boss constantly talks about her personal finances, coworker is addicted to her phone, and more

by Alison Green on January 8, 2025

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

1. My manager constantly talks about her personal finances

I am the only direct report to a manager who constantly talks about how much money she is spending in her personal life. Her spouse owns an international company, which allows her to have a pretty nice life, but she still manages to find things to complain about constantly. Quick examples: she sent me the listing of the house they just bought (over $1 million) and pointed out everything she will have to change because it’s “outdated.” Every time we talk, she finds a way to drop in how much money she’s spending: the $20,000 closet renovation, or the $30,000 landscaping project, the $12,000 door, the $250 candle, the $400 dinner she had last night … the list goes on!

While I am not struggling financially, my spouse is a public teacher and we are not living in the same tax bracket and I am so tired of listening to her champagne problems every time we are in a one-on-one.

Is there anything I can do to say, “Stop constantly telling me how much money you’re spending”? She is already known throughout the company for having a difficult personality, but I get the brunt of her constant money talk and my resentment grows every day. I’ve asked a trusted colleague for advice but she is stumped too. I have a good relationship with her boss, my grandboss, but it feels like tattling or whining when it’s not really a performance issue from her, just her personality. Do I have to just suck it up?

What about just allowing yourself to have a more natural (and therefore pointed) response when she throws those numbers around? If you start replying with “Wow, we are clearly in very different financial situations, I could never afford that” or “That’s so different from my own budget that you’re making me think I should ask for a raise,” she might reconsider how often she shares that stuff with you. Alternately, you could straight-out say, “I’m not the right audience for this kind of thing, because on my salary I have very different money problems.” You could even add, “I’ll be honest — it’s can be hard to hear when Cecil and I are struggling.”

If she’s the worst kind of boor, that might not stop her, but there’s a decent chance it’ll make her uncomfortable enough to rein some of it in, and if nothing else, the candid responses might be more satisfying to give.

Related:
my rich friend is oblivious when he talks about money … and I’m at a breaking point

2. Applying for a job where my abusive ex’s new partner works

I am a finalist for a position with a large organization in my city. The position fits fine with my career trajectory, the colleagues seem good, the work seems interesting. I have a number of reasons I want to leave my current job and this path out seems to be pretty good. The catch is a big one though: my abusive ex’s spouse works for this employer. They are in a different department but based on what I know about their work, I expect they will interface with the department I’ve applied to.

I don’t know if my ex’s spouse knows me at all, but I know my ex to be controlling and vindictive. If I were to be offered and accept the position, it is hard for me to imagine my ex being unaware for very long. The last time I had a run-in with my ex, they tried getting my phone disconnected and badmouthed me to friends and family. I dread being anywhere near their spouse for fear they dredge anything up and threaten me, my family, coworkers, or their spouse.

The final interview is over a month away. I have a friend who is in the department I’ve applied to — do I talk to her about the situation? I am thinking I should do the interview and maybe I’ll find it’s a not a good fit and can back out naturally. Or, knowing I’m scared of what may be, should I just back out of the process? I don’t want to turn down a job just because of a harmful jackass but I am getting upset just typing this out. I am in therapy and plan on talking through the feelings with my therapist, but professionally I feel like I’m in a no-win situation.

If this were just the partner of an ex who’d been a bit of an ass, I’d say not to let that keep you from the job. But this would be putting yourself back in the orbit of a person who, the last time you encountered each other, actively tried to harm you. No job is worth that.

You’re also not describing this as a rare, perfect-fit type of job opportunity; you describe it as “fine” and “pretty good.” There are other options that will clear the “fine” and “pretty good” bar too, without jeopardizing your safety and peace of mind.

3. My coworker is constantly on her phone and the rest of us have to pick up the slack

I would love to know how much personal phone use is acceptable in office jobs. I work with someone who picks up her phone between 10 and 30 times an hour (those of us who sit around her find it so distracting that we’ve logged her usage and shown these stats to her manager). “Lisa” is texting, often long conversations that go back and forth every minute or so, and scrolling through Instagram. She has been spoken to twice about this and she improves for a week or so and then it’s back to it. She has ADHD and says she needs to use it between different types of tasks to clear her mind.

In weekly meetings, Lisa is always the one who has a list of things she hasn’t had time to do because she’s so busy and stressed, and the rest of us are getting pretty annoyed because we end up having to do more to cover her. We also worry there will be a crackdown on any phone use at all because one person is abusing the privilege.

What are the rules in other workplaces? Is this something Lisa can be fired for, especially as she’s been spoken to a few times already? Can workplaces ban phones from desks?

Yes, she can be fired for it and yes, your workplace can ban phones — but they have to want to do those things, and so far her manager doesn’t seem to be treating it as a particularly big deal, so I wouldn’t count on either of those happening. Different workplaces have different rules, norms, and expectations around phone use (anything from complete autonomy to no phone use permitted at all), so it really comes down to how your particular workplace and your particular manager feel about it.

That said, Lisa’s manager should be addressing her lower productivity. And if Lisa needs to task-switch to manage her time well, she needs to find ways of doing it that aren’t distracting to others. (That said, is the physical movement of using her phone really a distraction, or is it the annoyance of knowing that she’s once again neglecting her work? Those are two different things, and if it’s really more the second, acknowledging that to yourself might make it easier to deal with.)

Since it sounds like your manager has been willing to address the problem with Lisa when it’s been raised before, you should go back to her now and say that every time she’s talked to Lisa about it, Lisa has improved for a week but then goes right back to it, and you’re continuing to have to do extra work to cover for her, and ask that the problem be addressed in a more lasting way. If the nature of your work allows for it, you could also stop picking up Lisa’s slack and see if that makes the problem feel more urgent to your boss.

It’s possible that your workplace will respond by banning phones for everyone so you can’t discount that risk, but a decent manager wouldn’t do that; they’d manage Lisa more forthrightly.

4. How (and if) to tell someone they aren’t qualified to do a job

I work in a niche part of a larger field that requires its own training, usually formally through graduate school but not infrequently through more informal means. I am a practitioner and educator in this niche part (I went to grad school, and adjunct in a grad program), which is often considered fun and interesting by most people but is very often widely and wildly misunderstood. I wish I could say it doesn’t grate on me, but it does (especially by people who should know better, like people who engage with this area as patrons and users).

I was asked to coffee recently by a dear friend, A, to meet their friend, B, to talk about this specialty. B is working on a project where they must utilize skills from my profession and “are in over their head”, and A wanted to introduce me to B as a current practitioner and see if I can give advice. This happens a lot, and I really love both my job and interacting with people who find different ways into the profession rather than formal schooling! So I was happy to schedule with them both. In the meantime, I looked up B’s website and realized that this was not a problem they stumbled into–they advertise (and charge for) the skills of my profession as part of their whole deal. This happens a lot, too–many people in many fields think they are doing my job when in fact they are not, and (to me, the most important part) they have no curiosity about the entire field that exists of professionals doing this work with best practices and a whole professional organization, literature, and training structure in place.

I am not going to ask for/charge a consultant fee; I have already agreed to meet and ultimately I think B is harmless and enthusiastic. I think most people who misunderstand my field are harmless and enthusiastic! But I think this is poor timing for B, in that I am so annoyed that I can’t decide whether I should try to say, “Hey, don’t offer this very particular and skilled service if you have never even looked for a book on this, much less taken a class or talked to a professional” in addition to my professional opinions about this project specifically. B has been working for this project for over a year! Am I being petty? Is this not my business? I want to stay friends with A, too.

Do you know for sure that B is someone who “has never read a book on the subject, taken a class, or talked to a professional”? Your friend’s assessment that B is in over their head doesn’t necessarily mean that, so before you conclude anything, it’s smart to ask B more about their background in the subject.

When you meet, you could say, “I looked at your website to get an idea of the work you do and I saw you advertise llama grooming services. I don’t want to give you info you already know, so can you give me an idea of your background and training in that area and what kinds of projects you’ve worked on? That will help me understand what would be most helpful.” This is a good thing to ask regardless so you can better calibrate the level of advice you’re offering — and if it does turn out they’re advertising those services with zero skills, it’ll highlight that too.

But you can also decline to provide free consulting, remedial or otherwise. If it turns out they need a lot of help, you could explain that it’s more work than can be covered in a casual coffee but you’d be happy to recommend pros in the field (or write up a proposal of work yourself if you’re interested).

5. Should I have given more notice when quitting around the holidays?

I work for a very small tech start-up, several years old but struggling to grow. I’m the only person in my department. Previously, I worked for a VP and held a lower level individual contributor role on my team. The VP got let go, and I was given all of their responsibilities (most of which I had never done before) and a director title, as well as a small ($5,000) raise and a promise of an end-of-year bonus (that was never put in writing or specified if it was dependent on company performance). I’ve been managing all the responsibilities for our function for several months solo.

I decided I wanted to leave (largely due to the above but other reasons as well) and found a new job at a new company and gave notice yesterday. Because of the holidays, I gave them 3.5 weeks notice so they could have a little more time. When I told my CEO, who I now report to directly, he told me I was not giving them enough time and leaving the company in a bad position, since I’m the only one who can do my job and they will struggle to find a replacement quickly with the holidays. I know two weeks is really all you owe a company, but given my position as the sole person in my role and the holidays, should I have given them more time? I’m not dependent on them for a reference in the future but I am wondering if they are justified in their upset reaction.

Nope. Three and half weeks was generous and more than you needed to give. The point of a notice period isn’t to provide enough time to find a replacement and have them start (the standard two weeks isn’t nearly enough for that in most jobs) but simply to wrap things up in a basic way and transition your work to whoever will be covering it in the interim.

Feel free to ignore your CEO’s attempt to guilt-trip you. He might feel inconvenienced by the timing of your departure, but that’s how departures generally go; they’re often inconvenient, and that’s not a reason to expect someone will alter their plans. His feelings of stress don’t mean you handled it wrong.

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{ 364 comments }

{ 364 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. A*

    So happy to see #5 addressed. I just encountered “but holidays” for an internal move where current boss wanted me to stay 7 weeks.

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    1. Cmdrshprd*

      Eh I think an internal move is different, in that I think holidays are a reasonable excuse to give/use for waiting longer for a transition.

      that the company reasonably decide the new role B is lower priority due to XYZ reasons and better to have that unfilled for 3/5 weeks, versus the current role A and wanting role A covered for a longer period of time. especially if it is an interdepartmental move. Role B might be a step up for you individually, but to the company department 1, with role A you are leaving is more important.

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    3. Thinking*

      Because they’re his holidays? What about holidays of minorities? Do you need more notice then also? And what months does that leave open for me to leave? I’m trying to illustrate that no time is a good time.
      And who’s fault is it that no one else can do LWs job? No one stays forever, the owner needs to prepare for that, but paying LW the VPs salary might have bought more time.
      See, you saved the money then, and now you get to pay. It’s so simple.

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      1. Person from the Resume*

        7 weeks is a lot more than 4.

        But at my office where we only get off Christmas Day and New Year’s Day so we’re “presumably” all working 4 days was at about 25% of normal attendance all for both Christmas and New Year’s week. So the “holidays” meaning many many people are not in the office is a good reason to delay an internal move.

        But in the case of leaving a job 2 weeks notice (or 10 working days) is the standard. It’s the boss’s own fault that there’s no succession plan or trained backup.

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      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Typically in a business setting, when someone says the holidays are inconvenient it’s not because they have personal celebrations to consider. It’s because it’s a time where a lot of people are out, traveling, offices may be closed, and people sometimes use “holidays” to signal a generally hectic time of year where those factors are compounded by end of year deadlines and wrap ups, or major events depending on what your job is.

        Major religions have holidays all throughout the year, but the end of December is when a few happen at the same time, and people celebrate New Year’s (and sometimes other things) at a secular level. It’s just a fact that the last two weeks of December are a hectic time for a lot of businesses. It’s not a question of ignoring other religions. It’s a marked pattern that people do need to plan for.

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        1. Dek*

          Makes me think of how if you’re doing a pin kickstarter, standard advice is to not set the timeline so you’re doing your orders around Lunar New Year or the lead up to it for similar reasons.

          Whether or not someone personally celebrates a holiday, if it’s a big cultural thing with lots of disruption, better to wait for a slightly less hectic time.

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    4. Sloanicota*

      Ha! My company is also like “well, nothing can be done starting Nov 1 until the second week of January” even though it’s not like we have that time off or the office is closed or something. I could see wanting extra time with an internal move but seven weeks sounds long.

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  2. AcademiaNut*

    For LW#5 – if someone is the owner or CEO of a very small business (startup or otherwise), then they need to make plans for if (when) an employee leaves, even if they’re vital and hard to replace. People get new jobs, they also sometimes fall seriously ill, end up in jail, or need to be abruptly fired. They should be asking themselves what they would do if any of their employees were suddenly out of commission, and have plans for it, whether it be cross training, hiring a temp, or knowing how to do any essential work themselves.

    It sounds like they handled the first person leaving by dumping the work on the LW, and didn’t bother considering what would happen if the LW also left.

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    1. WS*

      Yes, where I work we had a key employee badly break her ankle (during COVID, so we were flat out busy) and she ended up in hospital for a week before she even got surgery, because the medical staff were managing urgent COVID cases and/or getting COVID themselves. But seven years earlier we’d had an employee die suddenly in a car accident and after that we had crosstrained everybody on everything.

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      1. I Have RBF*

        This is good. Not the way it happened, but the fact that your employer took steps to prevent a repeat of the scramble.

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    2. Agent Diane*

      Yep. The CEO’s lack of planning around personnel issues – as indicated by not filling that VP post properly or back filling your old role – is not your problem. It’s theirs. And it sounds like it is not the only problem they have.

      Make sure you’ve got documents ready for a handover: if they don’t have someone to pick those docs up, that’s their problem.

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      1. Falling Diphthong*

        “If OP just continues to do two jobs for one salary, everything gets done!”
        “OP is walking out the door.”
        “What?!!! WHY?!!!!!”

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      2. MassMatt*

        Yeah, did the company give LW several weeks of notice before having her pick up all the VP’s responsibilities?

        And while a $5k raise is a lot more than many people in this sort of situation ever get, it sounds like a pittance compared to a VP’s responsibilities.

        The company made this bed, they can sleep in it. If they had truly promoted the LW maybe they wouldn’t be in this position.

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        1. Wilbur*

          Honestly, the whole situation is insulting. VP leaves, and after taking on all that responsibility OP5 is a Director? I can’t imagine a situation where I’d be OK with a $5k raise to take on that level of work. Either it’s a big raise because I’m only making $40k or it’s a drop in the bucket. Either way, I’m pretty sure the VP that was leaving was making a lot more than $5k, feels like the company was expecting to save a good chunk of cash. Unless there was some kind of equity or other kind of compensation than this was a dumb choice by the CEO.

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          1. Venus*

            It’s not unreasonable if the work is meant to be temporary, for example if they planned to hire a new VP within a couple months and OP was only doing the minimum required of the position. If the plan after a couple months is for the OP to do a job similar to the original one then a small raise makes sense.

            Having said that, the VP job has been unfilled for several months and presumably there is no clear timeline to fill that role, in which case it’s completely reasonable for OP to leave for something better.

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            1. Statler von Waldorf*

              It’s hard to justify the claim that “a small raise makes sense” when we have the advantage of hindsight here and know for a fact that that “a small raise” was both not enough to keep the employee in question and left the company in a bad place when they left. If that raise had been bigger and the bonus in writing, they might still have an employee.

              As my British co-worker would say, it was a penny-wise but pound-foolish choice.

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            2. Wilbur*

              I think if you’re planning on moving OP5 back down, then it would make sense to process it as a monthly bonus until the new VP was hired. If you think it’s going to take 2 months, set it as monthly $2500 bonus. If you haven’t hired someone after two months, keep the monthly bonuses going! Then follow up with a merit raise after they move back down to their previous position. OP5 mentioned they took on almost all of the VP responsibilities, I’m inclined to believe them.

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      3. LL*

        I’m wondering if the startup is having money issues. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have filled the open position?

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    3. GammaGirl1908*

      This. They should have been looking for a replacement when the first person left, not when suddenly there was no one left to do the job. Dumping the work on LW was a temporary solution, but it solved the problem well enough for the CEO to quietly hope it would be permanent.

      As we used to say in at an old job, hope is not a good business plan. Their lack of planning is not LW’s emergency.

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      1. Richard Hershberger*

        The first person did not simply leave, they were “let go.” There may have been a really solid reason for this, but the outcome is the LW was doing two jobs for a modest raise and some vague promises. This is not something that simply happened.

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        1. Bossy*

          Nor is it something that was sustainable and CEO should have been smart enough to realize that, as it’s not exactly rocket science.

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      3. Antilles*

        They should have been looking for a replacement when the first person left, not when suddenly there was no one left to do the job.
        Bingo. The boss didn’t have 3.5 weeks of notice, he’s known for “several months” that they were understaffed and down a position. He made the choice to leave the position unfilled and that’s that.

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      4. Jshaden*

        I’ve hear “hope is not a strategy” so many times. It is a cousin to my favorite but lesser known phrase “We’ll keep reality in our hip pocket” when discussing schedules.

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      5. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        Reminds me of a poster in a math classroom in my high school – poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

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    5. Annony*

      And if they do really need more notice, they need to make it a balanced arrangement where they extend the same notice to the employee. I just took a job that wants 6 months notice because it is a very specialized hard to fill position that no one else can fill in for. But I have an actual contract that guarantees me 6 months notice or 6 months pay if they let me go so I am ok with it.

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      1. MassMatt*

        It does sound as though that contract could work out in your favor, but I wonder what they would say if when they hired you you told them you need to give six month’s notice to your current employer. I am guessing that would not fly.

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        2. Antilles*

          I assume that you’d just mention it upfront (or very early) in your job searches, same as you would if you were six months from graduation or hadn’t yet moved to the city or etc. Which might limit your job search by getting you a lot of polite responses of “well let us know when you’re only 2-3 months out”, but in some cases, they may be willing to wait or work with you on it.
          Also, those sort of contracts can often (though not always) come with target end dates, which can help with planning when to start your search because you know the contract ends at the end of the fiscal year or whatever.

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    6. LCH*

      yup, i was thinking they’ve had months to add another person to OP’s department and it doesn’t even sound like they’ve started yet.

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    7. Smithy*

      First – absolutely this. And second – while there are regularly no good times for people to leave, people leaving during the holidays is frustrating but even in much larger organizations there also usually aren’t great solutions.

      Provided this is the US, there’s no contract in place, and this isn’t a place with a very specific busy season during the holidays – there likely just isn’t an amazing solution. I work for a much larger entity than the OP, and essentially two weeks on the nose before Dec 23rd, our Managing Director gave her notice. It was an insanely short period of time and not nearly long enough for everything she had to handover at her level.

      However! If she’d stayed a third week, it technically would have only been an extra three business days – and three business days with a huge amount of PTO absences. Staying a fourth week still would have included the New Years holiday as well as that ongoing high amount of staff out on PTO. She really would have had to give 5 or 6 weeks notice, and with the holiday break in the middle – I can’t even imagine how checked out she would have been. I’m sure she was hoping to have her new job confirmed a week or two before, but it took longer and so the options were a very short notice where we got what we could. Or a very long notice where she would have been so disengaged, and likely the amount of handover we got wouldn’t have been that much higher.

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    8. I Have RBF*

      This.

      In my field I call it the “bus number” – the number of people who can be hit by a bus to stop critical tasks from being done. I recently took over after a person who set up his bus number to be 1 was fired. I have spent months picking up the dropped and undocumented pieces. One of the things I have been doing is making sure that at least one other person has the rights to do a critical task, so that if I get hit by a bus things don’t grind to a halt. That means I get to take vacations or get sick.

      So, when taking over after another person left, you need to make sure that you have a backup, just like you were the other person’s backup. If you can’t get a backup,. at the very least document in an internally findable place for senior management how to do stuff, get into resources, and where all the passwords are stored.

      If people get hinky about this, thinking that it implies you have one foot out the door, point out things like commuting and accidents, catastrophic illnesses, and other unforeseen stuff that can happen. Emphasize that you are being a good steward of company resources and property to make sure that they are still accessible should something happen to you. This is, essentially, the very bottom level of disaster recovery for the business – what to do if Role X is not available, who is the backup.

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      1. Paint N Drip*

        I think there are plenty of people SO scared to lose their job or control or whatever, that they refuse to spread knowledge and access around appropriately. In my opinion, the employer should not allow one employee’s fear/anxiety to CREATE a bus problem, but if the employer is expecting employees to be proactive about cross-training without confirming it I suppose that is on them (and honestly, plenty of employers are not prioritizing this at all!! scary stuff)

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  3. I'll have the blue plate special, please.*

    #OP 2: Keep looking. I know this job sounds like a good opportunity but think more of your peace of mind.

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    1. WoodswomanWrites*

      #2, you said you were “getting upset just typing this out.” You have every reason to be anxious. Picture what working there would look like. Do you really want to go to work every day worrying that this might be the day your ex returns to mess up your life?

      Your well-being and safety comes first. There will be other job opportunities.

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      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        This. OP if you are upset typing this out, imagine what you will feel when you have to go to work every day. No job is worth this.

        IF you were desperate for a job, I would say maybe consider it while you continued working. But even then its only a maybe. Since that is not the case, you can gracefully bow out and protect yourself.

        You deserve to be safe.

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    2. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Now picture a company awards ceremony or a Christmas party. Is the job still worth it if you will have to greet him professionally as a coworker’s spouse?

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      1. Tio*

        This is an excellent point. OP2, unless you’re in serious financial trouble, I would not take this job. (And it doesn’t sound like you are)

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    3. Sloanicota*

      Although if it were me, I think I would go to the interview, mostly because I suspect the job is not so perfect that OP will forever regret passing on it, and it would give me peace of mind. But I’m very prone to romanticizing “the road not taken” and getting stuck that way.

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        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Depending on how big the company is, if you get the job you might not even have any contact with the spouse whatsoever. And I would recommend you request they not put your info on their website or other public places, just so the ex doesn’t know you work with their spouse. Good luck! I’d say, though, that if you don’t get the job, there will be another better job in your future. I’m grateful for the jobs I didn’t get because the ones I did get instead were probably a better fit for me anyway.

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      2. Venus*

        Completely agreed that I’d really want to at least do the interview. It could be useful for future opportunities when the ex’s spouse moves to another job.

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        1. Sloanicota*

          Yeah in my opinion more information is always better. For some people though I realize the potential risk of falling in love with the job and then being unable to take it – or getting entangled again just through the process of interviewing – would be too great to go forward. OP knows their own situation best.

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    4. Mockingjay*

      OP 2, job hunting requires considerable personal time and effort. That investment is why most of us stick it out through the entire interview and offer process, even when the role is merely an okay fit or salary isn’t what we want, and also why we ignore flags. You have a very large, red flag in this situation.

      It’s okay to withdraw now. As Alison said, there will be other, better opportunities.

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      1. Annie*

        I’m generally a person who would say don’t let your ex dictate your life, but given the obvious anxiety you have over this (deservedly so), I just think it’s just much better to pass and look for a better opportunity.

        You don’t need that stress in your life just waiting for some random encounter with your ex’s partner or any fallout if the partner or your ex finds out you work there. Life has enough issues to deal with, and you don’t need to add one more that can be extra stressful.

        I hope all goes well in whatever you choose, though.

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    6. Festively Dressed Earl*

      Finish the interview process and bow out naturally, but one more item for the “don’t take the job” column: it would be very difficult not to chime in if the ex’s spouse complains about him at work, or to refrain from trying to convince her to leave an abusive situation before she’s ready. To me, that would be agonizing no matter how great the job is.

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  4. Cmdrshprd*

    OP 1, offer to switch houses next time.

    “all the work you have to do sounds awful, but I think the place is great as is, let’s switch house, you can take my 2,000 SQ ft, 3 bed 2 bath, $300k house and I will take yours.”

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        Yeah, that’s also a cool million where I am – it’s 185m^2, for anyone who is metric like me. It does seem to be right around the median in the US and Australia though, and obviously there are huuuuge differences between urban/suburban/countryside. (The median in Europe seems to be around half that).

        I’m not at all sad about it, though. A larger living space has rapidly diminishing returns over 1500sqft or so, while a walkable 15-minute neighborhood* is the gift that keeps on giving. Huge houses and yards make a place unwalkable.

        *A 15-minute neighborhood is a place where all the necessities of daily life are accessible within 15 minutes on foot. It is the true luxury of modern life.

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        1. KateM*

          If 185 m^2 is median, how big families are living in houses bigger than that, considering that our 150 m^2 house has been mostly just right for our family except there could have been one more bedroom for some years when all four kids lived at home??

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          1. Emmy Noether*

            I don’t think the families are generally bigger. People just start to have things like home offices, guest rooms, fitness rooms, play rooms, a second living room (TV room, den), formal dining rooms (a pet peeve of mine), a separate pantry, walk-in closets, more than one bathroom per person, big entrances and mud rooms, big laundry rooms and just generally single use rooms (while on 150m^2, generally your bathroom is your laundry room, your living room is the TV room and the fitness room, and the children’s bedroom is their playroom. If you have a home office it is also your guest room and your hobby room).

            All of which is surely convenient, but also… diminishing returns, as I said.

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            1. JustMyImagination*

              Yup. Once had a corworker tell me “It’s 5 bedrooms, but one doesn’t have it’s own bathroom so not sure that really counts.”

              Reply ↓
                2. Transatlantic*

                  Haha, touché LondonEdit. I do have a bedroom that fits an entire double bed (and not much else), so I believe the estate agent called it “spacious” :)

                  *enter the Four Yorkshiremen … *

                3. Dek*

                  US bathrooms are huge too.

                  But honestly, I’d trade off living in London again. Sure, my bedroom was the size of a queen bed, and the only window that wasn’t directly against the wall was up two ladders, and the landlady’s son sprayed so much axe every morning…

                  but 15 minute walk to Kensington Gardens, public transportation…that was nice

                4. NotBatman*

                  US bathrooms are huge too??

                  *cries in NYC housing*

                  The good news is, I took the door off my bathroom. Because if it opened inward, it’d only go 6 inches before hitting the toilet, but if it opened outward, it’d block the hallway and you couldn’t exit the bathroom. This does make things awkward when there’s company over, but at least now you don’t have to suck in your gut and inch sideways to enter.

                5. Cmdrshprd*

                  @notbatman I would recommend an cheap accordion plastic folding door/screen. it does not do much for noise/smell, but it allows for a little bit more semblance of privacy. they are fairly easy to install.

              2. Dek*

                I feel like new construction especially trends this way.

                My Dad and stepmom moved to a newer house when they got married (over a decade later and I still think we should’ve kept our old house, which had the same number of bedrooms). All of us have flown the nest, so now there’s one bedroom, a guitar room, my stepmom’s home office (daily use), my Dad’s home office (occasional use), and the upstairs “bedroom” that’s really more of a massive storage room with our old beds in it.

                Literally a 5 bedroom house, but also no space for my brother to stay while he gets back on his feet and finds a new job/place to live.

                Reply ↓
                1. AnotherOne*

                  i can’t even imagine that. i haven’t lived at home for 25ish years. my sister has official been out of the house for probably 20 years.

                  when my dad and i have been talking about what he wants in his next place, there has to be at least 2 bdrms so there’s a bedroom for us kids to stay in. (well, realistically me or the grandkids. my sister comes with kids and a REALLY tall husband. they’d probably need a hotel room.)

            2. Aerin*

              In a city you can get around, there are things like co-working spaces and maker spaces and other shared facilities. Out in the burbs, I’m trying to fit all that stuff into my house.

              It also doesn’t help that while my house is “big,” the layouts are not sensible and so a lot of the space is difficult to use effectively. I think that’s a problem with a lot of these prefab houses. And the clutter just expands to fill the space until I don’t even know what half this junk is…

              It’s so overrated. We’re trying to move to the UK and my dream is a cozy flat near a transit stop.

              Reply ↓
            3. MassMatt*

              This whole issue is reminding me of the memo a company bigwig sent to all staff a few years ago that went viral, saying that with Covid in it’s second year, everyone should have “figured out” child care with day care or relatives, and have a dedicated home office for remote work. It included the helpful suggestion to convert a “spare room” to an office. I’m surprised it didn’t mention working from the family yacht.

              Reply ↓
            4. KateM*

              What kind of living do you do in your living room that it is *not* a TV-room at the same time?

              Ours is mostly TV-room, children playroom, and during holidays also a formal dining room.

              Reply ↓
              1. Flor*

                I read in the normal living room while my spouse watches TV in the TV room! It’s not essential, of course – we lived together for 13 years before we had a dedicated TV room – but it is nice to have somewhere to sit in quiet and read that’s not on the bed.

                Reply ↓
          1. Emmy Noether*

            Diminishing is not zero!

            And while the cutoff is of course different for different people, I’m fairly sure you don’t know what to do with a 40th bedroom either (unless you are a medieval noble that regularly has to host an itinerant monarch and hizzer entire court, and also employ 20 servants to keep said bedrooms clean.) So you have a cutoff somewhere. Hence, diminishing returns.

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        3. Flor*

          I miss living in a walkable neighbourhood!

          I do think, though, that 1500 sq ft is more generous in Europe than in North America, both literally and effectively. I’m not sure how it’s measured where you are, but in the UK, square footage is measured by adding up the sizes of all the rooms. In North America, it’s measured by taking the length and width of the house and multiplying them. So a 1500 sq ft house in North America includes the hallways, the cupboards, and the external walls, while in the UK it typically excludes those.

          And then on top of that, things like appliances are enormous in North America compared to Europe, so the usable space in the same sized kitchen, for instance, is smaller. The large appliances may be great for families of six or people who host a lot, but for someone whose cavernous oven often contains a single fillet of fish and half a tray of vegetables, I certainly wish I had a smaller cooker and more counter/cabinet space!

          Reply ↓
          1. Happy meal with extra happy*

            I’ve never heard of that method of square foot measuring in the US. Maybe it’s regional?

            Reply ↓
            1. Flor*

              I’m in Canada. My bad, I was under the impression it was the same in the US, but I must have misremembered. It’s also possible this isn’t how it’s always done even here, but it definitely does happen sometimes (like I have a family member whose house with a 32 x 32 ft footprint and unfinished basement was marketed as 2000 sq ft).

              Reply ↓
          3. KateM*

            In the non-UK Europe that I live, usually two areas are given – all house (including halls, bathrooms, storage etc) and “living space” which is only rooms.

            Reply ↓
        4. Rew123*

          185 m2 is almost twice the size of our pretty decent family home where the five of us lived . I love how “small house” means different things depending on location and personal experince :)

          Reply ↓
        5. Wayward Sun*

          Part of it is small, “starter homes” are rarely built in the US because larger ones are more profitable. Some cities even have ordinances requiring a certain minimum square footage.

          Reply ↓
      2. Sans Serif*

        Probably around $500-600,000 here, but yeah, $300,000 would either be a serious fixer upper or in a shaky neighborhood.

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      3. holiday dreams*

        any house – even those unfit for human habitation – are over $1million where I live. A 2000sq ft house is 3-4 M$

        Reply ↓
      1. GrumpyPenguin*

        I looked it up and 2500 sqft seems to be the average size for a US house, but the prizes differ a lot, depending where you live. As a European, it still sound enormous to me.

        Reply ↓
        1. ThatGirl*

          Prices for, let’s say, a 3 bed/2 bath house vary WILDLY depending on what part of the country you are in, location within a city or region, obviously depending on what shape the house is in…. from a $200k fixer in Ohio to a $1M new build in Hawaii.

          Reply ↓
          1. GrumpyPenguin*

            Same here in Germany, although (similar conditions assumed) houses tend to be more expensive than in the US. We just don’t have the space for it.

            Reply ↓
        3. Candace*

          This is the size of my house and it’s starting feel small compared to new builds. Also, the price of it has almost doubled since we bought it nine years ago. Gulp.

          Reply ↓
        5. I Have RBF*

          LOL. My house is specified at “Total interior livable area: 948 sqft”, but I am not sure how they get that number, but I assume it is just length times width. It’s nowhere near 2500 sqft.

          Reply ↓
      2. BatManDan*

        5 years ago, bought 2400 sq ft (4/3, formal dining room, etc) for $250K. Southeast of the United States, city is the capital of the state, so not small town.

        Reply ↓
        1. Bee*

          5 years ago was a whole different world for house-buying, sadly! Prices skyrocketed in 2020 and have only gone up since then. (Though you can definitely get a decent 3br/2ba for $350k in the area where I grew up – suburbs of a midsized city in the Northeast US. You may have to do it in all cash with no inspection given that every house gets a dozen offers in two days, but. It’s possible!)

          Reply ↓
        2. Not your trauma bucket*

          Bought a very similar house in a very similar city in 2016 for $350K. It’s estimated at about $700K now. That jump in 2020 was no joke.

          Reply ↓
        3. LL*

          Houses are cheaper in the SE US than in other parts of the US. Also, if the state capital isn’t also the (or one of the) major population center(s) of that state, it’s cheaper than other cities you could have moved to.

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    3. Sloanicota*

      Yeah there’s a lot of ways to make yourself a less satisfying audience for this person. One I always like is to agree with them, since people humblebragging/digging for complements expect you to disagree. “Yeah, you’d think you’d get more for a million dollars, huh? That does look pretty dated.” Or “Yeah, that doesn’t seem like very good value to me.”

      Reply ↓
      1. Aerin*

        My first thought was to get a bit boorish yourself and say, “Wow, that sounds great! Can you do my closets next? I don’t even have shelves in there” or “That door costs more than my car! And I mean, if you were to pay that off for me it sounds like it would be more satisfying for you, haha.” Not sure I’d want to actually go that route with my boss, but with basically anyone else I can see it cutting off that talk quite decisively.

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    6. Tiny House Mouse*

      My house (central MD USA) is 1126 sq feet (4 BR, 2.5 baths) is valued at $456Kish. Spending upwards of thousands on a new door boggles my mind.

      Reply ↓
      1. fhqwhgads*

        FWIW, while $12,000 is an expensive new door, my understanding is a new exterior door is generally in the “thousands” to replace if you’re not installing it yourself. But more like 2-3 depending.

        Reply ↓
    7. iglwif*

      I am not sure whether to laugh or cry about the concept of a 2000sqft house for $300K (even though I know it’s probably US$).

      Reply ↓
  5. EA*

    OP 4 – Maybe it would help to view this coffee date as closer to networking, vs. consulting / professional advising. Grabbing coffee to get to know someone, sharing a bit about your experience and providing some (usually pretty general) advice is common in my field. I doubt B’s expectation is really to have you give them extensive coaching over coffee anyway, and I definitely don’t think you should tell B they’re unqualified (even if they are!). I’d focus on sharing your own experiences or perspectives.

    Reply ↓
    2. Pay no attention...*

      I agree. Don’t actually offer [niche field] consulting during the coffee beyond that she might need to contract with a professional consultant to get her project in order or attend XYZ class — if indeed she does. I wouldn’t even offer to be that consultant, since it doesn’t sound like OP would start from a good mental point with this client. Be cheerfully, enthusiastically, but vaguely, unhelpful.

      Reply ↓
      1. NotBatman*

        It also might be a favor to B to use that meeting to make clear the gaps in their knowledge. Like “How many llamas have you groomed? I recommend my students groom at least 12 while supervised before they groom alone.” or “Have you been certified in the Kuzco Technique? It’s important to have that expertise when handling recalcitrant llamas.” Hopefully give them next steps that can get them up to an acceptable level of qualification.

        Also: as a psychologist, I spent that whole letter muttering “Please don’t let OP be a therapist, please don’t let OP be a therapist, please please I hope OP isn’t a therapist.” Because. Yeah. Massive problem in this field.

        Reply ↓
  6. Daisy*

    I’m so curious to know which field OP4 is in. Obviously, for anonymity they don’t want (and shouldn’t) have to say. However, I genuinely wonder which field would be something that everyone thinks they can do but, in fact, actually requires training. my first thought was coaching but that’s not something you go to grad school for.

    Reply ↓
    1. Berlina*

      One example that came to mind for me immediately was web accessibility and translating websites into an easy version of our complicated language (German). I work in that field and it’s amazing how many people think they can just write that stuff and don’t need to hire trained people. (And now it’s KI overtaking, but that’s a whole different issue.)

      I’m pretty sure they are many fields where proper expertise tops YouTube tutorial knowledge (exaggerating, but still).

      Reply ↓
      1. Potato Potato*

        My guess is something along these lines. Like, a so-called “soft skill” in a technical field. My other guesses include survey design, copywriting or editing, or something related to user experience.

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        1. An analyst*

          Yep, lots in the survey/statistics/data analysis fields would fit this. Also management and HR in general, though those don’t fit the rest of the letter so well.

          Reply ↓
          1. AndersonDarling*

            I was thinking data visualization. Cause, ya know, those programs are so easy! And you’re just making pretty things! How fun!

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            1. Strive to Excel*

              In fairness to a lot of data analysis/data visualization and the softwares involved, after a certain point you only really improve by going out and doing it a whole lot, so there’s only so far formal schooling will take you.

              I’d still like it to be taught to more STEM folks in particular. I’ve seen really brilliant people come up with the most terrible graphs and charts. The amount of 3-axis scatterplots I’ve seen…

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        2. Baunilha*

          I was thinking copywriting as well, since everyone thinks they can do it (even more so now with AI) when the reality is not quite like that. But I’m just projecting my own experiences.

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        1. Daisy*

          Yes, those make sense. Because you can get formally trained in those fields or can learn informally but still be very talented. And yes something like photography may *seem* easy but in fact needs someone very trained/talented to do it right

          Reply ↓
        2. Emmy Noether*

          Yes, I was thinking something creative, where modern tools make it seem easier than it is. Photography is a good example. Everyone can point a camera at a thing and push a button, right? Except actually taking good pictures does take a lot of skill.

          Reply ↓
        3. GammaGirl1908*

          My thought was graphic design. It’s often an “oh, how hard can it be?” when people really don’t understand just how hard it can be.

          Reply ↓
          1. MassMatt*

            Was going to suggest this, people think good graphic design just happens, and anyone with a basic version of Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, etc can do it. Or have AI do it. It does explain some of the awful, eye-killing designs I see online.

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        5. Plain Jane*

          As someone who worked in graphic design for over a decade, this was my guess as well. it’s amazing how many people think it’s easy.

          Reply ↓
          2. Anonforthis*

            Yep. Recently resigned from a job where they (bizarrely) assumed I was proficient in graphic design, video, and social media. All of which are distinct skill sets that people *go to school for*. Don’t get me wrong, I can design a flyer or put something on Facebook.

            But that’s like… the difference between being able to change your oil versus replacing a carburetor. I’d no more claim to be a ‘graphic designer’ than I would pretend to be a mechanic.

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      3. Snow Globe*

        I was thinking something like interior design, which is a profession where there is college education (including grad courses) and professional associations, but a lot of people just think “I’m good at decorating!” and would call themselves an interior designer. (I have a family member who has a graduate degree and professionally designs office interiors.)

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    2. Rebecca*

      Teaching, particularly kindergarten or primary, particularly ESL, definitely falls in this category. I have two masters degrees and my competition is people who are ‘native English speakers’ and ‘great with kids!’ charging a third of my rate.

      Reply ↓
    3. Niles 'the coyote' Crane*

      This happens to me constantly. My field is political advocacy, influencing public policy. It’s a policy area that is related to social justice but the actual legislative details we are seeking to change are very technical.

      Reply ↓
    5. Delta Delta*

      I haven’t the slightest idea what OP4 does. Sometimes when letters are so vague about what they do I have a hard time following the issue to see what the actual question is. I appreciate the llamas and teapots and rice sculptures as placeholders because sometimes I get lost in the question.

      Reply ↓
      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        I thought librarian. The majority of employees don’t have the MLIS. So friend of friend is offering research assistance or archival work.
        But I also feel the graphic design work. That fits the description, too.

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          2. marion*

            It’s definitely library related – the word “patron” is a dead giveaway; no other field uses that to my knowledge.
            The freelancing aspect of it also made me guess archiving or some kind of data management

            Reply ↓
            1. Reference Librarian*

              Yup, patron and the “people think my job is fun/wildly different from what I actually do” made me think library related. Because I too fell into the “I love reading/writing, so working in a library would be great!” trap (for reference librarians and circulation clerks, it’s way more about customer service and minor tech help). And I could see that being similar for an archivist or something.

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        2. LCH*

          i thought archives like they are hiring out as a freelance general organization specialist and include archiving family papers as part of it without knowing what they don’t know about how to handle and store things properly over time. (wow, that was a specific story i’ve assigned to this OP’s situation.)

          Reply ↓
        3. Damn it, Hardison!*

          I thought of archives or genealogy, or maybe records management (although fun and interesting are 2 words rarely seen in that context).

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          2. Tired Archivist*

            I absolutely thought archives, because I’ve spent 20 years of career in it having people think they can do my job without my professional skills.

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        5. beepboop*

          Definitely thought librarian, too. Everyone thinks they can do it. People have even asked me if I’m a volunteer! So many near-retirement patrons (with no library background or MLIS) ask if we’re hiring because “it seems so relaxing.” Very frustrating.

          Reply ↓
        7. Cosmo*

          Computer security was what I thought. Its a mix of academics and folks who learned their skills on the job and from others. People seem to think its basically the movie Hackers all the time.

          Reply ↓
      2. davethetrucker*

        Agreed. I don’t love the teapot inside joke, because I think it gets mangled in some of the questions, but I appreciate when an LW says something like, “sort of like a bakery, but not a bakery,” to give a frame of reference. Anonymity is understandable, but people get coffee with other people in their fields all the time. It really doesn’t seem like even saying the exact field would have been identifying in this case, but even if they were celebrities or brain surgeons or race car drivers, the level of obscurity here is so high, it’s distracting from the actual question.

        Reply ↓
        1. JB (not in Houston)*

          I feel the opposite, interesting. The basic question is pretty easy to grasp without specifics–the OP works in a niche area of a field, and B is advertising services in that field but probably doesn’t have the necessary training. Sometimes when people provide specifics about their job here, the comments derail into arguing about whether the OP’s view of their field is correct. This keeps the focus on what OP’s question actually is.

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          1. Friday Person*

            Yep, I also find analogies way more distracting and potentially derailing than keeping it broad, and I didn’t have any issues understanding the question as written. At this point if I never hear about a figurative llama groomer again I’ll be fine.

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            1. davethetrucker*

              Yeah, like I said, the teapots are not great. And the llama spa services are getting a little tiring, too. I’d still then prefer some fresh stand-ins over people acting like they’re very special, very high-level CIA agents. Maybe someone will submit a question using that as a stand-in.

              Reply ↓
    6. Totally Minnie*

      I work with schools, and we see this with school finance departments a lot. Some school districts will had a finance director with an accounting degree. Others will hire an expensive consulting firm that, in my office’s experience, gets things wrong more often than they get things right.

      Reply ↓
    7. Marcella*

      Marketing. I regularly receive applications from people who have never held a marcom position but feel they are qualified to be a creative or marketing leader.

      Reply ↓
      2. Pay no attention...*

        I thought something creative like graphic design or photography but marketing works too. Photography is very technical with many niche sets of skills — portrait, wildlife, sports, event, fashion, product, documentary — but everyone has a camera these days and …watch a few tutorials on Youtube… suddenly they offer photography services as an add-on part of their main business in something like marketing.

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      3. Miette*

        I hear/feel/live this every day. I once had someone reduce my years of on the job training, advanced degree and experience down to, “What? You just sit around all day thinking up slogans, right?”

        Reply ↓
    8. supply closet badger*

      I thought maybe project management — it’s something that sounds vague enough that a lot of us believe we can do it (because we’ve ‘managed’ ‘projects’, right?), but there’s also a whole formal discipline and qualification system for it as well, which I believe can include graduate degrees in project management.

      Reply ↓
      1. Ubergaladababa*

        Agree – I think it’s likely project management. Lots of people get a small taste of it and think “I can do that” and you can get the credentials without school, but what people often see is just the tip of the ice berg for PM skills. It’s also something people would advertise as a skill on their consultancy website, which is what this sounds like.

        Reply ↓
        1. SparkyMcDragon*

          Second vote for project management with the professional organization being PMI. It’s also a title that many people have without a cert beung required. Many firms advertise pm services meaning that they manage their own internal projects without meaning project management as a service to the client over a larger project or larger vendor team.

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    9. Flor*

      You don’t need a postgrad qualification for this, but my first thought was web development. You see so many people who cobbled together some knowledge of web dev from YouTube tutorials or StackOverflow but who have clearly neither a) had any formal training in the field and b) never worked in a large team with experienced devs (of the two, I think B is more important, but if you don’t have that, A is a must). And their websites are riddled with bugs and accessibility issues. Plus they are often “web designers” who do design as well as development, but have no UX training, formal or informal.

      Reply ↓
      1. Sloanicota*

        I thought facilitation or strategic planning type work, since apparently there’s a market for independent contractors. I could see someone saying they can do DEI or other types of facilitating if they’ve been in the room before, without having actually studied the tough subject. That would make it more dangerous, in my mind, than some of the other suggestions, as someone claiming to do trauma-informed whatever who actually doesn’t have that knowledge could do a lot of harm (remember the anti-bullying bully?).

        Reply ↓
      2. acek*

        In my experience people with advanced degrees are probably more likely to create websites that are riddled with bugs and accessibility issues. They want to use fancy frameworks and fancy things and then blame the end-user who experiences bugs for using the wrong browser (yes it often feels like 1999 again). And this is exactly the field where you can have an advanced degree in the field and still be terrible at the job, exactly because of what you say: many advanced degrees like CS that people think prepares them for a job as web developer do not cover UX at all.

        Reply ↓
    10. GrumpyPenguin*

      It could also be in the medical/ therapy field. There a lot of “life coaches”, “spiritual advisors” and homeopaths out there who often do more harm than good.

      Reply ↓
      1. Joana*

        Blame the MLMs. Especially the essential oil ones, but any having to do with health encourage the sellers to call themselves things like ‘wellness coaches’ and often the ones who are most vulnerable to the pitch don’t know any better.

        Reply ↓
        1. GrumpyPenguin*

          Also the fact that certain jobs don’t require degrees and/ or licences. Anyone can call themselves a life coach or whatever. I call that the “Dr.Nick Riviera-Syndrome”.

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      2. epizeugma*

        I thought of spiritual direction (and to an extent pastoral counseling) as well. Depending on your particular niche, there are degrees and non-degree qualifications that you can get, and professional bodies that you can be a member of and therefore to some degree accountable to, but it’s not a regulated licensure (at least where I am), so anyone *can* say they do it. (And plenty of people do, without any sort of training or accountability structure to ensure they’re practicing ethically.)

        Reply ↓
    11. muffin*

      Event Planner (for a “celebration” type event, especially a very large one) is field where a lot of people think they can do successfully.

      Reply ↓
    12. Yankees fans are awesome*

      I dunno…I mean, naming a field doesn’t seem relevant, but how is doing so putting anonymity at risk?

      Reply ↓
      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        People have recognized their own stories here before, it’s a highly trafficked website that occasionally goes viral. Particularly if you’re using the word “niche” at all, anonymity can be a legitimate concern.

        Reply ↓
          1. Eldritch Office Worker*

            If they’re not comfortable sharing that much then it doesn’t really matter if you feel like it’s a giveaway or not. It wouldn’t impact the answer and OP didn’t choose to share it.

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    13. Eldritch Office Worker*

      There are a myriad of “consultants” who work in fields that you would traditionally need an grad degree for but don’t necessarily. But also OP says that not everyone in the field has a grad degree.

      Reply ↓
    15. Tio*

      In addition to the good examples above, I’m in regulatory, and the amount of companies who don’t understand how important it is or think it’s easy to just “follow some simple rules” are legion. Within 2-3 questions I can tell the difference between a company who’s never had a real run in with a regulatory body and those who understand what a big deal it actually is.

      Reply ↓
    16. Peanut Hamper*

      I was thinking either instructional design (because everyone’s taken an online course, so of course designing one is simply a matter of doing something like that, right?) or technical writing (because hey, I wrote some really good papers in college and I like technical stuff, so that’s all I need, right?).

      Reply ↓
      1. Sabrina*

        I was this person in my last field, environmental consulting. In my defense I hadn’t tried to join the field without any relevant education, the job had literally fallen in my lap when I was working at a company in an unrelated area and they desperately needed to fill the position. I was bored and offered to help, and it was an easy enough project they figured any warm body could do it. I learned very quickly I needed to be the absolute best field biologist in any group or all the other biologists who had master’s degrees would deeply resent me. When I quit 12 years later I was at the point my company was flying me around the country and I was highly requested by biologists I’d worked with, which was wonderful. But I threw myself into studying, read up on anything I could, asked for examples of good work, took training classes, all that. I really don’t recommend this career path to anyone, I spent years constantly proving myself and every time I worked with a new person the process started over again. Better to get the education and not spend years frantically playing catchup in all your spare time.

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    17. anonymous here*

      Writing
      Editing
      Just about anything in media
      Coaching/advising high school students on college admissions
      Academic advising (that one’s not sexy, but you’d be amazed at how many people with zero experience with college students, teaching, advising, higher education in any form whatsoever, counseling think they could start right in and do a bang up job at it)

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    18. JB (not in Houston)*

      I don’t see how this question or any of the responses help the OP in any way, so technically it’s off topic and we probably should not be focusing on it. But on the other hand, I’m enjoying learning about what kinds of jobs commenters do that other people seem to think they could do without proper training. It’s interesting!

      Reply ↓
    19. Strive to Excel*

      OP did say they went to grad school but it’s possible you go to grad school to teach it, not necessarily to learn it. A lot of fields have no specific grad school requirements but can have some significant out-of-college learning involved. Some possibilities:

      Finance or accounting – frequently something people get into as part of their office work, but at a certain point there’s a reason there’s formal schooling.

      Teaching/training, especially adults and especially for specific topics

      Counseling or mental health services (I’m imagining someone who started out as a ‘lifestyle coach’ or possibly a pastor of some form who is now potentially over their head)

      ‘Softer’ forms of healthcare – nutrition, massage, etc (vs nursing, surgery, things that unquestionably require medical school)

      Anything to do with software – front end, tech support in all its forms, software development, UI design, data analytics & database management, etc

      Reply ↓
    21. LoraC*

      My first thought was translation. Lots of people are bi-lingual or consider themselves bi-lingual when they’re just heritage speakers. They then think they can easily pick up translating with the help of AI but it’s really not that simple. Being a good translator requires more than just knowing the language; it requires you to also be a good writer, communicator, and have knowledge of any specialized concepts within that language.

      You can’t expect someone to translate for businesses just because they have basic language abilities. That’s how you end up lawsuits and penalty fees because a translator didn’t realize there’s a legal difference between “steralized” and run of the mill cleasing wet wipes.

      Reply ↓
    24. GreenDoor*

      I work in politics. People think all I do is go to fundraisers, bump elbows with City bigwigs, and schmooze over cocktails. In reality, I spend most of my workday fielding complaints from angry citizens, answering complex questions about governmental budgets and the law, and getting blamed for every piece of litter and every wild squirrel in the streets.

      Reply ↓
  7. Language Lover*

    As for #1,

    Personally, I’d feel a bit uneasy about pointing out our financial disparities because whenever people constantly talk about how much money they’re spending on things, I sometimes suspect highlighting the differences in spending is kind of the point. This could apply both to people who spend a lot of things and bargain hunters who like to point out they do shopping better than others. I’m not talking about prices being brought up here and there, but when cost is talked about constantly. That appears to be happening here. I’d be loathe to give them the “win” by acknowledging the disparity.

    If I suspect that’s the case, I’d try to make it less fun.

    Boss: Oof, I spent 400 dollars on dinner last night.
    Me: That feels like a lot of money. I can’t imagine any dinner is worth $400.

    Boss: Our closet reno is going to cost $20,000.
    Me: No closet is worth that money.
    Boss: It’s a top-of-the-line closet.
    Me: It’s still just a closet. It sounds like you might be taken advantage of.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if she loses a bit of the thrill if she feels like she’s being judged by you instead of sounding like you wished you had her disposable income.

    Or you could take the simpler approach of basically cutting her off with work-related questions whenever her renovations come up.

    Reply ↓
    1. Don't judge*

      It is possible that she is doing it on purpose, and it is equally possible that she is super thoughtless.
      Overall, she is the boss and knows what OP is earning, which, very likely, is less than what she is making. This is not the best situation to make the boss actively feel judged and carries the risk to allienate her, if it was just thoughtlessness, or to deepen the conflict, if it was a power play, because the boss will deal with lack of “respect” through authority.
      So I am not saying OP can not express their opinion about the amount of money, but this should not be intended to make her boss feel bad. It might even be that the money talk would be getting worse if boss is trying to convince OP that the amount of money was justified spending nonetheless (while getting annoyed at her employee at the same time)

      Reply ↓
      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        “Boss: Oof, I spent 400 dollars on dinner last night.”

        Me Was it a gold plated peacock served on Meissen plates?

        Reply ↓
        1. Coffee Protein Drink*

          That’s where I was going with going with this. I’d be compiling a list of the most outrageous things for the situation.

          Reply ↓
      2. KateM*

        I don’t think it is rqually possible, but rather, it is possible but less possible that she is super thoughtless.

        Reply ↓
        1. Don't judge (2)*

          I had a boss like this once. We were unsuccessfully argueing for raises and he told about designer lamps he was getting for his house. It was kind of tone deaf, but I am sure it was no power play on his side. I guess he just had his salary and standard of living for enough of years to have lost touch how it did come across to people earlier in their career.

          Reply ↓
          1. Sloanicota*

            And I tend to forget a lot of people who turn out wealthy also started as wealthy. Maybe they never went through a “struggling in early career” stage – if they had a trust fund or a generous allowance from their rich parents, they may literally have no idea what it’s like to need the salary you earn. This is more common than I’d like in my field (nonprofit).

            Reply ↓
        3. Cmdrshprd*

          Idk, I think thoughtless is the biggest possibility. kinda like when you think /are worried everyone is paying close attention to you but most people really are not, because often they are worried about the same thing.

          I think boss has confused/ crossed streams between the work colleague relationship and social relationship.

          In friend circle I would say home renovation is a common topic of conversation among others in similar situation, same with parenting etc …. Boss is being thoughtless in who their audience should be, or maybe they are using OP as their captive audience because they don’t have anyone else to talk about it with.

          Reply ↓
        4. Salty Caramel*

          I come in on the side of thoughtless. Some people in the top % of income really have no clue what things cost for the middle class or below. A $400 meal is more than my monthly grocery budget (I’m single and live in a big city).

          Reply ↓
          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I think a lot of people, even those on average “middle class” incomes really have no idea what those on lower incomes are really earning/spending. It’s why you see so much ridiculous advice like that the poor should “stop buying avocado toast and lattes” as if homeless people are likely to be spending money on those things or even the advice a particularly out of touch politician in Ireland gave that people who couldn’t afford their groceries should just “shop around.” I mean, sure, if you live in Dublin or a large town or city, but in the West of Ireland? You’re going to need a car to get anywhere other than your local shop and…if you can’t afford your weekly groceries, you are unlikely to be able to afford to run a car.

            A lot of people who grew up even “comfortable” just…don’t really think that others are actually counting every penny.

            I had an otherwise lovely colleague who complained that she didn’t want to see Sinn Féin getting into power because between her income and her husband’s, they were in the financial bracket that Sinn Féin wanted to hit with a wealth tax and they “weren’t wealthy at all.” Checking, it looks like about…5% of Irish households had incomes in that level. She would also talk about things like getting her teenager tickets to a West End Show (in London, in England, so requiring plane tickets for travel as well) as one of their Christmas presents.

            She was a lovely person, but just didn’t seem to consider that the average person might not have money for stuff like that.

            Reply ↓
      3. Malarkey01*

        I think the better point though is that people who talk about how much money they spend, even if thoughtlessly or maliciously, get a thrill or experience subconscious delight it being able to spend a lot and view it as a positive.

        If you turn that around and make it seem not a positive attribute but that they may be fleeced or bad with money, it takes the joy out of the bragging (again even if they are just thoughtless).

        It’s really crass to talk about how much things cost and people that do it are getting some internal positive reinforcement.

        Reply ↓
    2. NZReb*

      I like the idea of expressing concern.

      Boss: $20000 closet reno
      Me: Gosh, that seems like a lot! Um … I don’t quite know how to say this but … are you sure they aren’t taking advantage of you?
      Boss: spluttered justification of cost
      Me: Hmmm, it still seems like too much to me. If I were you, I’d want to have a good look at the competition.
      and so on.

      It wouldn’t work for dinner, but maybe you could do something similar.

      Boss: $400 dinner
      Me: Oh, that reminds me! Did I tell you about the wonderful place we found last week? Rave about food. And it was only $100 for both of us. Such a bargain! Here, let me write the name down for you.

      Do that kind of thing a bit and I reckon you’d become an unrewarding person to boast at.

      Reply ↓
      1. GrumpyPenguin*

        That would be the way to go for me, I’ve done it before.

        Your closet renovation was 20000$? Oh my gosh, I’m so glad I have some skilled craftspeople in my friend circle, I can just pay them with pizza!

        My dad is an electrician, He helped me install that fancy lamp I found at the flea market!

        You won’t believe how cheap that stylish dress was I found at the clothes swap store online!

        Don’t give her pity for her champagne problems, instead happily brag about spending less money for better stuff. Doesn’t have to be 100% true, but don’t let her make you bitter and jealous, that seems to be exactly what she is aiming for.

        Reply ↓
      2. fhqwhgads*

        I doubt the “taken advantage of” thing would make them sputter. Much more likely for them to say “that’s just what high end finishes cost” and keep on rambling about their other reno stuff.

        Reply ↓
    3. HannahS*

      I agree with your first point. I wouldn’t share vulnerability about money with someone who’s obviously pretty thoughtless.

      Personally, I’d either smile blandly and say, “lucky you!” or “that sounds nice!” every single time and then not think about it. Or for a more pointed response, leave an awkward silence, smile tightly, and say, “Yeah, I don’t know what to say to that. I find it a bit awkward to hear about other people’s spending.”

      Reply ↓
    4. Yankees fans are awesome*

      It seems to me boss is looking for an automatic “There, there” and figures she’ll get that from LW, given the power dynamic.

      All that money and still mush for brains. I’d just respond with a “Hmm…is that so…” and get on with my tasks.

      Reply ↓
    5. Statler von Waldorf*

      So the LW has a boss who is a boor, and your advice to that LW is to try to antagonize their boss and take their fun away?

      That really doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. As in words are actually failing me right now as I try to describe just how bloody counter-productive that sounds to me. It might be fun to imagine someone doing that, but I honestly don’t see any outcome from that choice that is good for the LW.

      I’ve been there. This is a situation that cries out for grey rocking, and if that doesn’t work, a new job.

      Reply ↓
      1. Hydrangea MacDuff*

        I agree with this.
        “Oh. (Pause) Anyway, about these TPS reports….”

        “Our budgets/homes are so different. (Pause) Anyway, about these TPS reports…”

        Reply ↓
        1. fhqwhgads*

          It’ll either read as disingenuous (which it is) or like OP has no idea what they’re talking about. Neither is a useful outcome.

          Reply ↓
    3. Survivor*

      Absolutely do not voluntarily put yourself back in the orbit of your abuser! Learn from my lived experience. I had to have at least nominal contact, as ordered by family court, with my abusive ex because we share children. We had years of legal back and forth over custody and child support. When youngest turned 18, I breathed a sigh of relief thinking I’d finally have peace. Not so! Ex took to repeatedly suing me in civil court (if you don’t have a lawyer, you can pretty much file any kind of garbage in court you want, as long as you fill out the forms properly).

      You know what happened last time you encounters your ex. Take the victory of not having contact and don’t put yourself at risk again. It’s not worth it. Is it fair? Absolutely not. It really sucks.

      Reply ↓
  9. Older Boomer, yet still working*

    #5 You were generous to give 3.5 weeks. I wish I knew then what I have learned over the years and through AAM now…in the early 1980s, I worked for a small non-profit. There were only two paid employees – myself and the Director.
    I became pregnant. My boss was furious! SHE wanted to get pregnant first and was older than I was so SHE should have had the opportunity to get pregnant first, and now, because I was so inconsiderate, I was the cause of her losing the opportunity since even if SHE did get pregnent we both couldn’t be off at the same time!
    All that drama, and more, caused me to decide to quit. I gave 4 weeks notice.
    She threatened to withhold my last paycheck because 4 weeks was NOT one month and a professional was supposed to give a months notice.
    The Board of Directors stepped in – I completed the current assignments and left…with 4 weeks of pay.

    Reply ↓
    1. Area Woman*

      Wow! My mom experienced things like this a lot (she is now retired). It’s a really unfortunate kind of sexism some women get baked in from society giving so many mixed signals about working women/moms. Kind of the like the Highlander THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE! It becomes this zero-sum game where only one woman can use the benefits at a time? Only one woman can be the high performer? Too many women will scare the men? Maybe there is a fear that it will all get taken away and women will all get sent home to make house? (It happened in the 40s!).

      Reply ↓
      1. Chauncy Gardener*

        Gawd. It used to be like this in the military too. Not sure if it is now, but it sure was “eat your young” back in the day.

        Reply ↓
  10. TheBunny*

    #3

    Please make sure that any complaints you raise are focused on the productivity issues and not the phone use.

    I once had a manager who lost it whenever anyone picked up their phone. No matter the reason. The people most annoyed by her were the people who didn’t miss deadlines and had tasks well in hand who felt the “I’ve seen you playing a game on your phone” comments were insulting.

    If she were ahead on her work and pitching in for others, no one would care about the phone use.

    It’s not the phone.

    Reply ↓
    1. allathian*

      Yes, it’s not the phone. Even if she were just doing her job as expected without going above and beyond, people would be less likely to care.

      I look at my phone pretty often and also hang out in places like AAM at work. As long as I get my job done to the required standard or slightly above, nobody cares.

      The way the brain works is that requiring 100 percent productivity is both impossible to reach and the fastest way I know to get burnout. Sure, I can up my game for short periods when we’re particularly busy, but when we aren’t, I prefer to do what I can to avoid burnout. This includes plenty of breaks, both micro and macro. On my longer breaks I try to avoid looking at screens. At home I might read a couple chapters in a book and go for a walk on my lunch break, at the office I talk to the coworkers who are equally interested of socializing face to face.

      Reply ↓
    2. Hotdog not dog*

      I (as a “mature” high level individual contributor) was once admonished by my manager for having my phone in my hand. She wanted me to “stop playing candy crush and give her a ballpark figure” asap… I had 2 calculators, one tucked in a drawer someplace and one conveniently in my hand, but apparently the phone is only ever a distraction and not a tool.

      Reply ↓
      1. Pita Chips*

        I hate it when there’s no room for nuance. If someone came by and saw me on my phone, they might see me checking my password manager, using the calculator, or using the various apps I have for notes. I love Evernote, but sometimes it doesn’t load on my office desktop.

        I’m sure there are many other reasons someone might need their phone that aren’t games.

        Reply ↓
        2. Analyst*

          I need my phone for authentication for a work app. So, sure, feel free to say I can’t have my phone and let’s see how that goes

          Reply ↓
        3. I Have RBF*

          Yes, I have games on my phone. I also have Zoom and my two-factor authentication service, plus the the service that notifies me of deliveries. Most of my workday use is providing two-factor auth and timekeeping/alarms.

          No, a person should not prioritize games and non-work chat or calls over work, and should leave social media for after hours. I deliberately have disabled any FB/meta apps on my phone, and don’t have Xitter of BlueSky on it either.

          Reply ↓
    3. Snow Globe*

      I also think that bringing this to the manager as a problem with using the phone too much could lead the manager to think it’s not really a big deal. Focus on the coworker not completing her assignments, which means that her work gets assigned to you. That’s something the manager would be more likely to take seriously. (Although the manager should already know the employee isn’t doing her work, stuff is getting done and people aren’t complaining about that part of it.)

      Reply ↓
    4. Joana*

      Yeah, the people who are stuck on their phones like this are going to find other ways to distract themselves. We have issues with certain people standing around staring at their phones to the point of others having to do the work for them (but of course no one can tell them to get their butts in gear because they’re the store manager’s kids) but if they’re not on their phone, they’re just chatting away to other people or each other. It’s almost never about the phone.

      Reply ↓
      1. StarTrek Nutcase*

        I agree. Slackers will slack in any way available. So I think her phone is easily seen so is “the” problem but it’s the slacker and manager. LW would do better to focus on how not to get sucked into covering for the slacker. It’s not always easy and may include ignoring that others continue to get sucked in. In one case, when my manager “J” asked me to pick up S’s slack, I’d was prepared with plausible “excuses” why I couldn’t (usu. due to my duties). I know J eventually caught on but just as she wouldn’t confront S, J wouldn’t confront me. J chose to cover slack herself. At first, I felt guilty but it beat my frustration with S and J.

        Reply ↓
    5. Sara without an H*

      What TheBunny said. Focus on the work that Lisa isn’t getting done and how that affects your ability to do your own work.

      Don’t pick up Lisa’s work to cover for her. I realize that this is hard to do in some occupations (health and patient care, for example), but right now you and your coworkers are making Lisa’s lack of productivity a less-urgent issue for your manager. Let Lisa do — or not do — her own work and make her and the manager deal with the consequences.

      Reply ↓
    6. Observer*

      Please make sure that any complaints you raise are focused on the productivity issues and not the phone use.

      Yup. And don’t even mention the other stuff at all.

      If she were ahead on her work and pitching in for others, no one would care about the phone use.

      Certainly no one reasonable. So, LW, you don’t want anyone getting sidetracked by this. It’s a red herring.

      Reply ↓
    7. Chauncy Gardener*

      100% agree with Alison’s advice. Please stop picking up her slack and let her productivity issues speak for themselves. And please tell your manager how disruptive her phone use is to the rest of you.

      Reply ↓
  11. Free Meerkats*

    Her: “… a $20,000 closet renovation.”

    You: “I know how you feel, we had to spend $400 ona plumber to fix a clogged drain, so we’re skimping until payday.?”

    Her: “$400 dinner”

    You: “Prices are outrageous! A Five Guys burger, fries and shake was over $25!”

    Reply ↓
    2. Nonsense*

      $400 is my grocery budget for the month including the cats, so my boss would be getting an enlightening conversation of they casually mentioned a $400 dinner.

      Reply ↓
  12. Despachito*

    The boss seems obnoxious. I wonder if it is a power play or just obliviousness. Ironic responses are very tempting and I chuckled when reading them but I wonder how the boss would react. If she feels OP is mocking her she could retaliate, if OP stresses the disparity she might get a kick out of it OP would not be willing to give her. Only OP knows her and can make a qualified guess whether it is worth it.

    I am perhaps a coward but I would try and make my responses as dull and boring as possible.

    Boss: “Imagine that I had to pay $$$$$ for the repair of my gold-plated toilet bowl.”
    OP: Yes, how awful. As for the new llama grooming legislation…

    I feel for the OP though. Talking about money like that is exhausting whether the person is filthy rich or not.

    Reply ↓
    1. Glomarization, Esq.*

      +1

      I can’t think that giving one’s boss a snarky response, even if in a veiled or breezy way, is the best way to handle these interactions.

      Reply ↓
    2. Pay no attention...*

      Yes, snappy replies sound good on paper but they’ll either whoosh over the boss’ head because she’s oblivious, or she’ll get the message and could retaliate. Either just ignore and move the subject back to work as much as possible or instead of interjecting your personal finances, sometimes it helps to treat any talk of money as an opening to budget, “oh, speaking of expense/budget/bills… the TPS reports are due on Thursday, the Jones account is 15 days past due and they are asking about the payment, and the water delivery guy says we need to upgrade to a new cooler unit because this one is on it’s last leg. Shall I submit a purchase order for the new cooler?”

      Reply ↓
    3. Statler von Waldorf*

      My biggest beef with a lot of online advice communities, this one included, is that ironic and snappy comments read a lot better and gets more people talking about them, while the boring yet practical advice often gets buried or ignored. It’s not quite as bad here as Reddit, but I still see plenty of it here.

      People have things they want to do in real life but can’t, like smack talking their boss. Since they can’t do it in real life without consequences, they advise other people to do it on the internet so they get a second-hand thrill without having to experience any of the actual consequences. I’m seeing a lot of that here today.

      This might be my blue-collar roots showing, but I’ve seen far too many bosses retaliate against employees for lesser reasons than being mocked by an employee. The advice to be dull and boring is the right advice, even if it’s dull and boring. Be the grey rock.

      Reply ↓
    5. iglwif*

      This boss reminds me of the most baffling advertisement I’ve seen in a long time: it was for a refurbished appliance place, and the message in great big type was “PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU PAID FULL PRICE!”

      I could not, and still cannot, imagine why someone would want people to think they paid full price for a $2k fridge. People I know are 100% more likely to crow about finding a good bargain / getting a great sale / getting a nearly-new second-hand thing for a really good price than to crow about spending a lot of money — even people who are, by comparison to my household, obnoxiously wealthy. The only thing most people want to be known to have spent a lot of money on is philanthropy.

      I’m not sure how I would react to a boss who said the things OP reports, because I suspect I might actually just stare at them with my jaw on the carpet.

      Reply ↓
    6. Irish Teacher.*

      Yes. I had a boss once who was a complete attention seeker. She didn’t talk about money, but she said lots of other things designed to get a reaction and I found the best way to put a stop to it was to give her no attention at all.

      “I came in at 7am this morning!”
      Reply she wanted: “Wow, you must be exhausted. You work too hard, you know. Nobody expects you to come in that early.”
      Reply she got: Something like “oh, did you? Did such a kid get his project completed?”

      She lost interest a lot sooner if she didn’t get a reaction.

      Reply ↓
  13. Earlk*

    I cannot help but think that maybe your colleagues phone use would be less distracting if you weren’t recording stats on it.

    Reply ↓
    1. allathian*

      Agreed, it’s similar to how continuous venting at work is bad for the atmosphere. Sure, at a reasonably decent office you shouldn’t be required to turn into a Pollyanna, but relentless negativity is just as bad as toxic positivity.

      And recording stats is also at least slightly hypocritical because it takes your focus away from your work. To be fair, if anyone says that all they think about at work is work I categorically refuse to believe them.

      Reply ↓
    2. 45 / 47*

      I wonder how much more productive LW and her colleagues would be if they were not spending so much time monitoring their coworker.

      Reply ↓
      1. Sloanicota*

        I did think that, and was surprised the advice wasn’t to keep your eyes on your own paper a bit more. If anything, the advice given seems to suggest ramping up the surveillance. I think you need to set strong boundaries about not picking up this coworkers slack but also not less this take up rent-free space in your mind. Having raised it multiple times, your management is aware. Now you have to let them feel the pain of it.

        Reply ↓
        1. Mockingjay*

          This, this is the real advice. Let the coworker fail. If you have meetings in which she whines about her overdue tasks, don’t let the boss foist her tasks on you. “Sorry, I can’t pick up anything, I’m full up on my own tasks and need to meet Important Deadline.” “Actually, I was going to ask for assistance myself; I’ve hit a snag on Project Teapot.” Redirect, don’t accept work that isn’t yours.

          The phone is not the issue, it’s just the visible symptom of frustration. The issue is nonperformance. Only your manager can fix it. If your manager doesn’t hold Coworker accountable, that still doesn’t make it your problem. Focus on completing your own tasks.

          Reply ↓
          1. Sloanicota*

            I also think if boss came to me personally to pick up slack for this person, that’s when I would dig in as much as I thought I could get away with. “I’m not sure why Lisa feels her workload is unreasonable. She does less than any of us and I frequently observe her not working at her desk. I already have my hands full with the X project and I can’t take over her tasks too unless you assign Y and Z tasks to someone else” (or whatever you want that doesn’t involve you just doing more work for the same amount of money).

            Reply ↓
        2. fhqwhgads*

          The context is in the letter though. They weren’t monitoring to begin with, just annoyed. Then at some point they started monitoring to confirm if it really were as frequent as it seemed. That’s not the same as monitoring from the jump.
          I’ve also had experiences in the past where a boss was like “give me hard numbers on this thing you’re concerned about”. They told the boss before, the coworker got told and did a little better for a little while.
          Maybe, having tried and determined the boss doesn’t really seem to care they should let it go and stop monitoring, but if they are planning to go back to the boss again, having the numbers may be the only thing that gets action.

          Reply ↓
      2. Dust Bunny*

        Or coworker could do her d*mned work so they didn’t feel the need to monitor her.

        Let’s not blame the LW for someone demonstrably not pulling weight. If the total amount of work is getting done but more of it is being done by the LW and other coworkers because Phone Coworker is too distracted, then Phone Coworker and their manager are still the problem.

        Reply ↓
        1. HonorBox*

          Agree with this completely! Yes, it shouldn’t come to monitoring like this, but if the coworker is not getting stuff done and there is impact on others on the team, sometimes having stats like this really hammer home how bad it is. This isn’t “well they pick up their phone 10-12 times a day to text” this is every few minutes. It’s a distraction, which is compounded by the distraction of tallying, but if the manager isn’t right there all the time to see, there is direct evidence being provided.

          While we shouldn’t monitor the clock and keep stats about when people come and go, if a coworker is ALWAYS taking 90+ minute lunches and is ALWAYS behind with their work, it isn’t wrong to tell the boss that for the last month, Jane has taken 90+ minute lunches 80% of the time. I don’t think I’d advise documenting exact times that Jane leaves her desk and returns to her desk, but if she’s gone more than the allowed time ALL THE TIME and others have to pick up her slack, the boss should know so they can manage more/better.

          Reply ↓
        2. Jane Anonsten*

          Yeah, I get the gist of the top comment but it feels a bit like “just think how much more of your coworker’s work you could do if you ignored that she wasn’t doing it!”

          Reply ↓
        3. Pizza Rat*

          +1 The problem is that work is not being done. It’s not really about the phone; the issue would be the same if the co-worker was spending a large amount of time socializing.

          Reply ↓
        4. MassMatt*

          As is so often the case, what we have here is not a phone problem, or even coworker problem, but a manager problem. The manager here has been told repeatedly (with stats) that the coworker isn’t doing their work, and coworkers are doing her work for her. Manager has no problem because the work is getting done AND s/he doesn’t have to have an unpleasant conversation with the coworker, or actually manage her.

          Reply ↓
        5. A Simple Narwhal*

          Agreed! Plus, LW doesn’t say that they’re constantly monitoring their coworker, just that they specifically paid attention one time to have a concrete number to present to their manager.

          Which is smart, because if they wrote in only saying “it seems like my coworker is on their phone a lot” there’s a chance someone would say “are you sure she’s on her phone that much? It might only be when you happen to look up and it might just feel like a lot”. Or the manager themselves dismissed it as not that bad so they had to get hard evidence.

          Either way someone bringing attention to a problem isn’t causing the problem.

          Reply ↓
      3. Caramel & Cheddar*

        I don’t know that they’d be that much more productive, but they certainly would make themselves less annoyed if they found a better way to channel that energy. If Phone Coworker is indeed not pulling her weight, then put your efforts into quantifying those metrics and bring them to the boss. She’s been spoken to about her phone usage, but it doesn’t sound like she’s been talked to about her productivity. Let the boss know she’s only doing 50% of her share or whatever it works out to be. If I’m a boss, I want to know the impact of their lack of productivity, which “Lucretia checks her phone every two minutes” doesn’t tell me.

        Reply ↓
        1. Yankees fans are awesome*

          But a boss should already know how their direct reports are spending their time; it should be evident to the boss who’s doing what. That’s management.

          Reply ↓
          1. Caramel & Cheddar*

            That’s management on paper. It hasn’t been my experience that most bosses are keyed in to that degree of detail about how a shared workload is being spread out amongst colleagues, they just care about whether or not the work is getting done (and in this case, it sounds like it is).

            Reply ↓
            1. HonorBox*

              It is far easier to say that a boss knows what everyone is doing every bit of the day, but a boss who knows that probably a) isn’t a good boss and b) isn’t getting their work done too.

              I think you’re right that because things are getting done, the impact of the phone issue and Lisa’s lack of productivity are being masked. I’d love to just tell the LW and their coworkers to stop covering for Lisa, but that might not be feasible. I think showing the diagnosis (Lisa is not productive and not contributing fully to the team) as well as symptoms (she’s on her phone at times 30x an hour – though I would stop tallying time and rather just say she’s on her phone A LOT) is better to paint the full picture.

              Reply ↓
        2. Tea Monk*

          Yes, maybe their boss sucks and their coworker sucks but at least they don’t need work to be any worse than it already is

          Reply ↓
      4. anotherfan*

        i saw it as more “we need evidence she’s on the phone more than she isn’t” so when they bring a complaint to someone, they have proof. otherwise it’s just ‘you say ‘all the time,’ but is that really accurate? maybe it’s only 10 minutes a day and it feels like ‘all the time’ — not that they spend their own days cataloguing a coworker’s habits. Like the LW who said he apparently was annoying a coworker with his burps and farts — and the idea was ‘when is that just one of those things’ which changes when it’s 50 times a day.

        Reply ↓
        1. AngryOctopus*

          For this, I’d still rather not focus on phone use. I’d be more inclined to start emailing. So instead of “ugh, Lisa hasn’t done the X report and so I can’t run the numbers for A, she needs to just put down her phone!!”, I’d email Lisa, cc her/my manager (office culture dependent, IMO), and say “hello Lisa, I need the X report by (time) so we can run A for the Thursday 2pm deadline. Please let me know when you can send it along.”. Because in the end it doesn’t matter that she’s on her phone all the time. She could be staring into space and doing nothing, so the phone is a little bit of a red herring. The issue is her work not getting done, and apparently to get her manager to do something about it, you’ve gotten make it a pain point for them.

          Reply ↓
      5. keyboards all the way*

        I was curious about that too because it seems like that was the advice in previous letters with a similar concern. Like, how much work are the LW and colleagues realistically getting done if if they’re monitoring Phone McAddict this much???

        Reply ↓
    3. appo*

      +100, that would be my first piece of advice if any of my friends came to me with this.

      Bring up to your manager one more time, see if there’s any change, if not then stop picking up her slack on focus on your own work.

      Reply ↓
  14. r..*

    LW5,

    employment contracts are not very common in most of the US, but they do exist, and they are a way to address certain forms of key person risk. If only you can do your job the company could have hedged against you leaving by having a contractually agreed notice period, at the cost of also being bound by it.

    They probably didn’t want that, because they wanted the flexibility, but that flexibility cuts both ways, and they have zero legitimate reason to complain about it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Alicent*

      That’s how my boss was. We had a contract, but it only required two weeks notice on either side. He said he didn’t want anyone stuck there who didn’t want to be there. Except he blew a gasket when someone quit and we actually have a lot more notice (4-6 weeks). He also seemed to subscribe to the “I need enough notice to hire someone” idea, except our field takes 4-6 MONTHS to interview and onboard someone since many people have to move (thank you restrictive non-competes!).

      Reply ↓
      1. Sloanicota*

        I always hear this idea that we’re going to hire a new person and the outgoing person is going to train them before the outgoing person gets to leave, but then there is never any urgency in the hiring search when the old person is hanging about. Hiring takes forever, and companies are rarely willing to rush it. You’d literally need someone to hang around for six months to accomplish this vision bosses seem to have.

        Reply ↓
        1. Jay (no, the other one)*

          I gave six months’ notice when I retired and was told they would bring in my replacement at least a month ahead. I met her once because my boss came to our regio and took us all out to dinner my last week, which was the week before she started. So much for that.

          Reply ↓
          1. Sloanicota*

            I’d say this is the norm to be honest! If you give “too long” a leave period, the job tends to squander it anyway. They don’t feel urgency until the departure is actually looming. Presumably it’s different in other countries with contracts etc but in the US I’ve only ever seen it wasted.

            Reply ↓
        2. Wayward Sun*

          I’ve only once had a job where they actually hired someone during my notice period and had me train them.

          The person found something to nitpick about my technique on everything I showed them. It was kind of insulting. But I trained them and told them that once I left they could redo everything the way they thought it needed to be.

          I found out later that they were a disaster and quit within a month, taking all my documentation with them.

          Reply ↓
    2. fhqwhgads*

      They’re also extremely unlikely to have done that for what was intended to be an interim situation, on top of it already being uncommon here AND not wanting it to cut both ways.

      Reply ↓
  15. Irish Teacher.*

    LW3, I think the phone use isn’t really the point here. The issue is Lisa’s lack of productivity and the fact that the rest of you have to pick up the slack for her.

    It would be really bad management for somebody to ban phones because Lisa’s work isn’t up to scratch and they think that might be related to her phone use. What is preventing her from focusing on her work isn’t really the issue and it’s quite possible that if she did put the phone away, she’d get distracted by something else. (Or she might not, but that isn’t really the point.)

    I don’t think the issue is how much phone use is acceptable. I think the issue is whether or not a person is completing their work satisfactorily. If the work isn’t being done, it doesn’t really matter what is preventing it; it’s a problem regardless. Alternatively, if she were doing good work, it wouldn’t matter how often she was using her phone.

    Reply ↓
    1. LifebeforeCorona*

      You’re right, it’s not the the phone, the phone happens to be focus of her distraction. Take away the phone and she will be in the breakroom, or reading a book or chatting non stop with co-workers or throwing Nerf balls at people. It is definitely not the phone that is the problem.

      Reply ↓
      1. Varthema*

        hmmm… as someone with ADHD, it definitely is the phone that’s the problem for me. I know I shouldn’t, but the promise of dopamine when I’m so depleted is bewitching. (and impulse control is a hallmark of ADHD, not just for me.) Physically removing it would do a lot to help, but I can’t because I’m my kids’ emergency contact. So I use apps to block it, or I make myself keep a time audit throughout the day of what I’m doing at any given time, to guilt myself into not checking.

        That said, none of this is anything you as coworkers can do, except not save her from her own lack of productivity.

        Reply ↓
        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, that last part was my real point, that it might be the phone or it might not, but the problem for the LW is the same either way: having to pick up the slack.

          Reply ↓
    2. Ellis Bell*

      I think that equally, it could absolutely and obviously be because she is on her phone. Phones are notoriously distracting to people with ADHD. “Oh I will just check the time.. Oh look a text from the plumber! How much?! How much did Katie pay for hers? I will just text her…” Where I completely agree with you is that mass phone bans for all would be infantilising, or that concentrating on just the phone use outside of productivity is a bad idea. What really needs to happen is the boss pulling her on the productivity, and as you say, asking if it “might” be a distraction. Until her productivity is raised, Katie could be completely unaware that it isn’t giving her as quick of a brain break as she intended.

      Reply ↓
      1. Aerin*

        Yeah, that was my thought. I have ADHD and my phone is the enemy! It’s a little dopamine factory and is so much more appealing than whatever work I’m supposed to be doing. One of the main reasons I got a smartwatch was to manage my MFA prompts without being immediately tempted by all the other shiny notifications.

        If the ADHD thing is something people are generally aware of, as part of your talk with your boss you might suggest that the phone doesn’t seem to be an effective accommodation and they probably need to look for something else. (Cross-stitch worked great for me for a long time! Need to get back into it…)

        Reply ↓
    3. MassMatt*

      “It would be really bad management for somebody to ban phones because Lisa’s work isn’t up to scratch and they think that might be related to her phone use”

      Unfortunately, given how this coworker has been allowed to slack at her job and have others do the work, bad management seems likely here.

      Reply ↓
  16. Kiki is the Most*

    #3: My previous workplace had a “no phone use” on it’s meeting norms list. I realize that this may not be feasible for every job or meeting but it made it easier to refer to the stated/agreed upon meeting norms if someone was a repeat offender. (Our meetings were also not very long but definitely participation-dependent).

    Reply ↓
    1. Lily Potter*

      Sometimes you have to be just that explicit (NO PHONES) and enforce it. Otherwise, everyone just sneak peeks or is “checking the time”. It’s sad, really.

      We have a city in my area that can’t get people to take summer lifeguard jobs because they have an explicit NO PHONES ON DUTY rule. The lifeguards have radios for communication amongst themselves but cannot, under any circumstances, bring a phone to their duty station. They’re fired on the spot if they’re caught. I’m told that they rarely have to fire anyone because they’re so explicit about the no-phones rule during the application process/interview and their typical applicant (ages 18-24) withdraws their application after being told about it. They’re so panicked at the thought of being without their phone for hours on end that they’d rather work fast food.

      Reply ↓
      1. Matt*

        Are phones allowed in fast food? I’d guess they would be rather strict about work time use as well as phones (which are known to be more gross than your average toilet seat) being a health/hygiene issue in food processing.

        Reply ↓
        1. Lily Potter*

          I have no idea whether there are “no phone” rules in fast food. My guess is that if there are such rules, they’re broken with regularity. I can’t see a fast food manager firing a worker on the spot for having a phone in their pocket. The no-phones rule for the lifeguards is in place because of the literal life-or-death nature of their job. Fast food just doesn’t have those kinds of stakes, at least in my mind.

          Reply ↓
        2. Ellis Bell*

          It is probably the same phenomenon we see in teaching. So, let’s say you have a school with middling strictness on phone usage; students can have a phone on their person but they can’t have it out, or be using it…. but of course they will find a way to sneak peeks if they are allowed to have it on them! However the rule gets applied much more strictly in carpentry workshop classes or labs because of safety: these teachers will make kids take off their bags/blazers, will pay attention to hands going to pockets, will hand out aprons that cover the pockets, and the no phone rule is very vigorously enforced. That’s because the workshop teacher doesn’t want the kid to lose a finger. The rule should get applied in the same way in the desk based classroom, but there is more opportunity to use phones there, because bags are close by, and pockets are under desks. Also, if the kid is only taking a very quick check, is totally getting the work done and you know they’re worried about something at home you might not go to Defcon 1 as a teacher in that situation. I can see Lifeguarding being a similar situation where not only is it easier to see whether a phone is on someone/being used than in a fast food kitchen with lots of blind spots, but it’s also more of a safety imperative to enforce the rule.

          Reply ↓
  17. el l*

    OP4:
    Sounds like a promising start to a consulting gig with B, take the meeting.
    (That is, if you can find it in yourself to not look down at them)

    Reply ↓
  18. Alicent*

    #5 That sounds like my last boss at a very small business. He had basically zero interest in keeping us happy and working there was like being in an abusive relationship as his management style was coercive control. No raise after 3 years after expanding our skill sets taking on work we weren’t comfortable with unless we wanted to work even more than 55-70 hours per week and it still wasn’t guaranteed.

    Half of his skilled labor quit within a couple weeks of each other right around his multi week international vacation. We decided we couldn’t wait until a “good time” for him and one of my coworkers gave notice while he was away which led to being ripped to shreds for ruining his trip. I waited until after and was still told I was stabbing him in the back (by quitting with double the notice required in my contract). He also tried to say that “no one” hires during that time of year and had no response when I said that two of us had been hired at exactly that time of year because it was the slow season

    You can’t do anything to make narcissistic managers like this happy except stay on as a happy little underpaid minion who never complains. They’re going to lash out because they can’t manage their emotions or take personal responsibility. My new job (been there 7 years) pays double, respects my personal time, gives me regular raises, and I work under 40 hours a week. Previous job has cycled through enough skilled labor that clients are complaining.

    Reply ↓
  19. Delta Delta*

    For both #1 and #3, I’m going to borrow from Reddit and say this: the Iranian yogurt is not the issue. In #1, the costs aren’t the issue, the boss’s thoughtlessness in discussing it with OP over and over is the issue. (and maybe OP needs a raise but that’s a separate issue) In #3, the phone isn’t the issue, it’s the lack of productivity and the negative impact it’s having on the team.

    It also seems like some direct communication to the other person identifying the problem would help. “Hey, boss, please stop discussing your renovation with me. It highlights our income disparity and feels tone-deaf, especially since you know you pay me in raisins and my husband also gets paid in raisins.” or whatever.

    Reply ↓
  20. Tuesday Tacos*

    Oh #5 – they were in no rush, or didn’t care at all to replace your boss, so why would you worry that you weren’t giving them enough time? You were more than generous!

    Reply ↓
  21. lunchtime caller*

    Not advice but just saying I might be a bit of an outlier because I absolutely love when rich people tell me about their purchases in way too much detail. I have looked at Pinterest boards and real estate listings and paint samples and asked many a question about a deeply complicated renovation and enjoyed it all! And if I come away with a rec for a dumb expensive but beautiful lamp, all the better. That said, in general I hate when people use complaining as a way to brag (even worse than the humble brag imo) and have encountered that myself from people who are sooo annoyed that this huge career win we’d all kill for took up soooo much time etc. So I do get why the boss in this instance is annoying, you have my condolences LW!

    Reply ↓
    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      “I hate when people use complaining as a way to brag”

      This is definitely the distinction where it gets grating. As I’ve moved up in my career and spent more time with people who make significantly more money than me, I have noticed they just don’t think how they sound most of the time. They talk about an expensive renovation the same way I might complain my car broke down or I’m dealing with a leak or whatever. It doesn’t even register for them how that sounds to someone in a lower tax bracket – though often if you say something like “wow I can’t imagine spending that much money” sometimes they pick up on it.

      But when it’s “look at all my expensive toys let me tell you the exact sticker price”…yeah.

      Reply ↓
    2. AndersonDarling*

      I had a boss that was complaining that she didn’t want to leave her current house, but really wanted the kitchen to be on the 2nd floor. The first bid to move the kitchen was $250K. “Does that seem high to you? Should I get a second bid?”
      I couldn’t believe she was casually throwing around money like that…and casually having a conversation like that at work!

      Reply ↓
      1. The OG Sleepless*

        It reminds me of in Working Girl when Melanie Griffith is helping Sigourney Weaver with the bindings for her ski boots, and Sigourney says something about “remember when ski equipment was soo much simpler?” From her position on the floor, Melanie deadpans, “Yeah, those were the days.”

        Reply ↓
    3. GrumpyPenguin*

      It’s not the talk about money itself, it’s the attitude. I call it pity-bragging. It’s also a way to show off AND put people down who have less to make themselves feel superior.

      Reply ↓
    4. That Paralegal*

      The complaint-brag combo usually gets an “oh, bless your heart” from me. Deploy with just the right amount of subtle eyebrow-raise and your message will probably be received. This may or may not be effective outside of the Southern US.

      Reply ↓
  22. Cabbagepants*

    #4 since this happens a lot and you say you like supporting people on unconventional paths, you might put together a reading list or some suggested intro courses, either at local universities or Coursera or whatever. It would probably be fairly simple to put together and then you could use it as a jumping off place for these kinds of conversations. It could also further your reputation.

    Reply ↓
  23. CTA*

    #5

    You gave plenty of notice and don’t feel bad about it.

    I was in a similar situation a few years ago at a tech startup. I have three weeks notice and my grandboss wanted me to extend it by another three weeks because it was their busiest time of year and I had business knowledge that needed to be passed on to contractors that would replace me. I don’t know if I would have stayed longer. They certainly didn’t offer any financial incentives. At that point, I felt pretty unwelcome there because my employer had announced plans to the whole company that my department would be laid off in a few months and I was being treated like crap by new senior level hires on other departments.

    Reply ↓
    1. HonorBox*

      I’d have been very tempted to mention to the boss that the business knowledge you had was being shown the door already, and you were just taking charge of the timing rather than let them pull the rug out from under you.

      Reply ↓
  24. No Soup for You*

    #5 when a previous pope retired, the Catholic church did not go out of business. Everyone is replaceable. Good luck in your new job.

    Reply ↓
    1. Peanut Hamper*

      Lol! This is very true.

      The difference here is that the Catholic church has a plan in place for finding a replacement pope and then actually implements it. The fact that LW’s boss chose not to have a plan (and yes, this was a choice) is not LW’s problem.

      Reply ↓
      1. EmF*

        “We’re locking the higher-ups into an all-day meeting every day until they hire a new person” does seem like a good strategy.

        Reply ↓
        2. learnedthehardway*

          Wish the company my husband works for would do something similar – their current strategy is to divide the work between other people until they realize that a day has only 24 hours in it.

          Reply ↓
        3. Strive to Excel*

          A lot of decision-making would be made more efficient if the people involved in the decision making were told “you don’t get to leave this room until the decision is done. Food and camp beds will be provided.”

          Reply ↓
      2. Sara without an H*

        Yes, and the Church also has a designated pool of possible candidates for the job, which does simplify matters.

        Reply ↓
  25. bunniferous*

    For letter #1….is it possible for you to reframe the conversation as entertaining? I too am nowhere near that income bracket but I would have a probably morbidly fascinating reaction to the conversation. I’d certainly have some questions abouta 4 hundred dollar candle!!!!

    Reply ↓
    2. Sara without an H*

      Yes, I doubt the boss in this letter is self-aware enough to realize that she’s being silly. But if LW#1 can reframe the issue to find it funny, she might get some entertainment out of it.

      Reply ↓
    5. Clisby*

      I’d love to hear about the $20,000 closet renovation. Not that I’d be likely to do it even if I had an extra $20,000 lying around – only 1 of the 3 bedrooms in my 1925 house even has a closet – I’d just want to see what a $20,000 closet looks like.

      Reply ↓
      2. fhqwhgads*

        I know I being realistic when people are joking around, but I’d guess it’s multiple walk-in closets, rather than just one. But even if it is just one huge fancy one, it’s potentially gutting the space to the studs, putting in a bunch of built-ins, possibly with motorized stuff to move things that are hung up. If it’s custom carpentry, that adds up quickly. Or changing electrical and new lighting. And if it involves redoing the floor in it. And possibly furniture, like a setee or big ottoman in the middle. But I’d wager this is a closet that’s larger than my bedroom.

        Reply ↓
    7. JustaTech*

      Back before my day there was a TV show called “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” that was literally some presenter showing off rich people’s houses.
      I think the more modern version was “Cribs”?

      Trying to imagine the boss as a reality show (that you can’t turn off) might help make it marginally less annoying. Like looking at the Nieman Marcus Christmas catalog.

      Reply ↓
  26. Peanut Hamper*

    As someone with ADHD, Lisa really irks me. She says she needs to do this between tasks to clear her mind, but playing on her phone clearly has become THE task. This is not how any kind of fidget toy works. They are supposed to make you more productive, not less. Lisa needs to put the damn phone away and find some other way to clear her mind between tasks. And then actually do those tasks.

    Do I look at my phone when working? Sure. But I also get my damn work done. Nobody has to pick up my slack because there isn’t any.

    Reply ↓
  27. Cee*

    Maybe I’m projecting but I wouldn’t be surprised if #4 was in Archives.

    I think the widespread use of “archive” to mean anything old has people thinking they are an “archivist” if they sort files for their marketing department, as an example.

    If this is relevant to you, LW4, I have found that a quick way to gauge whether someone is a qualified archivist ( through education or experience) is to ask what standards they use or are planning.

    Even if not in archives, it sounds like a phone call to determine what type of consulting they are looking for ( or if it even makes sense to continue ) would be warranted. Frankly, if its too annoying that they say they are qualified to do X, but actually aren’t, I’d probably tell them that they need foundational training in X before I could help them. That way they would at least be aware that professionals see through them ( if you get the sense they are knowingly misrepresenting their skills).

    Reply ↓
    1. Lady Lessa*

      I’ve met the young archivist at a religious organization that I support, and he has developed “10 Commandments for Archivists”. While I don’t have it with me some of them are: Not everything needs to be archived; Not everything should be archived; I shall not envy another archivist’s collection; After 10,000 years, none of this will matter; Pens are from the devil.

      Reply ↓
  28. HonorBox*

    Op5 – Your boss is being completely unreasonable and I would suggest putting your head down and ignoring any of the ill-informed ideas about you not giving enough notice. Maybe he wishes you’d have given more time. To quote Grumpy Old Men, “You can wish in one hand and sh*t in the other and see which fills up first.”

    If not for the holidays, he’d find another reason to be upset. You owe the company enough time to wrap up anything you’re working on and provide some documentation about anything others need to know.

    Reply ↓
    1. Peanut Hamper*

      That is literally my food budget for the month. And she’s spending it on a single candle.

      I would have so much fun with this boss…….

      Reply ↓
    2. learnedthehardway*

      I think I would be saying something along the lines of “Clearly, you’re not paying me enough” in multiple different ways. I suspect the conversation would change fairly rapidly.

      Mind you, I worked for a company where the partners all made millions, and would balk at bonuses because “it’s only X-thousand dollars anyway”. Junior staff were pretty direct with them that those X-thousand dollars mattered.

      Reply ↓
    4. Irish Teacher.*

      There’s a shop in Ireland called Brown Thomas that is…pretty expensive. When I was at college, I used to play a game, going in there and trying to find what I considered to be the most ridiculously over-priced item. I think a $250 candle would win the prize if I’d seen that!

      Reply ↓
  30. PMReplacedByAI*

    I almost wish my workplace would ban phones. Instead, we use our phones for multifactor authentication to our various business apps. Instead of keeping the tiny distraction box a safe distance from my workspace so I won’t be distracted, I have to pick it up whenever an app wants me to authenticate and confirm that yes, it is me and I did intend to sign into that app. And then, since I have the attention span of a gnat, once the phone is in my hand I wind up checking my notifications and potentially looking at other stuff too. Argh.

    Reply ↓
    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      I always wonder how often someone walks by my desk, sees me on my phone, and assumes I’m slacking off. I was authenticating, I swear!

      Reply ↓
      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Right? Why does the CEO always walk into my office when I look like I’m doing nothing. I am working I promise!

        Reply ↓
      2. Tradd*

        I have lots of paper documents with small print so I often use the magnifier app on my phone. I’ve been given the stink eye and I show the tiny print documents and the app.

        I also sometimes have to add numbers that have more digits than my handheld calculator can handle. So I pull out phone calculator. And yes, I have to use phone for authentication.

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    2. Box of Kittens*

      THIS. This is such a problem for me. I put my phone on focus mode for working hours and still get distracted. I am so much more productive and mentally healthier when I can put my phone away from my desk and just work, but I cannot do that because I need it my phone to get into all my work apps. I absolutely loathe that I have to use my personal phone for this. But also, if my workplace doesn’t want to offer a better solution they’re going to get the slightly less productive me, so…*shrug*

      Reply ↓
    4. Statler von Waldorf*

      It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who struggles with this exact issue.

      Sadly I have no actual advice for dealing with this, just commiseration.

      Reply ↓
    5. Wayward Sun*

      My job eliminated their phone system and went with one based on Zoom, and suddenly my personal phone was also my work phone.

      Reply ↓
      1. JustaTech*

        Mine did one better: we just got rid of the phones. So now no one has a way to call me outside a Teams meeting. Which is not even slightly useful for the service tech trying to schedule a time to come work on the laser machine.

        When I asked what to do about this the senior IT person said “I find vendor calls very distracting”. Yeah, so?

        (Some people got phones that call through to their Teams app, some people got work cell phones, but no one actually asked how much we use our phones, and I refuse to give out my personal number for work stuff.)

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    6. Mutually supportive*

      I’ve started using an app to block specific non-work apps during working hours. So I may get distracted by some messages coming through but at least I won’t end up in the depths of social media scrolling in those times!

      My phone also has a setting where it goes into Do Not Disturb mode when you place it face down, so it doesn’t call for my attention unless I specifically pick it up.

      Reply ↓
  31. AvonLady Barksdale*

    For #4… why not just give B the benefit of the doubt and see what happens/what she asks? If B is a solo practitioner, “in over her head” (which you’re getting secondhand) might just mean she could use someone to bounce ideas off of (something typical in my field, we talk about different methods all the time). Or maybe she’s looking for some advice on how to gain more knowledge rather than asking you to consult directly. Or sure, she wants you to play a very active role. But at this point, you just don’t know.

    While I understand you have a lot of experience and people come to you for a lot of things, not every situation is the same. It’s coffee. Looking at B’s website is not the same as talking to her and hearing straight from her.

    Reply ↓
  32. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

    LW #1, at one of my first jobs I had a coworker who was in the job purely for the healthcare benefits (they’re extremely good and we’re in the US so that really matters) and she had a very robust income from her inherited real estate (and presumably cash, but she talked about real estate more often). She complained a lot about landlord problems and was constantly giving me wildly out of touch life, financial, and health advice that I had not asked for.

    I started responding with things like “I can’t do that because I don’t have money” or “That’s a luxury I can’t afford” or “I’m too poor for that”, getting progressively more direct about how broke I was. Eventually she got fed up and said something to me like “Why are you always talking about how poor you are? You always say no to things I suggest because of money and it’s really negative.” To which I said something like “I just answer you honestly. If you don’t like reality, stop bringing the topic up.”

    She stopped talking to me about pretty much everything non-work related after that, which I considered a fine outcome. This isn’t so much advice as commiseration.

    Reply ↓
  33. epicdemiologist*

    For OP #1, what would happen if, every time she names an amount, you commented, “Wow, that’s more than I make in a (day/week/month/year)!”

    If she’s just being tone-deaf, that might alert her to the fact.

    If she’s trying to rub in how much more she makes than you do, it would serve as a “message received”.

    Either way, it might get boring for her after a while.

    Reply ↓
  34. Observer*

    #5 – Notice time.

    Please keep in mind that if your role is SOOO crucial, they should have had some cross training and backup. And also, they should have paid and treated you better! It’s not like it’s some deep dark secret that people leave jobs because they are not treated well and / or are not paid well. In your case, both seem to be true, and both contributed to your decision. If they needed to reduce your chances of leaving they should have taken the best documented retention tools in the world. They chose not to. That’s on them, not you.

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  35. Susannah*

    Not only is 3.5 weeks very generous of you, LW, but… if you are as essential to the running of the company a the CEO says, why didn’t they give you a bigger raise or specify the bonus?

    Funny how companies only see how valuable we are when we have the temerity to leave for greener pastures.

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  36. H.Regalis*

    LW1’s letter reminds me of years ago when I worked in a small department with one other person. She made more than double what I did and would complain about not having enough money. Calculated for inflation, she still made more back then than I make now. I did actually say something to her about it at the time and she knocked it off. Don’t talk about rope in a hanged man’s house.

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  37. el l*

    OP3:
    Are you at risk of management someday saying “No/restricted phone use” because of one person’s distraction? Yes. Collective punishment (or, put another way, consistent rules across employees) is still a thing, and management is entitled to set that rule. Nothing you can do about that.

    Should you be keeping stats on how often they’re on their phone? Interesting, but no. It’s not going to save you from the above. More to the point, it’s confusing the issue, which is that Lisa is not performing.

    And on that note – it’s management’s job to remedy Lisa’s performance issues, not yours. At some point, you’re going to need to tell management that you can’t keep picking up the slack for Lisa – and then all be willing to let a ball drop because of her.

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  38. Rebecca*

    LW #1 – I work in wealth management. I encounter this a lot. I have a deflection strategy that works for me.

    I start with jokingly framing these things as “good problems”. You have to know your audience to phrase it correctly, but it allows you to pause the conversation and reset. I then immediately delve into a more human side of the problem (ie – it’s impossible to find clothes if the closet isn’t organized or the noise from a sawzall makes my dog crazy or having your kids share a room is difficult to deal with or [insert relatable, human problem here].

    It generally works amd moves the conversation along to a more manageable topic that doesn’t drive you insane. There’s exceptions, and some people are just jerks, but most aren’t.

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  39. Pizza Rat*

    LW5–finding your replacement it not your problem. You gave plenty of notice, and with this boss, there would never be a time he’d consider good. Do not punch that ticket for the guilt trip. You have better things to do.

    Best of luck in your new position!

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  40. London Calling*

    When I told my CEO, who I now report to directly, he told me I was not giving them enough time and leaving the company in a bad position, since I’m the only one who can do my job and they will struggle to find a replacement quickly with the holidays.

    “Dear CEO. That sounds like a problem for management to me. Regards, Soon To Be Leaving Staff Member.”

    I speak as someone who gave exjob an extra month to find someone, who when she joined was continually in meetings with the also new line manager to decide ‘how we’re going to change this job around.’ Implication – YOU didn’t do a very good job (I did). Wish I hadn’t bothered after hearing that.

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    2. Alicent*

      My last boss wrote the most passive aggressive job listing I’ve ever seen after half his skilled staff quit at once. I really wish I had saved it, because if you read it carefully it was clear how unhinged he was and made jabs at us by saying he wanted “loyal employees” and implied we didn’t care about our clients.

      We did manage to keep a really nice person from joining our staff a year before we quit by subtlety talking about the serious problems at the office while she was in hearing range, but with lots of plausible deniability. Like, “Did boss take the one piece of equipment I reserved today? I can’t do the job without the one Llama Deshedder we have.” She was offered the job and declined. We knew how two faced he was and she had way better prospects out there.

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      1. pally*

        Nice save!

        During our break times, job applicants would walk by the outdoor break area on their way to the interview. We would make little jokes about whether or not we should warn them about how awful things were (“Should we tell them about ‘Dangerous Di’ and how she berates people when they make a mistake?”.).

        Have no idea if this was effective or not. But no one ever ratted us out for this.

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        1. Alicent*

          It felt good to be passive aggressive back at him after all his abuse. This woman was so lovely and talented and she deserved better than that hellhole. We did not hide the issues we were having at all when he wasn’t in the office and when she had a moment to ask us questions our words said one thing, but it was pretty clear you could read between the lines. He did hire on someone else later for the position despite being friends with a current employee who warned him off. I heard through the grapevine he was almost immediately looking for a new job and ended up reaming out the boss for lying to him.

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  41. Dog momma*

    In health care we are required to give 4 weeks. I left a very toxic job & of course they had a fit. and wanted to know where I was going. I didn’t say, til.I had to give my address to HR so they could mail my W2 form

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  42. AreYouInMyField?*

    #4:
    Do you work in Learning/Development or Instructional Design? Because you word for work recreated experiences I have constantly.

    I speak with so many people who think they taught someone how to use a software once, so they know how to do Instructional Design. Once in fact, someone told me they “spent the day showing an older person how to fill out a form so they ‘were an Instructional Designer for the day!'” (barf. and no.).

    Normally I’ll just politely shut down misconceptions- but if I was being asked in a professional capacity with someone “over their head”, I’d need to understand exactly what that meant. For example, someone might be very talented in a very specific type of design, but being asked to design a Chemistry class, when they previously had only done humanities classes, might not be a ding of them as that profession, just in that specific niche of the field.

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  43. Nicole Maria*

    Allison, why did you suggest LW1 lie about her financial situation? She explicitly said she wasn’t struggling financially, but then you suggested she could say to her boss that she was?

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  44. pally*

    #1: I can sympathize. Got a few of those types in my office.

    I think I’d take a different tact.
    Next time the manager complains about how much something is going to cost her, ask, “I’m not understanding why you are telling me about this. Do you need me to lend you the money for that?”

    Sure, if they say yes, then you get to point out that they earn far more than you do and cannot possibly do so (or words along that line…I’ll need a raise). OTOH, it might be bizarre enough a question that it prompts them to re-think what they say to you about their finances.

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  45. Molly*

    LW 5: let’s see – more work, measly raise, no bonus. They should have been anticipating the possibility/probability that you’d leave. I’d bet they aren’t actually surprised.

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  46. Head Sheep Counter*

    #3 for security purposes we can not have our phones on us when we are at work. Having a blanket policy (and lock boxes to enforce) sure simplifies this sort of problem.

    For more normal work environments, your management team is the one who has to deal with this no matter how painful it is as a colleague.

    The pluses of a full ban are –
    – no expectation of availability on my phone ever. I’m not even convinced that my cellphone would be findable outside of my direct manager.
    – affiliated lesser anxiety because… I’m not checking if work is emailing/calling me from home. They aren’t.
    – a big ol’ helping of phone separation which is good for my own mental health (everyone’s mileage varies here and I clearly still enjoy the internet)

    The minuses are –
    – I have to be called on teams or the land(ish) line and likewise have to use my office phone for things I would otherwise use my cell
    – Peculiarity for availability for contacting me for the interviews I hope someone will want to schedule as I apply for other jobs ;)

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  47. Lucifer*

    Okay so how much work are you getting done if you’ve counted how many times Lisa has picked up her phone?? Your boss knows it’s happening. Either they’ll address it or they won’t (and you aren’t privy to how they’ll address it if that happens). You can’t care more about the job than your boss, that’s just a simple fact. Otherwise you’ll go nuts.

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  48. LW5*

    LW5 here — thank you all for the support!! There’s been a lot of guilt-tripping, including requests to stay on as a freelancer for specific tasks, and these comments made me feel a lot better as I finish out my last few days

    Reply ↓

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