weekend open thread – July 15-16, 2023

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: The Guest, by Emma Cline. A young woman with few resources relies on men’s interest in her to survive — while making bad decision after bad decision. It’s riveting — I read it almost all in one night — but also disturbing enough that I wanted to shower afterwards.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

it’s your Friday good news

It’s your Friday good news!

1.  “Quite a while ago I read a question on your website from someone who was struggling with a project management role because their brain just didn’t seem to work in such a way that they could be successful at the role.

The whole time I was reading that letter, I was going ‘yes, yes, yes!’ I too had tried a project management role and found that whenever I was in charge of the deadlines or had to motivate myself, the wheels would fall off and roll merrily down the road. Yet I respond well to external deadlines (mostly) and can have periods where I am wholly focused on work and can smash through tasks like nothing else.

ADHD was mentioned in the comments section and it started me on a journey that finished yesterday with a diagnosis for inattentive ADHD. I had long suspected that something wasn’t quite right so it’s been a relief to know that I’m not lazy, unmotivated or incompetent – it’s just some slightly wacky brain chemistry.

Thanks again for your brilliant website and to the lovely commetariat for their chatter that never fails to make me smile.”

2.  “I’ve been reading AAM since I was a freshman in college. I’m decently early in my career and have used advice and tips from you and commenters throughout all my jobs and internships. I was in a decently cushy contracting job in Major US City for a couple of years when the pandemic hit. I ended up quitting due to my manager sexually harassing my colleagues and the escalation of my own mental health issues, exacerbated by global circumstances.

I ended up taking a fellowship with a small nonprofit in a very remote part of the country (off the road system). While I really enjoyed the change of field and the people I got to share that space with, my boss (the director) was detestable in her behavior both as a manager and as a person. She, among other things, made me physically come into work while I was sick with Covid, repeatedly lied to colleagues and external partners about me and other coworkers, and withheld any constructive feedback until I handed her my resignation letter, at which point she shared all of it.

I decided to move back to (expensive) Major US City earlier this year, and the job search was pretty brutal. I was extremely demoralized and lacking professional confidence after my last two workplaces. I used your tips to revamp my resume (twice!) and polish up my cover letters. After four months of very little response, I landed two first round interviews on the same day. One of those interviews landed two follow-up interviews and a writing exercise. I diligently prepped for these using your guide. I’m so thrilled to tell you they offered me the job! The pay is great for this kind of position and allowed me to secure the apartment I wanted. The benefits are awesome. The job will let me go to grad school extremely cheaply. My bosses so far seem very kind and upfront with their communication. I can’t express how excited I am for this opportunity, and it’s thanks to you and your advice.”

3.  “My small team expanded our scope to take on a responsibility that I managed long ago in a different role. We already needed help with our existing workload so I leveraged this new duty to justify another position. I hired a candidate who looked great on paper but proved entirely unable to do the job. HR made a mess of the whole thing, dragging it out nearly a year. The replacement hire came out of nowhere and is a true superstar. Even if we’d chosen a different candidate from the first hiring pool, none of them would have been able to perform at this level. I’m finding myself thankful for the lessons learned through the mess and for the timing that led to having a job posted when my superstar was on the market. Still digging out of the hole, but life will be very good in a few more weeks!”

open thread – July 14-15, 2023

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

bringing a heating pad to work, telling my boss I can’t take work trips, and more

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

1. Can I bring a heating pad to work for cramps?

I go into the office once a week. Today I’m on my period and having menstrual cramps — not debilitating by any means, but uncomfortable. On WFH days I heat up a microwaveable heating pad, which makes it much more pleasant. There is a microwave in the office kitchen — would it appropriate to bring in my heat pack and use it at my desk? Or would that be weird?

Nope, you’re fine. Do it. If anyone asks about it: “It’s helpful with a health condition” or “It’s helping with some pain.”

2. Job application wants my date of birth and Social Security number

I am a medical professional who is regularly sought after and I get a lot of messages from recruiters. I recently started looking for a second source of income and responded to one. The recruiter sent me an application (which made me fill out all the stuff that is already on my Indeed profile and CV, but okay, fine, I will do it). On the application form there were questions about my date of birth, Social Security number, marital status and place of birth. I have seen the date of birth and Social Security number questions many times and just put that I will supply them once we are moving forward with hiring. I also note I can legally work in the USA on the application. But I have never, ever, seen questions about marital status and place of birth. I think it is inappropriate and irrelevant and could set applicants up for discrimination. My gender, age, etc. does not matter in this role, either. Is this the new normal? I have not applied for any jobs in the past five years so am I out of the loop?

No, this isn’t normal and it’s hugely problematic for the reasons you say — plus giving out your Social Security number when you don’t actually need to puts you at risk of identity theft.

Are the fields required? If not, just skip them. But if they are, email the recruiter back and say, “Can you explain why you’re asking for info like my date of birth and Social Security number at this early stage? I’m happy to supply them if we reach the background check stage but supplying them now seems like a security risk to me and I wouldn’t typically do that.”

3. How to discuss my job at an abortion provider when interviewing

I am looking for a new job and I currently work for an abortion provider. The company I work for is not necessarily well known colloquially but it is the largest provider of abortions in my country (not the U.S.), and a simple search will tell people that.

I have encountered several awkward moments when interviewing for new jobs because of this. I will often be faced with “I don’t recognize the name of your employer, what do they do?” questions and I am stumped on the best way to answer them. Should I be up-front? I did that once and the tone in the room completely soured and the interview was quickly ended and. Is it better to talk about my company in general terms if someone asks?

I worry if I am not up-front and they google the company then they will know anyway (which has happened) and then I might look evasive. Once I said “we provide reproductive health services,” but when I was called back for a second interview, they told me that they looked up the company and I should have been more up-front, I should allow prospective employers to make a decision on what is acceptable or not, and my original answer came across like I was being deliberately deceptive. It felt like I was being lectured.

“We provide reproductive health services” or even just “we provide health care services” are both completely fine answers to this question. Accusing you of being deceptive was a ridiculous response from your interviewer and indicative of an issue on their end, not yours. Don’t let a weird interviewer throw you off and make you doubt the reasonableness of that answer in general.

You provide reproductive health services and it’s fine to say that.

4. How do I gracefully tell my manager I cannot take work trips?

I am a young professional in IT, who came into the profession in a way that’s a little unusual. I worked retail at my parents’ store for six years, then went to coding bootcamp and managed to land a job at a large corporation. I have fairly severe anxiety that is thankfully being managed at the moment, but large crowds and unfamiliar situations are a huge trigger for me. I mention this because I have very little experience with office etiquette and norms in a company of this size. Normally, I think people learn these social norms during college or internships, but I had to drop out of college multiple times due to mental health issues. I’m grateful for the job I have now, but there are some points at which I am very out of my depth.

My manager is asking if I’m interested in going to a professional conference out of town, with the implication that the only way to decline would be a scheduling conflict. I have never traveled without a family member before, and I’m worried that I will be trapped far from home with strangers. I’ve already had a bad experience when my department attended a large baseball game as a team-building activity — I managed to avoid having a panic attack, but it was slow torture for four hours and I felt extremely unsafe. Is there a way to decline the invitation without mentioning my anxiety?

Yes! If your sense is that you’re expected to go unless there’s a specific reason you can’t, you could say, “I’m dealing with a health issue that means I can’t travel right now — nothing to worry about, just something I need to take care of — but I appreciate you thinking of me for this!” This has the benefit of being true, and you don’t need to — and shouldn’t — elaborate beyond that.

should I tell a colleague people think she’s having an affair with a coworker?

A reader writes:

I’m currently working out my notice period at a small company I joined six years ago. Throughout that time, I’ve had a very close, albeit at times complicated, relationship with a woman who went on to move into a C-suite leadership role. Over recent years, she has become increasingly close with another senior manager – think constantly talking, any information you tell to one immediately gets back to the other, being seen near the office after hours getting dinner together. They’re also prone to intense, emotionally-charged blowouts in meetings, often involving some personal barbs (“Why do you always have to be so f-cking defensive?!”) and sometimes ending in one of them storming out or hanging up; more than once, they’ve had to apologize to the team for a public conflict in a meeting.

Many people around our small (50-person) team have speculated/gossiped that these two managers are having an affair. I’ve been of the view that this speculation is really inappropriate: they’re both married with children and aside from anything else, it’s none of our business what two consenting adults do in their private lives. But as the relationship has continued to grow more charged, the gossip has ramped up, to the point where other senior managers have asked me whether I think they’re having an affair since I’m known to have a strong relationship with them both.

My question, then, is this: now that I’m leaving, should I give this woman a hint that people think this about her? She and I already have a coffee scheduled for after I’ve left which would be a logical time to bring it up. On the one hand, it’s completely none of my business, and would be an incredibly awkward conversation; on the other, especially as a woman in a leadership position, I would honestly want to know if people were saying stuff like this about me behind my back. Should I give her a heads-up?

I’d leave it alone.

I’d be more inclined to suggest saying something to her if their behavior didn’t show such bad judgment! If she were conducting herself perfectly professionally but people were gossiping anyway — as sometimes happens when two unmarried people have a close relationship — I’d lean toward letting her know so she could decide how she wanted to deal with it.

But they’re having intense, emotionally-charged blow-ups in meetings? With personal barbs? And storming out? Then having to apologize to the team more than once for the drama?

If it hasn’t occurred to them that people are going to be talking about that behavior, that’s on them.

update: I don’t like my super popular coworker … and she complained to my boss about it

Remember the letter-writer who didn’t like her super popular coworker and the coworker complained to their boss about it? Here’s the update.

About a year ago, I wrote in about a coworker (Susan) who complained to the boss because I didn’t like her. I tried being nice, but it was obvious she saw right through me. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on why I didn’t like her – she seemed genuinely nice, and she is the darling of the office. For a while, things seemed to improve after I spoke to her (after many recommendations!)…but I think it might have been the old adage about keeping your friends close and enemies closer!

I’ll keep this brief, because I could go on about all of the intrigue and drama. Here are a few highlights:

– She likes to say, “I’m just a secretary.” This bothers me for a number of reasons, first and foremost because there is no “just” about it. Second, it only seems to come out when we have asked her to take on something new or when she doesn’t want to deal with a particular customer.

We’ve recently changed our accident procedure within our department. If an accident occurs with a company vehicle and only one mechanic is on duty, Susan should call in the second mechanic. The first accident that occurred after the change, Susan did not make the phone call. When asked, she said she is “just a secretary” and “overtime decisions” aren’t up to her. I attempted to explain the decision has been made and that she’s just carrying it out…but we eventually had to reassign the task to the first mechanic.

– Frequent emails to our grandboss detailing everything my boss and I are doing “wrong.” Is there room for improvement? You betcha. Are we sometimes just doing the best we can amidst historic staffing shortages? Often. Are we operating without much training and guidance because our predecessors were long gone before we started and left few, if any, training/SOP documents behind? Always. When we go to Susan with questions, does she offer suggestions or historic insight? No, because she’s “just a secretary” and didn’t handle any of these items in the past.

Here’s my favorite example. We had an emergency situation pop up – just one of those freak weather incidents that caused a delay in transporting. My boss decided to handle the delay personally and left the office. Because of the delay, the folx left in the office received call after call after call. Meanwhile, I wasn’t scheduled to come in for another 45 minutes – and I live 30 minutes away, so my boss decided not to call me because he knew I wouldn’t arrive much sooner. That incident generated multiple emails to our grandboss, who then questioned my boss’s decision to leave and why I wasn’t here to help answer the phone. (Apparently, this wasn’t the first conversation based on such an email – other emails had been about me but nothing my boss or grandboss thought needed to be brought to my attention – but it was the last, because my boss threatened to resign if Susan thought she could do his job better. My grandboss told us to have patience with Susan, because there have been some big changes in the office, and she is struggling with them.)

– Solo missions of mercy. As I mentioned before, Susan is much-beloved around here and is widely considered to be sweet, thoughtful, and charming. I’m not saying she isn’t – I’m just saying she makes sure she has that recognition. One of our employees was injured a few weeks ago. Because his wife is also disabled, I told him we would go grocery shopping, arrange transportation – anything they need. As soon as he limped out the door, Susan announced that she was spearheading the operation…and she did. She has sent him a couple of care packages and arranged for a former employee to transport him to doctor appointments, church, etc. The employee called to tell Susan and Nancy (another coworker) thank you. I asked Nancy about it, and I told her I was a bit hurt that I wasn’t included because I had offered to help. Apparently, Susan arranged them all in secret, and Nancy just happened to pick up the phone with a question about the grocery order and so added a couple take home meals onto it from her.

Honestly, at this point, there are days where I feel like she’s just being difficult. It feels like she is anchored in the past – we aren’t the people who previously held these roles, and we just can’t do things the same way anymore because of the employee shortage. I know her original complaint was that I didn’t like her…but, I feel like what she meant was, “She’s different.” I can’t help that. And even if I could, would I really want to be friends with someone like this? That’s a big nope. And I’m not even all that sorry that might hurt her feelings.

let’s talk about your mortifying moments at work

It’s almost time for Mortification Week 2023, and in preparation we need to hear your stories of mortifying experiences at work — yours or other people’s. Maybe you mistakenly emailed erotica to your team …or flashed your entire team during a video call … or gave a person two noses in an interview Photoshop test. Whatever it is, we want to hear in the comments about your stories of embarrassment at work.

And remember, mortification is universal and makes us human, and it is often hilarious.

my finances don’t make sense now that I’m single, rude comments because I work in oil and gas, and more

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

1. My finances made sense in a relationship, but now I’m single

My finances made sense when I was in a relationship, but now I’m single and am struggling on my salary. Otherwise I want to stay at my current job. How do I talk to my boss about this — and should I? Or should I just look for a new job?

My partner and I separated last fall, we have a baby together (we are both women), and we were never married. When we were together, we lived in housing paid for by her employer. I work full-time but am a writer and am hoping to be able to make a living off of writing (fiction — so book deal, residuals, teaching, talks, etc.) in the next 3-5 years. I love the org I work for and my coworkers, and the job provides me a lot of flexibility as a new parent.

However. Now that I am living alone, paying rent on and furnishing a two-bedroom apartment, paying for therapy, paid legal fees, and other costs of breaking up, my finances don’t make sense! They made sense in our relationship but now I’m constantly stressed about money and having trouble staying within my budget. I’ve been watching my savings dwindle for the past year.

I work for a nonprofit but in my field I could make $20-30k more if I went corporate or into government work. One more wrinkle is that I work remotely and the health insurance given by my employer is really hard to navigate or find places that will take it where I live. I don’t want to leave my current job but I don’t know how to make it work on my current salary. I was hoping to stay in this job until I could make a living from writing (but then the breakup).

Do I talk to my boss about this? If so, how? Should I look for a new job and build back up my savings, even if it might mean putting the writing career on hold for longer? What do you do when your life circumstances change and it throws everything out of whack?

Well … you probably need to look for a higher-paying job.

That said, you can certainly try asking for a raise if you can make a work-based case for one; just keep in mind that it needs to be based on your work, not on the change in your circumstances. But $20K is a pretty significant jump, so you’d want to think about whether that’s realistic for your current organization, based on what you know about your its salary structure, budget, how much they want to retain you, etc.

There’s a good chance, though, that changing jobs will be what ends up making the most sense. I know that sucks when you like your job! It can be very much the reality though, especially when you work in nonprofits, and definitely for writers. (For what it’s worth — and you probably don’t need me to tell you this — it’s very difficult to make a living writing fiction full-time and most fiction writers do it on the side rather than as their primary job. There are some interesting pieces out there like this and this about how often full-time writers need to be financially supported by a partner.) And really, the health insurance situation alone might nudge you in that direction.

2. Rude comments at conferences because I work in oil and gas

I work in the corporate office for an oil and gas company, and over the last couple of years have encountered some situations at national conferences I’m not sure how to handle. These conferences are for things like a type of software that multiple industries use, so it brings together a wide range of attendees.

On at least four separate occasions during conference-provided lunches or happy hours, someone in the group I am socializing with, upon learning I work in the oil and gas industry, has made a snide remark along the lines of “Oh I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I was contributing so much to global warming” or “It must be terrible to work in a dying industry.”

How do I even respond to that? So far I’ve just ignored the comments and continued on with the conversation, but it’s awkward. And I feel judged — these people know nothing about me yet based on my current industry they seem to assume I deny climate change and am against green/renewable energy (both of which happen to be very incorrect assumptions).

After the first incident, I stopped voluntarily providing the name of the company I work at. But in true conference style, we’re all wearing name badges that also proudly declare where we work. My company name isn’t well known, but it’s obvious from the name what the company does.

That’s obnoxious. It’s not that there isn’t an important conversation to be had about the harms of that industry! But they’re not having it; they’re just being rude to a stranger whose circumstances they know nothing about.

You’re probably better off continuing to ignore it or briefly raising your eyebrows or similar since there’s likely little point in getting into it with people who aren’t attempting to have a real conversation.

3. Employer asked me to do a multi-hour exercise before even interviewing me

I applied to a job six weeks ago. It is with the central office of a school district I used to teach in. I have considerable relevant experience and am objectively well-qualified for the role. Also, the role is challenging to hire for and retain staff due to its niche, in which I am literally a published author. It is not a highly-desired field or organization, and I cannot imagine they are drowning in applicants.

Today, I received an email asking me to complete a performance task, even though they never reached out to do an initial interview or phone screening. The email states that the task will take 4-6 hours and be due within 72 hours.

Is it normal practice to expect candidates to do a 4-6 hour performance task on short notice, without even a brief phone interview first? I have happily done hiring exercises before, even extensive ones that I spent a few hours on. But those were after short phone interviews to ensure appropriate fit. And if it is normal practice … it’s not good practice, right?

Nope, that’s way too long to ask a candidate to spend on a hiring exercise — at any stage, but especially pre-interview when you haven’t yet had an opportunity to ask your own questions and determine if you’re even interested in moving forward and when they haven’t bothered to first narrow down their candidate pool with interviews so that they’re only asking finalists to spend time on this.

The 72-hour deadline is also BS when they haven’t checked in with you first about a time period that would work for you. What if you’re traveling, or in a busy period with your job, or a million other possibilities that make that timeline impossible?

4. Best way to list times you’re available to interview

A hiring manager asked me to provide some days and times that I was available to do a phone screen, so I listed a few days and times like “Tuesday, between 1:00 and 3:00 pm.” I meant I was available starting at 1:00 and had to be done the phone screen by 3:00. The hiring manager scheduled the phone screen for 3:00-3:30, so I guess I wasn’t clear?

Is there a better way to way to provide availability times to avoid confusion?

Yeah, this is a thing people sometimes do, and it’s confusing — you’re clearly stating the block of time you’re available within, but they’re hearing that those are the times when the call could begin. The only way to make it crystal clear is to say something like, “Tuesday between 1 and 3 pm (with a hard stop at 3 pm).”

It’s also fine when this happens to respond and say, “I apologize if I wasn’t clear — I’m only available up until 3 pm, so we’d need to begin the call earlier so it ends by then.”

5. Leaving a job right after learning that I am just below the pay cap

This probably shouldn’t be a moral dilemma for me, but I’m considering leaving my job and I feel strangely guilty about it.

I love my current job. I really do! I have problems with the management sometimes, but the work is great. The pay isn’t even that bad, all things considered. (Think if I were a clam harvester making $20 an hour whereas most clam harvesters make $17.) But … I did just learn that I can never make more than $21 as a clam harvester, at least at my current company. This was in the middle of a meeting where my boss was telling me that everything I do is great and they’d hate to lose me, BUT…

So I did what anyone else would do in that situation and immediately started looking for another job. I only applied for one job that day, and then decided to cool my jets and wait a bit on one of the proposed solutions my boss had given me. (I could move from Clam Harvester to Clam Tamer, and Clam Tamers make more money! Sure, it’s not a job I’m that interested in, but money!) But today I got a call from that one job I applied to asking to schedule an interview. They’re in the same field, so I’d be doing something not totally dissimilar to what I already do.

Obviously it’s too early to depend on an offer from the other job. But I’m already having thoughts about how I might break it to my boss if I do get a decent offer. What do I say? “Sorry, but they’re offering me more money, bye Felicia”? “Hey, I know my performance review was stellar, but I’m outie”? Can I say this opportunity fell in my lap and I couldn’t turn it down (not technically a lie, since this is actually a company I’ve wanted to work for for a long time)? Will he know it’s because of the conversation we had? If he does, does it actually matter? Is it really okay to tell him it’s all about the money? If not, what on earth do I say?

You can say pretty much anything you want. You can say the job fell in your lap and was too good to turn down. You can say you appreciated his candor about the limits on your pay and you want to earn more. (We work for money! It’s not shameful or something you need to be coy about.) You can say they offered you an amount you couldn’t turn down. You can say you’re just ready for something new.

You don’t need to have a “good enough” reason; you get to leave for any of those reasons or any other. It’s very, very normal to leave your job at some point, even if you’re relatively happy there, even if you’re getting good reviews, even if you like your boss. You don’t need to worry so much about the messaging; this is a routine thing that people do!

the magic mushrooms, the underwear scavenger hunt, and other awful workplace ice-breakers

Recently I asked about terrible ice-breakers you’ve been subjected to at work. Here are 10 of the most horrifying you shared.

1. The underwear

Many years ago, at a large law firm, the ice-breaker at our company retreat was to find all the other people wearing the same color underwear as you (no, I’m not making this up). The managing partner was wandering around the room saying, “Plaid? Anyone plaid?” while the rest of us just huddled in a large group and claimed white (at least nobody threatened to check us).

2. The mushrooms

Every week at our staff meeting a different person leads the agenda and asks the ice-breaker. A couple weeks ago it was a very high level person who said, “I was just reading an amazing article about hallucinogens. Have any of you ever done magic mushrooms?”

3. The skipping competition

The mid-year meeting we had last week started with a skipping competition. Yes, we had to skip across the room and were judged on how well we skipped. The person who won did some weird TikTok skip I knew nothing about.

4. The feet

We had to take off our shoes, hold hands while face to face with a colleague, and try to touch each others’ feet with our feet. It was horrific.

5. The dancing

As a facilitator, I’ve used ice-breakers every time I’ve opened a session, some (obviously) to better reception than others. For one session, my (high-energy) co-facilitator said they wanted to open the session with a new ice-breaker they’d found. I knew they’d facilitated often and knew roughly the right things to do…until apparently they lost their mind?

They played music and insisted that each attendee do a short dance! And that the NEXT person do that dance and a bit of their own until the last person did everyone’s dance?! Aw HELL no!

Cue the embarrassed facilitator (me) interrupting and going, “Of COURSE they’re joking! Let’s do *insert innocuous intros ice-breaker here* instead.” And dealing with a highly insulted co-facilitator at the break. Eye-roll.

6. The IQ tests

I’m not sure it was intended as an ice-breaker, but it was definitely ice-breaker-adjacent. We had a team meeting to meet our new boss, an external hire. Grandboss basically said “here’s Bob” and left the room.

Bob told us that the reason they had to hire outside the company was OBVIOUSLY because he’s smarter than the rest of us. There was an audible scoff when Bob mentioned he was in Mensa, which made him so mad that he decided we’d all take the same online IQ test, right here right now, so he could prove it.

So all 8 of us took out our laptops and went to the site he used and we all took the same IQ test. He turned around his laptop to show us his IQ score and said we’d go around the table and tell him our name, what we did, a fun fact, and then turn our laptop around to show our IQ score.

I got to go first. My fun fact was “IQ tests are racist,” and my score was 28 points higher than Bob’s. The next person’s fun fact was “I’m in Mensa” and his score was higher than mine. The rest of the team kept to IQ-related or Mensa-related fun facts – the word eugenics got mentioned several times.

Bob had the lowest score in the room.

He spent the next two years making us pay for his not knowing he was hired to manage a team commonly referred to as “the geniuses.” We did not have a going-away party when he left.

7. The pictures

This isn’t as bad as any of the examples, but in one Zoom meeting, we were instructed to set our Zoom to Gallery mode and then draw the person we saw to the left of our own picture. Then people would guess who you drew. But they didn’t think about the fact that Zoom makes the first person to join the picture in the upper left, and then your own picture next to that, then other people’s pictures, so we all drew the same person.

8. The pen

We were once told to imagine a pen was sticking out of our belly buttons and then “write” our name in the air in front of us. I never liked ice-breakers before this, but I hated them after.

9. The animal

Not a terrible ice-breaker, but this guy’s answer led to several calls to HR, made as soon as the event ended. People were going around the table saying what animal they’d be if they could be any animal, and why. This man, who wasn’t even supposed to be at this event as it was not his team’s, and who had crashed it because it was in the breakroom and there was food, goes “I would be a pig, because a pig’s orgasm is 30 minutes long.”

Instant office legend, but not in a good way.

10. The first kiss

I hate icebreakers. The worst one was when we had to go around and say about our first kiss? In a work context? It was so odd.

11. The bad judgment

I attended a very senior team meeting at a nonprofit I worked at (which I have dozens of terrrible stories about…). My CEO was in charge of the ice-breaker, and she bought a quiz she had purchased from Pop Bitch called “Enid Blyton or Erotica.” It was the most embarassing thing I have ever sat through – trying to choose if titles like The Naughtiest Girl In School, The Adventures Of Mr Tootsie Pole, and Granny’s Lovely Necklace were 1950’s childrens books or porn.

12. The violation

Years ago, I was in my first professional role with a new team, and the entire team was new to each other (the team had just been created and we were all outside hires). The leader invited an outside person to facilitate ice-breakers with us. One of the first few involved standing back-to-back with another person, bending over (so that your butts were touching) and shaking hands between your legs while upside down. Want to talk about awkward amounts and kinds of physical touching with someone you only know on a professional level?? Needless to say this set the tone for far too much oversharing of information in the next few years with this team that was “like a family.”

are any office social events truly inclusive for everyone?

A reader writes:

I understand that teams who connect with each other beyond the basics of their role tend to be higher-performing. And yet, it seems that almost every type of event or activity that provides an opportunity for employees to connect on a more casual basis is fraught with issues. Golfing — gender discriminatory. Meals — problematic for those with eating disorders. Team-building activities — often intrusive, or off-putting to introverts. Etc.

I’d love some suggestions of activities that will be appealing to a wide range of people and also inclusive. I’d love ideas for both things that could be done within work hours, plus things that might occur during the evening or weekend. These would be optional and fully funded by the company. The intention would be to create a casual atmosphere where people can chat with colleagues who they don’t necessarily work with regularly.

I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Employee I fired asked me for a reference
  • Employee is panicking while we’re renegotiating a contract
  • Should I hold a candidate’s infographic resume against him?