I get angry when I’m praised for doing work I don’t like

by Alison Green on November 15, 2022

A reader writes:

Sometimes when receiving positive feedback, I feel irrationally angry about it. This is always when I’m doing a task I dislike. This, of course, causes problems at work when I’m doing a task I didn’t want to do in the first place and a supervisor tries to give me some encouragement. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable with praise. It’s that I want to tell the praise-giver, “Thanks, I hate it, please go away.”

I don’t say that, for obvious reasons. Usually I find silence is the safest response that allows me to feel like I’m being honest with my feelings. I’m not going to thank someone for giving me praise that resulted in me feeling negatively. But I don’t feel like I can politely communicate, “Thanks for trying, I know you mean well, but I don’t appreciate receiving praise right now.” Does such a script exist? Or do I just keep my mouth shut?

For what it’s worth, I’ve been like this since I was a kid. Like, if my Dad knew I hated cleaning the windows, but I did it anyways, and he’d say, “Wow! Those windows look great,” that would make me pissed off, even if I wasn’t before. If it’s a task I feel good about, or I’m neutral about, I love hearing positive feedback. But some reason I just get angry when it’s a task I don’t like and someone tries to tell me how good I am at it.

I completely understand that this is stupid, and I have no idea why I’m like this. I’ve been googling this to come up with ways of managing this emotional response, but come up with nothing. It’s like nobody else seems to have this problem.

I wrote back and asked, “Is it because you feel the person is trying to manipulate you? Patronize you? What is it that makes you feel angry?”

I think it’s that I see it as a form of control. Like, I think the person is just saying I’m doing a good job because they want me to feel good about doing things I hate. It’s as though they’re trying to change my mind or feelings about it.

Which, in a dynamic where one person has power over another, my mind and feelings are the only thing I get to keep, and now my boss is trying to take that from me as well. Which makes me want to push back and say, “Nope, I might have to do what you say, but you don’t get to positively reinforce me into feeling good about it.” Might sound stupid, but I think that’s what it is.

Well, it’s possible that people giving you positive feedback about work you dislike are indeed trying to make you feel better about doing it. But they’re probably not trying to make you like the thing you dislike. They’re probably trying to make you feel appreciated for doing it — because they do appreciate it. That’s especially true if they know you don’t like it! It’s a way of saying, “I know you’d rather not be doing this, and I appreciate that you’re doing it anyway. Thank you.” If they used those words, would it bother you as much? If it wouldn’t, then I’d try to convert whatever they say into that in your head, and see if it relieves some of your aggravation.

I also think you’re seeing this is a lot more adversarial than it is or needs to be. You’re being paid to do a job, here’s some work that needs to be done as part of that job, and we’re all better off if we have reasonably good will toward each other as part of that transaction, rather than assume anyone is trying to manipulate you or control your feelings. People just want a pleasant atmosphere at work because we’re stuck there eight hours a day. (Obviously there are exceptions to this, but if you have a boss who you genuinely think is trying to manipulate you, that’s a bigger issue than whatever positive feedback they’re tossing your way.)

As for how to handle it … you said currently you just stay silent, which might be fine in some situations but seem odd in others. And “I don’t appreciate receiving praise right now” isn’t really something that will land well in most work situations.

Frankly, I think you’re putting too much emphasis on needing an honest response. There are lots of situations at work (and in life in general) that are just about completing your side of a social ritual, rather than baring your soul. Think about “how are you?” for example — in a lot of cases an honest answer to that would be inappropriate and jarring, and it’s not what’s being sought. It’s just an “I acknowledge you” ritual. You might look at praise for something you don’t like as a similar social nicety that doesn’t require anything more from you than politely closing the loop. Exactly what that response looks like will depend on the feedback being offered, but some pretty neutral examples are:

* “Thanks.” (I know you don’t want to thank someone for praise that annoyed you, but truly this is a “how are you / fine” level of neutral response.)
* “It’s not my favorite task but it needs to be done.” (This one might satisfy your desire to be honest.)
* “I’ll be glad when it’s done!” (But you’ve got to say this cheerfully, not resentfully, and you can’t use it every time.)
* “Yeah, it’s coming along.”

I do wonder what this might be rooted in! Did you grow up in a family that demanded you put on a positive, sunshiney demeanor no matter how you were really feeling? Or that ignored your feelings when you were unhappy or wanted something to change? Or where appearances mattered more than what was really going on? Family dynamics can play out in weird ways when we’re older — you can end up stuck in a mindset that made sense for what was happening in your life decades ago but doesn’t make sense anymore, as well as seeing dynamics around you that are rooted in things from your past rather than in what’s playing out in your life currently. If that resonates with you at all, therapy is a really good place to explore that stuff, and sometimes seeing clearly where it came from can help drain whatever power it still has over you.

Otherwise, though, I’d work on seeing it as as appreciation rather than an attempt to control your feelings, and on having some go-to neutral responses to default to.

Read an update to this letter. 

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my boss won’t let me move to another state — but I’m remote

by Alison Green on November 15, 2022

A reader writes:

For eight years, I have been a fully remote employee. I am an outstanding employee, even winning Employee of the Year last year.

After a year of great loss, I felt the need for a change of scenery and told the entire executive team that I was going to California to see if I wanted to live there. They all encouraged me to do so and I worked remotely during my month-long test.

During meetings from the first week on, I told everyone how much I loved it and that I had even put a deposit on an apartment. No problem!

Until I returned and my boss told me that they looked into it and I can’t keep my job as a full-time employee and work from California. No such policy in the company existed; of course, one is being written as I write this. Further, when I mentioned being a consultant, I was told that I could do no more than a few hours a week.

While I know California presents its challenges for employers, something doesn’t feel right here. Also, I am of an age that is a protected class, but I have loved this company and I’m not a litigious person so I don’t want to invoke the law to make them let me do this. What do you think is going on?

I think what’s going on is what they told you is going on: They looked into it and realized that letting an employee work from another state isn’t as easy as simply saying yes.

People often don’t realize that letting an employee work from a state where other employees aren’t already based has significant financial and legal ramifications. When you’re already remote, it’s easy to think, What difference does it make to the company whether I’m working ten miles away or across the country? I could move anywhere and keep doing the work I’m doing right now. In fact, as more and more companies went remote over the course of the pandemic, my inbox filled up with letters from people who wanted to do exactly that … and then, later, from people who did do exactly that but learned afterward, after they had already relocated, that their companies wouldn’t permit it. So, while frustrating, it’s better you found out now.

Here’s the reason, which a lot of people aren’t aware of: If an employer lets employees work from a different state, it creates what’s called nexus in the new state, and it may be required to pay taxes, set up workers’-comp insurance (which isn’t cheap), and even charge customers sales tax in that state. Those can be really significant expenses.

On top of that, the company will be required to follow the employment laws of that state. It can be a not-insignificant burden to monitor and comply with an additional state’s employment laws, particularly if they’re very different from the laws where the business is headquartered. California’s laws in particular happen to be a lot more complex and employee-friendly than many other states’. For example, if your job is classified as nonexempt (the government classifies every job in the U.S. as exempt or nonexempt), you’re required by law to be paid overtime when you work more than 40 hours in a week. In most states, that’s the end of the requirement. But in California, you also need to be paid overtime for any hours over eight that you work in a day — so there’s a whole different tracking requirement and a whole additional pay requirement. Moreover, if you’re exempt from overtime currently, you might not qualify to keep that exemption in California, which has more restrictive standards for that than federal law does. So your company could end up needing to track and pay your overtime when it doesn’t currently. California also treats vacation accrual and payout differently than many other states and requires that different information be provided on your pay stub (with monetary penalties for not complying) and a whole host of other differences.

To be clear, you wouldn’t see differences only with California; every state has its own set of laws that could differ from the ones governing your work now.

I suspect that what happened is that the managers who originally supported your plan to move didn’t know any of this — because a lot of people don’t. Once they looked into it, they realized the financial and legal consequences of okaying the move, and that’s why they’re backtracking now. They should have explained this to you in more detail so you weren’t left to assume something nefarious was afoot. But I’d bet money this is what occurred because it’s happened to so many other people in the past few years.

They’re also right that you can’t solve these issues by just working as a consultant instead of an employee. The federal government has strict rules about who qualifies as an independent contractor and who doesn’t, and your company can’t legally convert you into a contractor without changing fundamental things about how your job is structured. Letting you continue to work there full time in the same role and just calling you a contractor would open the company up to legal risk and fines. (It also wouldn’t withhold and pay payroll taxes for a contractor as it does for employees. You’d be responsible for paying those taxes yourself, so you’d take a financial hit unless the company paid you more.)

I also want to point out that in many states, even just working from there for a short time (as you did during your monthlong trial run) can trigger tax obligations for both the employee and the employer regardless of whether you’re a resident. In practice, a lot of employers turn a blind eye to that, and most states don’t pursue short-term working visitors, but it’s worth being aware of.

It’s natural to assume that working remotely means you can work from anywhere. It sounds as if your managers themselves didn’t realize the business implications until they looked into it more closely. But now that they know, it’s not unreasonable for them to conclude it doesn’t make sense for the business to take on all the expenses and administrative burden that would come with your relocation.

Originally published at New York Magazine.

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should I get rid of remote work because our in-office staff thinks it’s unfair?

by Alison Green on November 15, 2022

A reader writes:

I am a department head for a state government agency. During Covid, our agency was considered a critical service. Our department has two distinct areas. To keep this anonymous, I’m going to use llamas as a stand-in. So let’s say we have one area where we accept llama farm documentation, record it, and put it on permanent record (Farm Services), and another where we record llama birth, marriage, and death records and sell copies of those to people who need them for various purposes (Registry Services). Our Farm Services staff have very little in-person interaction with customers and most services can be managed online or via mail. Our Registry Services have limited online capabilities to avoid llama identity theft, so during lockdown customers could mail in applications, drop them in a dropbox, or use a certified online service that charged extra but used special identification software to ensure safety and avoid identity theft.

Now that our office has been reopened to the public, our Farm Services division has a rotating work-from-home/in-office schedule where staff work in the office for two weeks, then have two weeks working from home. While working from home, staff are able to handle all of the online services and database entry, while in-office staff help counter customers and phone calls. Our Registry Services staff are all in-office all the time because the work that they do is not able to be done remotely. 100% of their work is customer-facing, and there is little to no back-office work.

This scheduling system has been in place for almost two years. I do regular meetings with staff to find out how things are going and get feedback on ways we can improve. Our agency also has anonymous surveys (done by an outside company) twice a year where staff can give feedback about work environments, scheduling, benefits, etc. In a recent one-on-one with a staff person from the Registry Services division, the staff person said that they think the remote/in-office schedule for the Farm Services division should be eliminated and all those staff should be required to come into the office every day. When I inquired further, asking how the remote schedule impacted this employee (was there a communication gap, was it causing issues with customers, etc.), the staff person simply said, “It’s not fair that they get to work from home and we don’t.”

Recent survey comments have said that staff appreciate the remote/in-office rotation and without it they would look elsewhere for work. Being in government, while we have decent benefits and our salaries are within market, they certainly aren’t at the top end of the market now and, with inflation, we are certainly at a disadvantage with salary bands being the way they are until our legislature takes action to increase them.

Do I take away the remote option for the other division as a matter of fairness? I can’t implement a remote option for the Registry Services division — it’s simply not possible. When staff are hired into this division, it is made clear during the interview and offer stage that these are in-person roles, 100% customer-facing. I will lose Farm Services staff if I eliminate the remote option.

Nooooo. Do not eliminate the remote option for people whose jobs allow them to work remotely just because people whose work must be done on-site don’t like it!

And really, you don’t even know that it’s “people.” It’s “person.” It doesn’t make sense to contemplate revoking a major benefit because a single person finds it unfair.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s more than one person. Let’s say a bunch of people on the Registry Services team find it unfair that their jobs can’t be done remotely while other people’s can.

You still don’t eliminate a benefit in that situation.

Some jobs can be done remotely. Some can’t. That is the nature of reality. Different jobs have different needs. You don’t yank a benefit because someone is upset that they don’t qualify for it. You shouldn’t, for example, yank family health coverage just because someone without kids doesn’t need it. You wouldn’t stop people from traveling to conferences that are necessary for their work just because other people’s jobs don’t necessitate work-related travel and they complain about it.

Different jobs have different needs. Fairness doesn’t mean “everyone is exactly the same.”

But let’s also think about where your employee who complained is coming from. Some people resent anyone who gets a perk they don’t, even when there’s a logical basis for it, and maybe that’s all this is. But it’s also true that a lot of employees who have been on-site throughout the pandemic are rightly upset that the burden has been significantly higher on them — whether it’s wondering where the concern has been for their safety while others stayed home, or dealing with members of the public who have become increasingly aggressive, or taking on more work in the office so others could stay home, or feeling invisible in conversations about changing work norms, or even just commuting when their colleagues haven’t had to. It’s also hard to watch one whole class of workers suddenly be handed something that can significantly increase their quality of life, while a separate set of workers is left out of that, even when there are logically sound reasons for the difference.

The solution to that isn’t to take away remote work for people whose jobs allow for it. It’s to think about ways to improve life for the people whose jobs don’t. Think about things like flex schedules, commuter benefits, paid parking, relaxed dress codes, and free or subsidized lunch (or breakfast!). Is your on-site staff taking on more work to make it possible for others to be remote? If so, recognize those things (including with money). And you can get creative with it — for example, what about additional sick days for in-office staff so they don’t feel pressured to come in sick (when remote colleagues might not need to use a sick day in the same situation)? Hell, let those days be used for bad snow too and call them Commuter Days or something; you’d be recognizing that people who work on-site have different circumstances from remote employees, but to the on-site workers’ advantage this time.

Different jobs will still have different needs. That’s just reality. It doesn’t make sense to pull a benefit from people whose jobs allow for it. But it does make sense to look for ways to maximize quality of life for everyone.

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can I ask my new employee to babysit, my boss thinks I lack confidence but I don’t, and more

by Alison Green on November 15, 2022

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

1. Could I ask my new employee to babysit?

I have a question that is currently hypothetical, but may be reality soon. We are looking at hiring our fantastic college intern onto our team, and I would likely be managing her. She also loves kids, and I have two of my own. I’ve had a hard time finding and keeping babysitters; the ones we used to have have since graduated from high school and moved out of the area, and most of the high school and college students I know now don’t have the time or interest.

Would it be completely inappropriate of me to offer her babysitting opportunities if I end up managing her? These would be occasional, outside of work hours/events, and paid the normal going rate for babysitters in our area.

Don’t do it! The potential for conflicts of interest is too high. First, no matter how much you make it clear that she can say no, you won’t know if she feels pressure to say yes because you’re her boss. Second, what if something goes wrong while she’s babysitting? There’s potential for it to bleed into work, and that’s not fair to her. Third, babysitting is really intimate, and you both need to have some distance in order to work together effectively. You need to be able to give her impartial feedback (will you really feel comfortable criticizing her work if you know she’s going to be at your house taking care of your kid that night?) or even let her go if her work warrants it. And other people need to trust that you’re able to do that; perceptions of favoritism or special treatment can be a big deal on a team.

It might go fine, but the potential for problems is too high.

2. My boss thinks I lack confidence, but I don’t

I’m a first year teacher, though this is not my first job — teaching is my second career. I know that the first year can be rough, and there’s a high learning curve. I try my best, knowing that inevitably I will screw up sometimes because it’s my first year. Overall, things have been going really well!

The problem is my principal, who has somehow gotten it into her head that I lack confidence in my abilities and that she needs to help me build up my self-worth as a teacher. I don’t know where she got this impression, but confidence is pretty low on my list of growth areas. I think I’m pretty good at what I do, all things considered! It’s getting to the point where she brings it up whenever we speak, even about entirely unrelated issues, and I’m getting offended.

I know she probably means this kindly, but it feels like she’s making a lot of assumptions about me, especially because I look younger than I am. I understand she wants to support me, but the constant talk about my confidence is only making me doubt myself.

It’s possible she does this with all new teachers, but it’s also possible something gave her the impression that you in particular need it. It’s okay to ask about it! You could say, “You’ve been talking about my confidence level a lot, which surprises me because that doesn’t feel like an area where I struggle. Have I done something to give you the impression that I lack confidence?”

At some point in the conversation, you could also say, “I don’t think I need a boost there, but what I’d love your help with is…”

3. We’re returning to the office and I have a disability that means I can’t stay awake 8 hours in a row

I was hired early in the pandemic when my company went to Emergency Remote Mode, and have remained fully remote since then. My company has more recently been discussing returning to the office, and I have reason to think they might try to announce this on short notice.

While I’m still trying to figure out with my doctor exactly what is going on, I have trouble remaining fully conscious for eight hours in a row. It’s very likely if you stuck me in a desk staring at a computer for eight hours straight, I would either fall in and out of sleep or have spurts of appearing very visibly confused / having slurred speech. At the very least I would probably be a lot less productive. I generally describe the feeling as being like my brain spontaneously feeling like it’s in molasses.

Because I’ve been remote and most of my work is pretty asynchronous, I’ve been able to get away with working weird / fragmented hours, like two four-hour sections of a day with a three-hour break. Because my work gets done, no one seems to mind (and I have explicitly asked how I’m performing and gotten decent feedback) … but I also have not explicitly told coworkers exactly how wonky the hours I’m working are, beyond what they might be able to deduce by the occasional 2:30 am timestamp.

Is it worth telling my company about this if they try to do forced return-to-office? I feel embarrassed about it and I don’t super want to tell coworkers, but also, like, I think the company will probably get a lot more productivity out of me if I’m in an environment where I can physically run around or nap when I get sleep attacks / work non-traditional hours. And considering I’ve been doing this job remotely for years with good performance reviews, I think (hope?) they might take that as reason to believe I can successfully do this job remotely?

What you want is an official accommodation to work from home because of your medical condition. Your condition likely qualifies under the Americans with Disabilities Act because it interferes with a major life activity (sleep/staying awake). Because you think your company might announce a return on short notice, it makes sense to start that process now rather than waiting. Talk with your HR department, let them know you’re making “an official request for accommodations under the ADA” (use that exact term — in fact, put it in the subject line of your email), and find out what they need you to do to get the ball rolling.

4. Former boss is keeping tabs on me on LinkedIn

My former boss, an executive director at a nonprofit, has been routinely viewing my LinkedIn profile since I left four months ago. I know from former coworkers that the executive director has stalked their LinkedIn pages as well. The executive director views the pages around once a week to every two weeks, far more often than necessary to see where employees went or to get a sense of how employees are doing. They view in “private mode” but with their title and company showing up in my weekly report of who’s searches I’ve appeared in, it’s pretty easy to determine who it is.

I’ve blocked the executive director on LinkedIn. To me there is no good reason to view my page that often, but I don’t know if I should bring it up with the board of directors. I think the behavior is concerning and reflects poorly on the organization, but maybe I’m being too sensitive.

That’s weird behavior, but it doesn’t rise to the level of something you’d alert the board to or that they’d typically get involved in.

5. Duo cover letters

I recently attended a career presentation to students where the presenter showed an example of a trend in cover letters that they had learned at a career counseling workshop. It’s called duo cover letters. After the traditional business letter greetings and an introductory paragraph, the text follows a two-column format where the left column is the job requirements and the right column is the applicant’s response. There is the traditional closing paragraph and signature. From the example shown, there was no room for individuality, creativity, or voice. Having been on ad infinitum search committees, I admit that I would have a less-than-favorable reaction if I received one of these do cover letters.

Afterwards, I sent the students examples of the excellent cover letters you featured on your website. At least they now have a comparison.

Are duo cover letters truly a trend?

It’s not a new trend! This format has been around for at least a decade, and it’s a bit … gimmicky and unsophisticated. The idea is to make it easy for the person reading your resume to match your qualifications with the job requirements, but hiring managers can figure out if you’re qualified on their own; they don’t need a chart to show them. Plus, that format makes it really hard to do a lot of other things a cover letter should do, like flesh out who you are as a candidate beyond the basic facts from your resume and show how you communicate in writing. It’s too limiting.

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my new boss scolded us about our private chat messages

by Alison Green on November 14, 2022

A reader writes:

I’m wondering how to address a doozy of an email my new boss sent yesterday, which has left my coworkers and me uncomfortable and a bit panicky. In this email to my whole department, she stated HR and senior leadership had informed her about a private chat group connected to our team which often “contains negative and unproductive conversations.” She then went on to remind us that chat conversations are monitored and to make sure our messages are work-appropriate.

The thing is, I am 98% certain I know what chat group she is talking about because it’s the only major chat group my whole team uses, and the only negative comments made recently are about my boss. In my opinion, none of these comments are malicious or cross a line, and there really aren’t a lot of them. For example, after our boss invited the whole team to a meeting with another team where it turned out our department were not the ones who needed to respond to the issue, there was understandably some frustration briefly aired in the chat. Other than those very few and far between criticisms, the chat is very productive and positive. Believe me, I’ve been part of toxic work chats before, and this ain’t it!

A lot of people on my team feel a bit blindsighted and uncomfortable that they are being spied on. There is also a lot of confusion about why HR and upper management are involved and why they would be looking at our chats specifically. My boss is new and has only been in this role for about a month, so this on top of a general lack of communication on expectations and changes she has implemented, has left people very uneasy. Do you have any advice on how to handle something like this? Should I just let it go and let things fall where they may?

Assuming you’re using something like company-run Slack for the chat group, it’s true that you should be aware that anything you write there could be read by your boss or someone else at the company.

It’s also true that monitoring employee chats is really heavy-handed unless there’s some specific reason to look at them (like allegations of harassment or bullying).

I wish we knew if your boss had looked at the group herself before delivering this message, or if she just heard about it from “HR and senior leadership” and was just passing along the message from them at their request.

If she was just passing along the message rather than speaking for herself, I’d be less concerned. Who knows, it’s possible that HR had a legitimate reason to look at the group at some point, were concerned by what they saw, mentioned it to her, and she just dutifully passed on the message to the rest of you without doing any particular investigation herself. You might think the content of the group is mild enough that HR shouldn’t have been concerned, let alone alerted your boss, but sometimes complaints can sound a lot sharper to an outsider than they’re intended within a group.

But if your boss looked at the group herself and the message is her own, I don’t like it.

Any manager should be aware that sometimes people are going to air frustrations about them. People blow off steam and vent, and sometimes managers do things that are genuinely annoying and people are going to talk to each other about that. It doesn’t feel great to come face-to-face with it, but as long as it’s not malicious or so constant that it makes the culture toxic, it’s just something you’ve got to accept as a manager.

And frankly, if it is malicious or so constant that it’s making the whole culture toxic, the first thing a manager should do upon discovering that is some self-reflection about how that situation has come about. Now, maybe your manager has done that (you wouldn’t necessarily know), but ideally she would have taken it as a flag that she needs to be talking to people more and getting a better feel for how things are going, not just issuing a “stop it” edict. If the concerns people were sharing are serious ones, a “stop it” edict won’t help — and if their concerns aren’t serious and this was just light venting, she’s going to look overly heavy-handed.

So if this was your boss’s message to you — as opposed to passing it along at HR’s request — it’s useful information about her style and instincts. Not encouraging information, but useful nonetheless.

But where does that leave you, when you don’t know which of the two scenarios it is? All you can really do is take it as a reminder that private chats on company systems are never private, and if you wouldn’t want your boss to read something you write there, don’t write it. It’s not necessarily that anyone is spying on you, but these are work programs and your employer can have reasons to look at them that have nothing to do with you. (And keep in mind that even if your manager never has any reason to look at your communications, if they’re looking at the messages of someone who was talking to you, they’ll see your side of conversations too.)

The bigger problem, I think, is that you’ve got a new boss who’s not communicating well, while making a bunch of changes. Throw something like this in the middle of it, and of course it’s going to leave people rattled. But she is right that you should remember the company can see everything you do … and there’s not enough info here to know whether this incident says anything beyond that (like that she’s thin-skinned or spying on you, etc.). I’d try to move on from this and just pay a lot of attention to what else you observe from her.

Read an update to this letter. 

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how can I stop my office’s “I’m sorry” culture?

by Alison Green on November 14, 2022

A reader writes:

Do you have any advice on how to stop the “I’m sorry” culture in the workplace?

I’m finding my colleagues have created an extreme case of this culture, saying they’re sorry for being out sick, sorry for asking a question, sorry for needing to leave early to pick up their kids. Even when I tell them they don’t need to be sorry for these things, it continues. Surely they’re not sorry for life happening, but it creates this cloud of guilt in the office that’s difficult to shake. Do you have any advice on dealing with this?

I answer this question 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.

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I work at Twitter … what do I do?

by Alison Green on November 14, 2022

A reader writes:

I work at Twitter and have been there for many years. As I’m sure you’ve seen, Twitter was just bought by Elon Musk and ever since the deal closed two weeks ago, the company has been literally falling apart.

I was fortunate enough to survive the round of layoffs in his first week that cut 50% of the company, but since then things have gotten exponentially worse day by day. We learn of new changes when Elon tweets them. We were told just before midnight on Wednesday that we were required to be in the office at least 40 hours per week — starting Thursday. My manager resigned this week, along with several other managers and members of the senior leadership team. I’m a manager and I don’t know how to support my team — our partner teams are all gone and I no longer have the resources to lead the team the way that I need to.

I’m now realizing that the folks who got laid off and received severance packages may have been (in general) the more fortunate group.

My question is, a lot of people are resigning right now, but I’m wondering if it would be better to wait to be laid off.

If I wait, is there a risk that I could get fired (without severance) instead of laid off (with severance) because I cannot meet the demands of our new owner? I’ve been a high performer during my entire tenure at the company and have never had a negative performance review, but that was under our former leadership. Could current leadership simply decide to fire me to prevent me from receiving severance? As much as I want to resign, I’m trying to stay until I have another job lined up since my family is on my healthcare plan.

First, for any readers who haven’t been following the situation at Twitter, some background:

Inside the Twitter Meltdown
Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter
Elon Musk Has No Idea What He’s Doing at Twitter
Twitter’s Content Moderation Head Quits As Departures Alarm the FTC
Here’s How a Twitter Engineer Says It Will Break in the Coming Weeks
Twitter Is in Grave Security Danger Right Now
A Day of Chaos Brings Twitter Closer to the Brink

Okay, back to the letter. This is a complicated question.

Let’s take the “what could Elon do?” parts of the question first.

Anything! The answer, he’s made clear, is that he could do anything! He could demand your team create a product that charges users $8 to turn them into actual flying birds and ship it next week, and then fire you if you say you can’t do it. He could parachute nude into your cafeteria tomorrow and demand you all bow before him while singing Gregorian chants. Really, to any question about whether there’s a risk Elon will do X, the answer at this point has to be yes.

Which is utterly unhelpful to you, so let’s answer this in more pragmatic terms.

In general, at any company, there is always a risk that you could get fired instead of laid off because you can’t meet the demands of a new owner. At this particular company, you also have to worry that those demands will be unreasonable and that the decision will be made without thought. Is it likely? I don’t know; I wish I did; I’m sorry about that. Is it possible? Yes. Might you have legal recourse if that happens? Possibly. Is legal action a pain to pursue? Yes, although sometimes it’s worth it. Will you be the only one this happens to, if it does happen? No, and that would make legal action easier to pursue.

Could you be fired simply to prevent you from receiving severance? Yes, in theory. In practice, there is a huge spotlight on your employer right now and it would be much harder to pull that off. (On the other hand, Elon seems to enjoy flouting the law … although it does seem like he mostly attempted to follow it with the first round of layoffs … and there are still some questions about the legality of some of those details, so one would assume he wouldn’t want to add additional legal problems … although it’s not nearly as easy to be confident about that with a chaos goblin in charge as it would be with a more prudent owner.)

In a normal situation, I’d say you’re unlikely to be fired rather than laid off unless your performance changes drastically. In this situation, if I had to guess, I’d say chances are better than not that you won’t be randomly fired (as opposed to laid off at some point). But that’s a guess, and it’s heavily informed by how this stuff normally works … while you’re in a situation that won’t necessarily be governed by those norms.

There’s also the risk that even if you’re laid off, the company might be in so much financial trouble at that point that they won’t have the money for severance that they have right now.

As for whether it would be better to resign now rather than waiting to be laid off (which may or may not happen) or waiting until you get another job … If you can stomach it, you’re probably better off waiting, especially because your family depends on the health insurance. And really, if you’re weighing (a) resigning now (no severance) against (b) the risk of being fired without severance … well, in both of those cases you’d be out of work with no severance. Staying at least gives you the option of severance down the road (if you’re part of a future layoff) and gives you an ongoing income and health insurance.

Assuming, of course, you can stomach it. But as long as you’re not actively doing harm, there’s no ethical imperative to quit on the spot and no shame in staying if you need to.

Good luck, and I’m sorry something you helped build is being needlessly destroyed.

Read updates to this letter here and here.

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my boss keeps weed in the office, should I warn coworkers about my chin tuck, and more

by Alison Green on November 14, 2022

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

1. My boss keeps marijuana plants in the office

I live in Texas where cannabis, recreational or medical, is enough to get you sent to jail. It also doesn’t help that we’re in a conservative rural town with law enforcement eager to take you down for such a thing. My boss, a mid- to late- sixties woman who’s been smoking for years, has decided to move her all her gardening, weed included, into the office that I work alone in all day. I’m in my early twenties, and I’m the only one in my family of four who has a full-time job. In short, this job is paying my family’s bills.

My dad, who lives with us, is also on parole for a felony crime, and I’m worried about the possibility of getting in trouble with the law and how it will affect his case. I tried jokingly bringing up how bad it would be if I was in the room while something happened, but she brushed it off. We have a good relationship aside from this. I have no problem with her smoking and I need this job and like it, but I’m worried. What can I do? Is there anything I can do?

She missed your hint when you brought it up in a joking way — and in fact, you aren’t joking — so you need to address it in a way that makes it clear you’re serious. You’ll be better served by being straightforward about it: “I have no problem with weed personally but given the laws in Texas, I’m very uncomfortable having the plants here — I’m too worried about the legal consequences for us both. Could you take them back out of the office?”

Read an update to this letter. 

2. Should I warn my coworkers about my chin tuck?

I am a nonprofit administrative worker. For two years, I suffered from a debilitating condition that kept me unable to work. 18 months ago, I had a successful surgery to treat it (yay!) and after a long recovery, I re-entered the workforce. Sort of. I am still in my first year of re-entry, and so far it has been a patchwork of contract gigs.

I’m so grateful to the surgery that gave me my health back. Like a trickster, in return it gave me a double chin. I’ve given it plenty of consideration and have my heart set on a chin tuck and augmentation, which I think will help me feel more like myself. I’m hoping to get it done this winter because I’ll have the benefit of cold weather to camouflage the recovery with coats and scarves when out in public. It can’t be done during the spring due to some major commitments.

The recovery is short and I would be back at work in a week or less, but significant bruising and swelling around my neck could last 3-6 weeks, and I’m under no illusions that I could keep it all hidden under makeup or scarves at the office.

What’s my hesitation? My current contract placement is with a domestic and sexual abuse service organization. I don’t like disclosing medical information at work, but more than that I don’t like the idea of showing up with bruises on my throat without giving warning. A significant portion of staff are survivors of intimate partner violence or other abuse. I want to live my life, but I am very new here and I don’t want to alarm or possibly re-traumatize someone.

Should I inform my coworkers beforehand in an office-wide email? Or wait until the contract ends? Or do it during summer vacation if this contract turns into a permanent position (which is very possible)? (Note: I don’t work in client services. I work offsite in a small admin office where I only face coworkers.)

Don’t change your surgery date because of this! Have the surgery when you want. But yes, given your concerns, it makes sense to alert your coworkers ahead of time. You can keep it pretty vague, but an email to your team saying something like “I’m having surgery that will cause some heavy bruising on my neck for a few weeks, it’s nothing to be alarmed about” would likely be a kindness and prevent people from worrying about you. If it feels weird to do that as a new person or a contract worker, you could use that same language with your boss and ask if she’d recommend sharing it more broadly.

Read an update to this letter. 

3. My peer wants everyone to chip in for a holiday gift to our boss, even junior employees

I am a senior engineer on a small team within a larger organization. When I started five years ago, the reporting structure of my team was flat – everyone reported directly to my manager, Rosalind. Last year that changed, and now all of the junior engineers report to me, while my two coworkers (Greg and Alex) and I still report to Rosalind.

Every year Greg organizes a holiday gift for Rosalind and takes donations from the team. I know your thoughts on gifting upward, but when I started I didn’t want to rock the boat, and also Rosalind is a fantastic manager so I didn’t really mind contributing. But now Greg is still asking the entire team to contribute and it’s more problematic to me since he’s asking the junior engineers to contribute to a present to their bosses’ boss. Not to mention that any contribution from them is a larger portion of their salary than for the rest of the team.

Last year, I didn’t react quickly enough to Greg’s request and everyone just contributed to the present as usual. But I’d like to more proactively do something this year, hopefully before Greg sends out his request. How do I approach Greg about this? Should I also talk to Rosalind? I don’t want her to think that a change in her gift means anything about my appreciation for her as a manager. I’d also like to make clear to my reports that I am not looking for a present from them if they ask about it.

Yep, talk to Greg and Alex ASAP! Say something like, “I don’t want to ask the junior engineers to contribute to a gift for Rosalind this year. I’ve been reading that people should never gift upwards in an office because of the power dynamics, and I don’t feel right asking people who make less than her to put money toward a gift for her. She’s a great boss so let’s do a card from us, but I feel strongly that we should skip the gift.” Hell, if you want, you could say this in an email so that you can forward this article with it.

You shouldn’t need to address it with Rosalind herself, but if it’ll give you peace of mind you could. Once it’s worked out with Greg and Alex, you could say, “We don’t want the  junior engineers to feel any pressure to chip in for a gift because of the power dynamics, so we’re just doing a card this year. Please don’t read anything into that; it has nothing to do with my/our appreciation of you as a manager!”

4. Taking my team out for lunch when one person is remote

I manage a small team in academia. Most of us are on-site, but I have one employee who works full-time remote in another state. Normally, I like to take everyone out for brunch or lunch a couple of times a year, or bring in a meal, especially around the holidays, as a small “thank you” and an opportunity to connect socially. Obviously having one remote person makes this complicated. Any suggestions on what I can do to make sure they feel included?

Can you occasionally send them a food delivery gift card so they can have a meal delivered at the same time? I don’t think you need to do it every time — part of working remotely is that you’re going to miss some in-office food perks and generally people understand and are fine with that trade-off — but doing it for the bigger events (like the year-end one) would be a nice gesture that would make them feel appreciated. It also doesn’t have to be meal delivery; it could be a gift of something else you know they like, with a note saying “since you couldn’t be here for the holiday lunch” — just something to let them know they’re not being overlooked.

5. Should federal holidays be counted in your PTO?

I’ve noticed that some job ads offer “generous” PTO of four or six weeks … and 10 of those days (aka, two of those weeks) are federal holidays. Is it legal or right to combine federal holidays with PTO? It feels very misleading to me.

Yeah, that’s not how PTO is usually counted in the U.S. (although it does seem to be in some other countries). Typically “four weeks of PTO” means “you get 20 days off to spend as you please, plus whatever 9-11 federal holidays we’re closed.”

It’s legal for them to describe it the way they did, but it’s definitely misleading — and it’s really crappy if they’re not spelling it out at some point before people are hired, because it would be a horrible surprise to discover that your “four weeks” of PTO are actually two weeks, based on the framework people usually use for this.

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weekend open thread – November 12-13, 2022

by Alison Green on November 11, 2022

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: Little Children, by Tom Perrotta. Two suburban parents, both aimlessly drifting in unsatisfying marriages, are drawn into an affair against a backdrop of stultifying suburbia. Very John Cheever meets Madam Bovary.

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

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it’s your Friday good news

by Alison Green on November 11, 2022

It’s your Friday good news!

1.  “I was headhunted for my current job as the only person in the world at the time to do what I do, and after 3.5 years received a raise that brought me to more than double what I had been at the old job. I really enjoy the people I work with (some of the best I have ever worked with), the culture of the company, and the work I do. However, earlier this year when raises came out, I was more than disappointed when my boss told me she was told there was no money for an increase for me. I knew other people were getting raises and was a little shocked that even with company-wide retention problems, there was so little effort to retain, well, me.

I suspected this was because I work in a very niche position in multiple shape widget making, and I have signed a non-compete that would preclude me from working at the very few competitors out there. What HR missed is that someone versed in multi-shape widgets is in high demand at single-shape companies because of their depth of experience, and most of those companies would not be considered competitors.

I immediately sent out resumes and within weeks, was talking to companies offering 30% increases in pay. Nothing was quite the right fit, and after months of stewing, I finally asked my boss if she knew any details about why I was left out of the budget. I explained that while I had initially thought I was slightly underpaid, I had realized that my salary was actually under industry offers by X amount. She asked how I knew, and I casually mentioned that I had been interviewing and these were the specific amounts I was being offered (while internally panicking that this would be the thing that made them fire me ASAP). After a few minutes of silence, she said she needed to talk to some people and get back to me.

I was shocked later that week to be offered a 44% raise, bringing me up to triple what I was making at the old company, along with a message that I am valued and most of leadership was horrified that I thought I was being nudged out. I’m so thrilled to be able to stay where the culture is great, the people are great, and now I have an opportunity to expand the number of shapes we’re making.”

2.  “Thank you for this blog, Alison. I wouldn’t be in the wonderful place I am now without it.

I felt very on track in 2018 to have my grad degree complete and a job in my field in hand by the end of 2019. But my thesis ended up being delayed by 15 months, by what I considered a bad student/advisor pairing (which my department’s chair kindly insisted was much more the advisor’s fault and much less mine.) The delay lost me one sure-fire job opportunity, and heavily messed up my mental health. And at the end of the thesis, I found myself stuck right in the middle of the Covid hiring freeze.

By the time the market began to unfreeze, I felt stuck, with a resume that wouldn’t do nearly enough to stand out in my field (lack of internships is killer!). Your advice on job hunting didn’t just help me polish up my application materials, it helped bring back the confidence that the thesis delay sapped out of me. First came the resume touch-ups, which started a small trickle of interviews. Then came the cover letter revamp — I ended up keeping about 10 potential paragraphs to use, then picking the 3 that most fit the job in question, and tailoring those paragraphs to display the best match. This led to a fairly steady stream of interviews, where I always had one iron in the fire. However, what I think put me over the edge was the advice on thank-you notes. I finally kept that in mind and sent a strong, personal one with my last interview.

I am now six days into the role that interview was hiring for. Not only do I love the work I’m doing already, both between the technical side and the impact it has, but also my advisor mentioned in our one-on-one today that she was hoping her next hire could be ‘another me.’ Most importantly, it comes with enough pay that I can finally plan out supporting my partner as he moves across the Atlantic to be with me. Thank you so much.”

3.  “I am an exempt employee, and our leadership is fairly flexible about start/end times, lunch breaks, etc. My company has gone to a work mostly at home schedule since the pandemic, after allowing very minimal work from home pre-pandemic.

This week, I received a team luncheon request (recurring) from my grandboss, where we are being asked to attend in person. Only problem is it conflicts with a non-work related organization whose meetings I’ve been attending during that time slot while I take my lunch. Every work luncheon meeting would have been a conflict with this personal appointment.

In the past, I probably would have just decided I had to quit this organization, but since becoming a reader of your column, I decided I had the capital to push back a little.

I emailed my grandboss to ask for more details about the luncheon and if it was intended to be work related or social in nature, or some combination of the two, adding that I had a personal commitment that conflicted but that if the meeting was work-related I would of course prioritize the work meeting.

Grandboss came back with, ‘It is purely meant to be social, and what dates/times would work for you, because we want everyone to have the opportunity to be there.’

So I was able to (1) ensure I still get the face time with my leaders the other team members do, (2) get the schedule changed without having to give up personal details about my conflict, or quit the non-work activity altogether, and (3) get a free lunch once a month. (I know, it’s not really free, but it is one less meal I have to plan/budget for.)

Thanks Alison for all you do! Even though I’m not a people manager, there is so much I have learned from your site.”

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