updates: our admins hate all the coffee I buy the office but they insist I have to keep trying, and more

by Alison Green on June 12, 2024

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

1. Our admins hate all the coffee I buy the office, but they insist I have to keep trying

I chickened out and had my mom mail me a Costco gift card so I could buy four coffee tubs at once, drop them off at the admin’s office, and opt out of the conversation until 2025.

That said, the chaos demon in me won and I started just making my own coffee when I got in first and not saying anything. It happens rarely because the admin who makes the coffee comes in at 7:30, but neither of them have brought it up again.

Boring update, but hopefully the commenters who advocated the bait and switch are vindicated lol.

2. Senior colleague disparaged self-defense training for women (#2 at the link)

I did take your advice and it turned out exactly as you said it would. It was about a week after the incident when I ran into Attorney in the break room before a meeting while we were both making coffee. I acted as if nothing ever happened, and he was extraordinarily friendly — more so than he typically would be — leading me to believe that he was grateful for my overture. Thank you so much for answering my question and for all the very helpful comments from your readers.

3. Can I leave before my notice period is up if my boss is being a jerk?

Thank you for publishing my letter and for your reply. The comments from the readers were great too and really helped.

Yes, the email examples in my letter were just one thing in a LONG line of bad behaviors, as one commenter mentioned.

And, as is very often the case, you were right … knowing I could walk out made it easier to just ignore the craziness. And it helped knowing that walking out was an option.

My former boss made it easy by just … avoiding me, literally fleeing from the room if it was just us in it, and by Tuesday afternoon she completely stopped speaking to me. That said a lot more about her than it did me and I was able to be amused by the sheer amount of effort it requires to literally (at one point she crossed a fairly busy street against a light so we didn’t wait at the same curb) flee from places when I entered or got near her.

On my last day, she had me turn in my equipment to a coworker because she didn’t even bother to come in to the office. Guess she couldn’t figure out how to do that without speaking to me? LOL

The new job is amazing. My manager is great. I have felt welcomed and supported from day 1 and know how lucky I am that I was able to escape to something better.

4. Our top two execs are secretly mother and daughter

Two months after my letter appeared, I was laid off in their “second round” of lay-offs (they only had 14 employees overall) in October 2023. If you recall, they had just lost their largest client when I wrote the letter and laid off a first round of employees. So, I hadn’t gotten around to following any of the advice given because things had gotten even stranger there as the mother/daughter leadership team figured out what to do to keep the business afloat.

I’d just conducted an intense job search to get the job; 10 months later I was embarking on yet another search, starting over. To say that it was stressful is an understatement. Even in my desperation to find a new position, I now knew what I would NOT tolerate. I knew I wanted a larger organization, not a small business run by a founder/owner. I wanted no familial ties unless it was broadcast far and wide. Mostly, I didn’t want control of my financial fate to be in the hands of two people who would lie about such a basic thing, something that was not even wrong, and who would staff their agency based on the needs of one client who could, and did, decide to walk away. I guess what I’m getting at is this: although some people in the comments said, “This isn’t wrong, it’s no big deal,” I found that it was a big deal in terms of character. For example, I was let go with no severance pay. My health insurance ended at the end of that month (so I had about two weeks). These are not people who demonstrate caring about their employees’ welfare, which can be seen in the way they deliberately obscured their relationship.

In my original letter I talked about the grandmother’s 100th birthday. Before I was laid off, that grandmother died and they continued to pretend that only the CEO (the mother) was impacted. The CIO (the daughter) said nothing about the loss or her time away from work — she just didn’t say anything but didn’t show up. To top it all off, in January of this year, they let the last four or five people go — all 14 of us eventually got the ax. The website still exists, you could still hire them to do work, but it’s really just the two of them.

I started a new job in February and just hit the three-month mark. This new company is so much better. I looked for a company that aligned with my values, one that is large enough to have a board, an HR department, many diverse leaders — none of whom are related — and a strong DEIB policy that emphasizes teamwork, belonging, and honesty.

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{ 127 comments }

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    2. Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling*

      Always choose the bear. From someone who grew up in bear country: If it’s black, fight back; if it’s brown, lie down; if it’s white, go towards the light (cuz that polar bear WILL eat you).

      1. Silver Robin*

        I always heard it as “if it’s white, say good night”. Same idea though, bye bye!

    3. Goldenrod*

      I’m glad I finally googled this. I’d seen this expression a few times on AAM, and for some reason, I thought it referred to women who choose to work in the restaurant industry rather than in an office (i.e. the TV show “The Bear.”)

      Wow, I really overthought that. ;p

    4. Bear Country*

      lol I definitely get this sentiment, but on the other hand, no amount of self-defense training is going to save you from a bear

      And while bear spray likely works on bears, it definitely works on people

      1. Aquamarine*

        Ha – this is the first time I’ve heard this, but I’m like… what? No, I’m not picking the bear!

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          The question is not, “Which would you rather have attack you?” It’s “Which would you rather be stuck in the woods with?”

          Most bears don’t want anything to do with you. They’ll just wander off, doing their ursine errands. A woman alone in the woods who sees a bear 50 yards off will be cautious, but probably not terrified. The same woman sees an unknown man 50 yards off? That’s a different story.

          1. PickedTheBear*

            And it is really surprising how many otherwise genuinely astute commentators — and not just men — respond to this by carefully explaining that bears are dangerous and can kill humans if they want to.

            That is so very, very much not the point.

            2. Dhaskoi*

              I always respond to this with an observation about the statistics for how many women are killed by men each year, vs how many are killed by bears.

                3. Prof*

                  You don’t meet the bear because most of the time, bears leave you alone so much that you never know they were there. Hence, they are on average less a threat than men.

                4. Insert Clever Name Here*

                  Yes, yet even when you correct for population and encounters, women are more likely to be attacked by men. Additionally, a bear that attacks a woman isn’t going to get the chance to be a repeat offender — it’s going to be tracked down and euthanized. A man who attacks a woman is, statistically, probably not going to be reported to law enforcement. If he *is* reported to law enforcement, the chances of him being convicted are vanishingly low.

                5. Sarah M*

                  Think of it this way, Aquamarine: unless it’s a Polar Bear (and again, the setting was “walking in the woods”, not “walking on the tundra”), the bear doesn’t consider us prey.

                6. Mango Freak*

                  Insert Clever Name Here, it’s funny how people who bring this up completely disappear when you point out that it’s true *even when you correct* for respective population densities and number of encounters.

                  (They also pretend that people don’t live near bears, which is not the case at all.)

                7. What_the_What*

                  Because bears will walk away from you and not stand towering over you demanding a reason you don’t want a drink and to talk to him, and that he’s a nice guy and you OWE him a chance.

              2. Probabilities are hard*

                Now divide by the number of times a woman encounters a man, vs. the number of times a woman encounters a bear.

            3. Aquamarine*

              If the point is that men are dangerous to women, there are just so many better ways to make it. In my opinion.

              1. fhqwhgads*

                No, the point is you can know generally what to expect if you encounter the bear, and can know how to avoid provoking it. The man has infinitely more unknowable outcomes. That’s the point of the “man or bear” thing.

              2. Mango Freak*

                The point is actually a lot more nuanced than that. You didn’t immediately understand the question, and you formed an instinctive response; now you’re defending that response. You could, instead, engage curiously with what people are telling you. (And, perhaps, with your online diet, since you first encountered this question in a negative framing.)

          2. Aquamarine*

            The question I read said imagine coming face to face with this man/bear. Then I’m picking man. Agree that 50 yards away is different.

          4. A_Jessica*

            > They’ll just wander off, doing their ursine errands.

            Genuinely clever turn of phrase!

      2. Nodramalama*

        That’s not really why people say they choose bear. It’s because you know what you’re greeting in a bear. A dangerous predator who will largely leave you alone as long as you don’t bother it and there are rules to engage them.

        A man not so much.

        2. Mango Freak*

          And a bear’s only a “dangerous predator” if you’re like, a salmon or a moose calf. Mostly they eat berries.

    5. goddessoftransitory*

      Bear every time. Good bear, nice bear.

      To quote one woman: ” I won’t have to see the bear every year at Thanksgiving.”

    6. Sarah M*

      That was the first thing I thought of when I read the original post just now.

      Also, ten bucks says *someone* in that room full of people spoke to Clueless Attorney afterwards. At least, I certainly hope they did.

  2. Hlao-roo*

    Coffee LW–I’m glad to hear you’ve figured out the coffee situation till the end of the year! I hope you can find an equally peaceful way to caffeinate in 2025!

  3. Archi-detect*

    #1 is kind of disappointing as a reader but I get not wanting to declare thermo-nuclear war over stupid stuff, even if you are completely in the right. though as a coffee drinker I shudder at the idea of keeping it around that long, but that is 100% not their problem.

    1. Lana Kane*

      though as a coffee drinker I shudder at the idea of keeping it around that long
      This was my first thought.

      but that is 100% not their problem.
      This was my second thought. The admins get what they get for being so rudely picky.

    2. Yvette*

      I think you can freeze coffee so they could keep the extra in the freezer until they need it

        1. Daisy-dog*

          If they have a full-size fridge at work, there is usually a normal sized freezer that is rarely used (IME anyway). As long as there’s enough room for a frozen meal that someone will heat up after 3-4 hours, it may be fine. If there’s only a mini fridge, that is a problem.

    3. ferrina*

      Totally. I would probably have gone the same route as LW. This is not a hill that I would want to die on (especially as weird as the admin was being)

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        Tony Robbins once said, ‘If you have a problem which can be solved by money, and you have the money, you have solved the problem’. This has come in handy quite a few times in my life.

  4. Marzipan Shepherdess*

    LW1: Why not get a Keurig, a variety of coffee pods AND some reusable K-cups that will let people make any flavor of coffee they want in the Keurig? That way everyone can get what they want (and yes, there are even hot chocolate and tea Keurig pods out there for all the non-coffee people!) The admins’ demands are a little limiting, after all; get anything you want as long as it’s dark roast? Umm…that means “dark roast and nothing else”!

    1. I'm A Little Teapot*

      You are reasonable. Reasonable people rules do not work for unreasonable people.

    2. Chirpy*

      That would be reasonable, but the coworkers really meant “anything so long as it’s this specific Costco dark roast”

    3. Estrella the Starfish*

      A Keurig is like a Nespresso right? Presuming they currently have a filter coffee machine, I think they should add a single serve machine at the company’s expense, and provide the coffee for both machine options. Coffee clubs like this can cause more issues than the company saves financially in not providing coffee, as can filter coffee machines in requiring everyone to drink the same coffee the same way. And it seems really cheap of a law firm. How do they offer clients and visitors coffee? Does it come out of the coffee that the lower paid staff members are forced to buy?

      1. Anonymousaurus Rex*

        Slightly off topic, but a Keurig is not like a Nespresso in that a Nespresso makes drinkable coffee, and I have yet to find a cup of coffee that comes out of a Keurig that doesn’t taste like hot plastic. I agree with you though, a single serve coffee machine of some sort is the way to go.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Keurig tea is appalling–it’s not how you make tea beyond the sense of combining powdered vegetable matter and some hot-ish water.

          It also makes me sick–I assume I’m allergic to a preservative?–but those bouts of illness did not follow on an enjoyable culinary experience.

          1. Missa Brevis*

            Even in the best case scenario where you just use the Keurig to heat water for your tea, everything that comes out of it tastes like stale coffee. I’ll microwave my water before I’ll try to make tea in a Keurig.

          2. penny dreadful analyzer*

            Yeah, I can suck up a Keurig coffee in a pinch but I’d rather just dehydrate than drink Keurig tea or hot chocolate. If you want to cater to non-coffee-drinkers, get an electric kettle.

        2. Selina Luna*

          I can make drinkable coffee, but I use a reusable filter with my own grind, not the pre-made K-cups.

    4. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      We have a keurig and no one drinks it because of a reason we refer to as “roach coffee.”

      1. LadyAmalthea*

        Yep – after seeing roaches crawl out of an ex’s Keurig one morning, I will only ever make coffee from a coffee maker I can take apart and clean thoroughly.

    5. Hlao-roo*

      The letter-writer commented a few times on the original post (username: LW) and said:

      “We also go through two+ pots a day between the three of us.”

      At that level of coffee-drinking, it ~might~ be less hassle/less expensive to play along with the admins’ coffee rules and drink coffee from the pot rather than managing K-cups, brewing coffee one cup at a time, and cleaning/maintaining a Keurig. But if the shared coffee pot becomes too much hassle in the future, a Keurig could be a good solution.

    6. Hroethvitnir*

      I think LW solved it pretty well, and as a an aside – I am a coffee drinker and I’ve never had a pod coffee I liked.

      I wince whenever they are suggested as a panacea (surprisingly often!), because to me personally they have little redeeming characteristics. I wouldn’t make a big deal of it, to be clear, but I would not be drinking work coffee if that was the only option.

  5. Crencestre*

    LW1: Why not get a Keurig, a variety of coffee pods AND some reusable K-cups that will let people make any flavor of coffee they want in the Keurig? That way everyone can get what they want (and yes, there are even hot chocolate and tea Keurig pods out there for all the non-coffee people!) The admins’ demands are a little limiting, after all; get anything you want as long as it’s dark roast? Umm…that means “dark roast and nothing else”!

    1. Missa Brevis*

      This would be a sensible answer … if this were actually about the coffee. It’s pretty clear from the original letter that this is some kind of bizarre power play.

  6. CommanderBanana*

    Am I terrible person for hoping that LW#2’s attorney runs into a group of muggers?*

    *my therapist says bad thoughts are ok as long as we don’t act on them, and so does Taylor Swift.

    1. The Other Sage*

      My therapist said the same, plus your “hopes” read as a expression of frustration.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Fine for hoping this so long as you don’t organise the muggers :)
      He was an ignorant arse – probably still is.

    3. Garth*

      If I were a mugger I think I’d go solo rather than be in a group. First you have to split the proceeds with others, and second the more people around the higher likelihood of getting caught.

      1. Dinosaur With The Little Arms*

        Also the within-group complaints and conflict resolution process is probably quite un-fun

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        And–as so often illustrated on Justified–the success of your plan hinges on the dumbest team member not screwing up.

      3. fhqwhgads*

        Indeed. Perhaps instead multiple muggings from multiple solo muggers occurring in a relatively short period of time.

    4. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

      I think it would be best to use a mugger broker, that way you don’t have to engage with any muggers directly and at least in theory the broker knows their stuff. And can negotiate rates etc.
      somehow this is reminding me of Terry Pratchet’s books.

  7. Someone Else's Boss*

    Something I find disappointing, but also very natural, is how often updates are sort of…bland. It’s fun to read letters and imagine all the ways people will stand up for themselves, but ultimately most of us work because we really need to, and it’s not valuable to waste captial on arguing over coffee or leaving a job a few days early to get away from a boss who also doesn’t want to be around you. Oftentimes the biggest satisfaction comes from being the bigger person and knowing you made a smart call. I can tell you one thing, though, I will never buy coffee to share with coworkers ever in my life. I’ve never known someone for whom this works well, and it’s a red flag to me when an employer won’t budget for coffee to keep their human resources awake.

    1. LostCommenter*

      As someone who often frequents BestRedditorUpdates, I’m surprised when the update often isn’t violent or chaos, but most times just someone finding another job, the problem just disappearing, or the person who wrote in resigning to just living with the situation.

      For me myself, I would have just stopped drinking coffee. I’m not a fan of intentionally created drama, and would have just told people my doctor suggested I cut out caffeine to extract myself from the situation.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Just someone finding another job.
        I think often if you fixed the dramatic thing in the original letter, you would discover that there were a whole bunch of other things that you weren’t registering because Fergus tap dancing on your desk while holding a muskrat sucked up all your attention.

    2. ferrina*

      I actually like the bland updates. It gives a realistic picture of outcomes (and makes the drama all the more shocking).
      As someone who has been in way too many dramatic situations, the non-dramatic resolution is always a gentle sigh of satisfaction.

      1. Rain*

        Same! I like realism, and reality is often bland. It’s fun to imagine a big “I quit!” mic drop, but those seldom occur. (Regardless of what all the fake posts over at Reddit claim.)

      2. Missa Brevis*

        Agreed. The truly unhinged updates are compelling to read, but it’s reassuring to know that sometimes situations can be resolved more normally.

        1. Anonym*

          This is my feeling as well. It’s nice to know that some problems just sort of dissipate on their own.

      3. Falling Diphthong*

        I greatly appreciate the bland updates. Often life is bland. If everyone resigned in cod it would cease to be special when that one person decides this is a cod situation.

      4. Ellis Bell*

        I love high flown fantasy in my fiction, but I would find unrealistic outcomes to be so annoying here. I already find rampant speculation in service of upping the drama to be massively teeth grinding.

      5. Enai*

        Yes, I’m always thrilled with the bananas “entire banana ensemble complete with banana shoes and a banana crown” situations and updates until I remember: that’s people that happened to. Suddenly the Tom-and-Jerry appeal of it is gone. Bland updates are good. Bananacrackers stuff is only entertaining if the LW is happy about the outcome (example: the weight loss bc of emergency surgery thing where the harrasser was fired), but otherwise it feels like hearing the story of someone getting beat up and laughing at their distress. Not cool.

    3. LW#3*

      Mine was bland…but also hilarious.

      If you’ve never experienced someone literally running from the room when you enter (and really it can’t have happened to many of us) mine went from really awful to a comedy skit rather quickly.

      2. Anonym*

        I was so happy to read that you were able to just find it amusing. What a ridiculous person your ex-boss decided to be!

      3. Ellis Bell*

        There was something very Elizabeth Bennett about your update: “A lively, playful disposition which delighted in anything ridiculous”.

    4. RedinSC*

      welcome to local government. Nothing like coffee, creamer, cups, tea, etc can be purchased with tax payer dollars, so it’s up to staff to bring it in if they want it.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, I’m glad I work for the goverment in Finland. At least they’re willing to pay for our coffee!

      2. Albatross*

        Mine got permission to install a water bottle refill machine. I don’t know how they got it through. It’s great. But yeah, anything except tap water needs to be brought in by the employees.

    5. kicking-k*

      Yes. I am a recent updater and my update was basically “I did what you said, and it seems to have worked.” Not at all dramatic, but it did close the loop. Unsurprisingly it got no comments (it was in a multi-update post).

  8. Yvette*

    As far as the mother daughter business, maybe they just wanted to give the business a less of a mom and pop look. kind of like when a business has only three repair trucks but they number them 5, 7 9 to make it look like they have a real fleet

    1. Orv*

      I once was writing a trouble ticket system (before such things were widely available off the shelf) and my boss insisted the tickets couldn’t just be numbered consecutively because then our customers would know what our ticket volume was.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        True that. I got ticket number 936 one snowy, icy day, so I am assuming that many, many thumper bumpers happened where I lived.

    2. Smithy*

      From my reading of the OP’s explanation, where that makes sense is in how its portrayed externally vs internally. To compare it to the trucks, it would be like naming the trucks 5, 7, 9 but then also telling your internal employees that you have 9 trucks. And when asked about those other 6 trucks, your management makes excuses about them being on loan or something or other.

      Particularly for women, I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all to have a CIO ask to be introduced externally as Ms. Teapot as opposed to Mrs. Coffeepot’s daughter. But not acknowledging it at all internally isn’t great.

      1. MM*

        Actively hiding the fact that one of the two is also grieving a family member is truly bizarre.

        1. Brain the Brian*

          Especially the Chief *Information* Officer. If you can’t trust that person, you can’t trust the company.

          1. Cyborg Llama Horde*

            I think it’s actually Innovation, not Information. But honestly, there aren’t any C-level folks I want regularly lying about random things. (I get that there are sometimes business reasons to lie or at least obscure the truth. But there should be a legit reason.)

            1. Brain the Brian*

              Yes, this. 100%. (And thanks for the Innovation / Information flag. Clearly, I do not come from a field that does much innovating! Hah!)

  9. Tio*

    #4 sounds like the Chief Innovation Officer was not doing a whole lot of innovating if they can’t find clients

  10. Ally McBeal*

    I’m sad LW1 didn’t take Alison’s excellent suggestion of decanting whatever brand of beans into a Kirkland tub. My dad did this with my mom, who insisted that she could tell the difference between store-brand popcorn kernels and Orville Redenbacher. She absolutely cannot tell and to this day has never found out that he spent the majority of their 30+ year marriage duping her.

    1. kicking-k*

      My husband does this to my mum, who is convinced that our store-brand coffee has a funny aftertaste. She is yet to remark on this aftertaste since he started decanting it into a jar from a different brand (which seals better, looks prettier and fits on the shelf – he’s not just doing it to be sneaky!)

    2. Cyborg Llama Horde*

      I read the “LW sometimes makes their own coffee and no one complains” to not actually be a case of decanting the coffee, but that LW sometimes makes a pot of their private, non-Kirkland coffee, and no one has complained that it tastes like caramel/is otherwise weird.

  11. Tesuji*

    LW#1:

    I kind of don’t love this solution.

    This came across to me as a dominance game. There can be a weird dynamic in professional settings where you have a doctor/lawyer/whatever who’s young and inexperienced, but also needs to be the authority when dealing with admins/nurses/paralegals/etc. who are several decades older and years more inexperienced, similar to the “fresh-faced baby lieutenant vs. grizzled old sergeant” trope.

    It can be delicate, because (a) the fresh young attorney needs to respect that the legal secretary has been doing this for 20 years and knows what they’re doing… but (b) also, the attorney is in charge and when they say something needs to be done now and done in a certain way, that’s what has to happen.

    This can be particularly difficult in small offices. Here, the established office was two partners and two admins, and being that small, I’m sure there was a “we’re all a team/family” sort of vibe, rather than clear hierarchies.

    This came across to me as the admins trying to establish the new pecking order, and by giving in, LW was accepting their position at the bottom of that order, as opposed to between the partners and the admins. That has the potential to make their life much more difficult.

    1. LW 1*

      Totally get where you’re coming from, but this is not a hill worth dying on. I have been firm about other things that I actually need to be done a certain way, and I think conceding on this gave me the capital I needed to insist on them doing something that they think is stupid and takes a lot of time. I did find out the other day (after I sent in the update) from coming in early but being too rushed to make the coffee that coffee admin DOES NOT WASH THE COFFEE POT and just POURS IT OUT AND MAKES ADDITIONAL COFFEE so I am switching to a one cup keurig with reusable pods for the coffee I already bought in my office. I will endure bad coffee but I draw the line at e coli.

      1. starsaphire*

        Well, that explains the difference in taste, I suppose. *vomiting emoji*

        I am somehow reminded of certain math teachers in my past bragging about growing mold in their personal coffee cups in the staff lounge… probably just to gross us all out, but it seemed to be a math teacher trope there for a while…

      2. Cartoonsarah*

        I once had a roommate who would make a large pot of coffee and spend the next couple days just microwaving it.
        I also recommend getting a aeropress or one-cup coffee dripper. They are super easy to use and store (as long as you have a way a kettle or other way to heat up water) and easier to clean than a keurig

  12. Coyote River*

    I’m glad LW2’s situation worked out
    I believe self-defence is important for both men and women, as it can be a dangerous world out there. As she was growing up I taught my daughter everything I know about fighting to make sure she knew how to defend herself, if the need ever arose.

  13. Festively Dressed Earl*

    LW 3, is your former boss always staying 73 yards away from you?

    J/k, I’m glad you got into a better place!

  14. Freelance Bass*

    LW #1: It’s like my dad says, “sometimes it’s cheaper to pay with money.” Sounds like your peace is worth more than whatever the coffee costs.

  16. Dhaskoi*

    LW3: In your shoes I would have been sorely tempted to constantly position myself in my boss’ path just to see how crazy they would get.

    1. LW#3*

      Ahem.

      I did it one other time. I needed proof of concept.

      She fled. She then worked remote the rest of the week so it became a non event

      4. A_Jessica*

        I take no pleasure in laughing at the ridiculousness, but I do laugh!

        I hope LW No.3 you’re able to laugh with me

  17. EJ*

    I’m surprised some people didn’t think LW4’s situation was a big deal! It seemed clear to me that their issue wasn’t with the mother/daughter relationship full stop but instead with the hiding, and everything that came along with that. Also, saying it isn’t a big deal is weird considering they wouldn’t be going to such great lengths to hide it if there wasn’t any real life impacts their relationship would have if it was known!

  18. Just Thinkin' Here*

    OP #4 is conflating the drawbacks of working for a small business with the mother/daughter relationship. Small businesses can struggle to replace work when a client is lost – and there is often little cushion to survive until that client is replaced. Having to layoff employees until you get more work is a natural consequence – and has nothing to do with the owners being related. I’ve never heard of small businesses paying out severance – unless it’s a boutique consulting firm. Severance is a benefit, not a requirement. And yes, your health insurance ends at the end of the month of your employment. Health insurance is paid monthly by employers, whether they are big or small, and your insurance would have terminated at the end of the month, even if you worked for a bigger firm and was laid off.

  19. Mango Freak*

    Wait for OP#1 I don’t get how bait and switch advocates were vindicated. What did I miss?

Comments are closed.