my office thinks I insulted a coworker, someone threw away my shoes, and more

by Alison Green on October 7, 2024

I’m off for a few days (probably back tomorrow). Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My office thinks I insulted a coworker but I didn’t mean it like that

I work for a small nonprofit. I have one boss and about 14 coworkers with whom I’m “office friendly,” meaning I don’t socialize outside of work/discuss personal matters. Though I’ve been employed the longest, I know very little about people’s personal lives.

The other day my coworker “Susan” came into the office carrying a rock she’d found on a hike. She showed it to me saying that she thought it was a fossil and wanted to ask “Nancy,” our volunteer coordinator, what it was. Without thinking, I laughed and said, “Whatever would Nancy know about fossils? That’s not her background.” Susan gave me a strange look and walked away.

Later that day, our boss called me into her office, shut the door, and told me that “accusing a coworker of falsifying information on her resume is a serious issue.” She then asked me for proof that Nancy had lied. Apparently, Nancy has advanced degrees in paleontology and had taught at our local junior college before switching fields and joining our team. I confessed that I had no idea; what I said to Susan was based my not knowing Nancy’s background. The idea seemed ridiculous: Nancy coordinates volunteers at a nonprofit that has nothing to do with science. How was I to know her background? My response didn’t go over well. I received a verbal warning as well as “advice” about being more aware of how my words came across.

I was also asked to apologize to Nancy – which I reluctantly did. She accepted my apology, but seemed strangely hurt. I still feel that I did nothing wrong. I was merely responding to something that sounded silly to me; the others blew it all out of proportion. My boss said that my words had come across as “dismissive and sexist” because I’m a man and it sounded like I’d assumed Nancy wasn’t really a scientist. I did assume that, but not because she was a woman, because she’s working in a field that has absolutely nothing to do with her scientific background. What say you? Was I out of line? I want to return to friendly terms with my boss and coworkers, but I don’t want admit unwarranted guilt.

Yeah, your original comment was rude. If you didn’t know anything about Nancy’s background, it doesn’t really make sense that you scoffed at the idea that she could know about fossils (as opposed to saying something like, “Oh, I didn’t realize she knew about fossils”). And that does play right into some sexist tropes, even if you didn’t intend it to.

That said, your boss characterizing it as “accusing a coworker of falsifying information on her resume” is weird. That makes me wonder if this might be part of a pattern where you’ve been perceived to be dismissive or sexist before. If you’ve had that kind of feedback before, or gotten the sense people were taking you that way, I’d take this as a flag that it’s a serious problem with the way you’re perceived and your relationships with coworkers.

If not, and this is genuinely the first time this has come up, I’d still apologize. The comment was insulting, even if you didn’t intend it to be, and that alone warrants an apology. You could add that you realize now that it played right into a particular type of sexism that women in science have to deal with and that you’re resolving to be more thoughtful about that in the future.

– 2019

2. Can public support of a fired employee hurt that employee?

I regularly attend shows at a local theater, and know many of the staff and performers there. Recently, the theater announced that their beloved creative director would be leaving. This appears to be a firing. The news article about it mentioned that said director could not comment on advice of his lawyer.

The local arts community is pretty upset about this. There are planned rallies and boycotts of the theater, claiming he was wrongfully terminated and demanding he get his job back. Obviously, neither party is publicly commenting. My assumption is that it was something routine, like performance on non-artistic parts of his job — there’s nothing to indicate a scandal, and he’s a genuinely kind and good person.

My question is this — could this outpouring of public anger hurt his ability to get another job? My fear is that it will make him seem like a high risk to take on, or make a company think he’ll be vindictive if he ever left. (Or at least not willing to stop friends who are vindictive.) Or, could it potentially impact an employment case? And, is there ever any BENEFIT to this kind of outrage over a firing, at least if there’s no evidence of discrimination or illegal activity?

Oooh, that’s a really good question. I’d think the fact that other people are protesting it is unlikely to impact any legal action he pursues as long as he continues to follow his lawyer’s advice. But whether it could affect his ability to get a future job is murkier. Depending on the tenor of the protests, it’s possible that it could. At a minimum, it will certainly cause attention to his firing, which he might have otherwise been able to be more low-key about. And if a reference-checker learns, for example, that he was fired for legitimate performance issues, they might worry about how he’d handle critical feedback from them if they hired him (because no employer wants to deal with a public boycott over a fairly handled but private personnel issue). So I think it partly depends on what really happened and on whether the cause of his firing warrants the outrage or not (and also on whether the protesters have the full story, which they may not).

Even if it does warrant the public outrage, though, there are certainly employers who will see it as a risk to hire someone who was at the center of something like this, figuring that he’s more likely to rabble-rouse than someone else. He might be happy to screen out those employers though. And that might be canceled out by the employers who get more interested in him as a result of this — because they find his situation sympathetic (although it’s hard to do that when no one will say what happened) or they see it as a PR move to hire him or they just find him interesting and so are more likely to give him an interview.

– 2018

3. Someone at work threw away my shoes

I work as a server for a widely known corporate food chain. Last night, a friend of mine dropped off my shoes that I had previously worn a time out. And today an employee threw my shoes away and only one was recovered. $150 shoes that I had only worn once. My manager’s response was, “You should know not to leave your stuff here.” Are they responsible for this? Please help!

They’re not responsible for your shoes, but your manager should have been nicer about how she explained that to you. There’s a difference between “You should know not to leave your stuff here” and “Oh no! I would hate to lose shoes too. We can’t be responsible for items people leave here because there are just too many people coming through, but that really sucks and I’m sorry it happened.”

– 2015

4. My coworker uses all-caps for everything

My team recently hired a new employee to help pick up some of the slack when it comes to the admin tasks we deal with on a day-to-day basis. Our new employee (Sansa) is enthusiastic about the job, a quick learner, and well liked by everyone in our organization. Her work is also very consistent and accurate. However, she does have one habit that drives me and my counterpart absolutely mad — she prefers to TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

Now, this wouldn’t be a huge concern if it was just on internal communication (emails to staff, messages on Slack, etc.), but one of her tasks is to draft the letters and memos that go out to our clients and the public. All of the letters she drafts use templates where the writer can fill in the blank on the particulars, meaning random words will be capitalized in the middle of a paragraph. There is nothing about the details she’s entering that warrants the use of all caps (or even bold, underline, or italics). Ultimately, this means either my counterpart or I have to re-do all the work she’s just completed (defeating the point of bringing her on the team) or the letter is sent to the client looking sloppy or poorly generated by a computer.

My counterpart and I discussed this with Sansa early on. We gently questioned if Sansa prefers to write this way because it’s easier to read, hoping we could find a way to adjust her computer screen to increase the font size. She told us that it’s just her preference. I’ve even made a joke (it was appropriate in context of the conversation) about how Sansa “yells” at me through email; to which she giggled, said that’s just how she types, and that I know she’s not trying to be “shouty.” The way I see it, it is an understood rule for anyone using electronic communication THAT ALL CAPS MEANS YOU MUST BE UPSET OR YELLING OR TRYING TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE MESSAGE.

I hope that we’re not making a bigger deal out of this situation than need be – maybe we need to hear from an outside perspective that this isn’t a big deal and we should move on. But if you think our concerns have some merit, can you offer any advice on how we can address this with Sansa? I know from reading your articles that the next step is to very directly discuss this matter with her. However, I’d hate to go into the conversation where my only defense for asking her to change is “because it’s not how you should do it” or “it looks more professional to type normally.” To me it seems like we’re trying to push our stylistic preferences on her even though our way is the conventional format. Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated!

This isn’t stylistic preference. If she were just doing this in internal emails, then maybe — although even then, it would be reasonable to ask her to stop because it’s harder to read. But doing this in materials that go to clients and the public? No. That’s not okay, and it’s not just a stylistic preference. It’s the same as if she’d decided to send all your materials out in white font in pink paper — you would presumably simply tell her to stop. And you need to do that here too — without the hints and the jokes — just a clear, direct “we need you to do X instead of Y.”

I suspect you feel like you can’t say that so bluntly because you’re not her manager, but actually you can! She was hired to take work off your plates, and you’re having to redo it for her. You 100% have the standing to say to her, “We do need you to stop using all caps so that our materials are consistent and professional and easier to read. Please start using standard case on everything you’re producing for clients and the public.” Then, if she gives you any more work in all-caps, tell her that you can’t use it that way and ask her to re-do it. Not only do you have the standing to say that, but I’d argue you have an obligation to say it — because right now you’re wasting your own time cleaning up her work (which your organization and your manager surely don’t want) or allowing materials to go out looking like they were created by a hostile loon (which they also surely don’t want).

Talk to her today, and enjoy the soothing feel of standard case on your eyes tomorrow.

– 2019

5. My employee’s boyfriend asked for my permission to marry her

The boyfriend of one of my reports recently contacted me because he said he had something important to discuss. He said he was planning on proposing to my report and wanted to get my permission before he did. I had no idea why he would ask me, and he explained that his girlfriend was raised by her mother after her father divorced her when she was pregnant and her mother only had help from her unmarried sisters and widowed mother and said I’m the closest thing she has to a father figure. My report and I have a manager/employee relationship but that’s as far as it goes. We aren’t involved in each other’s personal lives (to the point where I didn’t even know she was raised only by her mother with no involvement from her father), I can’t recall a time when we have spoken outside of work, and we have never been alone in the same room outside of the building we work in.

I certainly care about my report as much as I do everyone I work with but I have no feeling beyond that. I know she has lived with her boyfriend for a while and she has brought him to company picnics and Christmas parties before. He even showed me texts where they discussed getting married in the future and she mentions me being like a father to her and saying my blessing would be great. But to me it feels awkward and weird since I hardly know either one of them. My report has never told me she considers me like a father or attempted to have a relationship with me besides a professional manager/employee one. I want to gently let them down. How should I handle this without making the situation even more awkward than it already is? Especially since the proposal is meant to be a surprise and I don’t want to ruin it.

This is super weird.

Tell him that you think your employee is great but as her boss it’s not your place to get involved, although you wish them both much happiness.

– 2017

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{ 75 comments }

{ 75 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Happy meal with extra happy*

    Even if Nancy didn’t have an educational background in paleontology, I feel like there are plenty enough “amateur” paleontologists where it may be interesting but not shocking if Susan indicated that Nancy could identify a fossil.

    Reply ↓
    1. Dark Macadamia*

      Yeah, her background makes it worse but it’s extremely weird to act like people can only… have a casual conversation? about things related to their formal education and employment!

      Reply ↓
    2. Daria grace*

      I wouldn’t even find it weird to ask friends who aren’t into palaeontology but are interested in nature or science to take a look at a cool rock I found. It’s not diagnosing medical conditions or something serious like that where accuracy matters, not big deal for someone to take a guess about the nature of rocks outside of their expertise

      Reply ↓
    3. TheBunny*

      Even though it’s been years, I’d be curious how this resolved. While OP wasn’t being intentionally (and by that I mean consciously) dismissive and sexist, I’m willing to bet if Nancy were Ned, OP wouldn’t have dismissed Ned potentially having that knowledge, even knowing Ned wasn’t currently using it in his role.

      Reply ↓
    4. Ilia*

      I was a member of a Lapidary and Rockhound club. A lapidary is a person who cuts and shapes gemstones and other semiprecious stones for jewelry. A rockhound likes to go on field trips and find these things in the wild and dig them up. It’s a hobby, not a profession, for me.

      However, I learned how to identify minerals, semiprecious stones, and gemstones in their natural setting. Fossils are also part of that. I work in administration. At no point would you ever think that I, a person filing paperwork, would grab a hammer, pry bar, pickaxe, bucket, and dolly and go tromping off into the wilderness to dig up rocks.

      OP saying that stuff to me would be eternally labeled as a sexist jerk in my brain. Or at the very least, incredibly ignorant.

      Reply ↓
    5. allathian*

      Sure, some unintended/unconscious sexism could be at play here. But more significant, I think, is that the LW apparently doesn’t want to engage in any casual small talk at work. You get a reputation for sticking just to business, no matter how professional you are, without sharing anything personal at all, and people are less willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say something you later regret. If the LW had a warm professional relationship with his coworkers, they probably would’ve said something like “Oh, didn’t you know Nancy has a degree in paleontology?” and that would’ve been that.

      Reply ↓
      1. MK*

        I don’t agree that the problem is that OP won’t engage in smalltalk; it’s that being dismissive and slightly rude and not admitting fault seems to be their standard attitude, if one goes by the letter. He knows nothing g of Nancy’s background, but assumed she doesn’t know anything about fossils… because she is volunteering another skill to their organization. That assumption might have made some sense if she had a paying job at something unrelated, but many people volunteer in areas that have nothing to do with their career. As it was, the assumption had no basis, but he doubled down calling the idea that Nancy would know about fossils “silly”, when him jumping to conclusions about her background to the point that he is firmly stating “this is not her field” based on her volunteer work fits that description better.

        Reply ↓
        1. Nocturna*

          Nancy is the volunteer coordinator, which is a almost always a staff position. So the LW is making assumptions based on her paid job, which is unrelated to paleontology. I do think the LW’s assumptions were still dismissive and sexist in origin, as others have pointed out, but I think it’s important to judge on the facts.

          Reply ↓
        2. Marion Ravenwood*

          This. The ‘reluctant’ apology adds fuel to that for me. Like “I’m only doing this because they told me to, not because I genuinely feel bad about it”.

          Reply ↓
    6. nnn*

      Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. It’s not uncommon for people to think fossils are neat, or to have been really into dinosaurs for a period of time and therefore to have learned about fossils, or any number of reasons people would know a bit about something unrelated to their work.

      It would be good for OP to reflect on why they went straight to “It’s absurd to assume that Nancy has any knowledge or interest in this random non-work-related topic” rather than “Oh, does Nancy know about fossils?” or even “Yes! The rock-that-might-be-a-fossil is cool and everyone should get to see it!”

      Reply ↓
  2. Daria grace*

    #5, what an awkward situation. There’s no easy way to work out if this is a well meaning guy who is trying so very hard to be respectful of their girlfriend that they really misunderstood advice from somewhere or if it’s the outworking of some very troubling ideas about women. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to say it’s not the place of men in her life to give permission lest the boyfriend go searching for some other man in his girlfriend’s life to provide approval

    Reply ↓
    1. PotteryYarn*

      I think I’d opt for a super noncommittal answer like, “It’s [Employee]’s decision to make, not mine, but I wish you both all the best!”

      Reply ↓
      1. Bilateralrope*

        I’d try for something like that.

        Then I’d tell [Employee] that this happened. Behaviour like this is too strange for me to keep it a secret from her.

        Reply ↓
        1. TechWorker*

          Even though there’s already texts where she is the one suggesting asking him? Doesn’t sound like it would be a ‘secret’

          Reply ↓
            1. hiraeth*

              I think they’re pretty interchangeable *in this specific context*. Asking the father’s permission is a tradition, a ritual, and you don’t really expect to be told no. I don’t think the distinction here is enough to imply anything alarming.

              (And to be clear – I hate the whole idea of asking for a father figure’s permission OR blessing, and if my now-husband had asked my actual dad this, I wouldn’t have married him. But it’s a thing people still do and find meaningful, and a lot of people won’t have questioned it particularly, any more than they do the traditions of changing names or being walked up the aisle. So I really don’t think this is anything to panic about.)

              Reply ↓
    2. Dark Macadamia*

      Yeah, since the employee specifically told the guy she sees her boss as a father figure and wants his blessing, it seems like he was just trying to be thoughtful. Either he didn’t realize it was a weird request or he knew it was kind of awkward but trusted that LW and employee really did have a close relationship. I feel sad for the employee that it seems like she really wants someone to be a father to her and doesn’t realize her boss isn’t.

      Reply ↓
      1. hiraeth*

        Yeah, this is so awkward and weird, but also a bit sad.

        Personally I suspect fiance has really misjudged the relationship that employee has with LW, based on something employee once said in a fit of warm fuzzies about having a nice boss (or a fit of sadness that she has no good men in her life closer than her boss!). And fiance is probably young, and nervous about proposing, and wants to do everything right, and somehow reasoned himself into an act of lunacy.

        I think LW can kindly set appropriate boundaries here with a ‘That’s up to Employee, but very best wishes to you both’ and then just let it go. Since employee hasn’t actually tried to treat him like a father in any way, I wouldn’t be too worried going forward. I think fiance is trying to tick off the items on the traditional proposal list, got the wrong end of the stick about this, and did something that sounded sweet in his head but came out weird.

        Reply ↓
        1. hiraeth*

          (Actually I missed the bit where she said she’d like Boss’s blessing – so maybe fiance didn’t misinterpret, and they’re both misjudging here. Still sounds to me like a slightly sad and very young misstep, rather than anything too alarming.)

          Reply ↓
        2. EvilQueenRegina*

          I remember it was suggested at the time of the original letter that it could all be crossed wires, that the employee was talking about Uncle/Cousin/Godfather Cecil and boyfriend wrongly thought she was talking about Boss Cecil.

          Reply ↓
    3. Ellis Bell*

      It sounds like the idea came from his girlfriend, “it would be great to get his blessing”, which is slightly better on his side than his deciding off his own back to get permission her the nearest male in authority. But if the weirdness came from her, I’d be keeping a watchful eye on the relationship with this report if I were OP. Hopefully she was joking or never actually meant the fiance to literally do this.

      Reply ↓
    4. Literally a Cat*

      I feel like, without knowing how she feels about the situation, almost all speculations are likely to be off. If this is her idea, would really be a good idea to alert the OP first. I do have doubts if this is her idea though.

      Reply ↓
    5. MK*

      Re: troubling ideas about women, I think that is in play in any case, but since the employee herself is apparently on board with the “asking a male authority figure for blessing/permission to marry a woman” concept, I don’t see how OP could address this with either of them without getting even more involved with the situation. The main issue is that the employee is herself crossing a professional boundary, but it’s pretty hard to say to someone “we aren’t as close as you think we are”.

      Reply ↓
    6. Emmy Noether*

      Whet I find interesting about this (ignoring the inappropriateness for a moment) is that it shows the transition of this gesture into the purely symbolic:

      The point of asking the patriarch, traditionally, was so he could determine if this was a good alliance for the family (and, maybe, if it would afford the daughter a good life). But this boss doesn’t know this fiancé from Adam! He cannot judge if it’s a good match at all! Should he request a CV? A family tree? Certificate of good health?

      So this is really 100% symbolic. I cannot decide if that makes it less troubling or just more ridiculous.

      Reply ↓
  3. Oaktree*

    I’m guessing Sansa is young. Typing and keyboarding aren’t always taught in school now. A 30-second lesson on how to use the shift key might help her a lot.

    Reply ↓
    2. hiraeth*

      I dunno, doesn’t sound super likely to me. The kids I know make a point of using all lower case when writing to each other, and any one of their teachers would pull them up on an essay written in all caps. I think this is a personal quirk, not a generational thing.

      Reply ↓
      1. M*

        Yeah, the kids are pretty fine-tuned to the “all-caps is weird” thing, to the point of just… not using capitals at all a lot of the time (and generally know how to use sentence case when it’s required). Gen Z and Alpha do seem to be less comfortable on a physical keyboard than the immediately previous generations, for some fairly obvious reasons, but I wouldn’t expect it to manifest like that. And this letter’s from 2019, so there’s a pretty small slice of Gen Z that a professional office would have had in their hiring pool.

        It’s totally possible Sansa is young – this sounds like a fairly junior role, for one – but yeah, not a generational thing, at least not in that way.

        Reply ↓
  4. Dahlia*

    You not only dismissed Nancy, you mocked Susan. She clearly had a reason to want to ask Nancy about the fossil. Why would you not believe that Susan would have a valid reason for asking? Why would you not assume Susan knew something you didn’t, since you didn’t know anything about Nancy’s education, interests, or background?

    Reply ↓
    1. Jennifer @unchartedworlds*

      That’s what I was thinking! He insulted both of them! It’s like “why would you do that, you idiot”.

      Reply ↓
    2. Irish Teacher.*

      Yeah, “I don’t engage in small talk with my coworkers and don’t know anything about their interest but I assumed I knew better than Susan about what interests and expertise Nancy has” is…not a good look in a lot of ways.

      Now, it is possible he just thought “what? Nancy doesn’t work in science” or that perhaps there was somebody with a similar name who did more relevant work and he thought Susan had confused them, but…I think it is unsurprising that people would think he was either suggesting Nancy had lied about her qualifications or that he was being sexist or that he was being deliberately rude to Susan.

      Reply ↓
    3. londonedit*

      Completely agree with this as a summary! Would it really have been so difficult for OP1 to say ‘Oh! Does Nancy have an interest in fossils? I didn’t know that’ instead of ‘Whatever would Nancy know about fossils? That’s not her background’. Frankly the OP had no idea what Nancy’s background was – but based on nothing more than the fact that she works as a volunteer coordinator the idea that she could possibly have any interest in or knowledge about palaeontology was completely dismissed. Why was that? Because she’s a woman? Maybe because she’s older? Or because she’s ‘just’ a volunteer coordinator? OP1 needs to seriously look at the assumptions he’s making about people, especially about women. Scoffing at the very idea that Nancy could possibly know anything about fossils is incredibly rude.

      OK, so it was possibly a bit OTT for the boss to go off on one about making accusations that Nancy had lied on her CV, because that’s not exactly what the OP did. But I’m not surprised that the OP received a warning and a telling-off about the way they speak to their colleagues. Belittling people and acting superior and smug is never acceptable.

      Reply ↓
    4. KateM*

      Yeah, so if his office does think that he insulted *a* coworker, they are wrong – he insulted *two* coworkers. :P

      Reply ↓
  5. A_Jessica*

    Just as a general note if anyone finds they’ve accidentally written in all caps, it’s easy to convert caps to sentence case via Microsoft Word:
    1. Select the text for which you want to change the case.
    2. Go to Home > Change case
    Or there are websites that do this.

    Reply ↓
    1. T.N.H*

      Yes! It struck me as odd that they had to redo this work though it could be using a different program with limited functionality.

      Reply ↓
      1. Anax*

        I wonder if also, the specifics of the text make this difficult. If it’s something like, “At Slate Rocks & Gravel, we provide the best rocks and gravel” – where common words are used both as proper (capitalized) nouns and as non-proper nouns – I suspect most programs would struggle to be 100% accurate. Checking for the small percent of text which is capitalized incorrectly would mean going over every field carefully, which … well, for me, that would be more annoying and time-consuming than just doing the typing myself.

        Reply ↓
        1. AcademiaNut*

          It’s one of those things that can be automated to about 95%, depending on the type of text, but that remaining 5% requires careful proofreading. Automatically handling acronyms and proper nouns is particularly tricky.

          And this is random sections of text in a larger document, due to the templates they use, so they need to find the sections to be fixed in the first place.

          Reply ↓
      1. I take tea*

        I hit the Caps Lock accidentally all the time and it’s so annoying. I wish it would require Shift + Caps Lock to work.

        Reply ↓
    3. Goody*

      TIL that Word has a built in function for this. I’ve seen it change when I’ve had caps lock on and the first letter is not capitalized because I hit the shift key, and I’ve used the small caps function before, but I didn’t know about this one. Thanks!

      Reply ↓
    4. Always Science-ing*

      For those who prefer keyboard shortcuts: in MS Word you can also highlight the text then use SHIFT + F3 to cycle between uppercase, lowercase, and title case (first letter of every word capitalized).

      Reply ↓
      1. Peggy L*

        The only thing worse, and it is by a smidge, is the ever annoying title case used for anything other than an actual title.

        Reply ↓
    5. EvilQueenRegina*

      That definitely came in handy for me when my old work laptop developed some weird problem where it kept randomly capitalising my typing while telling me Caps Lock wasn’t on. (That was one of a long line of problems I had with that thing before it was replaced. I do not miss it.)

      Reply ↓
  6. BadAssumptions*

    OP1, while I agree that saying you accused Nancy of falsifying her resume is a leap, your attitude is atrocious and likely to cause you lots of problems. There are many, many, many people with science degrees who don’t work in the sciences. There are a teeny tiny number of available jobs compared to the people qualified to fill them. Some people end up in somewhat adjacent jobs and some end up in completely unrelated fields.

    I am a physicist by education and training. I’ve spent a lot of my life working as a writer, rarely with any connection to science and never in positions that required science degrees of any sort. I know scientists working as all sorts of things.

    If you don’t want to get to know your coworkers that’s your choice. Along with that choice comes a responsibility not to assume you know things about them you don’t. Your choice.

    Reply ↓
    1. allathian*

      Absolutely. Maybe the boss overreacted a bit, but I can see a manager not wanting to give an aloof employee who assumed he knew something about a coworker that proved to be false any benefit of the doubt at all.

      Reply ↓
    2. Artemesia*

      And you don’t have to have. degree in science to have an interest and knowledge of something scientific. There are lots of people with hobbies related to plants or animals or fossils or rocks and minerals who would be the go to person for questions about those things. This was a knee jerk sexist response. It is hard to imagine the OP reacting that way if someone said ‘I’m going to ask Bill about this rock I found.’

      Reply ↓
  7. Mark*

    #1. I may be extrapolating but I get the feeling that your boss has been waiting to speak to you on the topic of being dismissive of your female colleagues for a while. However all the complaints she has received have been vague and this is at last a one she can be concrete on. Being dismissive of a female colleague just because she runs a volunteer programme and could not possibly have advanced degrees in a STEM subject is problematic. Your decision to never engage in non work conversations with your peers probably means you have fixed views of acceptable or typical behaviours of others within society, my work is a lot more diverse than my social life and I have learned much from chatting to my work colleagues over the years.

    I would take your managers seriousness about the topic as a real wake up call about how you need to change your behaviour and attitude. It can be as simple as asking a colleague if they have plans for the weekend or listening to others as they chat while waiting for a meeting to start. You can be friendly as you want to be while still gathering little nuggets about your colleagues. If you had been listening or participating to your colleagues you could have just replied, “how cool, I didn’t know Nancy was a fossil expert, where were you hiking when you found it?” Not a lot of effort for you to say that, but it acknowledges Nancys skills and shows interest in the rock finder in a few short words.

    Reply ↓
    1. Pam Adams*

      Yes, you were rude and sexist. You cited Nancy’s background without knowing it, were entirely wrong, and still think you were right.

      Reply ↓
    2. IT Relationship Manager*

      Yeah it seems like his problem is that he wants to participate in the group without putting in any of the effort. I don’t know how you work with such a small group of people and choose not to know any personal facts about them. 40 hours a week with the same people, you end up knowing a lot about them!

      I’m not saying you need to get into people’s business but I’d hate to work in a group that didn’t care about me as a whole human being and not just what I do at work.

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    3. allathian*

      Absolutely. That said, building relationships with your coworkers is an essential part of most jobs these days. Being willing to acknowledge your coworkers as humans with lives outside of work by engaging in casual non-work chat will mean that they’ll undoubtedly be willing to give you a bit more slack if you say something stupid. At the very least, they’ll ask you what you mean rather than simply jumping to the worst possible conclusion.

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    4. Ellis Bell*

      To me, the word he didn’t say out loud… “silly” …. is the most problematic word! Assuming that someone professing to knowledge without obvious bona fides is “being silly” is a really patronising internal stance. That’s a dismissiveness that goes way beyond choosing only to have professional relationships. Even if you take the gender element out of it, it’s still not great because you’re still judging people’s entire knowledge by their job roles which is problematic in a completely different way. Try “How does Nancy know about fossils?” with genuine curiosity next time!

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  8. Luna*

    Flippant “why would she know that” comment was rude. Hopefully now OP knows that he, indeed, does not know everything. Boss did overreact.

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    1. Myrin*

      I don’t even think that’s the thing that did him in, honestly. I mean, it’s very rude and dismissive, but if he’d left it at that – as a question – Susan presumably would’ve taken the opportunity to answer. It’s the decisive “That’s not her background!” which probably made the whole thing not only land badly but also OP to appear like a know-it-all (who doesn’t even know it all, to boot!).

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      1. duinath*

        Plus, the laughing. When someone tells you they’re going to do something, responding by laughing and essentially telling them it’s a dumb thing to do is … almost always a mistake. The fact OP was not only wrong, but had no real reason to think they were right in the first place, really compounds the problem.

        “I’m going to ben&jerry’s to get some icecream”
        “HA! Why would you do that? They don’t sell icecream!”

        Later:
        “No, I’ve never been to ben&jerry’s. Why do you ask?”

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    1. Love me, love my cat*

      Haha. For readers who might have missed it, this is a reference to a letter from 09/21/21. Employee was fired for disabling a coworker’s caps lock.

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  10. Kella*

    OP 1, you made three mistakes with that comment that were disrespectful to your coworkers.

    1. To reiterate something Alison touched on, despite recognizing that your level of knowledge about Nancy was low, you still assumed that you knew all relevant information on this topic. Approaching new information with curiosity instead of refuting reflexively it, is a habit and it sounds like one you don’t have. I highly recommend working on this, especially in contexts where there’s a lot you don’t know.

    2. When Susan told you her plan to ask Nancy about it, you assumed she didn’t have a good reason for doing so. This is honestly disrespectful to Nancy, too.

    3. You assumed that the skills Nancy had demonstrated while in your presence were the only ones that she had. I have a guess that this was not due to specific disrespect for Nancy but a wider issue of not recognizing the complexity of other people.

    None of these are deadly sins and in fact, they are extremely fixable! There is a pattern, however, of not having an awareness of the experience of people other than yourself, and not seeking it out either. Whether that pattern is impacted by sexism is hard to say but I wouldn’t discount that as a possibility.

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  11. hiraeth*

    OP1, do you not see how consistently you assumed the women in this scenario didn’t know what they were talking about? You couldn’t have known that Nancy had a background in paleontology but you did immediately jump to the conclusion that she did not, and that Susan was wrong about her knowledge to boot. You didn’t say ‘Oh, does Nancy know about fossils?’ You asserted very confidently that she did not, to someone who knew that, in fact, she did.

    Just…try to bear in mind that there’s plenty you don’t know. And that other people may know more than you. Even, believe it or not, women.

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  12. Nocturna*

    For LW1, I wonder if the manager talked to him about accusing a coworker of falsifying resume information because that’s how Susan reported it to the manager. I can definitely see it coming across that way to Susan, especially if Nancy is pretty open about her past experience such that it could be assumed to be common knowledge–because if Nancy’s background was actually known by LW1, that LW1 was accusing Nancy of lying would be pretty much the only logical conclusion to draw from him saying “that’s not her background”.

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    1. bamcheeks*

      Yes, I was thinking that. OP sounded pretty confident that he DID know Nancy’s background– if “Nancy has an advanced degree in palaeontology and used to work in that field” is pretty widely known then “that’s not her background” does sound like less like, “I don’t know what Nancy did before this job but that seems unlikely” and more like, “I know she tells everyone she used to work in palaeontology but I know better”.

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  13. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP1 (fossils) – as a woman in a STEM field I encounter secism often, but I don’t feel like OP was sexist or that it’s part of a pattern. OP was rude and dismissive, but actually the boss seems to be as bad. OP assumed that Nancy wouldn’t know about fossils, because she works in a completely unrelated field (but expressed it badly). Boss assumed that OP was accusing Nancy of falsifying her qualifications, and even gave a verbal warning (which, despite being “verbal” still goes on your record I assume) about this, without bothering to find out the facts. I wonder what other capricious decisions the boss makes.

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    1. Emmy Noether*

      I agree there’s not enough evidence for a pattern in the letter itself, but in my experience with people who say this kind of thing, it’s a general attitude, not an isolated incident.

      It’s not a case of mistakenly confusing Nancy with someone else and thinking she had a degree in, say, English lit and also said she hates rocks. It’s making sweeping, confident statements (contradicting a person with more info, no less!) on no basis whatsoever, and people who do that always make a habit of it in my experience. So it’s very probably a pattern, though whether it’s sexism or general rudeness is not clear from this one incident.

      Their boss is better placed to know which it is.

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  14. Irish Teacher.*

    The first one is bizarre. “Why did my boss criticise me for making definitive claims about her background? How was I supposed to know her background?”

    It’s also weird that he was reluctant to apologise. If I had made assumptions about somebody’s background that dismissed their expertise, I’d be anxious to apologise. Heck, even if she didn’t have a background in fossils, the phraseology is dismissive enough that an apology would be warranted.

    And the last…yikes! I don’t like the idea of asking for permission to marry somebody anyway, but choosing their boss rather than their mother seems to highlight the sexism of the concept, like he had to find a man with authority over her to ask.

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    1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      > It’s also weird that he was reluctant to apologise

      Is it? If I made a (admittedly rude) remark that was based on lack of knowledge, and had to apologise for “accusing Nancy of falsifying her qualifications” – which I hadn’t done – I’d be reluctant too.

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      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. But you’d still think he’d want to say, “gosh, I’m really sorry I made assumptions about your qualifications. I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t knowledgeable.”

        If the boss said, “apologise to her for lying about her falsifying her qualifications,” then yeah, I can see why he’d have a problem, but if it was more “do you have evidence Nancy falsified her qualifications? That is a really serious accusation,” “what? What qualifications?” “Nancy has a qualification in paleontology,” “well, I didn’t know that. I assumed her qualifications were in the area she works in,” “you sounded dismissive and sexist. Apologise to her,” then it makes less sense.

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  15. Janne*

    “Talk to her today, and enjoy the soothing feel of standard case on your eyes tomorrow.”
    Beautiful sentence.

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  16. Ellis Bell*

    I don’t know if this came up in the original comments, but the reaction to Nancy seems like we haven’t come that far since Mary Anning pioneered fossil discovery. She had no schooling or fancy job whatsoever.

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  17. Varthema*

    I feel like multiple advanced degrees in a frankly-kinda-cool field is way more likely to have come up in small talk around the office, especially when she was first hired, because that’s the kind of thing people talk about. I’m all for keeping work and life separate but generally we tend to know at least one or two major things about the people we work with in a small office, especially when it’s been literally years and you’ve been around during each person’s new hire phase, which is when this kind of thing comes up.

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  18. bamcheeks*

    I’m kind of sorry for LW1 for not knowing that people in what look like Very Ordinary Jobs can have sll sorts of hinterlands that are nothing to do with what they are doing now. One thing I find quite delightful about being in my forties is knowing that when I meet someone my age with 2.4 kids and a very ordinary job like “youth worker” or “retail manager” or “network administrator”, there is no way of knowing whether they initially trained as a palaeontologist or a classical musician, or spent the best part of ten years dancing in a field on the illegal party scene, or have a whole set of grown-up children and grandchildren who are older than their youngest, or were temporarily a multimillionaire in the dotcom bubble, or were in a band that had three top 40 hits in the late-90s and almost made it. People make all sorts of huge shifts in their lives and have all sorts of backgrounds, and it’s truly marvellous. Embrace it!

    Reply ↓

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