the first person to accept the offer gets hired, reference checker asked how much sick leave an employee used, and more

by Alison Green on January 30, 2025

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

1. Offering a job to multiple people and giving it to the first one who accepts

Decades ago, in the early 2000s, my friend was offered an assistant professor position at a university. She was told that the same job was being offered to several other candidates too, and that only the first person to accept the offer would be hired. Presumably as soon as one person accepted, the other offers would be withdrawn.

I have never seen this practice anywhere else. This makes me curious: is this legal? (We are in the U.S.) What do you think of employers doing this? What advice would you give someone who gets an offer like this?

It’s legal. It’s astonishingly terrible, though! First, it’s a crappy way to treat candidates, who deserve time to think over an offer and make sure it’s the right decision for them and not face pressure to beat everyone else to say yes. Second, good employers want new hires to have had time to mull over the offer so they’re confident in their decision (and thus less likely to cut and run soon after starting). Third, it implies that willingness to jump at the job is more important than who the strongest candidate actually is. Fourth, it’s just weirdly unnecessary. If there’s time pressure for making the hire, you can offer the job to your top candidate and explain the situation; you don’t need to turn it into the Hunger Games.

Related:
company offered me a job but wants an answer the same day

2. Reference checker asked how much sick leave an employee used

What do you do when a reference checker asks you something you don’t believe in providing?

I recently received an email regarding a reference for a former direct report. She was an excellent employee, and I was happy to provide it. They provided a list of questions via email and asked me to respond in kind. One of the questions was, “How many sick days leave has she taken during her employment?”

I don’t think that’s appropriate information to provide. I have no idea if it’s legal — I’m in the U.S. and the new company is in the UK — but regardless, I don’t believe an employee’s usage of sick leave should impact their reference or their hireability. (And if it does, in workload or reliability, then that’ll show up in the rest of the reference, so it’s still unnecessary.)

In this case, I was pressed for time, so I wrote: “An appropriate number, within allowable sick leave. I do not have exact figures.” (Which is true!) I think if it had been a phone reference, I would have been able to push back more clearly, but with an email, I wasn’t sure what else to do. Was that a reasonable response? Is there a better way to communicate “I will not help you fish for ways to not hire people who have human bodies and get sick sometimes”?

Yeah, that’s a gross question. As you say, there are far better ways to get at whether someone was a reliable, productive employee — by asking about their actual work, not digging into their sick leave and thus their health. It’s also interesting that they didn’t ask about attendance in general, but about sick leave in particular.

Your response was perfect.

Also, while I can’t speak to UK law, in the U.S. that’s not a question any reference checkers should be asking, because it’s too likely to elicit information about a disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

3. My boss is pretending to answer emails as my coworker who no longer works here

One of my coworkers, Jack, recently left the company. Rather than setting up an automatic response to emails that are sent to Jack, his boss has all Jack’s emails automatically forwarded to him.

Jack’s boss then responds to the emails as Jack (not just from Jack’s account — he signs off with things like “Thanks! -Jack”). I understand that the email account belongs to the company, not Jack, but am I wrong to think this is strange and might look bad to a client who receives an email from “Jack” only to learn that he’s been gone for months?

What! You are not wrong in your take at all.

If his boss wasn’t signing off as Jack, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and figure he just found it easier to answer from Jack’s account (and was maybe a little technologically inept so didn’t realize there are better ways of handling it). But the fact that he’s signing off with Jack’s name is extremely weird and risks blowing up the trust of any client who finds out it wasn’t actually Jack who has been emailing him (at least, assuming this is the sort of work where clients have a relationship with Jack and aren’t just sending one-off questions to be answered by anonymous, interchangeable strangers).

Related:
my company pretends that former employees still work here

4. My office keeps forgetting my birthday, while they go all-out for others

I do outreach in a nonprofit organization, which requires me to travel between three locations in the county. At one location, staff birthdays are loudly recognized with balloons, cards, desserts, the works … except for mine. It has been overlooked for seven years. I talked to the manager of that location last year about it and her reasoning was that since my birthday is right before Christmas, that it’s easy to overlook. So, she put my birthday on the staff calendar.

However, as you can probably guess, my birthday was just forgotten again. There are four people at this location and I have worked there longer than all of them except one person. I work at that location two days a week with just as many hours as two of the other staff members there. I am starting to feel really resentful and hurt that I am not as important or appreciated as the other staff, just because my birthday falls before a major holiday. Am I reading too much into this issue and should I just let it go? Do you think it’s worth it to bring it up again to the manager of that location?

I think you are probably reading too much into it, but that you don’t need to let it go! I do think it’s probably true that your birthday is getting overlooked because it’s right before Christmas and a lot of people are out then. It’s very unlikely that it’s personal — especially if your coworkers are generally friendly people. You should let it go in the sense of “you shouldn’t keep stewing about it” (to the extent that that’s within your control), but you absolutely can and should point out to your manager that it happened again this year and that it doesn’t feel great, especially when you’d specifically raised it ahead of time.

However, since it’s important to you, it also makes sense to change what you do this year! At the start of December, why not approach your manager and say, “Since it’s slipped through the cracks in the past, I was hoping we could plan our normal birthday stuff for my birthday this year. It’s on (date).”

5. I’m contributing a substantial portion of my team’s charitable goal

My organization, like many, has an annual appeal for charity where employees can pledge as little as $1 per pay period (or as much as the fairly generous maximum) to charities of their choosing. The website lists thousands of charitable organizations covering almost any issue area that one could imagine. I have been contributing for several years and have increased my contribution each year along with my salary. An off-site administrator manages the campaign and distributes the funds and relays back an aggregate report on how much our organization has contributed. Based on that report, the org has had an overall pledge goal each year that we’ve routinely met. So far, so good.

However, over the past few years, the team has been highlighting the progress towards the goal and the final total, and it’s clear that my pledge is a substantial part of each annual total for the entire organization. We are a small-to-medium organization so it’s not surprising that a few people could make a big difference, but my pledge is around 10% of the organization’s pledged total (or more!). I am well aware that many people have good reasons not to contribute to this particular appeal (they have financial constraints on giving, they have charities to which they prefer to give directly, they believe in direct mutual aid or in person-volunteering instead, etc.), and I would never consider it my business to press others to contribute, but it is unnerving to see just how much my single pledge means for the organization meeting this annual challenge.

I am not currently planning to leave, but obviously employment across many sectors is in flux and I can’t predict the future. What, if any, responsibility would I have to share with the staffers who manage this campaign for my organization if I did leave? I am wondering if they’d even set a different pledge goal entirely if they knew my single pledge would no longer be included in the total.

You have zero responsibility to give the campaign organizers any heads-up when you start thinking about leaving! They can see who contributes what, and they are definitely aware that any of their top givers could leave at any time, or could change their giving patterns. That’s built into the system. They should already be looking at the fact that a single employee is providing 10% of their funds and trying to find ways to balance that out.

In any case, if you leave, they will either not meet their goal that year or they will adjust it or they’ll come up with some other plan to meet the goal. It’s not a big deal. (I mean, it might be a big-ish deal to the person charged with organizing the campaign — which ultimately is about PR for your company — but it’s not the sort of big deal where you’d owe anyone any special warning.)

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{ 334 comments }

{ 334 comments… read them below }

  1. SunriseRN*

    Re: #2….use of sick leave is an incredibly common question to ask in nursing. It was asked of my references in each clinical job I held until retirement. I know that doesn’t make it right. My last boss fought with a prior one during a reference call because they felt like my saved sick time was too high (it was a job where you could save sick time to use post retirement to pay for health care).

    Of course bedside nursing is one of those gigs where it can be hard to get time off and you’ll hear about any sick time usage *a lot*.

    1. RCB*

      In my HR role I’d have absolutely not provided this information to someone’s new employer, it’s such an inappropriate question to ask. Since it is very common though in Nursing, how much hell would I cause by refusing to answer the question? Like, what’s the practical impact on the other end if they can’t get that information?

      1. Anon (and on and on)*

        I had the exact opposite experience with HR. I had applied to an HR role within my large company, and they rescinded an interview offer after LOOKING UP MY SICK TIME ACCRUAL and deciding that I had used too much. That was the only time I actually responded to a rejection because I was so ticked off. I pointed out that I was within what the job provided, but of course never heard back. Totally galling!

    2. FrontlinER*

      As a nurse, I can confirm that using sick time is FROWNED UPON IN THE UTMOST. So many nurses come to work sick, not because they want to, but because they have to. Attendance was a major part of annual evals. I was part of the leadership team (not a manager though) and my boss once said when I brought up a literal life saving accomplishment of a nurse, “oh that’s Jane, the one that calls out sick too much?”
      Hence why I left bedside and am in my soft-nursing era.

      1. Myrin*

        I’ll never get over how outrageous that is, both there and in food service. One would think that these were the two prime examples of jobs where it’s of utmost importance to NOT come in sick but apparently not.

        2. Emmy Noether*

          That, along with the insane schedules of medical personnel, will never cease to bother me.

          Sure, I’d love my medication administered or my surgery performed by a sleep-deprived feverish person. What could go wrong?

          It’s a credit to medical professionals that they’re performing as well as they are, while I can’t get my Excel formula to work because my stuffy nose kept me up last night, and I therefore really should take the morning off.

          1. Tea Monk*

            Yup! I’d like to be weak in the hospital and infected by a nurse ( maskless of course because infection control is obviously communism)

            1. FunkyMunky*

              I wonder if there are so many awful medical professionals out there because they are treated so badly. Then again the whole antivax/antimask discourse among them is beyond me

              1. Bird names*

                I suspect constant sleep deprivation doesn’t help. I’m certainly not at my best after a couple of nights of insufficient sleep.

          2. Applesauced*

            I just heard somewhere (a podcast, probably) that the reason for longer shifts in the medical field is that mistakes and errors are most likely to take place during personal changes.

            8 hours shifts = 3 changes per day
            12 hour shifts = 2 changes

            1. KateM*

              Reminds me how when I was giving birth, at one point the desk nurse looked in, asked if this was the first serious contraction, and told me to wait a couple of minutes because it was JUST the shift change time. Their shifts were 24h, though, and the previous shift didn’t even try to speed things up so the baby would be born before change (which I definitely did not mind – I’d rather have a fresh midwife than someone 23 hours and 30 minutes into her shift).

            2. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

              On a related note, I’ve read that it’s because continuity of care catches rapid changes better. The medical professional who saw you this morning might notice that you’re suddenly looking a lot worse this evening; someone just reading the notes from the previous shift might not. And sudden, visible declines are often signs of something life-threatening that needs to be caught as early as possible.

              I’ve also seen it contested that other countries, where shifts are a more reasonable length, manage just fine, and don’t have worse patient outcomes.

              No idea who’s right!

            3. Lenora Rose*

              Likely shift changes are the danger point in part because there’s little/no overlap, and therefore a lot of pressure to report as fast as possible and pass on charts as fast as possible to hurry out to the actual care, so important notes don’t always get cited.

              In my low pressure office job, when someone comes in who needs a precis of two or three items from me (My boss, staff member from another site, even coworker from lunch break), it’s a crap shoot whether I remember to pass along anything I didn’t actively write down/isn’t an actual crisis. How much more so with a nurse with 20 different patients each with different important notes, even if they all have charts?

              And how much worse the longer the shift and the less rest they get?

              1. Bird names*

                That unfortunately sounds right. Considering how much time I’d take handing over a bigger project in my non-med job and contrasting that with the realities in the health care system right now? *sigh*

            4. Your former password resetter*

              That sounds like they need to organize better handovers?
              Also I wonder how much of that is because everyone is numb and exhausted and has twelve hours of details to catch people up on?

            5. Scrimp*

              Surely that could be solved by having rotating shift times- group A has shifts at 00:00, 8:00, and 16:00, group B has shifts at 4:00, 12:00, and 20:00.

              Then every shift change, half the people there know exactly what’s going on.

        3. Ally McBeal*

          Yep. My brother got fired from a Jimmy John’s location because he had full-blown influenza and couldn’t come in. He called all of his coworkers asking for shift coverage (which he should not have had to do – in my opinion, the manager is responsible for creating the schedule and therefore also responsible for filling any emergency gaps) but no one could or would, so they told him to come in anyway or lose his job. I know it was just at that one location and I live in a totally different area of the country, but I don’t eat at Jimmy John’s now.

            1. WillowSunstar*

              Glassdoor reviews can’t be trusted anymore because they are no longer truly anonymous. I’m not sure about Google, if Google allows you to use a Gmail with a fake name and no way to find out it’s you, then maybe.

            2. Ally McBeal*

              Oh, they did way worse to him after they fired him (legal action for something he categorically didn’t do but couldn’t prove otherwise), so I’m sure as soon as he got clear of all that BS he didn’t want to touch the idea of leaving a review with a 39-1/2 foot pole.

          2. Artemesia*

            Isn’t that the company that has tried to impose rules about proprietary information to prevent people from going to a better paid fast food job? A non-compete since the technology is so advanced and complex in making a sandwich.

            1. CheeseHead*

              Probably. I live in a small city where the two brothers who inherited an extremely mediocre sandwich shop with a couple of locations had a falling out. Now half the locations have a different name, but serve the exact same menu of mediocre sandwiches. (I discovered this after moving to the city and trying each of them.)

              Apparently they have *vicious* multi-year non-competes to prevent an employee from stealing the sandwich-making trade secrets to the other (completely identical) sandwich shop.

              1. Rainy*

                I’d be tempted to get a p/t job at one and then the other just to let them try to enforce it. I don’t dream of labor, but I *am* extremely petty.

        5. Nobby Nobbs*

          A recent episode of the podcast Sawbones was about physicians’ unions. I say the more protections healthcare workers win for themselves the better for everyone.

          1. Bird names*

            For real, that’ll make pushback and industry-wide changes much more feasible. Fingers crossed for all healthcare workers currently organizing their workplaces!

        6. Chirpy*

          One would *think* people would want to make sure the people making their food are healthy, but in reality they tend to go “paid sick leave is for important people like nurses, why should a burger-flipper get it, they’re hardly even people”

          They won’t actually support those nurses having sick leave either, but they’ll sure use it as a reason why food service workers don’t deserve anything.

      2. Yods*

        I am never going to get over how enraging this is.

        It’s years ago now, but my otherwise healthy grandmother had a mild heart-attack and went to the hospital for observation. There she caught pneumonia and died.
        That did not have to happen!

        1. Carlie*

          Seconding that.
          My dad went to the hospital, caught Covid there, and died of it, but also accidentally passed it to the entire family, thereby impacting who could even come to the funeral. (This was far post pandemic)

          It’s evil that healthcare employers make their staff come to work sick.

          1. FunkyMunky*

            I’m so sorry for your loss! hospital acquired infections are all over the place and have been for a while. Pandemic ain’t over no matter how much powers to be would label it so

          1. Magnetic cat*

            Unfortunately, some types of bacterial and viral pneumonia are contagious and “Hospital Acquired Pneumonia” absolutely is a thing. It was listed as the primary cause of my father’s death last month, on his death certificate.

            1. Dr. BOM*

              Yup. My great-grandmother broke her hip but died from the c. diff. she picked up from the hospital. Plus, looking at the history of germ theory and the resistance of doctors to perform basic tasks like washing their hands, it’s no surprise that sick staff accidentally get their patients killed due to the demands placed on them.

          2. Rainy*

            That’s not correct at all. Secondary pneumonia is of course a thing. But the bacteria that can be involved with pneumonia can be contagious, and then there’s also viral pneumonia.

            My dad brought a contagious bacterial pneumonia home from work when I was about 14 and infected the entire family, and I have lasting effects from my bout with it to this day–and I’m almost 50.

          3. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

            Unfortunately, you can catch pneumonia from other people. Many of the recent articles about an increase in cases of pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae refer to it as “walking pneumonia,” and it spreads via respiratory droplets.

            Also, “secondary infection” can be convenient shorthand, but it’s not a diagnosis. C. difficile infection is in some sense a secondary infection, but the diagnosis is still for C. diff. and there are specific treatments for it. It’s “secondary” to a previous course of antibiotics, and can turn up after just-in-case antibiotics before dental work.

      3. Jay (no, the other one)*

        I’m a doc. My first year in practice (eons ago) I was the PCP for one of the nursing supervisors, who was one the best nurses I’d ever worked with. In January she was diagnosed with colon cancer – caught it early, yay! – and needed surgery so she was out for about six weeks. In October of the same calendar year she developed a cardiac problem, was hospitalized, and was out for another two weeks. All of it was paid in accordance with the generous sick leave policies of the hospital.

        At the end of the year she was “counseled” about her attendance in very strong language. They made it clear that if this happened again she could be fired and she certainly was not going to get any kind of merit raise. This was well before the ADA so they absolutely could have fired her. I was horrified. I’m still horrified.

        1. Annie*

          That is definitely one of the worst things I’ve heard on this site, and that’s a high bar. Absolutely horrible.
          Who was counseling her at the end of the year, her manager? Ugh, what a heartless person.

      4. Chocoholic*

        I used to work for a nursing home, and I always felt terrible for nurses who were not supposed to come to work sick, but also not supposed to miss work due to being sick. Like what are you supposed to do? They got disciplined either way.

        1. FunkyMunky*

          if people routinely masked with proper PPE it would at least not be as big of any issue re: getting others sick

    3. AlsoADHD*

      Teaching is kind of like this too (at least in many American states). You get holidays and time off (most unpaid) but taking your actual sick time and getting a sub is seen as problematic. I know I almost didn’t pass a background check in the last district I worked in (I make way more money, work remotely, and haven’t taught for years now) because my prior district wouldn’t answer very detailed reference questions too. Districts all want a bunch of answers but most don’t provide those answers out—getting that sane district to verify my employment when I left was quite a process. Now I have a certified letter of the dates worked and my evaluation stuff that I just send to the bc company and they use when the district doesn’t get back to them within a few weeks (took 6 weeks to come back the first time).

      1. Not a Vorpatril*

        That’s… notably worse than my school, but I feel like most schools just have their own quirks over what is acceptable/not (and it changes over time to boot) and mine just happens to be one where taking days off is generally “fine”.

        That being said, it also depends on what you teach. I’m a Highschool (13-18 year olds for non-US reference) mathematics teacher, and while my administration is fine with me taking a day off I find it difficult because taking a day off means I will not cover what I was planning on covering that week, particularly with block scheduling (1.5 hour classes, classes meet every other day more or less), so me being out tends to just throw such a wrench in things that it’s usually not worth it, particularly with how much material I am required to cover per my states’ DOE requirements for the courses.

        1. Also-ADHD*

          My old school was fine with it for me, because I could always get subs, but in checking the question, the district was less fine if the person seemed to have substantial use of their sick time (not that they probably ever got an answer on that or the other detailed questions they sent – they never did from my prior district). I worked at schools that discouraged it, but it’s usually if coverage is hard to find. And yeah, teachers usually find it so hard themselves that the admin/school never has to fuss on it frankly.

          1. Not a Vorpatril*

            Coverage is definitely an issue, as my school has taken to bribing teachers to watch other classes during their prep periods ($25 for 45 minutes is relatively OK in theory, but not usually worthwhile I find in practice) fairly often, when either more teachers than expected are out or subs flake on us.

      2. Jessastory*

        at my school, we’re encouraged to take time off when sick, but it’s the nature of the job that it’s difficult for a sub to teach to your standard, plus you have to make plans for the sub. it’s almost easier to just come in sick.

        1. StephChi*

          The idea that a sub would actually teach something is insane because that would never happen in my school district. Subs are babysitters* who are there to take attendance, maybe distribute a handout, and that’s it. I just put lessons in Google Classroom and hope that at least some of the kids do the work. Most of the time they don’t, though, which means that a day is wasted. This is why a lot of people don’t like to take days off even if they need to. The only subs I trust are a couple of people who used to teach in my school, one of which was in my department. It’s still a crap shoot on whether the kids will do the work, even with someone in the room I’d actually trust to explain an assignment and assist the kids, though.

          *I teach high school, so obviously no babysitting is happening, but there has to be someone in the room with a license.

  2. LouLouisana*

    To OP 4: I get it. I have a December birthday too.
    And, for as much as it gets maligned (and rightly so for various reasons), my “love language” is giving and receiving gifts.
    So when people either forget my birthday or combine birthday + Christmas, well, it’s hurtful.

      1. AnonInCanada*

        I was thinking the same thing, but at least I’m pretty sure in this OP’s case, it’s not meant with malicious intent. One of my siblings has a birthday on December 21st, and I know they got treated that way with the “combination birthday and Christmas present,” which didn’t seem much better than the rest of our Christmas presents, while we we growing up.

        I still reel to this day thinking about that poor employee who got shunned from the birthday day off/gift card/cake just because her birth date only physically showed up on the calendar 97 times out of 400.

        1. Hush42*

          My younger brothers birthday is December 16th. I personally don’t remember if he ever got combined gifts (I wouldn’t be surprised if he had) but I remember getting a little older and listening to my parents go “oh we need to pick which present we’re giving him for his birthday” on multiple years. Basically they had a pile of Christmas gifts for him, pulled one out, wrapped it in birthday paper, and called it a birthday gift. Even as a kid I felt like this was unfair for him. I remember pointing that out to my mom once and she told me it was fine because he’s still getting a birthday gift.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            I always remember that date because it’s Beethoven’s birthday. Thank you, Schroeder.

            I think a kid should get a separate gift for their December birthday, though I get it if parents are strapped for cash. Maybe downsize a little on a couple of Christmas presents and put that toward the extra birthday gift. But they should have one extra. That’s just my two cents.

          3. Karo*

            Obviously you know your parents better than I do, but is it possible they spent extra on him and just had to choose which item specifically was for his birthday?

            That’s basically what we just did for my son’s 1st birthday, which is on the 28th. We have specific budgets for Christmas and birthday (say, 75/50) and spent 125 on him. Now, I can’t testify to whether Christmas and birthday wound up hitting those budgets exactly – it may have been 90/35 instead of 75/50 – but he still got all of his presents.

            1. Chas*

              I have a late February birthday, but this is similar to what my parents would do for me, since there weren’t usually not many interesting toys or games that got released during January or February. They’d end up looking at my Christmas list and decide which items I’d get for Christmas and which would wait until my birthday, and as a result sometimes I’d get a bigger Christmas gift and a less big birthday gift if there wasn’t something easily split between the two. (I.e. a new console + some games for Christmas and then just some more games for my birthday).

              I always felt like it’s was okay as there was always something for me to open on both days. (Whereas now I’m an adult and my Dad just pays for a recurring subscription in lieu of Christmas/Birthday presents, it can be a little disheartening to not have anything to open up when everyone else is exchanging gifts, even though I know I’ve still had the same amount spent on me. But that’s my problem to deal with, as I wouldn’t want to give up the subscription either!)

    2. allathian*

      I feel for you. My best friend’s birthday is on December 25. We’re in Finland and in our Lutheran traditions, Christmas Eve is the big day when gifts are given in the evening after dinner. At least she’s an only child so that there was no comparison with siblings born at other times of the year when she was a kid, but when she was a kid, she invited her classmates to a birthday party in January, and she’s continued to celebrate her birthday in January as an adult. That said, she really appreciated it when her parents and extended family wrapped her birthday presents separately and in explicitly not-Christmassy paper. Even if it was a bit ridiculous sometimes, she told me once that she got one skate for Christmas and the other for her birthday the next day.

      1. Emmy Noether*

        In my husband’s family, there are traditionally three gift-giving occasions over the year: birthday, Christmas and name day (saint’s day). For my husband’s brother, those are three consecutive days!

        Because of this, the date of the name day was a consideration for us when choosing our children’s names. (Though we’re not opposed to just setting a different date ourselves if it came down to it, as we aren’t actually catholic. I don’t even have a saint, so we just chose a convenient date for mine.)

        1. Busybee*

          Another December baby here (21st)! I’ve even got a festive appropriate name…
          It’s definitely not personal. I’ve just turned 34 and on my birthday, no one outside my immediate family even messaged me ‘happy birthday’! I did get several grovelling messages after the day, however…
          Luckily I was having a lovely weekend away with my partner, who knows that he needs to make a fuss. I just chalk it down to luck of the draw (though I must admit, having your birthday on the shortest day of the year, when it gets dark around 3pm, does suck). As an introvert, I am also grateful that I get to opt out of the decision about whether to have a party on my birthday.
          This year I’m planning to have a midsummer official birthday (like the late Queen) on June 21st :)

          1. Baby Yoda*

            I’m a June 21ster and my mom said oh yes, the day I was born was definitely the longest day of the year :)

        2. Dog momma*

          I used to be Catholic & never heard of this. Is it ethnic, using say.. Slovak as an example?. is it when you’re baptised? could you clarify? this is interesting.

          1. Frosty*

            No, it’s a general catholic thing. It’s the day of the saint you were named after in the liturgic calendar. See wikipedia on the entry “Name day”. Says here that it’s common in many countries in Europe and the Americas.

            1. Lady Lessa*

              I’m an adult convert to Catholicism and one of my friends always wishes me happiness on my saint’s day.

            2. Forrest Gumption*

              It is a general catholic tradition, but far more commonly celebrated in Europe and South America, and a much bigger deal in those places too (from my experience)

              1. Marion Ravenwood*

                Yeah, there’s an influencer I follow on Instagram who is very open about her Greek heritage and talks about celebrating on name days (saints’ days) a lot. But I’m in the UK and was brought up Catholic and it definitely wasn’t a thing we did here.

            3. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

              I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools from kindergarten through my BA, and didn’t hear about name day until I was in my 30’s. It’s definitely not observed in my area and not talked about in relationship to the saint you’re named after. I’ve heard of venerating a saint but not in relationship to any saints we’re named after.

              1. Bunch Harmon*

                Same here. I’m in the US, but I had grandparents on both sides who were first generation Irish Catholics. We were in church every Sunday, and did CCD all through school. I never heard of a name day until I made some friends who were Greek Orthodox. Their name days are very important to them.

              3. Rainy*

                My husband was raised Catholic and always got a present on his name day as a kid and still gets a card in the mail from his mother every year.

              1. metadata minion*

                I would guess that if you’re in a culture that uses this tradition, your parents give you at least a middle name associated with a saint.

                1. Lenora Rose*

                  Apparently it’s also possible to pick one at confirmation. I think we were done with Catholicism by the point that would have come up for me (we went to a Roman Catholic church from sometime when I was Very Young until I was 9. As an adult I stick with the affirming United Church of Canada — when I go at all.)

          2. Emmy Noether*

            Like the others said, it’s celebrated on the day associated with the saint that has your name. So for example December 6th is St. Nicholas, and you would wish a happy name day to the Nicks you know, and maybe their close family gives them a small gift. There are several saints per day to get around to all(?*) of them.

            My husband’s family is French, where this is common. Interestingly, the calendar is slightly different for different countries (or rather, church administration regions).

            *Don’t know if it’s actually all saints, probably not? My name doesn’t have one because no one with my name was ever sainted! It’s too modern and too rare in Catholic regions.

            1. Jenesis*

              Same – my family is varying degrees of practicing Catholic, and none of them to my knowledge cares about their saint’s name day. Me and all my first cousins don’t even have saints’ names unless you get creative with the spelling.

          3. doreen*

            It’s somewhat ethnic, in that different cultures celebrate to different extents, and it used to be much bigger than it is. You’d celebrate your “name day” on the feast day of the saint you were named for. If there is more than one saint with that name , your parents would have chosen one when they named you. If there wasn’t a saint with your actual name, you would use the name your name was derived from ( for example, I would use Dorothy) or your middle name. Nowadays, the only one I see celebrated is St. Joseph’s Day and that’s because of reasons that don’t apply to other names – It’s a more general holiday in some countries.

            1. Clisby*

              If you’re Catholic, though, wouldn’t you have taken a saint’s name as part of your confirmation? I know both my children did, even though my son already was Joseph.

              1. doreen*

                You might have ( a new name is traditional but not required) – but depending on your diocese, confirmation might happen anywhere between ages 7-16. People who celebrate name days will almost certainly want to celebrate before their children are 7.

              2. Myrin*

                Emmy – who started this thread – is from Germany, as am I (I believe we’re from regions which are different but not too far apart, geographically), and here, it’s not “a saint’s name” as some sort of construct that you “take” but rather “your normal name which you share with a saint”.

                It wasn’t unusual to actively name your child after the saint whose day it was on the day you were born – meaning your birthday and your name day are one and the same – but that’s pretty rare now. It’s just that most of the time, if you have a “normal” German name (interestingly generally not if you have an actual Germanic name, because there weren’t really many people with Germanic names who who were sainted), there’ll automatically be a saint with that name, too.

              3. Admin of Sys*

                We had to pick a saint’s name, but 90% of folks just picked their actual name, since it was also a saint’s name. I was one of the few in my catechism class that switched it out.
                I’m not practicing anymore, but I kind of want to have a party on oct 4th just for fun

          4. Person from the Resume*

            I’ve heard of it, but it’s not a modern (last 50 years) Cajun/American Catholic tradition. For this to be traditional in your culture, the family has to pick a Saint name for the baby and a lot of western countries -at least America- that is falling to the wayside.

            Although I suppose it can be a middle name too. I haven’t heard anything about a family argument where grandmother or older generations say the baby must have have a saint’s name in years.

            In places that do celebrate it, my understanding that it’s the person’s birth name and not the confirmation name they pick for their Catholic confirmation in their teens.

            1. Rainy*

              My husband and his brothers are all Americans in their 40s raised Catholic and have name days. I think this is one of those things that varies by region.

            1. Elizabeth West*

              I’ve heard of it, but we never did it. And I did pick an extra name at Confirmation. I’d be annoyed if anyone made a fuss about it now, since I’m not Catholic anymore (seriously, take me off the rolls; I ain’t coming back).

          6. Hekko*

            It is observed in Czechia, even by non-religious people, so I assume in Slovakia as well.

            Our calendars even have names in them and they are sometimes different from the Catholic calendar!

        3. Artemesia*

          All my husband’s current occasions are bunched up around Christmas. Our anniversary is in October, his birthday in November then Christmas. He is of Catholic descent so I thought I’d look up his Saint’s name to make an extra occasion at a different time of year. Alas it is the same as our October anniversary.

      2. Gumby*

        We’re also Lutheran but in the US. Family tradition was gifts on Christmas Eve and stockings on Christmas Day. Until my nephew was born on December 24. Now we very consciously don’t Christmassy stuff on the 24th (except for an evening church service). He gets to choose the activities and meals on his birthday – also a family tradition. He used to put “see Christmas lights” on the list for the evening but that was when they lived near one of those neighborhoods that goes all out on decorating. Animatronic penguins and polar bears, lights synced up to music, enough lights to land an airplane, etc. Since they moved, that has fallen off of his list. Possibly also because he’s a pre-teen now and that’s not cool any more. Anyway, point being, I do miss the traditions that I grew up with but it’s more important that he gets his day. At least at this stage of his life. (I have an early-January birthday and got my share of combined presents but did get cupcakes at school, etc. These days I get texts at most, maybe a card so it really doesn’t matter. I’m not a huge birthday person anyway and I don’t *think* that was influenced much by the timing of my birthday.)

      3. COHikerGirl*

        Oh hey, my best friend’s birthday is December 25th! We’re in the US, though. But, my family does our big thing on Dec 24 (my grandmother was German, we were raised Lutheran), so I would go over to her house on Christmas Day to wish her a happy birthday and share Birthday Pie with her! We have been friends for over 3 decades now, and this has continued as much as humanly possible to this day! I always have one gift for her birthday and one gift for Christmas.

    3. WS*

      December babies unite!

      Yeah, if you get “this is your Christmas and birthday present combined” enough as a kid while your siblings are born in July and October and get two rounds of presents, it starts to sting after a while. I don’t even like my birthday being a big thing, but also I feel bad if forgotten, as the only December birthday in my workplace!

      1. Jackalope*

        My sister’s birthday is on Christmas, and we always made sure to have a birthday party for her the day of (family only for obvious reasons). We’d get up in the morning, open Christmas presents, do our Christmas things, and have a big Christmas lunch. Then we’d wait for an hour or so and have a birthday party with cake and presents. She always got a bit cheated as far as parties with friends (I can’t remember what we did for that, whether we celebrated early or late), but at least she got to have something that was her own birthday celebration. Screw the combo birthday/Christmas gift idea.

      2. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

        Yeah, my poor mom’s bday is Christmas Eve. Growing up as the oldest of 5, she always got shafted on her birthday. So growing up, for my family Christmas Eve has always been Mom’s Birthday (not Jesus’s!) and we never combine presents. We will do a combined birthday gift between me and my brother sometimes if there’s something big she wants, but we never ever make that gift combined with Christmas. We also never ever use Christmas paper for her bday gifts.

        Now, to be honest, sometimes it is a pain that we ALWAYS celebrate her birthday on her birthday when for the rest of us, we pick a day/weekend that’s near or convenient (and since I live in another state, sometimes we don’t actually all get together to celebrate). On the other hand, there is ALWAYS delicious birthday cake for breakfast on Christmas, and that’s just delightful.

      3. Nobby Nobbs*

        I’ve gotten fastidious in adulthood about “two presents, different wrapping paper” for friends with Chrismas-adjacent birthdays. Somehow it just feels like a really vital part of managing your own gift-buying.

        1. Cedrus Libani*

          My brother was a Christmas baby, and I keep clearly themed wrapping supplies on hand for this exact reason. Two presents, and it’s obvious which one is which.

          If I had a kid with that problem, I’d probably just give the poor thing a cupcake or something on their actual birth date, and then give them a proper celebration on their half-birthday in late June.

    4. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Two of my nephews birthdays are Dec 26. I make darn sure, their Christmas and Birthday presents are separate. I mean its a check, but the cards though are very clearly Holiday and Birthday.

      Because they are separate things and should not be aggregated.

      1. PhyllisB*

        My granddaughter used to date a boy who’s birthday is December 18th. His little sister’s on December 26th. I always made certain to give them a separate gift with Birthday wrapping. They were both so appreciative!! It did look funny to look at the Christmas tree with all the Christmas packages and see two Birthday gifts under there.

    5. NotAnotherManager!*

      I have a cousin whose birthday is right before Christmas, and my mom was always his favorite aunt because not only did she always get separate gifts for each occasion, she was adamant about *not* wrapping his birthday in Christmas wrapping paper.

      1. Decima Dewey*

        My aunt with a late December birthday insisted on separate presents for Christmas and her birthday. And no Christmas wrapping paper on her birthday gift.

        I have a January birthday myself. My birthday got forgotten a few times, even though the investment firm I worked at posted birthdays in the lobby! I had the same birthday as the firm’s compliance officer. We’d bring each other a piece of cake and wish each other a happy birthday.

    6. Admin of Sys*

      One of my friends declares December their birthday month and just picks a random day early in the month to celebrate, so their actual day doesn’t get lost in the holiday push.

    7. ChristmasTooLong*

      My sister’s birthday is December 15th, so growing up the start of the “Christmas Season” was December 16th. Buying the tree, decorating, Christmas music, etc were all saved for Dec 16th-Dec 25th.

      Other people complain about Christmas advertising in October, while I’m here going, “Dec 1oth? It’s too damn early for caroling!”

    8. she was a small town girl*

      Another December birthday with gifts as my love language chiming in, and we grew up extremely poor so some years I was lucky to even get a Christmas or birthday gift because it was such a tight time of the year. Some years I got a package of socks for my birthday and underwear for Christmas. Some years I got one single item for both celebrations. Then my older brother, in February, got multiple generous gifts because well, he was special and everyone had recovered financially from the holiday season.

      One year from my grandparents(who were well off) I got a baby doll for my birthday and then all of the accessories/clothes/etc. for Christmas. It was one set, and I knew it because I’d been eyeing it in store for months leading up to my birthday, hoping against hope that extended family might get it for me…only to unwrap just the (very obviously separated from the rest of the set) doll on my birthday.

      I am an absolute Grinch as an adult, and I loathe the entire holiday season…and a good chunk of my family, frankly.

    9. Elizabeth West*

      My birthday falls on or near Memorial Day weekend. I tend to do birthday stuff that weekend if the actual day is a workday. It commonly gets overlooked because people usually go on vacation around then. Nobody ever remembers me except on Facebook and that’s because they’re prompted to. *laugh/cry emojis*

      Fine, I’ll just take myself out to lunch and shopping! *middle finger emoji*

    10. Always Tired*

      My father’s birthday is early January, and he prefers combined gifts because he hates people spending money on him (that good Protestant work ethic/guilt). Meanwhile my cousin was born on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) and growing up we always celebrated her half birthday, so she didn’t get lost in the shuffle. When her now-husband flew in to meet everyone at Christmas, after over a year of dating, he was rattled when I wished her a happy birthday, because she apparently continued the tradition into college and everyone there thought her birthday was in June. I meanwhile have had Easter fall on my birthday, so I am somewhat familiar with the feeling of being forgotten for my day. We just celebrated a week later.

      I guess what I’m saying is, have you considered just celebrating the half birthdays instead, so you stand out from the holidays?

    11. Festively Dressed Earl*

      My birthday is close to Valentine’s Day. When I first started dating my now-spouse, I told him “I don’t care if you skip Valentine’s. I’m completely serious, I’m not just saying that now and getting into a snit later. But if you forget my birthday? You’re a dead man.” He was completely on board since his birthday is close to Christmas.

      As a corollary, we have a rule that your birthday isn’t done until you’ve celebrated it the way you (reasonably) want to. A couple of months after we got our COVID vaccines, we birthdayed for two solid weeks. It’s about celebrating the person, not about the date. I highly recommend this to OP 4 and anyone else whose birthday gets overlooked; e.g. “The actual date is December 24, but I celebrate my half-birthday on June 24 instead.”

    12. Head Sheep Counter*

      My husband is Dec 24 and I’m Jan 7… when we get our act together…. we host New Years Eve but… yeah

  3. RCB*

    #2, and everyone reading this, you do NOT have to answer all questions in a reference/background check. If something is inappropriate/illegal/confidential/you don’t know the answer/etc. just don’t answer. I’ve left stuff blank often and never once has anyone followed up, because it’s not stuff they need, just stuff they want. One of the big things is salary, which I refuse to provide because it leads to discrimination against women and other minorities in the workplace so I won’t disclose someone else’s previous salary and it’s never been an issue.

    It would have been completely fine to refuse to answer the question. Since it was an email I’d have just left it blank and not even mentioned it, and then only addressed it if they responded back asking you for an answer, and then I’d say “I’m sorry, that’s not an appropriate question to ask” or whatever you’re comfortable saying, though I really hope you do have the courage to tell them that it’s inappropriate because it really is. If it’s via phone then like you said you can probe them for information to get to what they are trying to actually ask and go from there.

    1. anon for this one*

      Given that this is in relation to a UK question, it’s worth pointing out to #2 and everyone reading that you are incorrect. In some industries in the UK, you have an obligation to answer all reference questions due to safeguarding and other regulations.
      People in those industries will know this, but it’s worth flagging this inaccuracy for UK based people who don’t know this and may take your assertion as correct.

      1. I Would Rather Be Eating Dumplings*

        But OP wouldn’t, as they are in the US and wouldn’t be obligated to the rules for the company in the UK.

        1. Analyst*

          a company can make whatever rules it wants about answering all the questions. I wouldn’t consider a reference complete if not fully answered (I also don’t ask awful things like this), but not answering could harm the candidate. Which stinks with awful questions like this

          1. Artemesia*

            It is easy to assume that an unanswered question is a problem area. I’d, on salary, write. ‘we don’t provide this information’ and for sick days, I’d write something like ‘her use of sick days is well within our policy parameters and there is no evidence of abuse. — or something blander if I could think of it.

      2. acek*

        Surely this law in the UK must be a lot more nuanced, and the questions must fall into a certain scope? Would you really be legally obligated to answer questions like “to your knowledge, is pregnant?” or “did ever take time off for religious celebrations”?

        1. bamcheeks*

          It’s not a general law that you have to answer reference questions. I’ve never heard of it, and according to ACAS it only applies to “certain financial services jobs regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) – usually for jobs known as ‘controlled functions’ (more info on the FCA website.)” So it’s not any and all questions asked in that context, but specific questions about probity and previous experiences and activities when you’re applying for specific regulated roles.

        2. Earlk*

          You’re explicitly not allowed to mention pregnancy during the hiring process in the UK. The candidate can volunteer the information but the employer cannot ask.

    2. LW #2*

      I didn’t even think of leaving it blank! I’m glad you said that; it literally had not occurred to me. My main worry, as others have mentioned in the comments, is that refusing to answer might be detrimental to my former employee.

      I did get an email back from the reference checker that said “Thank you. That’s great!!!” so I’m assuming it was fine lol, but I did worry it could have just as easily not been fine.

      1. RCB*

        I should have been clearer with my wording too that you can refuse to answer by leaving it blank or by specifically noting that you are refusing to answer so that they know you are specifically not answering it if you had any concerns about it impacting the employee if you just skipped it. I’m not one who shies away from confrontation so in a case like this I’d have no problem writing “this is an inappropriate question that could have legal implications for asking, please check with your legal department to let them know you are asking this question in reference questions as you could get in a lot of trouble depending on how you use this information, and I will of course not be providing this confidential employee information to 3rd parties.”

        It’s 2025, F them all.

  4. MassMatt*

    #1 There are variations depending on location and industry etc but in general the early 2000’s were a pretty terrible time for job seekers and so many bad employers did things like this pretty much because they could. This was both demeaning for the job seekers and oddly not advantageous for the employer either, except perhaps in shortening the hiring search.

    Which they would probably quickly need to launch again, because I can only imagine an employer that would do this would be terrible in many other ways.

    1. Richard Hershberger*

      As a job candidate, obviously the correct move is to accept the job instantly, then continue your job search while you decide whether or not to actually take this one.

      1. Antilles*

        The other alternative is to shrug it off, just act on your own timeline, and call their bluff.
        Because maybe I’m too cynical, but the early 2000’s thing this reminds me of is those TV ads selling products. Call now to order this great made-for-TV product, supplies are running out, this is a special deal only available for the next 59 minutes, if you wait someone else will get this great offer and you’ll miss out!

        1. MassMatt*

          In the early 2000’s it was probably not a bluff. In my field we had many dozens of applicants and could easily have done this.

      2. Artemesia*

        yes. I would do this if I were short listed for another job and had this choice to make. This policy invites this response.

      3. Nomic*

        Absolutely. And if you have time to spare and don’t need the job, you can nab it and then wait until the last second to back out so they have to do the entire process again.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      “To all candidates: We need to make it clear that we are screening for desperation, and want to hire the person who fears they have no other options. Act now!”

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, there are definitely jobs that want the most desperate candidate instead of the best candidate. You do *not* want one of those jobs.

    3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      It was a professorship, of course it was the Hunger Games. 300 Ph.Ds competing for the 1 open spot that year in their field. You don’t think it over, you take what is offered. Because you might never get another offer.

        1. Elitist Semicolon*

          Yeah, but it would still be highly unusual to offer the job to multiple people at the same time. Part of the reason the academic hiring process takes so long is that institutions typically CAN’T do this – they need to have a signed accepted offer from someone before they can send out rejection letters to the other candidates, and the negotiation of salary, start date, course releases, research funds, etc. can take f o r e v e r. My uni requires the signed acceptance before they can notify anyone else on the short list, regardless of whether that’s a rejection or an offer made to the second (or third) choice. To have an offer go out to multiple people at the same time would probably be against policy (especially if it’s a state uni with weird regs that are set system-wide or at the state level), not just bad practice. Academia may be Hunger Games-esque, but it’s not typically a free-for-all in the way the OP is describing.

          1. Ann*

            This! I’m really skeptical that this story is true as presented because of the layers of bureaucracy embedded in academic hiring. It seems like most comments are really accepting this as likely, and it’s just not how academic hiring did or does work.

              1. doreen*

                We do – but don’t think “taking someone at their word” means that we have to accept a nearly 20 year old memory of what someone said they were told as being the absolute , literal truth about what happened. I’m sure the LW isn’t lying – but the LW’s friend could have misunderstood what she was told, the LW could have misunderstood the friend, the LW could be misremembering ( I don’t know that I would accurately remember something that happened to a friend 10 or 20 years ago that didn’t even involve me) and so on.

      2. Artemesia*

        The year my daughter in law was in the market for a professorship, there were 4 positions on the tenure track that year for hundreds of qualified candidates.

      3. Beth*

        Yeah, it being a professorship explains a lot. Making multiple offers and rescinding them from the people who aren’t first to accept isn’t normal in academic hiring, but “Throw some weird wrench that doesn’t make sense into the hiring process” kind of is!

    4. Kes*

      Logistically, you probably aren’t literally offering the job to multiple people at the same time, unless you have multiple people calling them (which would still be awkward lol – what happens if multiple candidates accept at the same time? once one candidate accepts does everyone else immediately say, ‘sorry, someone else accepted’ and hang up?).

      So they probably are closer to the normal process of having a shortlist of finalist candidates and offering the job to them in order of preference, they’re just pressuring the candidate to immediately accept otherwise they’ll go on to the next.

      Which is silly because then the obvious move for the candidate is to accept the job if they’re at all interested and then think about it afterwards and renege if needed (and even if they do start it increases the odds that they’ll realize shortly it’s a bad fit and leave after only working there a bit. So then they’ll actually spend more time on hiring, than if they gave the candidates time to consider)

      It’s just shitty sales pressure tactics applied to hiring. Which is telling that they would treat potential employees that way.

      1. Abogado Avocado*

        LW1, your letter is interesting because universities typically do not make faculty offers unless the faculty in the particular department has voted in favor of the offer. That a department faculty would endorse such a scattershot, Lord-of-the-Flies approach suggests that it’s a terrible faculty, none of whom you’d want as colleagues.

    5. deesse877*

      This is academia. I think it’s profoundly abusive, and certainly related to the ongoing casual is admin of teaching, but dollars to doughnuts, what happened was:

      1) crowded field with hundreds of qualified candidates for even relatively undesirable jobs

      2) hiring committee where all members have an equal vote

      3) no agreement on a top candidate, no compromise candidates

      4) Hunger Games nonsense adopted as a “compromise” among committee members.

      Yes, abusive and dysfunctional! And yes, whoever takes the job will continue to be bullied, likely for a below-market salary in a town where Costco Sample Day is an important social function.

        1. bleh*

          Nah, the equal vote means nothing if the Dean and Provost want a different candidate… at least at my Uni

    6. Majnoona*

      Something kind of like this happened to me with an academic job offer many years ago. I was given hours to accept or they’d move on. I asked around and found it was really a horrible place to work. I think they didn’t want people to, well, have time to ask around.

  5. AFT*

    UK person here – you can ask for info on how much sick leave someone has taken in a reference request, but the person replying isn’t allowed to include any days which are related to a disability or parental rights (like maternity leave etc). Honestly, I don’t know why you would ask though – our sick leave system is completely different here, it’s government backed so the employer doesn’t have to offer more than statutory pay (though most do), and it’s one of the few areas in which it’s perfectly legal not to pay someone at all for the first three days the employee is off sick.

    ACAS is the place to go to check what is and isn’t ok in the UK – they’re an independent public body funded by the government whose job it is to provide free advice on employee rights.

    https://www.acas.org.uk/providing-a-job-reference/what-employers-can-say-in-a-reference

    1. Metal Gru*

      “Honestly, I don’t know why you would ask though”

      Presumably to get a sense of how “disruptive” they’re likely to be with absence.

    2. Jules the First*

      It’s legal and normal to ask in the UK, but I still hate it and push back at every opportunity because sure, while an employer is *supposed* to keep a separate pool of disability-related sick leave and “real” sick leave, in practice lots of smaller ones don’t (or don’t know that they need to) or you have people like me whose disability results in a compromised immune system so the major outcome is that I get sick a lot and end up arguing with HR over how many of my sick days are disability related because I “just” have a cold. (And speaking of bonkers…my company offers what looks like an incredibly generous sick leave package until you read the fine print and discover that said sick leave is a *lifetime* allowance and never resets so basically after you’ve worked here ten years your sick leave is all unpaid…)

      1. Slushberry*

        I have worked for the NHS and several local governments. Even when occupational health recognises that my migraine are a disability, I still have to argue about getting my sick days discounted. This is one of the main reasons I am currently a temp worker / locum. My current employer pays me when I am there and does not when I am off. It is so much less stressful.

        1. bamcheeks*

          I feel like the idea that you can make a hard distinction between “disability-related absence” and “non-disability related absence” is one of things that depends on a very old-fashioned and static definition of disability. There are loads of people whose disability is exacerbated by “ordinary” viruses and infections, or vice versa. That kind of ambiguity is a gift to discrimination.

      2. just a uk hr person*

        It’s still legal, but it really isn’t ‘normal’ to ask in most industries, not anymore. And really, even when asked, most places just provide tombstone references anyway. In over 20 years of HR, the only time I’ve either asked or answered this sort of question is in education, where the nature of the job means you ask more detailed questions. The NHS would be similar in terms of detail, given the environment.

        It is legal to say most things in a reference, as long as it’s factual, relevant and it’s something the employee’s aware of. For instance, you could said ‘Fred was under investigation for gross misconduct at the time he resigned. You couldn’t say ‘Fred was going to be sacked for GM’ if you weren’t at that point in the process. But most places, outside regulated and public sector areas, don’t – there was a lot of scaremongering when data protection regs got strengthened, and employers just scaled back what they said.

        Also – and, no, this isn’t Europe-splaining, as it’s about a UK role – sick pay is covered at a base level by the government up to 26 weeks, and for a lot of employers on full pay for longer. Most places I’ve worked have been 3 months’ full pay and 3 half – this is separate to annual leave. We’re also quite stingy, at least in terms of the government support, compared to a lot of mainland Europe. So there are often more costs to the employer, which can mean it’s managed a little more closely. Does it mean we should ask about sick leave? Personally, I wouldn’t and don’t. It’s not necessarily relevant, and new staff get an Occ Health questionnaire as standard to identify if they need any adjustments to successfully perform their role. But it doesn’t mean it’s a ‘gross’ question. Just one that comes from a different background.

        It’s also normal here to only contact references after an offer is made (this might be different in the NHS), and once an offer is made and accepted, the contract is in force. A lot of employees might not know this, but HR does – we don’t just rescind contracts on flimsy grounds.

        1. Earlk*

          Also in an NHS reference check the questions are 1. Did the person actually do this job when they said they did? 2. Where they facing disciplinary action and 3. How much sick leave.

          Also, i’ve never heard of someones reference being rejected because of use of sick leave- only the other 2 which are actually relevant.

          1. just a uk hr person*

            totally. It’s a flag to either make sure you make necessary adjustments, or to monitor if there is no reason for high absence.

      3. amoeba*

        What the…? I’ve never heard of anything like that and I really wonder if they thought this through – I’d assume it just leads to valuable, experienced employees leaving the companies once they get close to that cap? I mean, that’s what I’d do at least, do it for a few years and then start job searching…

        1. Emmy Noether*

          yeah, that just seems so poorly thought through on so many levels! I can see someone going like “well, we’ll accommodate ONE serious illness per worker if the other years are low”, but that’s (1) not how health works, and (2) incentivizes people to take all of it and then leave.

    3. Slushberry*

      I did not know they couldn’t include days taken off for a recognised disability. I have worked in the UK for the NHS for several years and became a temp worker rather than deal with sickness absence procedures which I had to go through with each new employer. I get migraines and that would push up my sick days very quickly.
      My experience normally was that if a reference reported a high number of sick days (which I now realise they should have excluded some of them). I was then sent to occupational health as a preventative measure, they then write a report that was given to the hiring manager. I never had an offer rescinded as part of this process.
      I did, however, have a hiring manager try to talk me out of taking a job after the OH report. I wish I had listened to her because that job was awful.

      1. bamcheeks*

        I have no idea how you would know or monitor “do not include any days related to a disability”, since I’ve never seen a sick leave system that asks for or stores that information. It wouldn’t include formal maternity leave, but it would absolutely include eg. sick leave taken because of early pregnancy sickness.

        1. dulcinea47*

          I’m in the US, but our sick leave system makes you choose every time whether you’re using regular sick leave or FMLA, which would be the rough equivalent of “days related to disability”. Every time, for everyone, whether you have a disability/use FMLA or not.

        2. Jenesis*

          And for that matter – how would a US American be expected to know the UK’s legal definition of “disability” if trying to determine whether a given pattern of sick leave fits or not? I highly doubt it’s identical to the ADA, even if your company did track that information.

    4. Beryldine*

      In the UK, the worker will have at least 5.6 weeks of annual leave (inc bank holidays or days in lieu of those) and an expectation that they take those days off. Sickness leave is extraordinary, and for some workers unpaid (for a few days) or poorly paid. However, if I was to be ill tomorrow my employer would provide full pay for 12 weeks and half my pay for 12 more. A statutory sick pay system kicks in after 4 days, meaning that sickness pay at the official rate would be reimbursed to the employer from the government. If my child was sick tomorrow and needed medical care I would take leave for that from a different statutory right such as parental leave or carer’s leave- not personal sick leave.
      It is normal to ask about sick days – every reference check I have had done for me or seen for others has asked this. There is a clear protection that disability related absence could not cause the withdrawal of an offer, but if a significant use of sick leave was disclosed in a reference, there could be a conversation with the candidate about whether the employer had a reason to be concerned. It might trigger an occupational health assessment at onboarding to identify adjustments to the role to support the new employee.
      Speaking personally, it is stressful to know this will be disclosed. E.g. knowing I had taken 10 weeks of leave to address my mental health when applying for a promotion to a new employer immediately after returning from that leave. To their credit, whilst I know HR at my new employer know this, the employer did not ask about it, my manager was not told about it, and it has been a zero issue.

      1. Tuppence*

        Fun fact – UK employers can no longer reclaim statutory sick pay from the government. They briefly reintroduced the rebate scheme during the pandemic, but it ended again in 2022.

    5. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah this is an unbelievably common question to come across in the UK; it’s rare to not see it in application forms for example. It’s absolutely guaranteed to be asked if the job is a government one. It’s a stressful question for a healthy person, so I’ve always wondered about those who are trying to return to work after long term sick leave. It’s an interesting clash of cultures though, because OP responded that it was “within allowable sick leave” and the UK company was probably thinking “what on earth is that?”

      1. LW #2*

        Haha yes! “Allowable sick leave” was SUCH a bummer dystopian phrase to have to write in the first place. (Although it sounds like the system isn’t better in the UK, just different-bad, depending on industry.)

    6. bamcheeks*

      I got asked if when I was writing a reference once but since I’d left that job I could just write, “I no longer have access to that information”.

      1. EvilQueenRegina*

        I also got asked that, but they were asking about a specific time period which wasn’t the time period this person and I had worked together (standard form), so I just said I didn’t have that information and left it at that.

    8. Agent Diane*

      UK here too. If I am asked, I say “their sick absence was typical and in line with expectations”. If someone needed extra for whatever reason, well, that was typical for them and what I expected.

      The Equality Act 2010 outlines the protected characteristics which employers cannot discriminate against. Disability is one of them. So as far as I’m concerned, sick leave details are not something I’m giving out in case I support illegal discrimination.

    9. English Rose*

      Another Brit here. Just to add one further point about reference practices here: the use of questions relating to sick leave, time-keeping, and conduct has (linked to fears around strengthened data protection laws) led to a much more cautious approach to giving references. Many companies now have an explicit policy to provide only job title and dates of employment, no matter how senior the person or how long they’ve worked there. This means references are often barely useful.

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        Yes, a previous company I worked for had that policy. “We confirm that Bob Llamapants worked for us in [X] role between [date] and [date].” Nothing else.

        Which actually caused a problem for me when I left that company to join a non-profit, who wanted a LITTLE more detail. So I was forced to give reference details for my previous company, that I hadn’t worked at for almost a decade and had no idea if the relevant people were even still there. To my surprise they actually did send a reference!

    10. L*

      My friend in the UK replies “I find this question worrying — it is ableist and irrelevant and should be removed.”

    11. Analyst*

      How on earth would my employer know which of my sick days relate to my disability and which don’t? I’m out sick, they don’t know with what or if linked to my disability

      1. Jules the First*

        It’s extremely normal in the UK to be asked an intrusive level of detail when you file the paperwork for sick leave (for example, our system includes options for “gastrointestinal – vomiting, diarrhoea” and “gynecological/pregnancy – miscarriage” among the many options). And if your HR team has a disclosed disability on file, you have to let them know that a sick day was disability-related in order to get it counted in the disability stack vs the ordinary sick days stack, but also the threshold for getting the disability recognised for this purpose is fairly high and you need a medical professional to be pretty explicit about what kinds of limitations you’ll have. I’ve been managing people in the UK for 15 years and am only just getting to grips with this stuff now because I’m coaching a team lead through it with one of their direct reports (and I have an HR disability/equality law specialist advising me!)

    12. LW #2*

      Thank you so much for the info!

      I would have had to dig for the sick leave numbers to begin with, and I *definitely* would not have been able to distinguish between “regular” sick leave and “disability” sick leave because that’s just not how our system works, so I’m glad I didn’t try to provide numbers.

  6. allathian*

    I absolutely despise it when employers take credit for their employees’ charitable donations! It’s gross.

    It’s one thing if employers allow employees to use a *paid* day or two to work for charity every year and mention that in their sustainability initiatives, given that the employee gets paid without doing work for the employer, but taking credit for how employees choose to use the money they’ve earned by working for you is something else.

    1. duinath*

      Yeah… I guess I’m a lot more cynical (a scrooge, perhaps) than LW, because I assumed the question would be about cutting back or dropping out entirely.

      Maybe I misunderstand how this particular program works, and maybe it is worthwhile to do. I would like to leave a little note here though, for anyone considering donating through a company, be it your own company or the local gas station: they get tax cuts for that donation. (Most places I know of.)

      You can very easily donate to a charity of your choice on your own time, you can research the charity before you donate and be sure (as sure as anyone can be) that you are donating to an actual charity (and not, say, a church which does not have the same legal responsibilities as a charity) and that you agree with their mission.

      LW, if you feel strongly about what your donation does, that is great and you should keep with it. But you should not worry about what will happen if you leave or just stop; that is not on you.

      1. MissElizaTudor*

        It’s not true that companies get tax cuts if you donate through them, at least not in the United States. It’s an extremely common misconception, but a misconception nonetheless.

        If you donate to a charity through any company, be it your employer or the local gas station, you can take the tax exemption, not the company. That’s because your money goes right to the charity. It doesn’t go to the company for them to give to the charity, which is what would be necessary for them to take the tax exemption.

        Companies do this, not for tax breaks, but for PR that they don’t have to pay for. It’s reasonable to object to that, but it would be good if people would stop spreading the tax cut myth.

        1. Pocket Mouse*

          Are you thinking of collection boxes on a counter or an envelope passed around? Because when, say, a supermarket scans a barcode to process the donation as part of your total bill, or deducted from a paycheck, that money is absolutely in the hands of the company/employer before going to the recipient org. And even for a collection box or envelope, I’m not getting a receipt from the recipient org to document the donation for my taxes.

          I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the tax piece, but we need to be clear about the mechanics of the process we’re talking about if said mechanics have any influence on the tax implications.

          1. Guacamole Bob*

            Donations solicited from customers are pretty different than these employee giving campaigns. For the former, the company is definitely the one getting a tax break.

            It used to be more common that you could have money withheld from your paycheck to donate to designated charities through your employer, though it’s a little fallen out of favor as it’s become easier to set automatic recurring donations by other means. I live in DC and charities still advertise to federal employees to get them to contribute through the Combined Federal Campaign that lets feds donate to a huge range of orgs that way. The individual definitely gets the tax break.

            1. fallingleavesofnovember*

              Yeah the Canadian federal government still has a major paycheque deduction campaign for charitable giving (you can also just give individually through CC). I’ve heard participation rates can be tied to our executives’ bonuses, and there is definitely pressure to participate from management / other employees (I’ve been contacted individually before when I hadn’t signed up – I’m one of those people who prefers to give directly to the organizations)

              1. TeaAndToast*

                I would love to never receive another email about GCWCC again in my life but that’s not a realistic dream haha

          2. MissElizaTudor*

            Either one. The money doesn’t belong to the grocery store, for example, just because they physically/digitally have it. It isn’t their money, it’s the charity’s money. They’re just holding it temporarily. So, they don’t get to claim it on their taxes.

            Maybe you don’t get a receipt, but you might be able to ask for one over a certain amount. Even if you can’t, the company still doesn’t get to claim it. No one does in that case.

            1. RedinSC*

              Yeah, but the IRS most likely isn’t going to question not having receipts for your $5 donation at Safeway, even if you did that every week you went shopping. You can claim it and it’s not going to be flagged.

          3. RedinSC*

            No, the company, if they’re collecting say through Payroll OR through donations at the register, etc, they have to collect that up and turn it over to the charity from a different account. It’s not considered a “donation” from the company profits, so it has no tax implications for the company.

            NOW, if you’re talking about food producers who might donate product to a food bank or shelter, etc, in the US they are still able to get tax credit for that, but if you round up or add $5 when you’re purchasing groceries or getting Panda Express or whatever, that money is not a tax deduction from the business.

        2. Names are Hard*

          It doesn’t go to the charity directly from a payroll deduction. The company has to send the funds. When we do this, we also send a list of which employees donated and how much, but it’s definitely a check from the company. There is no “direct” method for us to get it to them otherwise. I don’t know the legal ins/outs and if a company could just not send a list and claim the contribution as their own, but I’m guessing if that is legal there are definitely companies out there that do this.

          1. Pocket Mouse*

            Does each employee get acknowledgement from the recipient org for their donations?

            I’m sure there are companies out there that claim the donation as their own, legal or not.

            1. Devo Forevo*

              Yes, legally it’s the employee’s money and they get the tax receipt. If the company matches that gift, that’s the company’s money, so the tax receipt goes to them.

      2. Kuddel Daddeldu*

        My company (not in the US) frequently does drives where the company matches employees’ donations.
        It makes sense for me to channel donations this way, as the donation is taken from my pre-tax salary so I save the effort of claiming the tax credit. For $100 of untaxed money I spend (so $60 or so in “real” money, the charity gets $200. Win-win.

      3. MassMatt*

        No, companies do not get a tax deduction for donations made by their employees.

        I gave for years via my company’s United Way campaign (very common in the US). The company matched my donation (and, I assume, took a deduction on what they matched) and I deducted my contribution. There were literally hundreds of organizations to choose from on the list.

        I was not keen on the pressure to participate, but the pressure was only on the % of employee participating, not the $ amount, and the pluses (ease of donating and the match) far outweighed it.

    2. Testing*

      Yup, OP, you don’t need to give your manager a heads up about you planning to leave (even if it would legitimately have consequences for the work the organisation does), and you most certainly don’t need to give anyone a head up about your contributions stopping (for any reason). This is not even a business need, this is an extra thing the organisation has chose to do, and they will handle it.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        Or not. They somehow have failed to notice that one person is making up 10% of their goal and have done nothing to remedy that.

        However, you are correct, OP, you owe no explanation to the group in charge of the donation. It is not your responsibility to see the charitable donation goal is met. Especially if you are leaving. Its not more responsibility than making sure the project you are working on is successful after you leave. You are leaving that company and your responsibilities to it behind.

        1. Allonge*

          I am not quite sure what they can do to remedy the imbalance or why they would do it.

          OP is well aware of it and can stop contributing (this much) at any time; asking OP to change the amount because of this imbalance is pretty condescending.

          Asking others to contribute more is worse.

          Cancelling the whole programme is suboptimal, so is reducing the goal they are meeting. What else is there?

    3. Whyblue*

      This! My conpany matches contributions 1:1 (often a little more), so the charities actually benefit from me donating through my employer. Otherwise, you are basically paying for your employer’s PR…

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Yeah, I kept reading for the part about the employer matching donations, and it never came…

    4. Sharon*

      I agree. Companies should not be setting goals based on how employees spend their money and pressuring employees to meet that goal. It should be entirely up to the employee.

      That being said, I do like giving through my company’s campaign because I can choose what information to share with the charity – and if they don’t have my address, they can’t waste my entire donation sending me fundraising mailings for the rest of my life.

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

      Yeah, I’ve worked places where there were big drives to donate to United Way and to volunteer at the food bank. All well in good but I was utilizing some of those resources.
      Now I work at a university and we get asked to donate to scholarships and such. And for some odd reason they are pushing us to put in where and how much we volunteer at. We don’t get paid volunteer days.

  7. Seal*

    #1: This one made me laugh because it’s the exact same message you get from eBay when a seller makes you an offer (e.g. “Other buyers may have received this offer. The first to accept, gets the deal.”). Imagine telling people how you got that job (“I was one of three finalists, but in the end I was the fastest caller”)!

    1. KateM*

      And it’s for a position of an assistant professor – a person who will teach students and contribute towards research. I’d think that these people come with distinguishable personal strengths.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Right? I could see it for, like, door to door knife salesman, because then they are pretty explicitly screening for desperation. But there was nothing in your professor applicants that set them apart, so you decided to make them do a race?

        I don’t care if it was a foot race, a phone dialing race, or a pie eating contest: That’s a weird screener for your academic position.

      2. AFac*

        If that person gets tenure, and turns out to be not-great, you could be stuck with them for a long time.

        Also, depending on the field, you may also invest a lot of start-up money in that person. At most universities, this is negotiable. If it isn’t, then the job candidate can actually place themselves at a disadvantage because they won’t have the resources necessary to enable them to earn tenure.

        I was also searching for academic jobs in the early 2000s. It was …interesting. Academic job searching could never be classified as a wonderful experience, but so many universities did so many things to avoid saying “we just don’t have the money to support this position anymore.” On the other hand, candidates absolutely accepted jobs only to decline them when something better came along before their start date, sometimes months later.

    2. HonorBox*

      You get the job because you were able to pick up the phone fastest. Like when I won concert tickets from a radio station because I was caller #9.

    3. All het up about it*

      Part of me even wondered if it was a lie to get finalists to accept quickly. Which is also terrible! But it just seems detrimental to the company and hard to organize as well. (Do five people make simultaneous phone calls? Is the offer in the email? What if people reply to the email simultaneously – do you have to have IT look at timestamps? Like it’s just so stupid to do, I don’t know why you would?

    4. Anonymous For Now*

      Totally fine if you’re looking to buy a rookie card of your favorite player off of ebay.

      Totally absurd if you’re a candidate for a position in academia.

  8. Metal Gru*

    Letter 5 – LW’s donation makes up 10% of the total. What’s important is that the charities receive those donations rather than the company meeting its goal (of how much they can pressure employees – how much does the company contribute? do they match it? I bet I know the answer). I would be inclined to move my charity donations from the company program to my own private ‘program’ (ie donate directly). If asked waaaah why – give a milder version of the truth. LW is worrying about the wrong thing in my opinion – “how will the company meet its goal if I leave?” isn’t a problem they need to he concerned about, because it isn’t actually a problem (other than for the company’s PR!).

  9. Margaret*

    I’m in the UK. “How many sick days did you take in the last 12 months?” used to be a standard question on all job applications. It was, thankfully, made illegal a few years ago. Unless there are exceptions I’m not aware of, the employer was breaking the law by asking about this in a reference.

    1. Air Kule Prott*

      I haven’t been able to find any information that says it’s now illegal in the UK to ask about sick days, can you provide a link please?
      As sick days wars paid, not very much I admit, I would think the employer needs to know so the SSP is calculated correctly.

    2. Burnzie*

      It’s still standard on NHS reference checks so I highly doubt illegal. As mentioned by posters above if the reference discloses a high level of sickness I would arrange a meeting with occupational health who can advise what adjustments this employee may need. If the adjustments cannot be met (as a made up example a sonographer saying they cannot hold an ultrasound probe due to a wrist injury, ie cannot do the job) then the job offer may have to be pulled.

    4. just a uk hr person*

      It’s not illegal. It’s just not really a useful question to ask in a lot of industries.

    5. londonedit*

      I’m surprised to see it isn’t illegal, but it isn’t. It’s not a thing that happens in my industry, but I know that in e.g. the NHS employees’ sick days are tracked and monitored much more heavily, so I can see it being asked in that sort of environment.

      Where I work my employer will top up SSP for long-term sickness for up to 15 weeks, and other occasional sickness is generally dealt with on a case-by-case basis, so if you have a pattern of being off sick, or you’re taking a lot of time off, then HR/occupational health will want to speak to you about any accommodations that you might need.

    6. Ellis Bell*

      It’s still a very standard question on application forms for local government education jobs.

  10. Sashaa*

    From the ACAS website:

    A detailed reference can also include someone’s sickness or absence record. However, an employer must follow discrimination law. The reference should not include any absences related to:

    disability
    parental rights – for example, maternity or paternity leave
    Employers should only ask for the information they need

    https://www.acas.org.uk/providing-a-job-reference/what-employers-can-say-in-a-reference

    So yes, it’s legal to ask this in the UK with some caveats.

  11. Mark R*

    “employees can pledge as little as $1 per pay period”

    I’d like to see that lower bound be broken.

    1. Snoozing not schmoozing*

      If it’s “Untied Weigh,” I, and several co-workers, never participated although they wasted an entire staff meeting on it every year. I think we just put a big ol’ ZERO on the form and turned it in (I’ve been retired too long to remember exactly). At my previous not-for-profit, the board expected our director to do a pitch to staff. He held up the form, said “You’ll all be seeing this in your inbox” and rather dramatically dropped it in a wastebasket. He was the best boss ever, in so many ways.

      1. Alicent*

        I worked for a giant hospital that did the UW drives. They really tried to strong arm us into donating including my boss giving us interrogations as to why we wouldn’t even pledge $1. I was making $30k in a very HCOL city and I wasn’t about to give even a little bit to a charitable cause I didn’t support entirely. They did the usual raffles for participation, but when there are thousands of employees and a handful of electronics to give away it wasn’t exactly motivating. I just avoided my boss until it was over.

    2. I Have RBF*

      I never give via payroll deduction, especially to UW. UW is a really crappy gatekeeper org with high overhead and a tendency to back abusive religious “charities”, IMO.

      I give on my own time, directly to the charity of my choice – Second Harvest/Feeding America.

      Shameless plug: Second Harvest is not a religious charity, and does not make people sit through an eternal life insurance pitch to be fed. They put 98% of their donations into feeding people.

  12. Inspector Raquel Murillo*

    #2 – UK person here working in higher education who has regularly asked for references. I have never seen this at all but reading the comments and a quick google shows it’s legal here, shocking! I also found though whilst places can legally request this, the reason for absences is sensitive information so you as the referee aren’t obliged to/should not disclose this. Either way, a weird practise and you were right in how you responded!

  13. froodle*

    I’m UK-adjacent and when I was applying for jobs in late summer /early autumn 2022, the local gov’t I applied to asked at least one of my references how many sick days I’d taken that year

    he was a previous manager who had since left our mutual workplace but gave me a personal email specifically for references. I know he was asked the question because he reached out to me for an answer.

    (I could have lied but why bother? any place that was going to whinge it up about sick leave during COVID was welcome to trash my application at their earliest opportunity)

  14. Barry*

    OP 3- I joined a company where the boss did a similar thing- he would answer emails posing as me by accessing my mailbox. I found it very weird. I didn’t want to feel responsible for client communication I wasn’t even drafting- but had my name on, and it felt as if he saw me as nothing more than a “chatbot” customer service persona he could use- rather than a valued employee. In summary- it was one of many questionable things he did and showed him up as a terrible boss. Normal bosses do not impersonate employees!

    1. Amy Purralta*

      I worked at a company who did the same thing when I was off 3 days in hospital. They signed off as me, you could tell the emails weren’t from me, as they had a different voice. I left not long after. It was the least of the red flags; they asked us to lie to clients about us having a whole Project Management Team (just me), Finance, and Admin Team etc.

    2. HiddenT*

      My former boss also did this and it drove me nuts because her grammar is awful and it was so obvious (at least to me) by just looking at the email that it wasn’t written by me. She used the “Boomer ellipses” constantly, made tons of typos, etc.

      I didn’t have my own email at that job, we just had a communal mailbox that any of us could access (it was a small business so there were only 3-4 of us at any given time), so there wasn’t even a reason for her not to just use her own dang name.

  15. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    2. It’s a very common question in the UK and until recently it was a question asked on job applications.

    In theory any time off due to disability or known chronic conditions isn’t counted. In practice however it can be extremely harmful.

    A former firm put me on an official warning for the amount of time I’d had off sick. Some was due to various disabilities and one very large time was due to a traffic accident. Their ‘logic’ was that I didn’t take enough care of my own health so all this stuff had been made worse by me being fat and not doing enough exercise. So ALL that leave was counted.

    As far as I’m aware they did provide a reference to my current firm that listed all that leave but my current employer has a very dim view of my former employer anyway.

  16. just a uk hr person*

    I know posts that talk about European entitlements are often decried, but this is about a European environment, so maybe some context is helpful as to why a reference might specifically ask about sickness absence. It’s not really ‘interesting’ as such, it’s just related to the way leave is manager – this is related to UK law.

    We have a number of ‘pots’ of leave: a minimum 5.6 weeks paid holiday, paid maternity, paternity and adoption leave (although this can often be at the pitiful statutory amount rather than full pay). Then there are statutory rights to unpaid leave: parental leave, emergency dependents’ leave etc. You wouldn’t ask about any of these, except parental leave (even though ACAS says you don’t ask about any parental leave, they mean mat/pat), as that is a limited period of time that does not reset if you change jobs. Although honestly, I’ve never asked. It’s not used enough to bother about it. Sickness absence is a separate right, attracting again pitiful statutory pay, but also often full pay. There is not, in theory, an upper limit to the amount of time you can have off, although both statutory and company pay are time-limited. In practice of course, if someone is off a lot then a company might look at absence or capability processes.

    The ‘rightness’ of asking about sickness absence aside, sickness absence is one of the biggest impacts that companies feel. It will often be paid – most places I’ve worked have been at least 3 months’ full pay, although one was a very stingy 10 days (rough given that the environment was conducive to spreading viruses). It’s right that people are paid when they are off sick – life happens. But it does mean sick leave can be used differently. Despite the relatively generous holiday, people do use sick leave as extra time off, rather than because they’re sick. And if someone is a malingerer, it can take a long time to manage them out, if that’s what’s needed, and that has a real impact on the rest of the team. It can be useful information in certain environments – and the NHS, which a lot of people have mentioned, is one of them. You wouldn’t normally pull an offer for high absence levels (as I mentioned in another comment, generally an offer has established a contract), but it might tell you that you need to monitor someone a little more closely in their probation period, either to make sure you are giving the support they need, or honestly, to keep an eye out if you think there’s an issue.

    It is not illegal to ask about sick leave. It’s also, despite misconceptions, not illegal to ask if someone has a disability – although it would of course be illegal to make a recruitment decision based on that. And as people have said, if you do give sickness data, it shouldn’t include anything related to a disability. I wouldn’t personally do it, I don’t work in an environment where it’s required or helpful, but it doesn’t mean it’s gross or entirely lacking in value.

    1. Still*

      I don’t think I understand your point.

      If you ask (general you, I know you said it’s not relevant in your job) about how much sick leave somebody has been using, either you won’t use it, in which case there was no need to ask in the first place, or you’ll use it – presumably to favour the candidates who have been using less sick leave, which is indeed gross and unethical.

      What other use do you have for this info before the person is even hired, other than discriminating against them? What value does it have in evaluating the candidacy, if you’re not going to disqualify the people who get sick more often?

      1. misspiggy*

        I think the point made above is relevant, that reference requests in the UK go out after an offer has been accepted. In UK law the employer is now bound by a contract, so the offer cannot be withdrawn unless references show information which would void the contract, like gross misconduct.

        The sick leave info is therefore only used to give managers a heads up, rather than to pull the offer. It’s still debatable whether it’s a useful question to ask, but less dangerous than one might think.

        1. Still*

          Hmm, I think I’ve missed the part about how the reference check would be made AFTER the contract is already in place.

          I still feel like “you wouldn’t normally pull an offer for high absence levels” implies that you could technically do it, but I suppose it’s less of an issue than I thought.

          Thank you for pointing it out; I’m actually sick at the moment so I’m going to blame my lack of reading comprehension on that!

          1. just a uk hr person*

            I was writing another reply as you wrote this!

            The only times I can think of where an offer would be pulled for high absence levels are either where the reason for the absences would make it hard or impossible to do the job, even with reasonable adjustments, or where the high absence levels weren’t seen as genuine, and the referee could back that up. In the first instance, this would not happen without medical guidance. I have seen this, and in fact done it, with great reluctance, as it was clear that we could not make sufficient adjustments to allow a great candidate to perform the role without significant risk.

            The second I’ve never seen, and really wouldn’t expect to as I don’t work in the type of area that gets detailed references. However, it’s not impossible that a referee could say ‘Fred was facing a disciplinary process for very high a number of short-term sickness absences. He already has a final written warning for the same issue’.
            The between-the-lines there would be that it was all one / two-day back pain/ food poisoning etc, and Occ Health had said there was no reason for it. In that instance, an employer might rescind the contract on the grounds that the contract is subject to references and the references were unsatisfactory.

            Could it be used in an unethical manner? Yes, of course. But the unethical or discriminatory employer will behave in that fashion anyway, and it’s probably better to find out sooner.

            1. Still*

              Thank you for expanding on those scenarios, it’s interesting to get some insight from the hr perspective.

      2. bamcheeks*

        References aren’t often a significant factor in evaluating a candidacy the way Alison always describes. I know they have been requested by HR after an offer is made in all the hiring processes I’ve been involved in, but as hiring manager they have never been shared with me. I assume they would be if there was something truly alarming like “under investigation for gross misconduct / criminal behaviour”, but I’ve never heard of any concerns lower than that being passed on in a formal HR-led process. I don’t actually know what kind of sick leave numbers would cause alarm, but I assume the first response would be to talk to the candidate and ask them to have an occupational health assessment.

        (Occupational health seems to be something that doesn’t exist in the US, which feels like a massive gap to me– they are SO USEFUL and the first point of call for any concerns about sickness or disability.)

        (So why do we have references at all? Honestly, EXCELLENT QUESTION.)

        1. just a uk hr person*

          Totally. In the UK, they are pointless and irrelevant, except in places like education where they are more detailed. And I’ve seen some genuine works of literary genius there, where the old headteacher is constrained by policy not to say anything actively negative, but still manages to make it quite clear they couldn’t be more delighted that the person is interviewing (generally teacher references are taken up ahead of time, you have to let on you’re interviewing anyway).

          I’ve seen someone quit with immediate effect during an adjournment in a disciplinary for fraud. They absolutely had done it, and would have been fired. But even if they had been, the reference would simply have said ‘Florence Fraudster worked here from 31.1.11 to 31.1.12 as an Operations Manager.”
          The disclaimer about how it was company policy to only provide this info was longer. I think in this case, the HR Service Centre might have left of the ‘I know of no reason why they are not suitable for employment’, but frankly even that is less common to see now.

          It does seem very different from the US approach, which seems to give more detail.

          1. greening*

            still manages to make it quite clear they couldn’t be more delighted that the person is interviewing

            Ah, the ol’ “John’s work is at a level I’ve rarely seen”.

      3. just a uk hr person*

        As misspiggy says, and as I mentioned in another comment, references generally go out after offer. In the UK, people have employment contracts, and the employment contract is established at verbal offer and acceptance stage, a formal document is not required to establish it (although it is required in law to provide written terms and conditions).

        So, when this information is asked for, they *have* been hired, so it is not used to favour candidates with less sick leave, in evaluating the candidacy, nor is it discriminatory or gross or unethical.

        As I also mentioned, the information is used to inform. It might be that it flags a potential health issue, which would normally then be referred to Occupational Health so that they can advise on the adjustments necessary to support someone to be successful in their role. Or it can flag that this is someone who’s had a lot of absence and a manager might need to watch out for that, either to ensure that they aren’t taking sick leave when not actually sick, or to identify that there are issues and bring in the necessary support.

        I think it’s also worth noting that except in regulated sectors, we really don’t place much emphasis on references. There’s a growing tendency not to get them at all, as it doesn’t really give much information. And where we do, it is simply this form of written reference, it’s pretty unusual to speak to someone – I get the impression from posts here that it’s more common to speak to people in the US, and let’s be honest, anything could be said there.

        Neither route is better or worse, just different – but one is certainly not gross or unethical or wrong just because it’s not what you’re used to

        1. bamcheeks*

          I would slightly disagree with this– every verbal or written offer I’ve received is subject to … or conditional on the receipt of… saltisfactory references, proof of qualifications and DRB/criminal record checks as appropriate. Whilst it’s very, very unusual for an offer to be pulled at that stage, it is absolutely the norm for employers to make sure it’s legally straightforward to do so if they need to.

          1. just a uk hr person*

            Correct – I was oversimplifying, as people often think that they don’t have a contract until the formal document is signed by both sides. It’s (usually) conditional, but the contract has been established, just with some caveats. It’s not unusual for people to start before those checks are complete – even in education, a teacher can start before a DBS check has returned, subject to a risk assessment, so the contract has to be in place.
            There is something of a shift now towards not taking up references except in regulated areas, just because they are next to useless if they are just tombstones, and also a shift towards not asking for qualifications unless they are really required. That is especially positive: for so many jobs experience or aptitude are so much more important, and qualifications can be blockers especially to anyone from a disadvantaged background.

          2. Marion Ravenwood*

            Same here, although the fact that most employers now only give a reference along the lines of “Marion Ravenwood worked at Jones Industries between This Date and That Date” (unless there is gross misconduct or similar involved) means it’s highly unlikely that the offer will be pulled. That said, it is normal not to hand in your notice at your current job until you receive the job offer in writing.

  17. Seeking Second Childhood*

    OP4 Who organizes and pays for the birthday celebrations? It might be worth asking a long-term employee who is NOT that supervisor. It’s possible you missed something like a sign up for a club, or everyone chips in if theywant to participate, etc.

    1. Agnes*

      Or is there a co-worker the LW trusts who could help by reminding the manager as the day gets nearer?

    2. WellRed*

      Which I would hope her manager would have mentioned when OP brought this up. As a Christmas Eve baby I can confirm it’s easy to get overlooked.

    3. Lynn*

      In my limited experience in places that make a big deal out of birthdays, it is usually one person who really spearheads things. Assuming this wasn’t the person you already spoke to, I would be sure to actually talk to the “birthday champion” ahead of, but close to, your birthday this year to make sure you are included in the festivities.

      The other thing to think about, in addition to the holiday proximity, is that the OP says they split their time between multiple offices. I can say that when I was doing the same (though mine was more split as I had between 6 and 10 locations), I didn’t get included in the BD lists because I wasn’t really seen as a “that branch” employee. This may or may not play into the situation OP is facing, but it is worth considering.

    4. Helen Waite*

      That’s a good idea to find out who the party organizer is and make sure they know you have a birthday on Dec X.

      Another idea is perhaps the OP can suggest an unbirthday. That’s assuming that this isn’t somehow intentional. I have to throw that in there, since it’s odd to me that even after OP’s birthday was put on the calendar, it still got missed.

      1. Lynn*

        The fact that it still got missed is what makes me think that it is within the realm of possibility that whoever spearheads these things doesn’t/didn’t really think of OP as a “this location” employee.

        I could see how, if someone at the birthday heavy locations on my books put OP on the list, they would still get left out as they aren’t really 100% assigned to that particular branch. Pure speculation only based on my own experience (and my general desire to think the best of folks). :>

      2. Aerin*

        That was my thinking. Make like us summer kids always have done and celebrate your half-birthday! Or just pick a day you like and declare that the day you want the office to celebrate. Honestly, things around the holidays get so weird that I wouldn’t really blame them for not wanting to go all out (and at my org, most people are going to be out then anyway), so if it’s more that OP wants to get that same attention everyone else does (valid!) then changing the timing seems like the easiest solution.

        1. Jenesis*

          That’s what I was thinking too – shift the date. There are only 4 people in the Birthday Office and they might be at min capacity on December 24th due to people taking holiday time off- would having a sad one-person “party” be any better?

          I’m a late summer birth and I can’t recall ever having a school birthday party because it either happened before the school year started or there was no point because I hadn’t had enough time to make any friends in my new class. (Sadly, I fall within the exact time window to not get a half-birthday, either.)

  18. Frosty*

    #1 If I received an offer like that, I would suspect that they put something in the details of the offer (or contract) that would be disadvantageous to me and want me to hurry so maybe I miss it.

  19. el l*

    OP3:
    It’s like people lying to cover up a few months between jobs: It’s not shameful or a big deal to have people leave. Happens all the time.

    So why go to the damage of lying? I question your boss’ overall judgment.

    1. My Useless Two Cents*

      My first thought was that the boss didn’t want to let customers know they have a direct line to them. There are a lot of people out there that get a lot pushier if they know you have a little extra power to “help” them. For instance, I don’t get more than the standard push to hurry along orders but if the same customer is talking to my manager, suddenly every order needs pushed thru quickly, screw everyone else who is waiting for their order.

      I do think there needs to be a time limit to this kind of behavior though. Employee is gone a couple of weeks, fine. Employee is gone a few months, getting sketchy.

  20. Empress Ki*

    2# In the UK, the Equality and Diversity Act 2010, that protects people with disabilities from discrimination, so I don’t think they can ask this question. But IANAL and I may be wrong. If it’s legal, it’s not ethical.

    2. anon for today*

      It’s the Equality Act :)

      And yes, you can ask the question, and no, it’s not always unethical.

      That selfsame Equality Act imposes a duty to make reasonable adjustments, and if you aren’t aware of someone’s disability, you may not be aware of the need to make adjustments.
      Fun fact – in the UK, disability in an employment sense can only be fully determined by an employment judge, as it’s a legal term rather than medical in that context. Although anyone who is considered to have a disabilty medically is almost certainly going to be considered to have a disability legally. But it’s why an Occ Health report will never go beyond saying ‘this person may be considered disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act’
      .

      1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

        And as I can sadly confirm WITH EXPERIENCE it only protects you if:

        1. You can get a good solicitor
        2. The company you’re going up against doesn’t edit all the documents and have a much nastier legal team
        3. You even have the energy or resources for a protracted fight

        It took a bit of a fight to get my blue badge here but dealing with the NHS and DVLA was a cakewalk compared to going up against a corporate legal team. I tried once.

    1. My Useless Two Cents*

      Birthday’s aren’t a thing in my office (other than verbal good wishes on the day). But long-term work anniversaries are. My five, ten and fifteen year anniversaries were overlooked by years. And while most of the twenty-year veterans got a plaque, I got a paper print out. I’m actually quite peeved about it. However, I think that if I have to make a big deal about it to get the acknowledgment on (or even close to) the date, it negates any positivity associated with the acknowledgement. The old saying about “it’s the thought that matters”, very true.

  22. DJ Abbott*

    Re #5, I remember in the 90s-2000s when corporations put pressure on their staff to donate to UNICEF to compete with other corporations. It became notorious and ugly.
    I hope your company is more focused on making sure people are paid fairly and have the benefits they need, without undue pressure to give away the money they’re working for.

    1. pally*

      Yep! Farther back even. In fact, in the 80’s, a friend was pressured during the on-boarding to donate a % of each paycheck to UNICEF. They kept stressing how proud they were that “100% of their employees donate to UNICEF”. It was important to keep their 100% donation level.

      He was having none of that. He prefers to donate to local causes. And he said so. They quickly pointed out that UNICEF had local programs too. “Donating to UNICEF would be just like donating to local causes!”. And again, they stressed that ALL the employees contribute. “How much can we put you down for?” Zero.

      They really hammered away at him to change his mind. In fact, even $1 per paycheck was acceptable. “Now, you can afford that.”

      He never caved.

      1. Ess Ess*

        I went through the same thing at my job with another huge charity fund that many companies have fundraisers for. Outside of work, I had a relationship with a different homeless charity that used to get a major portion of their operating funds from that big charity. But the big charity changed their criteria for giving out money and suddenly my homeless charity was no longer included and was struggling to stay afloat. I was so angry about this, I refused to donate to big charity so that I could give directly to the homeless charity.

        I also refused to participate in the company fundraiser for the big charity after that. I was cornered by the CEO’s admin and was basically told that I was the only person in the 150-person office that wasn’t donating. She informed me that she was putting me down for $1 per paycheck to be donated so that the office could keep their 100% participation record. I informed her that she did NOT have my permission to do that and that if they took any money out of my paycheck to give to the big charity then I would be going directly to the legal department for messing with my paycheck. Oh, she really didn’t like that!

        1. pally*

          Good for you in standing up for yourself!!!

          We have to earn our paychecks per the employer’s rules. Okay.
          But now they want to tell us how to spend that paycheck??? No. Not happening.

        2. Sparkles McFadden*

          I had the same experience. I had to say “My paycheck is compensation for the work I produce. You don’t get to touch that money or tell me what to do with it.”

      1. DJ Abbott*

        Not sure, sorry. It was long ago. My impression was these two organizations were pretty much the same, so I may not have understood the difference. If there is one.

    3. DJ Abbott*

      You all and your friends are awesome! I would not have had the guts to do that back then, as an office temp just starting out. Luckily, since I was a temp, I never had to.

    1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      The PR person gets dinged, and maybe they don’t get on one of those “Best Places to Work in Llamaville!” lists.

    2. Alicent*

      That was my entire thought. “So?” It’s not up to an individual employee to make their employer look good by donating through an organization that takes a big chunk off the top for admin costs.

  24. Bonkers*

    Lw3, I’m curious what your bosses long-game is. Is he just going to keep pretending to be Jack into perpetuity, or is he just trying to run out the clock on a few short term clients?

  25. Harriet Vane*

    Regarding “Jack” … in my first job out of college, at a tiny, wildly dysfunctional family business, my boss had an entire alter ego. When he was doing “owner of the company” stuff, he was himself, but when he was doing “my department” stuff, he answered the phone and signed himself to correspondence as a person called Mark Roberts who didn’t exist and never had. This was because he was embarrassed to admit that the only FT person in my department was me, an untrained 21 year old making $18k a year.

    1. Alicent*

      I know veterinarians who don’t have receptionists who do this to keep themselves from being trapped on the phone for 30 minutes with every scheduling phone call. They make up a fake assistant to respond to emails and texts who can be their no nonsense alter ego and avoid doing free consultations all day.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      At my first job out of college the dept head would on very rare, coverage necessary occasions, come help in the customer-facing portion of the dept. She’d give a fake first name that was similar to her own, but different enough. Like Marianne would say her name was Maria. This only happened maybe twice a year for a couple hours at most. It wasn’t out of embarrassment or anything though. There were normal business reasons a customer might have come through her or a request might name drop her, not frequently, but it happened. So it was useful to the rest of us to know if something was through her in her normal job capacity vs they talked to her because she was covering one random time. The alias made it very easy to keep straight.

  26. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, it strikes me that this is a good way to get a weaker candidate, because people are more likely to hurry if they have limited options (obviously, this isn’t directly related to how good a candidate somebody is; a person can be desperate for a job for a number of reasons like being laid off and having debts so needing another job quickly, but there is a higher chance that a strong candidate will have more options and will be less likely to rush in a case like that).

    1. UncleFrank*

      Or just as likely, in the academic market, is someone will take this job and then re-neg a couple weeks later when they get an offer from a more reasonable department. Generally, once you accept an offer you’re supposed to remove yourself from the market that cycle, but I know of several cases where someone took an “exploding” offer and then later took a better offer and there weren’t an reputational issues for the candidate. I’ve never heard of an offer process quite this terrible though!!

  27. irecognizethis*

    If #1 was an economics department, I’m pretty sure I know the university. It was a odd hiring practice even for a field with odd hiring practices

  28. Squirrel*

    #4 – I’ve been in that position before, and it was probably personal. The birthday people did things for the birthdays leading up to and then immediately after mine. Another coworker saw how upet I was and said something to her manager, and that manager implemented the “do it for everyone or not at all” and we haven’t had a birthday bash since. Which sucks, but also they went and made signs and decorations for people who didn’t want to celebrate their birthday and made that clear beforehand.
    The coworker who spoke up bought me a small cake and a balloon for my birthday the next year.

  29. HonorBox*

    Regarding #2 – I appreciate others in the UK for commenting, and I’m not going to speak to the differences between countries. I just want to say that as someone in the US, I’d be really hesitant to answer this question here, or even if it was asked by someone in a different country.
    When I was growing up, my dad almost never took a sick day. He was just generally healthy, even working in a job that seems like it would lead to more opportunity to catch something. One year he had some sort of illness that took him out of work for large chunks of time over a couple of months. One day in, three days out sort of thing. But overall, he was a solid employee his entire career. Great work, great work outcomes, etc. Had he applied for a different job and someone had to answer this sort of question, that one instance that was completely unique and odd, might have given the wrong picture of his work and work ethic. There are far better questions to ask that speak to someone’s actual work.

    1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      Oh trust me, we in the UK (especially those with disabilities and chronic health issues) think it’s just as daft. But one of the issues with an old country is that what is considered ‘common and normal’ has a great deal of inertia.

    2. bamcheeks*

      the wrong picture of his work and work ethic

      I mean, that’s exactly the problem with anything like this– that it’s seen of indicative of your “work ethic” rather than luck.

  30. Marion Ravenwood*

    On LW#3 – possibly a silly question, but are the emails coming from boss’s account and signed as Jack? Like unless he actually has access to Jack’s inbox (as opposed to there just being a rule on Jack’s email account that all emails to Jack are now forwarded to boss) presumably they’re showing as sent from boss? If so, unless boss is also named Jack, I am amazed a client hasn’t clocked onto this already.

    1. Sack of Benevolent Trash Marsupials*

      I am assuming also that the sign-offs vary so it can’t be Jack’s saved auto signature. This is very weird all around!

    2. Emmy Noether*

      It’s astonishingly simple for inbox access to be transferred for a corporate email adress.

      I was granted access access to a colleague’s inbox once after he died unexpectedly and we needed to deal with his emails. His inbox just showed up on the sidebar of my outlook, and if I hit reply, it would send from his adress and with his signature (I always forwarded to me and then replied from mine, because replying from his, even with my name, felt creepy).

      So it’s very easy to do what the boss is doing, technology wise.

    3. tjamls*

      I worked for a company that didn’t allow me to use an out-of-office and had someone else check my emails while I was on vacation. I thought it meant she’d forward important emails to other people to handle, but instead the boss had her respond from my email with things like, “Greece is beautiful, we went sailing today,” which was absolutely not what I was doing and was written in a style that was obviously not me. I shouldn’t have been surprised as the company website had officers on it who were freelancers who hadn’t done work for the company in years and locations that didn’t exist (those freelance officers’ home cities). I quit almost immediately after returning from that vacation and am 100% sure they just kept using my email and pretending to be me.

  31. Apex Mountain*

    If I were one of the candidates in #1, I would immediately sign and accept, but then would have no problem rescinding the acceptance later after further review. Play stupid games…

  32. America's Next Top McGuffin*

    How about a half birthday OP #4?
    I know it won’t be the same thing as your real birthday, but you can call attention to it, and then maybe get your real birthday on the docket too, since you’ve been so carelessly overlooked. You deserve two birthdays! (at least for a little while…)

    1. toolegittoresign*

      I was going to suggest going to whoever organizes the birthday stuff and saying something like “I wanted to ask, I actually celebrate my birthday on X date because I know my birthday being so close to the holiday means it’s inconvenient for others. Could we move the date on the calendar? I’d really appreciate it.”
      My friends and I did a similar thing when we all worked in retail and the holidays were too busy to have an employee holiday party. We instead threw our store holiday party in late January, and it made it so that everyone could come and no one had scheduling conflicts.

  33. Action Heroine*

    Re #1: As a current assistant professor and someone who’s also worked corporate and non-profit fields (and longtime reader and fan of AAM, dating back to way before I switched to academia!), I just want to contextualize HOW horrible and shortsighted that type of hiring practice is for the tenure-track academic job market. Going “on the market” the first time around was one of the most soul-crushing, demoralizing processes I’ve ever done, and that’s not uncommon. The second time wasn’t so bad, because the position I applied for read like it was tailored for me (luck), and I absolutely crushed both interviews. I mention this second part because I credit my performance mostly to being a faithful reader of AAM who applied Alison’s advice throughout the hiring process.

    I can’t speak to what the market was like 20 years ago, but now it goes like this: For most tenure-track positions, we not only have to prep a cover letter and CV, but statements on DEI, as well as our teaching philosophy and research agenda. Often, these all need to be tailored to the specific place we’re applying. We also need to provide references (not uncommon, I know). Some places require not only reference contact info, but actual letters with the initial application. Other often-requested materials are student evaluations, samples of teaching materials, and a writing sample (usually a published article or dissertation chapter). That’s just to get an initial interview. Most of the time we never hear back.

    If we pass that initial round, we get invited to a half-hour Zoom interview with the hiring committee. If we pass *that* round, we get an on-campus interview, which is usually a 1.5- to 2-day affair where we meet with HR, the hiring committee, the dean, and, depending on the school, maybe the provost and a roundtable with students. We get a campus tour and meals, which will seem more relaxed but are actually still part of the interview, of course. We have to prepare a job talk about our research, after which we get peppered with questions from the audience (professors and grad students, if the department has a grad program). These range from fairly friendly to a hostile “gotcha” session that can devolve into faculty members trying to poke holes in our research and bickering among each other with rival faculty. In addition (or instead, if the school is more teaching-focused), we need to give a teaching presentation, which is a sample class session taught to actual students. We’re also being evaluated by faculty who would never meet today’s insane hiring standards with the application packets they went on the market with years ago.

    In a way, this process is understandable, since the institutions are making a potentially decades-long investment in the candidates by offering them a tenure-track position…which makes it an especially bizarre and terrible practice to offer the job to the first person who says yes.

    1. till Tuesday*

      Well, all of that, except the zoom call and meeting with HR is what I went through for TT interviews 25 years ago. I’m nearly at retirement age, so your idea of hiring faculty not going through that seems off to me. Or my STEM field has been that competitive for decades.

      1. Action Heroine*

        Oh I meant regarding the CVs, particularly number of publications. I should have clarified! A lot of folks I know who have been on the market in the last few years have mentioned being frustrated by the publication expectations (of hiring committees) coming out of a PhD program vs. our professors’ advice about how many we should go onto the job market with (and how many they went on the job market with). Even within my own program, we were being told one or two publications meant we could secure a good job…while they were requiring candidates for our own department to have a minimum of three pubs.

  34. Kate*

    As a tenured professor it is absolutely wild to me that the L1 situation would occur for a *tenure track job* in the early 2000s. The market was already terrible then!

    Was this school at the bottom of the sea, or so notoriously terrible to work that they had to be this desperate? Or, possibly most realistic, they were worried the line would evaporate so speed outweighed any reasonable criterion.

    1. Anon prof for this*

      I’m also tenured faculty, who was on the job market in the early 2000s. #1 is a terrible idea for so many reasons, but it’s making me imagine a department that’s been burned by losing candidates to other offers and just wants someone who will accept! It’s also worth noting that, the tenure-track job market being what it is, it’s entirely possible that ALL of the candidates who got offers would have been fine, or even great, in the position. (Although as others have noted, this situation would likely make those with competing offers go elsewhere…)

      1. deesse877*

        I said this above, but my guess is that the committee was divided and could not choose a top candidate, and so adopted this means to preserve comity among themselves, applicants be damned.

        I’ve never seen the scenario in the letter personally, but extraordinarily short deadlines (“decide in the next 72 hours; no, we can’t answer benefits questions”) were common when I was on the market, and essentially served the same function. They were indeed the tool of small, isolated schools that pay badly.

  35. Apex Mountain*

    It’s kind of charming that LW 5 is so concerned about the company’s charity goals being met, but LW you are in the clear – not your problem! You have more than done your part

  36. Celebrate hiring anniversaries not birthdays*

    Re #4: To me (I was 16 when I last looked forward to birthdays) the solution is to celebrate hiring anniversaries, not birthdays. Even if others want to continue to recognize birthdays, I suggest the letter writer ask party planners to use the date of their hiring anniversary.

  37. Ess Ess*

    I was interviewing for an admin job at a law office and they asked me directly on my application how many sick days I’d taken in the last year at my previous job. I assume they probably also verified it with my references.

  38. Fotze*

    #5 I couldn’t be pressed to give even $1. That’s the minimum? not $0??? Gross. I do more than my fair share of giving and volunteering, but I hate compulsory giving because it 100% feels like virtue signaling. Gross. Am I the weird one?

    Also, are we back to “is this legal?” questions that were the bread the bread and butter of AAM back in the day? LOL

    1. juliebulie*

      No, it’s not weird to want to decide for yourself to whom and how much you want to donate, for your own reasons.

      I worked for a place that tried to get everyone donating to United Way, and it was a big flop. Yes, UW has local programs. But your money probably goes farther if you give directly to independent local programs.

      1. Sparkles McFadden*

        That United Way Compliance nonsense was such a big thing in the 80s. I always thought it was some weird way to find out who would just do whatever they were told to do, and if you could bully enough people into donating it meant you were “management material” or something like that.

        I told the person pressuring me to donate to United Way that I preferred to donate to local charities directly. The person replied “But then I won’t be able to say 100% of our department has donated and that will make me look bad.” I replied “I don’t think you’re understanding the point of charity.” This took place in front of many people so that guy got nowhere near 100%.

  39. JLC*

    LW2: Use corporate bullshit to your advantage here! “Unfortunately, we are unable to provide that information as a matter of policy.” Pushing back against Mighty Policy is the biggest faux pas one can make!

  40. AcadLibrarian*

    Did the phrasing in #1 “decades ago” “early 2000s” make anyone else feel unbearably old?

    1. londonedit*

      Yes! A while ago a (much) younger colleague remarked that something ‘looked like something out of the 20th century’, which also made me feel incredibly old, being ‘something out of the 20th century’ myself. Surely the early 2000s were just the other day?

    5. Tea Monk*

      No. I have a good sense of time within years but I lose track within days. so I’ll remember that a movie i watched when I was ten is 30 years old with no surprise but I’ll lose an hour or two every so often.

  41. Sunflower*

    #4 I don’t care for birthdays and wish my office don’t celebrate. However, if they do it for one, they need to do it for all no matter what time of year (unless the birthday person opt out). It’s hurtful to be the only one left out and forgotten.

    Who plans the parties at your office? I would have no qualms reminding them a week before your birthday.

    1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      Reminding them a week before wouldn’t have done me any good. My birthday was always forgotten. I was really upset the time we had a two-week temp whose birthday fell during those two weeks, and there was a birthday cake for her. But reminding the office manager, who planned the birthday celebrations, wouldn’t have helped me, because every single time on the day before my birthday, she would giggle and say to me, “Someone has a birthday tomorrow!” And on my birthday, there would be nothing. When my birthday for a special age (ending in zero) approached, I decided that I didn’t want to go through it again, and I quit.

  42. Fiona*

    Question for the commenters: for #3, I’m curious what you would do if you were “Jack.”

    The same situation happened to my husband many years ago. He left a company but still had access to a few things and saw that his boss was continuing to correspond with clients *as* him. He was torn as to whether to confront them about this or to just let it go. I think he ultimately let it go but as someone who takes pride in his own writing style & client relationships, it was very aggravating to know this was happening!

    1. ShazamIT*

      I’d just inform clients very matter of fact, “I stopped working at ABC Company on 1/30/25”. For the clients you could phrase it like wanting to keep in touch for networking, or just wanting to close the loop on prior interactions.

      I would also make sure to stop having the ability to access things I shouldn’t, “Hi IT/HR of ABC Company, I just realized my login still works on XYZ resource and wanted to let you know”. Make sure to phrase it like accidentally loaded page and saved password did a auto login and not like you were deliberately trying to be accessing things you shouldn’t.

    2. Marion Ravenwood*

      From the letter, it’s not entirely clear that Jack knows this is going on (and my guess is that he doesn’t).

  43. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

    After responding to a help wanted ad, I was called and asked if I could come in for an interview at a certain time on a certain day. Sure! Even though I got there early, I was surprised to see more than twenty women who had all been asked to come in at that time on that day for an interview. The interviewer said that we would be interviewed in the order in which we had shown up. So one woman was interviewed, and then another one. Then the interviewer told the rest of us that the company decided to hire the first woman, and if she turned the job down, then the second woman would be hired. So we were supposed to leave.

    For some reason, I insisted on being interviewed, even though I had no chance of getting the job, because I had taken the time to go there for an interview. During my interview, I found out details of the job which would have made me turn the job down if it had been offered to me. I wondered if the first and second women had been given the details. I decided that I didn’t care.

    At another company, five of us were told to show up at the same time and day for an interview. At least all five of us were interviewed.

    1. ShazamIT*

      That sounds so sketchy, like the MLM pyramid scheme style of hiring. If they just want the first candidate in the door and not the best qualified, yikes!

      1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

        Actually, it was a law office. They were interviewing for a legal secretary. I found out during my “interview” that I wouldn’t know until one minute before quitting time on Friday if I had to come in on Saturday. Because if we found out that if a brand new document simply had to be completed by 9:00 AM on Monday, then I would have to come in on Saturday to begin working on it and hopefully complete it. But if it weren’t completed on Saturday, I would have to come in on Sunday. No thank you. I wondered if the first two women had been told this. If they had been told, they might have acted polite and said, “Oh, I see. No problem.” while saying to themselves that there was no way they would take the job. Remember – we were NOT told that either one of the women had accepted the job. We were not told that either one of the women was even offered the job. We were merely told that the job WOULD BE OFFERED to the first woman, if if she turned it down, then it WOULD BE OFFERED to the second woman. I guess the law firm figured that one of them would accept the job. I don’t know what happened.

  44. The Ginger Ginger*

    Oh I do not like #3. I can’t imagine being Jack and learning a past employer was doing that. It could make you like you’re working 2 jobs to your current company. The old boss could say something totally out of pocket to the client and it could get around your network and damage your reputation! There’s so much that’s gross about that. But also, what possible benefit could there be? People leave roles all the time, it’s such a normal part of doing business – why treat it as something to hide?

  45. Observer*

    #3 – Using the someone else’s email account.

    Having the emails forwarded is no big deal and would not cause anyone who knows how this stuff works to spend one second thinking about this.

    Signing off as Jack? That’s another whole thing. And I cannot think of any scenario where that would actually be appropriate. Even if there wasn’t a relationship aspect to the situation, I would absolutely be questioning at least the manager, and possibly the company as a whole.

    1. BethRA*

      How? The donations come from the employees – who may or may get a tax break out of it – not the company.

  47. BethRA*

    I think one of the challenges in a situation like LW2’s is that while it’s an incredibly inappropriate question, I wouldn’t want to push back so hard that I wind up hurting the applicant’s chances. LW’s response was excellent.

  48. Ginger Cat Lady*

    OP4, are you actually IN the birthday celebrating office on your birthday? It seems to me that if you spread your time between three different offices it easily could be that the offices all think another office is celebrating you. If you’re generally in Birthdaytown Office on Mondays and Wednesdays, but your birthday falls on Friday, when you’re in Blahville, Birthdaytown might think Blahville will be celebrating you.
    Also, if you have one official “home office” in Partypooperburg, then birthday celebrations would logically happen through that home office.
    I think this is more likely a case of “everyone thinks someone else is doing it” than a specific insult to you.

  49. Box of Rain*

    #1 brought to mind the adage that if your doctor doesn’t want you to/doesn’t encourage you to seek a second opinion, you don’t want to be with that doctor. Same goes for that hiring practice.

  50. Elle Woods*

    #1 reminds me of an experience a good friend had. She was one of two finalists for a job. During her final interview with the hiring manager, she was asked whether she’d call heads or tails in a coin toss. Fast forward two weeks and the hiring manager tells her they hired the other candidate because–as you can guess–that person won the coin toss.

    My friend realized she dodged a bullet. A company making important hiring decisions based on the toss of a coin isn’t a place she wanted to work.

  51. H3llifIknow*

    LW2: My husband has a bday right before Xmas, as well. His folks told him he could pick a day to celebrate his bday on another day, and he picked a date in July. His “half bday”. Maybe you could do something similar? Put Bday Celebration for Sue on the calendar instead of “Sue’s Bday” and maybe you’ll FINALLY get a day that’s about you! Just a thought. Good Luck.

  53. Ellis Bell*

    Re OP4, wondering if anyone else has worked in a culture where people make arrangements for their own birthday. Something like “I’m celebrating my birthday today, so I brought in some cake, please help yourself!” or “I was hoping to order lunch from the fancy pizza place on my birthday this Tuesday at 1pm, and was wondering if anyone else wanted to get their lunch there and join in?” People take some cake, or tag along at lunch, or drinks, and of course you’re wished a happy birthday when they do. It’s been general practice in a few places I’ve worked where things are so busy that someone is bound to get forgotten. I know we expect loved ones to remember our birthday but it seems a lot to expect of colleagues. If you don’t want to actually arrange a birthday treat yourself, do the kindness of reminding people that it’s your birthday. Since OP works at a few locations, and the Birthday celebrators have no idea what the birthday arrangements are like in other places, it might be worth reminding the key person that OP would like to celebrate there.

    1. UKDancer*

      Yes I think this is much more common in the UK than the US from what I can hear.

      I’ve never worked anywhere that organised things for peoples’ birthday. You bring something in if you want to celebrate and tell people and they come and eat it. Some people do and some people don’t. Some people arrange a trip to the pub or a cafe for a drink.

      I mean if it’s a significant birthday and someone is very popular then the manager might arrange something (so I got some flowers for my 30th from my team which was nice) but that’s fairly uncommon.

    2. Velawciraptor*

      I don’t think that’s really a solution to what’s hurt OP’s feelings. EVERYONE else gets their birthday celebrated by their colleagues For 7 years. She gets skipped every time.

      “Just do it yourself” doesn’t change that she feels overlooked and forgotten by colleagues. In fact, it’s more likely to exacerbate the feeling: colleagues make an effort for everyone else, but she has to do all the work for her own birthday to get acknowledged.

  54. RedinSC*

    #3, at my last job, my team purchased a new customer relationship management system. My contact there was “Lisa” and I’d email Lisa and get messages back from her. Turns out Lisa had moved to another company, updated her linkedIn that one of my team members followed and I was really really thrown when it turns out they just had random people answering as Lisa.

    This was so bad, it really broke our confidence in this company. If they can’t even be honest about regular staff turnover, what else aren’t they talking about? We hadn’t completed our full shift to that CRM, and this did actually make us rethink if we wanted to go with them. It’s a bad practice.

  55. Orora*

    #1 also has a problem for the employer: What’s to stop a candidate from immediately saying yes, then pulling out of the job if they get a better offer? Academic offers can be made months before they actually start. This tactic encourages candidates to give an immediate yes and then decline the job further down the line, which could place the employer in a scramble to get it filled, especially if their other candidates have been hired elsewhere or just so turned off by the process that they don’t want the job anymore.

    1. Orora*

      But it sounds just like a dumb solution a department chair or tenured professor would come up with to see who “wants it most”. (I’m allowed to say that; I work in academia.)

  56. new user*

    Regarding sick leave: totally normally thing to ask in parts (won’t speak for all!) of Europe, unfortunately. US Americans, you should be grateful for the ADA.

  57. DJ*

    LW#5 I’m against companies having donation targets as it puts pressure on those who can’t afford it. And how do they recognise the contribution of those who volunteer time and labour instead. Although that’s dicey as some may be working 2nd jobs to make ends meet or don’t have the energy to do this/may be caring for family members etc!

  58. Hey, I'm Wohrking Heah!*

    Emailed references are my bugaboo and one of the things that will go away if I ever become Grand Poobah of the Universe. If it’s a rubber stamp, stop doing it. If you really need to know, call me and you’ll get a lot of info from my tone of voice, any awkward pauses, legit praise, etc. It seems lazy but maybe there are things I don’t know from the HR perspective.

  59. DJ*

    LW#4 is thus an occassion colleagues are expected to chip in? Or does the organise pay for the food and balloons etc?
    You’ve raised it with your supervisor. Perhaps do it again in early December advising it impacts on team relations and “collaboration”. See what happens. Then consider not chipping in in future.

  60. Semi-retired admin*

    RE: LW #4- I’m sorry that your coworkers continue to forget your birthday. This is why I have always felt that birthdays do not belong at work. Someone ALWAYS gets forgotten, gets a smaller celebration, etc. and there are hurt feelings.

  61. Raida*

    4. My office keeps forgetting my birthday, while they go all-out for others

    Honestly, being the total bastard that I am, after the ‘don’t worry I put it on the calendar’ one didn’t result in any birthday acknowledgement I’d’ve no doubt done a sarcastic double thumbs up to the person who assured me and said “Hey great job on the birthday calendar, worked a treat!” and they would have known, without any doubt, that it didn’t work, I’m upset, and I do *not* want to talk about it right at this moment.

    seven years though? FMD mate, I’d’ve just started telling everyone a week out “I’m going to bring in some baking for my birthday on Thursday, any requests?”

  62. I'm still eating*

    OP #5: I agree with Alison that you don’t owe them anything. Related story: I recently changed jobs to a smaller, but still substantial company. They did a match day – where the employees donate to their favorite org and the company matches it. I was stunned when they reported on the total donated and my donation to my two orgs ($750 total) was 7% of the total org’s donations! Very different than my previous company where it was assumed most people at my level or higher were dedicating money at least and possibly time to a board or volunteer org.

  63. Cricket*

    LW3 here: Jack’s box is extremely competent at using computers; he’s definitely doing this intentionally. We all have email signatures with our names, but Jack’s boss is also signing off with things like “Thanks, Jack.”
    Our company typically doesn’t have any short-term clients; we develop relationships with most of them, although Jack wasn’t here very long to begin with, so I don’t think any of our clients knew him well.
    Having emails forwarded to the person’s manager when they leave the company is standard practice where I work, and I’m not aware that anyone – including Jack’s boss – has ever done this before.
    Someone suggested that maybe he doesn’t want anyone to have a direct line to him: It’s very much the opposite. He wants to be involved in everything and rarely directs clients to the appropriate person.
    Jack almost certainly does not know that this is happening; he wasn’t here long enough to build much of a network and left for a completely different industry.
    And this is nowhere near the strangest or most uncomfortable thing that’s happened in my time with this company; I like my job fairly well but the company is a disaster.
    Glad to hear that everyone agrees this is very strange!

  64. OP #5*

    Hi all, I posted about the charitable campaign. Those of you who were thinking of United Way or Combined Federal Campaign had the right idea. There are structural reasons why the org does not match, and all employees are aware of that.

    I would underscore that participation is entirely voluntary. There are a handful of emails that go out mentioning potential target charities and progress as the deadline nears, but the campaign moved entirely online several years ago, so no one is coming by anyone’s desk personally asking them to participate (and, in fact, most people don’t). My only point in noting the minimum donation was to show that there is a very large range of allowable donation amounts for those who do choose to contribute.

    Again, this is all administered via a third party (as is our payroll) so I don’t know if anyone at my organization has any insight into individual donations other than the reporting they get back from the third party.

    I like making most of my contributions this way because a) it never hits my regular budget but I can still account for my donations at tax time, b) even with listing fees, I think some charities end up with lower fees under aggregated contributions than with direct individual donations (how many times have people seen the “cover our processing fees” button?) and c) I hope that it’s easier for the charities to plan when they have pledged funds coming in throughout the year.

    And as for why I even care? Morale is low due to factors largely beyond our control, and I think many of my colleagues, even those who don’t or can’t contribute, like hearing that we met a goal to help people. But point taken. If I have to leave, they’ll figure it out.

  65. Scot Librarian*

    Being asked the number of sick days taken in the previous year is a standard reference q in the UK

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