland, only for it to turn into a much longer layover than originally planned and necessitating I start on Tuesday instead. In that case, though, the company was much more forgiving since I’d been interning at their German main office for two months before they asked me to start as a full employee at the US office with very little notice because one of the only two people left in the US office had given their notice. When I interviewed for the internship there had been 4 people in the US office.

      … I was so desperate for a job that I ignored the blatant red flags, but at least they weren’t mean about me being delayed a day starting in the US office. Still only lasted 18 months there due to the constant abuse.

  11. Honey Cocoa*

    LW1 I would consider asking your supervisor when should you text and or raise an alarm. You can explain that you do not mean to intrude, you understand she values her privacy, you just want to know at what point is something wrong, and what’s the procedure?
    And honestly this exact exchange can happen with friends, housemates and family. Everyone has their different standards of timeliness.

    It’s tough when you’re alone and it seems like something might be wrong. Hopefully more information will help.

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

      I agree. I think that the boss should also let someone know that they are going to be late. if its 30 minutes that’s not a big deal. But if she’s more than an hour late she should call the OP or someone. Every place I’ve worked has had protocol if you are late. if you don’t call or come in, after a certain amount of time they call you and if they cant get in touch with you they call your emergency contact. One place they would call police for a wellness check up.

  12. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    OP1: As a fellow neurospicy I know exactly where you’re coming from. Others tell us that it’s part of society to be concerned about others so we try to do our best, and after all isn’t it a good thing to care about others?
    Yes it is. But the nuances aren’t simple and can’t be assumed by those of us running with a different operating system.
    Where I separate it is ‘can I feasibly do something without pissing people off?’. The risk of pissing off the person who I don’t know very well is pretty high if I call them to see if they’ve got health issues just because they were late. Heck, I’d be pissed off if I was contacted like that.
    I know many won’t agree with this. But I personally do not like any enquiries into ‘how to tell us that you’re not feeling well Keymaster’. I’m dealing with stuff best way I know.
    Now a simple ‘hey great to see you!’ can make a difference. Or if I’m messing up your work then absolutely ask if I can help with sorting out the workflow when I’m suddenly gonna be late (a message etc).

    TL:dr – people be varied and why I still largely see them as alien.

  13. Educator*

    We really need to kill this myth that people who live alone want the whole world to check in on them in case they are dead on the floor. People who live alone can still have friends, neighbors, family, romantic partners, etc. They don’t need work of all places to check in on them like they are helpless children.

    1. Junior Assistant Peon*

      I’ve seen this situation twice in my career – coworker uncharacteristically pulls a no-call-no-show, worried teammates investigate, and the person turns out to have died alone at home.

      1. FormerStudent*

        Same – we had someone not show up once with no call, he wasn’t answering the phone and when some colleagues when round to check on him he had died. He was only in his 20s. I’m far more likely to overreact now if someone hasn’t showed up and hasn’t called in sick.

      2. No Lizards Allowed*

        Same here – a 23-year-old died alone in his apartment of an undiagnosed heart defect.

      3. knitted feet*

        Yes. I’ve lost two friends like this, and both times their colleagues were the first people to realise they weren’t OK. Obviously if someone regularly flexes their start time, you don’t panic every time they do it. But it’s not inherently a bad idea for work to check on people if they don’t show up.

      4. Saturday*

        Yes, the assumption isn’t that the single person doesn’t have anyone else in their lives but that their coworkers might be the first to know something is wrong. I’ve had this play out with a family member.

    2. Lexi Vipond*

      You could be living with a partner and still have the colleague you were supposed to join at 10 be the first person to realise something was wrong, rather than the partner who went out at 7 and won’t be back until 5. It’s not like you can only have one thing or the other.

      You might genuinely prefer to die than to have it be your work who prompted concern in time to save you – I’m sure some people here would – but that’s not universal.

      1. DisneyChannelThis*

        I agree! My friends don’t expect to hear from me until after working hours, and if I don’t reply immediately at 6pm, their first assumption is I’m just working late. Work calling and checking on me after a no call no show the start of my shift is getting help to me several hours sooner!

    3. bamcheeks*

      I think the “she lives alone, what if SOMETHING HAPPENED” is a bit of a leap, but if they’re a two-person team who manage coverage between them, they should have some sort of protocol for “at what point do I contact my grandboss / someone else to tell them she’s not here and I’m supposed to leave in two hours”. That covers the actual work-related need (knowing that someone more senior is making a decision to either authorise overtime or close the desk tonight), and means that someone with authority knows LW’s boss is absent and can decide whether that warrants any kind of welfare check so LW doesn’t have to.

      What’s happening here is that LW has a legitimate work concern (coverage) and is spiralling out to worry about other things (what if she’s ill, what if I get her into trouble, what if what if) because there isn’t a clear process to the legitimate worry.

      1. Mockingjay*

        Exactly. OP1, why your manager is chronically late is irrelevant. It’s Manager’s responsibility to figure out how to meet her own work commitments (showing up on time), the same as you do for yourself.

        Address the impact on work and tasking. Her lateness is affecting the ability to serve patrons, is extending your work hours, and/or prevents you from taking breaks and lunch. Identify the coverage policy that needs to be followed. If there isn’t one, draft one or ask Manager and Grandboss to develop one. It’s a work problem and the solution is a work process.

    4. Llama Llama*

      Because being a good human means caring about the welfare of the people around you?

      No I won’t worry if someone who is often late, is late but if it’s hours into my day and my reliable teammate isn’t there, I worry.

      In my 10 years of supervising, twice people not showing up was because something bad was happening at home.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yes, this. Sometimes I know Joan just missed the train again and will show up an hour late with a coffee – but if Tyrone is always the first one in the office and no was had heard from them until lunchtime yeah I’m gonna be worried.

      2. Jackalope*

        This is where I fall. As someone who lived alone for several years, one of my biggest fears was something happening to me at home (say a bad fall where I couldn’t get up), and having no one know to send help. Having supervisors who would try to contact me if I was suddenly AWOL made me feel much safer. And checking in with other coworkers every now and then was helpful for them too from how they responded; just making sure everything was okay.

    5. londonedit*

      I do understand where you’re coming from, because I live on my own and I agree that some of the ‘oh she lives alone, poor thing, someone had better check on her’ rhetoric is very patronising. But at the same time, if I didn’t turn up for work on time, or I didn’t log in to Teams when my boss and colleagues were expecting me to log on, then I’d hope someone would think to check that I was OK. I have neighbours and friends and a partner, but they don’t live with me, and nine times out of 10 the first people who would know if I wasn’t following my usual routine would indeed be my work colleagues, because they’d notice if it was 10am and I still wasn’t responding to messages or showing as Available, when I’m meant to start work at 9. We also have a culture on our team where if someone’s going to be late, you’ll either let people know the day before if it’s a planned thing, or you send a quick ‘On the train but it’s delayed’ message or whatever. Of course I wouldn’t want a full-scale search to be launched, but I’d hope my boss or a colleague would think to send me a text saying ‘Are you running late?’, and then if they didn’t get a response to that, I’d hope they’d escalate it from there.

      I definitely agree that there needs to be some sort of arrangement where the OP knows that if the boss is, say, anything up to two hours late then they don’t need to worry, but that if it goes beyond two hours then either the boss should text to let the OP know, or the OP could feel free to send a quick text to check when the boss is likely to arrive. As it’s a pattern with the boss, I agree that there’s no point launching into emergency mode every time, but there definitely needs to be some way for the OP to know that this is just a normal ‘boss is coming in at 12’ situation – and also for them to know when it possibly isn’t.

      1. Marion Ravenwood*

        Yep. I live alone and when I was single, I had a couple of periods where for various reasons the only people I had any contact with for a week or so were my work colleagues (and maybe the cashier at the supermarket, but they’re obviously not in a position to check on me if there was something wrong). They may not be the first people I’d call in an emergency but they’re likely to be the first to realise something isn’t right – think of how many disappearances (and worse) start with the person not showing up to their job.

        That’s not saying I want work to pester me every time I’m five minutes late, but if say I didn’t show up for a scheduled meeting or wasn’t responding to Teams messages/emails or hadn’t notified them I might be very late (which for me is anything beyond 20 minutes but others’ mileage may vary) because of an appointment or transport issues etc, then I hope they’d send a “Hey Marion, just checking everything’s OK?” type message.

        And I definitely agree that OP and boss (and possibly grandboss) need some kind of a system for when the boss is going to be late by more than the usual amount of time, or when OP should check in with boss about them being later than usual. Hopefully they’ll never actually need to put it into practice but better to know what the approach is ahead of time just in case.

      2. Great Frogs of Literature*

        Yeah, my dad lives alone, and our only regularly scheduled contact is once a week. It would be a LONG time before I noticed something was wrong because he hadn’t sent me updates on his wordle scores or medical appointment schedule. He’s had a health crisis in the past (thankfully while out with friends; also thankfully he’s fine now) and I do worry how long it would take someone to notice if something else happened and it wasn’t timed so fortuitously, or on one of the few days he works.

        That said, for someone who’s late on the regular, I wouldn’t leap to Maybe Something Has Happened after 45 minutes.

      3. megaboo*

        If you are two hours late and don’t either call in or show and are generally reliable, it’s okay to be worried no matter whether you live alone or not. The boss sounds like a flake and is keeping the OP on the hook for those two hours when she really needs to be relieved.

    6. Seashell*

      In the situation in the letter, it sounds like coming in later is routine for this person and the hours aren’t set in stone, so it’s not worth worrying about. However, if someone completely didn’t show up to work or a usually punctual person who has to sign in for a shift was 2 hours late, what would you expect a co-worker or manager to do? Nothing? “Oh, well, guess we have to fire them instead of reaching out to them”?

      I have a family, but it doesn’t mean they’re with me 100% of the time. If I didn’t show up for work, I would expect my boss to try to reach me and, if I was unreachable, to reach out to an emergency contact. In a million years, it wouldn’t occur to me that would make me a “helpless child.”

    7. Frosty*

      It’s probably best to have these kinds of conversations one-on-one. I think OP could say something like, “When you’re late for a shift, I worry that something might have happened – would you like me to check in if that happens again?” That approach shows care without being confrontational. That said, it’s wild to me that this person is regularly late enough for it to be considered normal.

      As someone who lives alone – with no family or romantic partner – I’ve told friends that I sometimes worry about dying or having a medical emergency at the start of a long weekend and no one noticing until I’m missed at work. I have cats, so I’ve tried to put a few safeguards in place, just in case.

      It’s totally valid to be concerned about people who might not have many others checking in on them. Especially for folks who may need extra support – which is often unavailable – it’s not overstepping to care.

    8. Educator*

      Look, I’m really sorry for anyone who has lost a colleague. That’s awful, and I can understand why it would impact your thinking. But that is something you need to manage for yourself. “A bad thing happened once, so now all my future coworkers have waived their right to privacy” is not reasonable logic.

      Because think about it, what options here are not wildly invasive and potentially dangerous? You send the missing coworker a “hey, hope you are ok” message. You let their emergency contact know. Fine so far.

      Then what? Go to their house? Totally inappropriate–remember the letter where a manager banged on their employee’s door only to find they were having some morning romantic fun? Send the police to do a wellness check? In the US, those often escalate to violence. I’m in a demographic group where the most likely outcome of a wellness check is me getting shot.

      If you are someone who lives alone and want your employer to be overly involved in your life, more power to you I guess, but that should be something you ask for, not something foisted on people because they live alone.

      It’s not caring to invade people’s privacy because they happen to work for you, or you happen to work for them. Not showing up for work is not a crime that causes me to renounce my reasonable boundaries or my right to privacy in my own home.

      Plenty of people, clearly including the manager in this letter, want to just be left alone.

      1. Meow*

        Honestly your thinking is so far out of the norm that you should let your company or direct manager know your feelings to avoid this situation. Personally, I will not change my behavior around this type of issue because of one person’s outside of the norm feeling on it. That’s for you to manage with those in your life.

        1. Mockingjay*

          When you live alone and are chronically late, that’s not a cause for worry. That’s just a poor habit.

          I think that’s the issue for OP1 – they aren’t separating habitual tardiness from a single instance of an unusually late arrival. I’m annoyed by the first (“Manager is late AGAIN and we have a long line of clients to be seen – Grr!”) and worried by the second (“I hope nothing’s wrong with Manager; she’s never late. Perhaps I should text her and see if she’s okay.”)

      2. Frosty*

        If that manager wants to be left alone, then she shouldn’t regularly be showing up 2 hours late.

      3. Ellis Bell*

        I think you’re conflating a few issues here. No one is talking about it being a crime. The letter you’re referring to was an employee who didn’t have an emergency contact, and didn’t pick up their phone or communicate so that made the usual check in moves impossible. I can’t think of anything worse than having my boss show up outside because I’d slept in, but if all that’s needed is for me to avoid that is to call out reliably or pick up my phone, that’s an absolutely fine expectation! I’d still put up with the mortification of that over and above being in danger or dead, and I think it’s really far too easy to dismiss those priorities if you’ve never experienced them.

      4. sparkle emoji*

        My manager has had to call the non-emergency 1st responder line for an employee who hadn’t shown up to work for several days, lived alone, was not responding to calls/emails, and had no emergency contact. Thankfully he was fine and had just decided to quit without telling anyone, but I really struggle with what else she should have done if calling for a wellness check is off limits in your view.
        (His residence was a 2 hour drive from our office so it didn’t make sense for her to do it)

      5. Productivity Pigeon*

        Someone *uncharacteristically* going AWOL and doesn’t get in touch or is unreachable?

        I’m not saying you need to call in the cavalry, the army and the navy but it’s not unreasonable try to get hold of them to check they’re okay.

        That’s common human decency in my eyes, not a gross violation.

      6. MCMonkeybean*

        You seem to think this is some kind of rare outlier situation but it’s really not, it happens literally all the time. Whether you live alone or not, for *many* people coworkers will be the first to notice they are missing.

        If you feel so strongly that someone calling you or knocking on your door is such an enormous invasion of privacy that you would literally rather die then you are free to tell your boss and coworkers how you feel. And then if you die from what could have been a very preventable death had you only been found a few hours earlier, all your friends and family can comfort themselves with the knowledge that at least your coworkers respected your privacy…

    9. Baska*

      I’m in my early 40s and live alone. Legitimately, one of my big concerns is “what if I injure myself and can’t tell anyone?” I personally know of at least three people in recent years who were in a similar situation, one of whom was thankfully found and brought to the hospital to recover, two of whom were tragically found dead. I still haven’t come up with a good solution that balances privacy with autonomy.

      1. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        What my dad and I started doing during the pandemic (we both live alone) is text each other a quick check-in message each evening. We aren’t the “long, heartfelt conversation every day” kind of people, but he gets an update on something like whether or not it rained on my dog walk or what I’m having for dinner and replies with something like his bowling scores for the day, what he’s watching on tv, or things of that nature. I can get a little tired of having to communicate every damn day even when I am Done With People (my job is very “peoplely”), but it means that I don’t have to worry that he’s fallen in the yard and will be outside overnight as a result, and also that he’d come over to check on me if I were similarly unable to get to the phone. (Hasn’t happened to him or me, but happened to my great aunt a while back. She survived, but it had some lasting health consequences.)

        My grandma used to do something similar with an actual phone call and another person from her church, where they had a certain time of the day that they’d call each other (letting that person know in advance if you wouldn’t be home at that time), and then call their family if they couldn’t get ahold of her. (They’d re-assign phone partners whenever someone went into a care home or similar, I think.)

        One of the people I read the online journal of had a system where she put one of those voice-activated Alexa or Google speakers in each room of her condo, on the theory that if she were conscious she could yell from the floor for it to call her brother, and if she were unconscious or dead then it wasn’t her problem anymore and someone else would get around to calling her brother eventually. Not what I would have chosen for several reasons, but I can see the logic there.

        1. Marion Ravenwood*

          On a related note to the last point, I recall an Apple Watch ad from a few years ago that showed a guy falling off his bike in a remote area, and the watch detecting the fall and calling the emergency services. Obviously that’s not a solution everyone can or wants to use, but I can see why some people would find that reassuring.

        2. JustaTech*

          My grandmother had a similar system with a neighbor (they lived in a retirement community): every morning one of them would call the other “still alive? Me too!”.
          And that was it.
          It made sense to them because they were both elderly with health issues, and it had been a problem in the community in the past.

          But that’s a voluntary system for people who know that they are high risk and very likely isn’t relevant for people who work in-person jobs.

    10. doreen*

      I’ve known of this happening at least six times with co-workers , although sometimes they weren’t dead on the floor, only unconscious. However, people need to be sensible about checking on people who are late or who no-show. There’s a difference between checking on the person who always calls if they are late and checking on the one who is constantly an hour or two late without calling.

      But about work, friends, family, etc – if I passed out after my husband left for work in the morning, no one other than work would know until my husband got home, which could have been 12 hours later. If I lived alone, it’s entirely possible no one would notice for days unless I had made some arrangements with someone to call every day or something. I had an acquaintance who died at home from Covid and wasn’t found for a couple of weeks – no one was worried when he didn’t show up for bowling one week, they only got a little worried the second week. He was working remotely, so I’m not sure if no one noticed he wasn’t working or they just didn’t check for a couple of weeks. It’s entirely possible that if someone had checked on him the first day he didn’t work, things might have ended differently.

    11. Cordelia*

      I live alone and have all of those people in my life. However if they weren’t expecting to hear from me, they might not check for quite a while. My work on the other hand would check if I didn’t show up when I was expected in, and I’d be very glad of that. It’s not treating me like a “helpless child”, it’s recognising that I’m a person who always shows up roughly on time or lets the team know if I’m late or not coming in, so if one day I don’t something is likely to be wrong. The difference with OP’s colleague is that she is regularly late without checking in, and it’s not an emergency, so OP doesn’t need to check.

    12. Productivity Pigeon*

      As a single person with family and friends, I would still appreciate if my boss or coworkers checked on me if I didn’t show up one day and they didn’t hear from me or were completely unable to reach me.

      1. Productivity Pigeon*

        I don’t speak to my parents every day and while I speak to a friend most days, I don’t have a particular friend I speak to every day.

        But my colleagues? Yep, I speak or see them everyday. They’re much better equipped to notice if I were to go missing.

    13. MCMonkeybean*

      If a boss who is regularly an hour late is once again an hour late then there is definitely no reason to check in.

      But as someone who’s brother died home alone and was found by a coworker who went to check on him I can’t remotely agree with your blanket statement. If someone who is not usually late without notification misses a significant amount of work it is reasonable to be concerned and follow up on the situation.

    14. Just a thought*

      I think it’s not about being a helpless child, it’s just about people caring. My local news anchor almost died of the flu one year when it happened to be really bad, and she only made it to the hospital in time for treatment/fluids/whatever she needed because she never showed up to work and her coworkers got worried because it was so unlike her. When she also didn’t answer the phone, I think one of the coworkers she’s close with drove over to check on her and found her passed out.

  14. I should really pick a name*

    #3
    What specifically were you hoping they would get from seeing your resume?

    2. MigraineMonth*

      LW3 specified in a comment that they are in a visual design field. Given that detail, I can see why they cared about the design/layout of their resume and were annoyed a colleague copied it.

      I still don’t think the hiring manager is going to notice they’d seen the layout/formatting before, but it was an example of one design professional copying another design professional’s work (as opposed to copying my resume formatting, which is just what happened when I ported a ClarisWorks default template into Word).

  15. Benihana scene stealer*

    Unless she literally copied your awards and claimed them as her own there is nothing to worry about. Like others I assume she just copied the idea of having an awards section.

    1. Seal*

      Between hiring staff, serving on search committees, and reviewing tenure portfolios, I’ve seen a lot of resumes over the course of my career. When it comes to formatting my own, I’ve definitely borrowed elements from or been influenced by the formatting on other people’s resumes, as have my colleagues. Most of the resumes I see have fairly similar formatting anyway, so unless the formatting is unusual or exceptionally bad I rarely give it second thought. Although I will admit that there are times when I REALLY wanted to give a candidate feedback on how to improve their resume (the person who used the university’s distinctive logo as a watermark would also have gotten some friendly advice on copyright law as well).

    2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      This is such a good reminder to me to go back and double-check the actual letter! Because I was all set to disagree with you, but I did check and the LW said this: “One former coworker openly told me they stole my formatting and alluded to copying things like the awards, too!” And yeah, that could easily mean that what they copied was the idea of having an awards section too.

      1. Benihana scene stealer*

        It would be pretty brazen to just copy the actual awards….but having read this site for a while, never say never :)

  16. Benihana scene stealer*

    #1, you already have your answer. You say she’s prickly and guards her personal time carefully. And when you have mentioned this before, she’s brushed you off and seemed annoyed.

    So based on that, no you should not continue to check on your boss! You mention autism so I don’t know if that means these cues are harder to read, but I’d say these are clear signs to stay out of it

  17. Dogmomma*

    #2. even if there was 2 staff at these events, they don’t need to go to the restroom together. and it sounds like there are a few more, but it’s not clear. So there’s coverage. Good heavens, I often had to split lunch with someone else so there would be coverage. Sounds like this is a very young group that wants handholding. This is not a personal event it’s part of their job. Have a frank conversation if it’s getting out of hand but imo they need to get over it. You are not mom.

    1. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

      Or, it could be that OP favors other teams that she has works with more frequently and the outreach team notices. Or that OP has no actual clue what the outreach team is doing and they are getting poor support for what they need/have to ‘adapt and overcome’ with items because they aren’t given things or are getting generic performance reviews when some of them do go above and beyond. And how else would OP know the legit issues if she doesn’t attend an event fully to understand what the team does and who the key players are?

      1. KateM*

        Greed. It would probably be worth it to attend at least one event from start to end. If OP has never done that, then how do they even know what kind of support is needed?

    2. Benihana scene stealer*

      I disagree – if multiple people are consistently saying they don’t feel supported by their manager, blaming the employees is about as tone-deaf as it gets.

      It doesn’t mean she has to rearrange everything and spend all her time at these events, but she at least needs to take her employees’ concerns seriously

    3. umami*

      They are part-time staff, so I feel like the supervisor should be spending more time on the front end, showing up when the team is getting set up for an event, to make sure they feel supported and know what they are doing. If their 20 hours of work is always at events, then they really aren’t getting much (if any) time with their boss if the boss is just doing a drive-by on occasion.

    4. Pizza Rat*

      I find your perspective confusing. The manager of outreach is not making time to go to outreach events. They are “making rounds” of people in the office, but there’s no mention of regular meetings, either as a group or 1:1.

      I’m not sure where the idea comes from that they’ve given the outreach team the idea that they are top priority. From where I sit, the outreach team isn’t a priority at all.

      1. Lexi Vipond*

        I definitely read it as during the events – there are ~20 hours of outreach events every week, and the part time staff work 4 hour shifts (presumably 5 days a week) to cover them. If that’s too confusing, what clearer explanation do you propose?

        1. sparkle emoji*

          I read it as the outreach team having some in office prep time, so maybe 5 hours in office, and the other 15 at events. The LW could be checking in during the 5 office hours as they mention time constraints. Those constraints could make it seem easier to just check in in-office instead of taking the time to go to an event at a different site.

  18. RIP Pillowfort*

    OP #1- You’re not responsible for managing her time or ensuring she’s safe. Her time management is really between her boss and her, unless it affects your work. Draw a firm boundary because your boss really doesn’t seem okay with you prying into it at all.

    The only standing you have is whether or not it affects your work. Now if she doesn’t show up at all? Then you call and try to figure out what’s going on. If she rolls in 2 hours before her shift starts, just assume she cleared that with someone above her as long as she did not impact your work.

    I’m not sure if she’s prickly because of how you approached the issue or if she’s just that way. Because assuming you’re the only notice if something happens to her is kind of presumptous. I’d get prickly if you assumed that I didn’t have enough family/social net for anyone to know if I got hurt or sick.

    1. The Person from the Resume*

      THIS! Your boss has a pattern (at least a small one) of arriving a bit late, working extremely hard when she’s at work, and she’s your boss. Very likely she’s worked something out with her own supervisor that does not need to be run by you. Or overall there’s an attitude or pattern of flexing hours in this office when possible (and this is the only/best way for her to flex since you share coverage).

      It sounds like you’re an on time person, but your boss is not in this particular situation sometimes. And she’s your boss!!! And “She’s in her late 60s and lives alone” and might be in trouble is a bit condescending (it that something you’re anxious about for yourself and projecting on her?).

      You need to put it out of your mind as best you can. As Allison said, reach out to her only when she’s so unusually late that you’re worried about coverage when you leave. And definitely word it that way and not “I’m worried you’re sick or dead at home and I’m the only one that knows.”

      What do you do one of you is on vacation? Does someone else fill in? “I’m just checking that you will be in the office in an hour or do I need to get someone to cover the desk/phone.”

      I see two things your boss could be annoyed about. 1) She’s your boss, you should not be monitoring exactly when she gets into the office.
      2) You mentioned the a reason you were checking is that boss is in her late 60s and lives alone and expressed that you’re checking on her health which is condescending. I do read “she’s 45 minutes late and could be incapacitated” as an anxiety reaction from you.

      Give it time so that she’s so unusually late that you actually need to think about coverage – a work related problem.

    2. doreen*

      I think showing up two hours late without saying anything might be affecting the OPs work , because of the particular set up they have, where one of them must be there for the 12 hours the office is open. Say OP starts work at 8 am, works until 4 and then the boss comes in at 12 and works till 8. It’s now 2 pm and the OP hasn’t heard from the boss. What happens if the boss doesn’t show up at all? Can OP just close up at 4 or must OP stay till 8? And if OP has to stay until 8 maybe they need to make some sort of arrangements.

      Now if the OP can just close the office for lunch and breaks and can go home at 4 pm even if boss hasn’t shown up, that’s a different story.

      1. RIP Pillowfort*

        Which is why if it is affecting their breaks or anything work related they need to say something. That’s a work problem to fix.

        But it really seems to me the issue is that the boss doesn’t communicate well and the OP is focused on something that isn’t a problem they need to solve (the boss’ physical safety). I get that because I’m on the spectrum and I can sometimes get into a catastrophe loop. The only real thing is whether OP has a true work problem or they just don’t like that their boss does this.

        I would personally hate this behavior. It would set me on edge because I’m schedule focused. So someone being late (especially with no warnings ever) would throw off my mental equilibrium. But that’s a me problem, not a work issue.

    3. Productivity Pigeon*

      I agree with you but I think there’s a way to be a bit kinder to the LW.

      They’re concerned for their boss. That’s an inherently decent and good thing.

      They’re not being nosy or trying to lecture their boss. They simply care if the boss is okay or not.

  19. TaContractor*

    Piggybacking on #5,
    if the actual work is being done for the same company, but the change was from intern to contractor, I assume you shouldn’t put it under the same row or could you?

    So I would do 2 rows:
    TaContractors, Strategy Coordinator for Taco Institute, Jan 2025 – present
    Taco Institute, Internship in Strategy Coordination, Sep 2024 – Jan 2025

    Instead of: Taco Institute, Strategy Coordinator, Sep 2024 – present
    (interned under Taco Institute, now as contractor under TaContractors)

    Thoughts?

    1. Hlao-roo*

      I like your two row example and I think that makes sense for an internship to contractor change.

      Another scenario similar(-ish) to yours, I had a few different job titles at one company I worked for. My duties/accomplishments were different enough for each role that I formatted it like this on my resume:

      Taco Institute, Jan 2017 – June 2021
      Taco Strategy Coordinator, April 2019 – June 2021
      *accomplishment
      *accomplishment
      Taco Taste Tester, Feb 2018 – April 2019
      *accomplishment
      *accomplishment
      Cheese Buyer, Jan 2017 – Feb 2018
      *accomplishment

    2. ecnaseener*

      Yeah, that’s a promotion so the two jobs get their own lines (and their own achievements where applicable). LW’s example was the same job title so it makes more sense to keep them together.

    3. Lady Danbury*

      Definitely the former because they’re two different roles. Even if there was some overlap in your intern work versus full time work, the standards and expectations are often very different from interns (whose primary focus is meant to be learning) versus employees (whose primary focus is contributing). The latter gives no indication of how long you’ve been an employee versus an intern, which is very key information in assessing your expected level of experience.

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

        she wasn’t an intern though!! I have no idea where this is coming from

        1. ecnaseener*

          TaContractor is asking a separate question about a different situation, piggybacking off of LW’s situation.

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

      I disagree. For one this was not an internship so why would you put it as an internship? She was a contractor. This is very common in some industries to first hire as a contractor with an outside agency, and then get hired by the company after a set time period. Usually when you get hired by the company you have the same role and responsibilities, but you typically get a pay bump and benefits.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        I’m pretty sure TaContractor is asking about intern -> contractor because they’re in that situation, not because they think the letter-writer used to be an intern.

    5. MikeM_inMD*

      I have several instances in my resumé where my company was bought or spun-off and I stayed in the same job. In those I have one row: Job Title, Company A/Company B (date range) followed by the list of duties.
      I also have one case where I changed from one sub-contractor to another on the same contract and kept the same duties. It that case, I opted for two lines:
      Job Title B, Company B (date range)
      Job Title A, Company A (date range)
      with the list of duties following. (And yes, my job title changed, but my duties did not. I list my company titles because they are more descriptive than the contract title “Software Engineer III”.)

  20. ES*

    Re: LW4. I once traveled for a wedding the weekend before starting a new job on a Monday. Flying back on Sunday I got trapped by thunderstorms in Atlanta and ended up not getting home until 3am. I showed up at the new office at 9:30, and after getting my laptop and doing HR paperwork and getting my orientation to the office, my new boss kindly said I should go home and get some sleep :) I worked there successfully for four years. No sane boss will be upset about absence due to air travel snafus; it’s just part of life that everyone understands.

  21. Not Bill but Billie*

    #4–When you and I were young, Allison, it was quite common for airlines to find us a seat on another airline, but do they ever, ever do it now?

    1. Coverage Associate*

      Thank you. I was thinking that this is not required of an airline for a US departure, and you will have to spend a lot of time on the phone to get someone who could approve the expense.

      If the issue is 100% the airline’s fault, I think all they have to offer is the next available seat of the same kind (economy, business, etc) for that route. If the next flights are fully booked, that could be a few days, even if it’s a common route.

      I have had flights cancelled for no outside reason like weather on my way to the airport, as has my boss and my friends. The offer was a flight 24 hours later, which didn’t work for the wedding weekend or 1 and 2 day business trips.

    2. Nervous Passenger*

      They do! It’s rare, but it does happen. (Happened to me about two years ago; my flight out of LGA was delayed multiple times, causing me to miss my connection. The airline put me on a nonstop flight on a separate airline that ended up getting me home 20 min later than my original flight, at no cost to me.)

  22. Endless TBR Pile*

    OP#2 – are the outreach events during “off” or “personal time” hours?

    I only ask, because if that’s the case then yeah, your staff probably doesn’t feel supported. They have to give up a Saturday and you don’t. Sure, we could argue that it’s part of their job and ‘not yours’, but your job is to make sure your team has the support they need to actually do their jobs.

    So I’d meet with them one-on-one, then as a group. Get a feel for what the real issue is. Do they need you there for coverage? Are the people participating on the outreach side (ie the customers) difficult in some way and they have to deal with that constantly? There’s a reason they want you there, some form of support they aren’t getting. It may not be your job to attend, but it is your job to figure it out and correct it.

    1. umami*

      ‘your job is to make sure your team has the support they need to actually do their jobs.’

      This is so key! I’ve had a number of direct reports who have wanted to seek higher level positions because ‘I can do all those things on the job description’. But so many things good leaders do is support their teams and advocate for their needs. That’s rarely going to be spelled out! If your team generally feels you are not supporting them, then YOU ARE NOT SUPPORTING THEM. It’s not about whether your job says to attend events, it’s about having the wherewithall to care about the team and hear their concerns so you can help them do their job.

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      If it’s part of their job, then by definition it’s not on off or personal time hours. And it sounds like the LW does go to these for a small period of time, just doesn’t stay the whole time. To be clear, I do think the LW needs to investigate this issue and see if a solution can be found, but I don’t think they’re in the wrong to not put in as much face time at these as the people whose job it is.

      1. umami*

        I think they meant during OP’s off or personal time. Or are they during the OP’s regularly scheduled work time.

      2. Bella Ridley*

        Yes–being scheduled to work on a Saturday isn’t “giving up a Saturday” the way it is when you work a M-F 9-5. It’s just your work schedule. When people work swing shifts they’re not “giving up their evenings,” they’re just…scheduled to work then. Lots of jobs are like this.

        1. Benihana scene stealer*

          That’s true but I don’t see what the day of the week the events are on has to do with whether the OP is supporting the team well enough or not

          1. umami*

            I think the question is, is this work being done during the OP’s time off. IE, is it reasonable to expect OP to pop in on weekend events if they already worked a full schedule all week. My stance is, yes, if the team feels unsupported, then it’s worthwhile to stop in to see how they are doing and just build some goodwill, even if it’s after hours for you. It goes a long way to see a leader spending some of their personal time actually checking in and caring how the team is doing at an event, especially in the beginning. I don’t think the team should expect the boss to attend all events, but whatever OP is doing is not resonating with the team, and that is the problem that needs attention.

      3. Endless TBR Pile*

        In my experience, outreach programs have been on weekends. My normal schedule would be M-F, and I’d either be told to flex time during the week or just work the Saturday shift in addition. Part of my job, but still very much felt like giving up a weekend.

        Even if it is part of their regular schedule (ie working Tues-Sat), working a Saturday when your direct manager isn’t and never does can be demoralizing and frustrating. Even more so if the staff is complaining about being unsupported, which they are. I am perhaps also reacting to OP’s “it’s not MY job” rhetoric, combined with “I did too well making this team seem important” and “they’re complaining they aren’t supported”. Something about those 3 statements together just don’t add up.

        1. Lexi Vipond*

          If going to all the sessions would take 20 hours of the OP’s work week, they’re not all on Saturdays, even if Saturday is part of the work week.

  23. Z*

    LW#1 – just in case your variety of autism is the type where you occasionally miss inferred context I want to expand on Allison’s answer (none of this is intended to belittle or assume you don’t understand, I’m just considering how my ASD son would interpret the response to your letter and giving the extra info he would need):
    Some of your boss’s annoyance may be because she feels you think less of her due to her age. People in their 60’s can either be very fit and active or on the downward spiral toward very frail. Because those in the fit and active camp are seeing some of their school friends or close in age siblings descending into frail aged territory they do tend to be more sensitive if they perceive that people underestimate their capabilities due to their age, even if it is not your intention to upset her.
    While your concern is primarily for her wellbeing and not your own interests in leaving work on time, you should not address her wellbeing at all when she is late.
    Your text or phone call should only address the coverage issues and say something along the lines of “no one is here to relieve me yet, do you know who is on the schedule tonight?” Or “just checking that you’re still planning to relieve me tonight, or should I ask coworker to come in instead?”
    If she then says she is unwell or unable to come in, your response to that can then address her wellbeing without asking personal questions. Something like “I’ll contact coworker and ask them to come in, let me know if there’s anything else I can do” or “I hope you feel better soon” would be appropriate.

    1. A*

      In my experience, your description of people in their 60’s feels more like people in their 80’s.

      I don’t know anybody in their 60’s who feels like being frail is an immediate threat. Downward spiral, specifically, is not something I associate with people under 85 or 90.

      1. Box of Kittens*

        I don’t think Z was saying everyone in their 60s is frail or at risk of a downward spiral, just that that’s an age where health varies wildly, and a little more so than at any other age. I know people in their 60s who are totally fit and active, and other people in their 60s who could definitely be described as frail and tipping toward a downward spiral. We don’t know which one the LW’s supervisor is, but especially combined with the fact that the LW said their supervisor doesn’t necessarily have a big social circle, I think it’s fair for them to be worried. However, I don’t think it changes the advice unless maybe the LW sees a serious health decline and has very good reason to think a late arrival could be potential health crisis.

        1. A*

          I am saying that Z’s entire paragraph is something that resonates with me if you take out “60’s” and put in “80’s.” It’s just a titch off, is all.

          1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

            I think that some types of work age people faster than others, which leads to there being some class issues in play. I don’t know you, so I don’t know how much direct experience you have with people who do physical labor their whole lives.

            I also think that >> as an explanation for someone who needs things spelled out very plainly << it's just fine to use the ages Z used.

          2. I used to have a username*

            I think some people who are still working in their 60s definitely do get sensitive about feeling/seeming too old to be working, worried that colleagues might think they are frail/unwell, etc. — it’s part of ageism. (Whereas people in their 80s are much less likely to still be in the workforce, although of course some are.)

  24. DisneyChannelThis*

    For #1, just address it with your boss. “Hey I realized we don’t have a plan for coverage if something comes up unexpectedly or one of us has an emergency. Do you want me to just call you and go from there? Is there a time range I should wait before assuming something is wrong? I just feel better having a plan in place” (if you’ve disclosed autism you can add “with my autism, I feel better having a plan in place to follow”).

    Also because I think people are having math issues:
    12 hr open hours, you work first 8hr, so lets say 9am-9pm; you work 9am-5pm; boss works 1pm-9pm. So boss should arrive at 1pm, and 2 hours before the end of your shift is 3pm, at which point boss is 2 hours late.

  25. S*

    Among the many changes going on right now, the Department of Transportation appears to have changed its rules so that airlines have much less obligation and opportunity to help stranded passengers. I am not sure that going by what has happened in the past will be helpful to navigate the new circumstances we are facing in this country. Being stuck might just mean being stuck. It’s very frustrating.

    1. juliebulie*

      I don’t know if rules have changed, but airlines certainly have. I had trouble with flights a few times in the 90s (due to weather) and always either got a substitute flight soon after, or a hotel room for overnight. Now on the news I see people sleeping in the airport so clearly the airlines no longer shell out for that sort of thing. I guess it’s “acceptable” now. I dread flying.

      Hopefully OP’s new place will be cool about it because it seems to be a common enough problem that it’d be hard to blame OP for it.

      1. Molly the cat*

        The “sleeping in the airport” people aren’t all necessarily doing so because a flight was cancelled–could be an overnight layover where they didn’t want to deal with the expense/hassle of getting from the airport to a hotel and back.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        My understanding was that if the delay was the airline’s fault (mechanical issues, bumped off the flight due to overbooking, crew arrived late), the airline would give you vouchers for food/hotel. If the delay was due to weather, though, you were on your own.

        There was more recent legislation that penalized airlines for overbooking and bumping passengers and similar, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all that is getting rolled back now.

  26. A Simple Narwhal*

    That’s interesting re:#5, I started as a contractor at my current job and than transitioned to a regular employee <2 months later, and I haven't put that on my resume. I've also been at the company 7+ years and had three different titles so it seems like adding that the first two months were as a contractor would just make that section unneccessarily longer.

    Not that it's ever come into question but my plan was to just mention that I contracted to start if I was ever at the point of a background check. Is it worth it to add it in my resume? It seems like a waste of real estate when it was such a small amount of time compared to my overall tenure.

    1. Great Frogs of Literature*

      For a date seven years ago I’m not even specifying the month on my resume, so I don’t think less than two months is a big deal. If it’s more like a year or two I think that’s different.

      1. A Simple Narwhal*

        That makes sense! Glad to get a gut check about it, seeing Alison give advice opposite to what I was doing made me a bit nervous.

    2. sparkle emoji*

      I’d say that length of time on contract wouldn’t need spelling out, especially 7 years ago. Your plan to just explain verbally if needed seems sound.

    3. Alanna*

      LW5 here! I’ve had other contract-to-hire positions, but they were all in-house contracting gigs without a staffing company as the middleman, so I never found it essential to lay it out on my resume. I’m working at one of the big tech companies, and their background checks and hiring process are pretty intense, which is what made me think of how I should list it on my resume for the future.

      1. A Simple Narwhal*

        I think that makes sense! My contracting was through a third party staffing firm as well, the company counts my official start date as the later one so in theory a background check is going to return something different than my resume. But as others said two months is hardly a big deal especially if I mention it up front.

  27. Random Thoughts*

    On #1, this is really a no-win scenario, and I’d be personally frustrated with a boss whose hours were so erratic. They could email or text, so the employee knows what’s going on, just for business purposes! And anecdote time: I started a job somewhere a close friend worked (no overlap, she was in a different area). At my previous job, we had a check-in board showing who was in the building, because it was huge, some areas were isolated, & there were concerns about knowing who was there in case of a fire or other emergency. At the new job, people at management levels came and went at will, and got upset if they felt they were being “pinned down” by office hours or letting us know where they were at any time. That was the culture. One Monday my friend didn’t show up to work, but sometimes that happened: people had online or off-site meetings, & no one knew. No big deal. Turns out she had a heart attack and died. Then one of her colleagues blamed her assistant for her death, because they hadn’t checked on her when she didn’t come in. Devastating!

    1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      > Then one of her colleagues blamed her assistant for her death

      OMFG! How RUDE of that colleague!

  28. Metal Gru*

    Letter 3 – coworker copied resume including awards – given that they have applied to the same places, is there any scope in a cover letter to allude to how LW has become aware that their details may have been submitted by someone else? Opinions?

  29. JAASON*

    #1 “On the days my supervisor closes, she sometimes comes in late with no notice”

    This is unacceptable. Even if your supervisor is salary they are expected to put the full amount of time in each week. In addition to being a communication issue with y0ur supervisor you (for several hours) have the responsibility of 2 worker instead of 1.

    You mentioned that you work in a department. Instead of checking directly with your supervisor about why they are late I would contact their supervisor and say “hey, Jane is an hour late for work, did she contact you saying she was going to be late today?” If it happens as frequently as you say, their boss will take care of it. Not your problem. If it is your break/lunch time lock the door and if your supervisor (or anybody) questions why, just say we were supposed to have 2 person coverage but my supervisor wasn’t at work to cover my break.

    You are being taken advantage of and it needs to stop.

    1. juliebulie*

      I agree. Somewhat. The welfare of the supervisor is the supervisor’s problem, but her attendance sucks and that should not be OP’s problem. I wouldn’t say anything to supervisor’s boss just because she’s late, but definitely make sure that boss is aware when you have to lock the door or whatever because supervisor is missing.

      1. JASSON*

        I agree that the supervisors welfare is their supervisor’s problem. I disagree that the LW should not contact their supervisor’s supervisor to question why they are late. How else is the supervisor going to find out if there is an issue? That the person has/had a medical emergency? The supervisor’s supervisor could probably care less if “She’s a bit prickly and guards her personal time carefully”. If she is more than a 1/2 hour late with no notice to the LW I would be contacting the supervisor’s boss asking “what’s up?”.

    2. JustKnope*

      You’re reading a lot into the letter that isn’t stated. Both people work 4 hours/day solo so it doesn’t appear that working alone is some huge burden.

      1. Jackalope*

        There have been some good reasons given for why it might be fine to work solo for awhile but still an issue for the boss to be 2 hours late. Not being able to take lunch until 6 hours into your shift, for example.

    3. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      Disagree 100%. Contacting supervisor’s boss without first checking with the supervisor is a recipe for getting sideways with supervisor. If they’re prickly when you ask them directly, I guarantee they will be much more prickly if their own boss calls them and says, “OP1 said you’re an hour late. What’s going on?”.

      Recommendations from others about discussing effects of her arrival time on you are relevant to your ability to do your work. If you do have any issues such as not being able to take lunch, focus there. Ask to discuss things about how your supervisor’s arrival time affects you, or let it go if it actually doesn’t affect you beyond you wondering if you should express concern.

      She’s already been clear she doesn’t want you checking up on her well-being. It’s her supervisor’s job, not yours, to determine whether she’s managing her workload. If she isn’t and if that’s an effect of her time management, it’s on her supervisor to sort that out.

  30. Hawk*

    LW 1: I know this feeling so well. Alison’s right, though. Unless it gets in the way of business, you’re going to have to step away. Personally I would feel like it would be helpful if she just let you know that she’s running late (no why necessary). (Aside: I do think it absolutely bonkers that there are only two people for a customer-serving role — what if you have to take leave? Or leave early when she’s running late? Do you have backup? You probably do, but my customer service brian is very anxious about this setup (and maybe you have this anxiety too, and it’s coming through over your concern over your manager?))

    LW2: Alison’s advice is spot on. As a former outreacher (who had few managers come to events with me), here are some things that your staff could be communicating by saying that they want you to come to events:
    1. Everything Alison mentioned about not enough backup (one person cannot possibly be at a table alone more than four hours without the need for a restroom, a meal break, or a break break), and I would add especially if they are seeing more than 100 people at the event. A single person cannot speak to more than one person at once, and some outreach events where we had large numbers would be absolutely exhausting solo. Plus the lack of any sort of break, restroom or otherwise, is awful. Or maybe they’re ending up at events that really don’t mesh with your organization’s goals for outreach. Or maybe nobody from outreach speaks the language from the community they’re being sent to over and over. Or maybe there are weather issues (you have an inclement weather policy that covers thunderstorms, poor air quality, heat, and cold, right?).
    2. They don’t feel like you know what they are doing or how they are doing when they are on outreach. How do you give feedback on part of someone’s job that you’ll never see, especially when it is the core part of their duties? If you’re only relying on the number of people they talked to, for example, you may be missing the number of people that actually follow through.
    The only way you can get this info is by talking to your staff. Maybe there are things that you just can’t understand about what is happening without going to at least one event per quarter.

    1. Benihana scene stealer*

      “customer service brian”

      I used to work at a company where we nicknamed our target customer personas: “Marketing Mary” or “Internet Ian”, I would have loved to add “Customer Service Brian” to the mix :)

  31. Nuke*

    LW1 – Not entirely the same thing since there was no boss-employee situation, but I recently had a coworker jump me (virtually – we’re remote) when I came in an hour late. I woke up feeling exhausted so I decided to take another hour just to rest. This coworker immediately was asking me if I was “okay”, and when I told her I was just tired, she went off telling me I should “really talk to my doctor” and other such invasive nonsense. It all definitely came from a place of her “caring about my wellbeing”, but it was bizarre and really overstepping, and now she has on multiple occasions messaged me and even texted my phone to “check on me” when I’m not in a perfect mood the day before. She will not respond to directly being told to stop. Sigh.

    Caring about people is wonderful and great, of course. And this is definitely different when it’s your boss and can affect your workflow. But if people make it clear that they don’t want to be “checked on” by coworkers, please respect that!

    1. Shutterdoula*

      Maybe she overstepped, but you could have been proactive about it and let people know what was up. Not doing that contributed to the situation.

      1. Lady Lessa*

        Most folks, I would hope, would say, “hope you get rested soon” and let that be the end of the conversation about Nuke’s delay in signing in.

      2. Nuke*

        ??? Very weird comment. My late arrival was reported to people who needed to know (my supervisor), but this was my coworker (same job title) being “worried” about it. And no, it’s not a situation where me calling out affects workflow at all.

      3. Totally Different Name*

        Agreed, yet even when you’re proactive some people won’t quit with the overstepping, though. If I flex my time to take an appointment and let the team know, unless I give details up front one of my employees will rock up in my Slack DMs with “I saw you’re stepping out for an appointment, I hope everything’s okay.” Every. Time.

        Yes, I’m okay. I’m getting an eye exam, or getting my lawyer to sign real estate stuff, or taking my elderly parent to the doctor, or picking up my car from the service center. I’m not a super private person, but I don’t expect that my employee ought to need the mundane details of my life to not make some panicky assumption about why I’m not doing exactly what they expect me to. I don’t know if Nuke is working with someone like this, but that kind of constantly misplaced concern can mess with your head over time.

    2. Productivity Pigeon*

      I don’t think that’s exactly the same situation.

      LW is/was, as far as I interpret the letter, genuinely concerned but is unsure about what to do. Your coworker just seems like a busybody.

  32. DramaQ*

    I had a neighbor who was agorophobic she never left her house. We had a regular mailman who she would answer the door for. He was off the route for a couple days and when he returned noticed her mail was piling up. She’d been dead for three days. They found her by the phone.

    Then there was a person my company hired and was a no show for three days after she was hired. The aggressive “She’s been terminated, notify security if you see her” email went out. Well someone finally decided to try to reach her. Also had been dead for three days. That was some egg on their face with that one.

    Then I was working at a university when the Yale student was murdered and found days later stuffed behind a boiler. She had been working nights and an animal technician who was stalking her murdered her. It was her coworkers who reported her missing because she did not come in the following day and it was out of character for her.

    I work in a lab environment and we have work alone policies that we need to check in when coming in/leaving and give our managers a general idea of how long we will be and they will text if they haven’t heard from us, then call and then show up. This is for safety purposes.

    So I can understand being concerned about “what if”. I am a creature of routine you can set your watch to me. I’ve had coworkers/managers reach out because I am late and haven’t said anything previously so they are wondering if I am sick or got in a wreck. I am okay with it. My coworkers are likely to be one of the first to notice I am missing because my husband and kids are already off doing their own thing by the time I get in to my work.

    That being said they reach out because it is out of my routine. Your boss has a pattern of being late by X amount so that is her normal. Do not take on worrying about her personal safety/well being. Like Alison said if it is coming close to the end of your shift and she still hasn’t shown up then I would contact her but I would frame it as “My shift is almost over are you still coming in today?” because that is the information that you need to know. This is strictly a work issue that should be taken up with her manager if it is becoming a problem.

  33. Gudrid The Well-Traveled*

    For OP 1 and 4, the key question is ‘why does it matter?’ What are the business difficulties that happen because the boss is not around? Those are the things to focus on.

    For OP 2: I don’t think the similarities in your resumes are going to stand out as much as you think. Unfortunately, there are far too many applicants for each role for this to be noticeable and traceable. Employers are not going to be running a plagiarism check or word comparison between resumes. And I wonder if you’re focusing on this because it’s something you can almost control in this hurricane level of chaos we’re living through.

    But let’s say your coworker thought some of your role-related phrasing was better than anything they could write and copied it into their resume. They’re not copying your accomplishments, just how you described a responsibility you both have. Or some sort of metric your work has in common. Your phrasing will fit better in your writing than it will in theirs. And who’s to say you didn’t all work on resumes as a group for mutual support? The only thing you can do is focus on making your resume the best reflection of your skills and experience you can — including your writing style and phrasing. And resumes evolve. You’ll find different phrasing or learn to emphasize other things as you apply for jobs. If your coworker likes to pick up ‘shiny’ phrases, they’ll adopt someone else’s soon enough.

  34. Saturday*

    This could be off base, but for LW2, I wondered if staff feel like they’re getting equal time with you. Maybe the amount of time you’re spending is okay, but if you were able to spend more time at some people’s events than others, they could feel uncomfortable with the discrepancy.

  35. HonorBox*

    While things may have changed a bit over the years, there at least used to be federal regulation that something within the airline’s control – think overbooking or mechanical issues but not weather – would make you a certain number of hours late, they were required to put you on a different airline at their cost. I had this happen once when making a connection, and calmly but firmly let them know it was their responsibility to rebook me. If the LW had been flying into a smaller airport with only one airline providing service, this wouldn’t help, of course.

  36. Lynn Whitehat*

    LW4: in this economy? I recommend you do what you have to do to be at work on Day 1. Don’t give them an excuse to get rid of you. I know you said “no other option”, but get creative. Rent a car to drive to a hub airport? Train? Whole new plane ticket? Greyhound?

    1. Bitte Meddler*

      You think the company is going to reopen the entire hiring process because LW4 will start one day later than planned???

  37. I'm so old I'm historic*

    #2) I’m in management promoted internally from front facing staff. I enjoyed and miss some of the duties of the front facing duties. While I’m happy to jump in whenever needed, sometimes due to my other tasks I can’t just jump in. If I’m away from my work area there could be some serious consequences. When I was front facing, I did not understand this, and I along with my coworkers were not happy with what I thought was management not participating. When I moved into my current role, I spent a lot of time and energy making my role more transparent which helped. I also created a “crisis flowchart” to help people understand what needs to happen. (So, I can’t leave and go to the floor to package teapots, but what I can do is send the teapot order taker to the floor to help and I’ll cover for the order takers so I’m still at my station.) Open communication definitely helps.

  38. Bitte Meddler*

    #4 – I was once hired to start a job on a Monday two weeks after interviewing. During those two weeks, I filled out all the pre-hire HR paperwork, talked a couple of times with the internal recruiter (my primary contact), and was all set to go.

    Until I landed in the hospital on the Sunday before Start Date and was told I couldn’t leave until I had my gallbladder removed.

    I left a voice mail with the recruiter, had my surgery late Tuesday, got discharged Wednesday, and got home to an email [pre-smartphone days] from my new manager — who I’d never met — asking me why I no-call-no-showed to my white collar professional role.

    Egads!

    Once I explained everything, and had the manager call the recruiter who said, “Oh, yeah, I got that voice mail. Sorry,” they let me start the following Monday.

    (Turns out, though, the manager was hands-down the worst I’ve ever had, even worse than the seggsual harrasser who did cocaine at his desk. She acted like I was lying about the surgery so I lifted my shirt to show her the bandages. It only went downhill from there. Still have nightmares about her, 15 years later).

  39. Coverage Associate*

    What is the outreach for? Some events that I have attended, I would not have wanted to only be staffed by part time staff who only do the events. Like, if it’s a school at any level, with more than one staff person representing the school, I want to be able to talk to an educator. Or a professional service, I want to talk to a professional service provider.

    But the drive through local government event with outreach people providing information about saving water and reducing waste? Yeah, I didn’t need to talk to a manager.

  40. Audiophile*

    #5: I tried something similar to what Alison suggested above, and unfortunately, that led to a lot of confusion and questions. Seriously, I don’t think I ever forget the time an interviewer practically accused me of lying about a client because it seemed unfathomable that the client would hire through a specialized staffing agency. At one point, I even had something like, “Name of Staffing Agency at Big Name Client.” That wasn’t much better or clearer.

    Eventually, I settled on putting “Contractor” or “Temporary” in parentheses on my resume. This appeared directly after the job title, and I would include the client’s name underneath that as long as I wasn’t under an NDA. It was much easier and saved space to list the client’s name, my job title, and any necessary dates. Then, during the interview I was very clear that I was employed through a staffing agency.

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