coworkers are bouncing on yoga balls on Zoom calls, paid parental leave but only for women, and more

by Alison Green on January 16, 2025

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

1. People are bouncing on yoga balls during Zoom calls

I’m at an all-remote company. Zooms are our go-to. In the Zooms I organize, I prefer videos off and most people know that. (So I don’t have to do my hair or get distracted, and it just drains me so much!) Obviously I make exceptions where called for.

But I’m at the mercy of others when I join their meetings, and a lot of them have videos on as a default. And a few of my coworkers have recently started bouncing on yoga balls and walking on walking pads throughout their meetings. This makes me feel ill/seasick! And, then I feel really irritated at them, unfairly, because they’re making the meeting more difficult for me.

Will I seem overly nitpicky, grumpy, irritable if I ask them to just do videos off when they do this? I don’t have a medical condition like vertigo or anything. I’m one of the most senior execs in the company, FYI, and the people who do this are all my level or below. (None of them report to me directly.)

As a senior exec, you absolutely have the standing to say, “Kudos to anyone choosing to exercise during this call, but please turn your camera off if that’s you. The movement is rough on the rest of us.” And if that doesn’t solve it, feel free to direct it to specific people — “Jane, can you turn your camera off, please? The activity is distracting.”

Frankly, it’s obnoxious (and maybe a little performative?) that people aren’t figuring this out for themselves and need to be told, and I bet others on the call will be silently thanking you. You also probably won’t have to do this a ton; it’s the kind of message most people will retain after being told once.

Related:
is it unprofessional to take a Zoom call from a treadmill?

2. Employer wants to offer paid parental leave — but only for women

My employer is thinking about joining the modern working era and offering paid parental leave. But … only to women. As you can imagine, the reception is mixed. On one hand, we’re excited to possibly finally have something. On the other, many staff feel like this devalues a) the role of fathers, b) the responsibility of men to care for their children and partners, and c) the role of women in the workplace generally (after all, why promote a woman who might need this leave when a man definitely won’t?). We’ve clarified that adoptive moms would qualify, so physical recovery is not the sole issue.

The employer is hinting loudly that we should be grateful that he is doing “more than he legally has to” and that he might drop it entirely if we push too hard. Any thoughts on next steps?

Well, it’s illegal. Offering different amounts of parental leave to male and female employees violates the federal law against sex discrimination (just like basing vacation leave or raises on sex would). It would be different if it were framed as “pregnancy leave” or otherwise linked to medical recovery, but it’s not. So: the strongest argument against this is that it’s illegal.

Of course, if you point that out, your employer might drop the whole thing — so you should pair it with a strong lobbying effort by employees for a legal, gender-neutral parent leave policy. If you can show that your competitors offer that, that could help too.

Related:
my company is creating a paternity leave policy, but has no maternity leave

3. My company is ignoring my reimbursement form after laying me off

I was laid off from a remote job in November 2024. I was told to ship my laptop back, given a paid shipping label and told to purchase packaging at the shipping store and submit a receipt for reimbursement. I submitted the form for reimbursement with a receipt the same day … then heard nothing.

Every few weeks I would send an email asking about the reimbursement status and would hear nothing. On the emails I’ve included my manager, my manager’s manager, and the HR representative who handled my layoff. It’s been two months and no one replies to emails (which have all been cordial). The amount of money ($30) isn’t a big deal but I’m frustrated that I followed their directions and then they’re not honoring their commitment. Also them not reimbursing me after laying me off is just rude and petty!

Any other ideas about what I can do? For context, I also signed an NDA so I probably can’t make a post on social media publicly calling anyone out.

Stop emailing and call instead! Start with HR, and if that doesn’t work, call your manager, then your manager’s manager. If you get voicemail, leave a message explaining the situation; say that it’s been several months, and ask to get it handled ASAP.

They should be replying to your emails and it’s rude that they haven’t, but one when method of communication isn’t working, moving to another will often solve it. (And who knows, it’s possible that emails from your personal email address are being filtered as spam or something. Probably not, but calling will solve it if that’s happening.)

4. Can my company completely change my job?

I am an executive assistant at a remote-first organization. There is currently no requirement to come into our office, with the exception of our front desk staff (who belong to a separate department). I have been told confidentially that due to financial constraints, a plan is in place to lay off our front desk staff and require myself and another executive assistant to perform the duties usually performed by our front desk staff (in addition to our current duties). This change would mean that I would have a completely different role than what I was hired to do, not to mention what I see as the extreme burden of being one of the only employees in a remote organization with an in-office requirement, and the significant extra work. Can they legally do this? What can I do to resist this change, other than simply walking away from a job that I really don’t want to quit? We have a union in place, which I have been told I am unable to join due to the confidential nature of my job. Would appealing to the union anyway have any influence?

They can legally change the requirements of your job. You can push back on that, of course — but ultimately they can make the change. The union probably won’t help since you’re not a member (unless they see benefit to their membership in some way, which isn’t impossible — you can certainly ask them and see).

How much standing do you have at your job? Are you a highly valued employee who they don’t want to lose? Or even a reasonably valued one who they don’t want to deal with the inconvenience of replacing? If you have a decent amount of standing, your best bet is to talk to your manager and say exactly what you said here — the change would leave you with a completely different job than the one you were hired for and significant additional burden — and that you’re strongly opposed to doing it. The trick with this kind of conversation is to walk a fine enough line that you’re not outright refusing or openly saying “I will quit over this” but leaving the strong implication that you are indeed highly likely to leave over it (maybe not on the spot, but soon). On the other hand, if you’re willing to openly say you’ll quit over it and are comfortable with whatever that results in (including “okay, we’ll be sorry to see you go but let’s set your last day”), go for it. There’s a possibility they’ll see this as an opportunity to hire a replacement who’s willing to do the new job, so this is all very dependent on how much capital you have there, how willing you are to walk away over it, how quickly you’d be willing to do that, and how much they’d care.

If the other assistant affected by this is willing to do the same, that can give you additional power, particularly if she has capital of her own to spend.

5. What is a “director of first impressions”?

I’m on the job market. I’ve been in higher ed. administration for years (also a teacher), and I’m done with it. All I want to do is help people, help an organization function well, get paid / treated decently, and stay with a good job until I retire, if ever. I’ve been on the market for roughly four months with little luck. I had one interview, which I think went well, but I didn’t get the position. Part of it, I think, is that I’m “overqualified” for the kind of role I’m looking for. The thing is, I don’t want to be in charge. I hate being in charge. I make an excellent assistant.

But then I see job adverts for things like a “director of first impressions”: “The director of first impressions will play an important role in setting the tone for the organization. As the first person and last person clients see when they are in the office, the director of first impressions is instrumental in making sure clients have a positive experience. Ability to work in a high capacity, high intensity position is a must, while maintaining a joyful and diplomatic spirit. Multitasking is necessary also, as this position is characterized by spontaneity and being ready for any phone call or visit. You will be the direct source of office support leadership, while maintaining office supplies and managing the calendar.” Good lord. I don’t even know how to respond seriously to this. Is this a receptionist role? Okay, I can work with that. Director of first impressions? I cannot.

Yep, it’s a receptionist role, with what sounds like some additional admin support thrown in. It’s a silly title, but it’s usually the sign of an organization trying to put a high premium on you making visitors and callers feel warmly welcomed and taken care of. As in, they’re not looking for the vibe visitors get at the DMV.

The best way to approach it is to ignore the title and focus on the job duties.

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{ 41 comments }

{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Testing*

    I have no problems with the few colleagues I have who move around while on video calls. (They don’t bounce, though, maybe that’d be a bridge too far.) It’s the people who snack while speaking/presenting I can’t handle…

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  2. Educator*

    LW1, rather than trying to control your co-workers (maybe that is how they listen best!) why not adjust your settings? Sounds like you are looking for what Zoom calls “floating thumbnail window view” so that you see just the speaker or, if even that makes you seasick, no one at all. Or stick everyone in “immersive view” and see if it bothers you less.

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    1. nnn*

      I’m sorry, running or bouncing on camera during a business meeting is just rude. If that’s how they listen best, they can go camera off.

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      1. MistOrMister*

        With zoom you have a few options for how you see the video, from the default size to completely minimized, so that could be an option for OP.

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    3. Myrin*

      It’s certainly worth it to suggest OP try and fiddle with the settings on her end – although her “at the mercy of others” could mean that that’s something she’s tried already and found that for whatever technical reason doesn’t work when she joins someone else’s call – but calling this “trying to control [one’s] co-workers” is probably the most bad-faith and aggressive way the sentiment could’ve been framed.
      The coworkers are the ones doing something that’s unusual and distracting, the onus is on them to minimise that.

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    4. Disagree*

      I would agree to this solution of OP was a junior employee and had no possibility to influence meeting culture. But they have the standing to do that!
      And while the other employees are free to do whatever they like, this should not put additional burden on others. The well have the absolutely same experience walking their pad with video off, too.
      But I wonder if they are being thoughtless or somewhat intentional. Not that they want to irritate others, but that they know about the sounds they are making and want to show that it is “only” bouncing on yoga balls and not doing a fully distracting workout?

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  3. Adele T.*

    Just noting for LW4: be very very careful about understanding your environment and the consequences before talking to the union.

    At my institution, the only reason why some positions can’t be part of the union is if they have access to this kind of information (like you said about yours), and so I’d assume that reporting an impending lay off to the union outside of management’s planned notification is a fireable offense. I can’t think of any other reason why those EA jobs at my institution are excluded; they have the same benefits/etc as our union negotiates but they’re specifically not allowed to be a part of the union.

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    1. Bilateralrope*

      I’d like to know who is telling LW4 that they aren’t allowed to join the union.

      Because if it’s only company management saying that, I’d suggest asking the union what they think about that restriction.

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  4. Mockingbird*

    LW4- I once took a job as an executive assistant and in hiring was asked if I’d be ok helping out in the office. Sure, I said, thinking they meant covering the other assistant’s phone if he stepped away. Nope, the exec I was assisting never came into the office, and I got put on reception. There’s more to why it was a bad job, but those sets of duties don’t overlap well, which is the point I’d make if I were you. Being a good assistant to someone who isn’t in the office is hard when you’re having to prioritize people physically in front of you or calling the front desk. And you can’t do that when you’re putting out a fire for your exec. If they don’t care that combining these two jobs would lead to you doing both at a lower standard, start looking for a new job asap. “They changed the scope of work to the point it wasn’t the job I was hired to do” is a totally valid reason for why you left a job, no matter how long you were there.

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  5. Ohno*

    Lw4: I’d start looking for another job, as these layoffs will probably continue and will reach you sooner rather than later. Your situation sounds a lot like one I was in years ago. The random consolidation of different roles/different departments is a desperate – maybe panicky – move, likely to be followed by more desperate and drastic measures.

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  6. Artemesia*

    If parental leave is goiing to be fairly short e.g. 6 or even 12 weeks, it can be linked to the physical recovery from birth. Many people are not more than minimally physically recovered at 6 weeks. But as ‘parental leave’ it is illegal to differentiate.

    This is one that my egalitarian values and reality clash on. In academia when they offered a year’s addition to the tenure track for new parents, the effect was that men published more and were more likely to get tenured while women fell behind. Because women on parental leave were taking care of babies and many men were taking the break to write and publish and thus literally got an extra year of productivity.

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    1. duinath*

      That is unsurprising but it still makes me very angry.

      I wonder if there is a way to prevent that kind of thing.

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    2. Bi One, Get One*

      Presumably these men were also reaping the benefit throughout their careers of dumping the lion’s share of domestic and childcare labor on their spouses. Women can benefit from a culture that normalizes parental leave for all genders, but a cultural shift that also normalizes men taking a larger share of domestic work in order to support their spouse’s career growth is desperately needed.

      (I’d just been thinking about your example when discussing this exact thing with a friend, thank you for bringing it up again!)

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      1. Nebula*

        I once read something about parental leave in Sweden – and this is a while ago, so I might be getting it wrong – where they have a year to share between parents. Iirc the usual thing for straight couples there is that the woman takes the first six months and then the man takes the next six months. So the birthing parent has that physical recovery period, but both parents have the experience of being at home alone with the baby sort of thing. The men in the article who had done that said it gave them much more of an appreciation of just how much their partners did in the home.

        I think the issue is getting that sort of culture started, as you say – again, I might be remembering wrongly, but I think the article also covered the fact that when this shared parental leave was first introduced, uptake among men was still quite low, and they ended up actually tweaking the law to make it so the most economically beneficial thing is almost always that both parents take leave.

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        1. Emmy Noether*

          Germany has a policy where 14 months total paid leave can be shared between parents, but each person cannot take more than 12 months.

          Unfortunately, the most common way to split it is still the mother taking 12 months and the father 2. And since the leaves can be taken consecutively or concurrently, those two months are often taken at the same time that the mother is also on leave, so that the father never actually cares for the child alone. It’s pretty galling, though I will say that at least the 2 “daddy months” have become more socially acceptable, where before it was just nothing. Small step in the right direction.

          I don’t remember the Swedish policy exactly, but I think I remember they did a better job at incentivizing an equal, consecutive split.

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        2. AcademiaNut*

          The academic situation is a fairly specialized case, as most people on parental leave aren’t excited to have extra time to work.

          The woman spends the first while recovering from childbirth and all the hormonal stuff and is feeding the baby at three hour intervals around the clock, so she’s devoting all her time to childcare. By the time the husband takes over, the baby is sleeping longer stretches and he, of course, doesn’t have the whole childbirth thing to recover from. He’s on leave, so he doesn’t have the teaching and administration responsibilities he would normally have, so he can find free time to do his own research, which gives him a boost professionally after going back.

          I’d be interested to see a study of same sex or adoptive academic couples and how it works for them – how much of the difference is the actual childbirth part, and how much is expectations of what they should be doing with the time.

          FWIW, getting universities to pause the tenure clock while women were on maternity leave was a non-trivial accomplishment.

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    3. Emmy Noether*

      This is one of those things that makes me really angry, and there’s also not a lot a regulation or a law could do about it – there needs to be a shift in people’s personal attitudes and choices.

      And that’s because any one case can be an ok personal choice – each family can choose to do things in a way that serves them best. Pushing the partner most likely to get it (the guy) toward tenure (or in general pushing the higher earner to climb the career ladder) may well be the financially advantageous choice for a particular family* living in the world we live in. But in aggregate, when it perpetuates gender inequality, it’s a really bad thing.

      *as long as the family unit stays together, that is. It’s often a terrible choice for the sacrificing partner if there ever is a separation or loss. And a depressing amount of people seem unconcerned with the enduring financial security of the person they purportedly love.

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  7. Jules the First*

    LW 5, are you leaning into your “I’m a great assistant” vibes in your applications and interviews? I’m in a different industry, but one of the hardest roles I have to hire for is the second-in-command. Finding someone competent who loves to support but has zero interest in “moving up” is like gold dust!

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    1. La*

      that’s because many, if not most, of these roles come with enormous amounts of responsibility, without the equivalent pay. They also often require other things professional jobs don’t, like clocking in/not being allowed to be remote (just 2 examples), still require a ton of skills….and are regarded poorly by a lot of people. Which also plays into the pay issue. Also, even people who like to support might want additional training, because they like to get better at what they do, or they just like to feel they are using their brain.

      Are you offering benefits and pay that reflect the fact that you think people for this position are like gold dust?

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    1. Bi One, Get One*

      I’m not a woman and I’ve been pregnant, watch HR try to wrap it’s brain around masculine intersex people having kids. The law is HR’s best friend here, parenting just isn’t that cut and dried anymore.

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      1. emmelemm*

        Yeah, you can’t just slice this one neatly down the middle any more. Which is why it’s easiest to just say “Anyone who becomes a parent gets leave! You get leave! And you get leave! Here, have some leave.”

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        1. Sayyadina*

          My (large) company broke parental leave into two parts. There was parental bonding leave that anyone who became a parent through whatever means got (so fathers, adoptive parents of any sort, etc…), and then there was a pregnancy recovery leave for birthing parents which I believe technically fell under short-term disability.

          I thought it was a great way of finding a balance between the new kid stuff and thee physical recovery. At the end of the day it worked out to 20 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.

          (And then we moved back to Canada for my second kid and I’m off for 18 months and it’s just an entirely different experience. Having a kid in the US, having everyone else be “oh, your employer is so generous!, and thinking “not really” was weird)

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      2. Samuel*

        If you have been pregnant, it’s because you are a female. Human males cannot get pregnant, therefore you are not male, and as there is no sex other than male or female, I would suspect HRs confusion is down to you twisting reality.

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    2. Seeking Second Childhood*

      OP says they are discussing paternity leave without having maternity leave, so I read it ìn reverse: gay men yes, lesbians no.

      Either way, “parental” is the better word for an inclusive (and legal) policy.

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  9. MistOrMister*

    I’ve had a walking pad and now have a mini elliptical and mini stair stepper. I cannot for one minute imagine using either of them while on a video call!! What are these people thinking? I think it’s fine to be at a standing desk station or on a yoga ball on video if you aren’t moving, but to me moving around like that during a video meeting is rude in the same way it would be to get up and start doing mountain climbers in an in-person meeting while still contributing. Its just distracting and unnecessary.

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    1. Lions and Bears*

      Yeah, when I WFH I’m pretty much either at a standing desk or on a yoga ball, so I probably move around on WFH video calls more than the average bear, but there’s a difference between “adjusting your balance” and whatever is (presumably) going on in this letter.

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  10. Leenie*

    The 4th letter seems to be indicating that financial constraints are forcing the organization to get rid of both of the receptionists, who are most likely among their lowest paid employees. This seems like an unsound and potentially alarming decision for any number of reasons. Laying off the receptionists wouldn’t move the needle in most budgets. So either they make bad choices, or there are more cuts coming. Or both, I suppose.

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  11. bamcheeks*

    I’m so confused by LW1. Someone broadcasting video doesn’t oblige you to view it! If someone is sharing slides or their screen (so you can’t just minimise the window or open something else over it), open a window specifically to cover the gallery. I use Paint, because it doesn’t have text in so I won’t start reading it and miss what is being said. But if your preference is for cameras off, you can easily hide, minimise or cover the video feeds on your screen.

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    1. Seeking Second Childhood*

      We have people join and drop enough that rearranging overlaps would be annoying.

      OP gets to use seniority for the power of good and save everyone else from getting seasick.

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      1. duinath*

        Yep. There has to be limits to how much we ask people to bend over backwards to allow others to live their best, most inconsiderate lives.

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  12. Diomedea Exulans*

    Different amount of maternity leave offered to men and women is quite common and legal outside the US. I’m not saying it’s a good thing but it’s really common. Although it makes sense to offer a somewhat longer leave for mothers (because of obvious things like recovery from giving birth, breastfeeding, etc.), it’s not acceptable to not offer any leave fathers.

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    1. r..*

      That doesn’t really change much tbh, because there’s also plenty of countries where men have exactly the same legal *right* to paid paternity leave.

      For my current client, their legal environment is that the salary is being paid by the local equivalent of social security for their parental leave, but any legal parent has an entitlement of up to 18 month to stay with the child. If the parent requests this, they must grant the leave, and they must allow the parent to return to their same role afterwards, no matter of their sex or gender.

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  13. Strive to Excel*

    LW 5 – isn’t Director of First Impressions out of a Dilbert cartoon? I feel like I saw it there years ago. It was a satirical title in and still is.

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    1. Dave*

      I worked at a place this decade with one. Duties also included cleaning the kitchen and setting up for meetings. The overall company was a little odd with the culture but the nerf gun finally put me over the edge.

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  14. Never the Twain*

    Not exercise, but I think one of my colleagues has a rocking chair. In a Teams call, he always has the video on, and it’s memerising to watch his face slowly fill the screen and then recede to a tiny dot…and again and again.
    What doesn’t help is that he’s the leader of the team we collaborate with, and feels that it’s part of his role to drone on and on, one word never sufficing where two hundred could be used. In combination with his pulsatile facial screen-hogging, it has an oddly soporific effect, to the extent that after one of his interpolations I never have any idea what he’s actually said.

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  15. PX*

    OP1 seems like I might be one of the few dissenters but given that it sounds a lot like a you issue, why not use the option to turn off incoming video so you can’t see people? there is a setting for that in zoom.

    Alternatively if you have the standing you can either talk to IT about making the default zoom setting to be camera off (and ideally muted as well, you can also do this for any meetings you set up yourself) or just let the people you talk to frequently know.

    But you mentioned these are all *peers* or junior so while it’s a lot easier to set the tone for juniors, some of your peers may or may not take it as easily if they appreciate being able to move during meetings (something encouraged in some companies!)

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