boss got invited to our rowdy beach weekend, coworker is uncomfortable around my service dog, and more

by Alison Green on October 3, 2024

I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. One of our bosses got invited to our rowdy beach weekend

I am good friends with three of my coworkers, let’s call them Billy, Goat, and Gruff. The four of us are distributed across three different teams, but we work together a lot on various projects and also hang out with some regularity outside of work. As such, we are planning a big beach weekend getaway in August. We’ve all invited various friends, booked a giant house for the weekend, and have been making plans for a super fun, rowdy weekend of drunken shenanigans (as beach excursions tend to be).

Billy is also friends with Goat and Gruff’s boss, Gabby. Like us, Gabby is in her 30s, friendly, fun, lively, and would logically be friends with all of us if she weren’t Goat and Gruff’s boss. She has been to dinner and drinks with us, and on one occasion the whole group went back to Billy’s house to drink more beer and eventually play a well-known boundary-pushing party card game. We all had fun, but Goat and Gruff both left early-ish, and didn’t drink much (as you’d expect).

This is where it starts to go sideways. Billy, in a fit of generosity, invited Gabby to the beach weekend. Since then, Gabby has asked me for additional details and if there’s room for her to join. My hostess/planner self is screaming that Gabby really, truly cannot come. That there’s a world of difference between the equivalent of a rowdy happy hour with coworkers and a whole weekend of road-tripping, mostly-naked (swimsuits!) heavy-drinking shenanigans, communal living, and collective reckoning with rampant hangovers and sunburn. Regardless, what was a smooth-sailing fun weekend is now embroiled in office hierarchy drama.

It seems to me like my options here are a) ask Billy to tell Gabby not to come, and run the risk that he’ll blame it on Goat and Gruff for being spoilsports, b) be the bad guy myself and tell Gabby that she can’t come, blaming it on my delicate/old-fashioned sensibilities about mixing work dynamics (possibly damaging our relationship in the process), c) pray that she won’t attend, either because her schedule will prohibit or because her sense of decorum kicks in and she decides to bow out, or d) be a terrible hostess, stew in my own stress, and let things play out as they may. I could use some help figuring out how to approach this.

Gabby can’t come. It’s crossing too many professional boundaries for a manager to attend a “rowdy weekend of drunken shenanigans” with two people who report to her. Presumably, Goat and Gruff are going to have to be on guard if she’s there, and it’s just not the weekend you planned. Ideally you’d do choice A — have Billy tell Gabby he didn’t think it through and since it’s going to be a rowdy weekend, he shouldn’t have invited two of the organizers’ boss. If you don’t trust him to do that without blaming Goat and Gruff (despite your explicit instructions), then you need to move to choice B — deliver that message yourself. Do not just hope she won’t attend or suffer in silence.

But really, Billy messed this up and he should fix it.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2019

2. My coworker is visibly uncomfortable around my service dog

I recently started bringing my service dog to work with me. I went through all the required processes with my supervisor and HR, and found out that one of my neighboring coworkers (I’ll call her Carol) is very scared of dogs. I said I was willing to move desks, but they said it would not be necessary. However, Carol avoids me and my dog, and even refuses to walk within a few feet of my dog. If we’re walking in a hallway towards each other, I have to duck behind a wall or Carol gets visibly scared. I would like to help her be more comfortable around my dog, but don’t want her to feel pressured or coerced. Do you or your readers have any suggestions?

For context, my dog is about 65 pounds and tall. So she doesn’t exactly blend in. I keep her well groomed to make sure she doesn’t smell or shed excessively. She’s very quiet and doesn’t make any fuss.

I don’t know that it’s your place to try to help Carol be more comfortable around dogs unless she expresses an interest in that on her own (although I certainly understand the impulse to want to!). But you could tell her that you’ve noticed she’s uncomfortable around your dog and ask if there’s anything you could do differently to make her more comfortable, or if there are any questions you can answer about your dog that might help put her more at ease.

You could also mention that you’d offered to move to a different desk but HR didn’t think it was necessary — but that you’d be willing to bring it up again if she’d like you to.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

3. My coworker has panic attacks, and it’s affecting my work

I share an office with my coworker. She has panic attacks. When she has one, I have to leave the office until the attack passes. If I’m there or she isn’t alone, the attack won’t stop. We work with financial information and can only do work with the computer inside our offices. When I have to leave, I can’t do work because my computer is in the office (we all work in offices with doors and there is no way for anyone to ever bring work outside of their offices), and when she is having an attack she can’t do any work. We are always behind on work because she has an attack every two or three days.

Our boss says if we don’t start delivering more work on time, he’ll put us both on a PIP. My coworker asked me not to tell anyone about her attacks. I don’t want to out her but I don’t want to end up on a PIP. There aren’t any empty offices for me to move to and there isn’t room anywhere else because everyone, including my boss, is already sharing. The last thing I want is to out my coworker. No one else here knows about her anxiety or panic attacks and she feels bad about disrupting our work. I don’t want to make it worse. But I also don’t want to keep getting in trouble or ending up on a PIP. I can’t think of any way to get my boss to understand without outing her.

Yeah, you’re going to have to out her. It’s not reasonable for her to insist that you leave your work space like this, and one of you needs to let your boss know what’s going on.

I’d say this to your coworker: “Because this is now affecting my performance and is at the point where I could lose my job over it, I need to talk to Bob about another solution for our office space. To do that, I’ll need to explain to him what’s going on. Would you prefer to talk with him yourself first? I’m planning to talk with him tomorrow, so I wanted to give you a chance to speak with him first about your panic attacks if you’d like to.”

But then you do need to disclose to your manager what’s happening, and quickly (because the longer you let this go on, the more it’s affecting your work and the harder this may be to come back from). This isn’t gossiping about someone’s private health information. This is letting your manager know about a major reason for your slipping work performance. It sounds like your choices are to do that or risk getting fired for low performance, and it’s not reasonable for your coworker to expect you to do the latter.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

4. Interviewer insisted I was uninterested in the job

A friend got me an interview with his company. It was going well until I met the senior manager; towards the end of the interview, he dismissed one of my questions about the work by saying “I don’t think you’re actually interested in this, I think you just want a job.” I didn’t respond very well, as I sat there in stunned silence while he gave me “job-hunting tips.” Should I have argued back with him? I’m in a field where getting in someone’s face is an acceptable negotiating tactic, but it felt out of place at an interview.

There are three possibilities here: (1) You really were coming across as if you weren’t that interested, and this guy was candid in response; (2) he’s just a jerk, or (3) he wanted to test you to see how you’d react (which is jerky if there was no reason for it but potentially not so jerky if the field really does require the ability to stay cool under hostile questioning, and if you don’t yet have a professional track record proving you can do that). You might be able to get a sense from your friend of which category this guy might fall into.

I don’t think you should have “argued back,” but I do think you should have calmly asked, “What makes you say that?” and then responded calmly to whatever he said.

– 2011

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I get angry when my coworkers make mistakes

by Alison Green on October 2, 2024

I’m off for a few days, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017.

A reader writes:

I’ve got a question regarding how much “mistake tolerance” is expected in the workplace.

Just to give you some background, I’m a (tech) team lead, which, in my case, means my daily job is not very different from that of other team members, except for the part that I get to make technical decisions concerning the projects we are doing. That includes deadlines, technologies, methodologies, features to be included, etc. and most importantly, I decide whether a piece of work by any team member is acceptable. However, I don’t “manage” people; that is, I don’t give time off, I don’t give them feedback, I don’t decide their raise, etc. There’s a manager to do that.

Now to the main question. I have very low, almost zero, tolerance for mistakes. Whenever I see a mistake in anyone’s work, especially trivial ones, I will get very angry. The rationale in my head is always “We have ONE job and one job only, and that’s to get this done! No excuses.” As such, I will remove the person from the project, in addition to having a detailed (sometimes heated) conversation with both the person and our manager on why such mistakes are not allowed in my team.

So how bad is this? I know my intolerance could probably be attributed to some sort of OCD, and sort of know it is not good. But I just cannot forgive mistakes easily. Do you have any advice?

Yeah, what you’re doing sounds pretty bad.

I see two issues here: First, your expectations about normal amounts of errors are off. And second, you’re taking it really personally when mistakes happen and you’re having an emotional reaction where one isn’t warranted, rather than handling it professionally. (Which, as people are pointing out in the comment section, is a mistake in itself! So there’s some irony there.)

On the first issue, people are going to make mistakes because you work with humans, not robots, and humans make mistakes. If someone makes a mistake occasionally, that is normal — and you should see it as normal and not an outrage. Perhaps you’re the very rare person who truly never makes mistakes in your work. If so, you’re something of a unicorn. That’s not typical. If you are that unicorn, good for you — that’s a rare talent. But if you want to work with other people, you have to recognize that you’re not normal; if you expect others to be unicorns too, no one will want to work with you, because you’ll be out of touch with reality.

Now, obviously there’s a point where someone is making too many mistakes. And that brings us to the second issue, which is how to handle it when that happens.

Right now, you’re reacting very emotionally: you’re getting angry and having heated conversations. There should rarely be any need for that at work, and by doing it, you’re almost certainly alienating people and making no one want to work with you. That’s a big deal — not only are you making working with you a bad experience for other people, but you’re also impacting your own professional reputation. That will matter when you’re looking for a promotion, a raise, or a new job, or even just when you want to be included on something that other people don’t want to work with you on.

Here’s the thing that you’re losing sight of: At work, you have the tools you need to solve problems calmly and rationally. Getting angry and emotional says to other people that you don’t know how to do that. It makes you look out of control, and it can make you look inept. You don’t want that.

Your goal needs to be to solve the problem, not to punish people or let them know how wrong they are or how much they frustrated you. Instead of having a heated reaction, you just need to deliver information calmly and clearly.

That means that if someone makes a single mistake, all you need to do is say something like this: “I found mistake X. Can you take a look at it and fix it for me today?” If relevant, you can add, “Let me know if you’re not clear on what I’m talking about and I can walk you through it” and/or “Can you figure out how that happened so we can make sure to avoid it in future rounds?”

And if someone makes mistakes regularly, that’s a pattern you need to talk to their manager about, since their manager is responsible for addressing it. And that should be a calm, matter-of-fact conversation — as in “Fergus is regularly making mistakes like X and Y. I’ve pointed it out to him, but it’s continuing to happen and I’m concerned about the pattern. It’s causing me to have to redo his work and making me reluctant to keep him on the project.”

But there’s almost no reason to ever have a heated conversation over a mistake. This stuff shouldn’t be so emotional.

If you find that you can’t control your emotions about mistakes, it’s probably worth exploring with a competent therapist — because a pattern of strong negative reactions to something that doesn’t warrant that intensity is usually connected to something more deeply rooted, and likely isn’t about work at all.

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how can I tell if I’m a good manager?

by Alison Green on October 2, 2024

A reader writes:

I’ve recently started managing a team of several employees. While I love the work, I’m not oblivious to the fact I’m still very new at managing people and have lots of room to develop.

I once heard a speaker say that bad bosses are typically clueless about how they are perceived by their teams. Since employees don’t provide feedback in the same way a boss does, how can you actually tell how you are doing as a manager?

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 walked in on employees having sex — and I think there’s a sex club in my office

by Alison Green on October 2, 2024

I’m off for a few days so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2015. Is it real? Is it fake? I honestly don’t know. I normally don’t print letters that I think are likely fake, although the update made me less sure. Ultimately I don’t think it matters (as Carolyn Hax has said, every letter in an advice column is a hypothetical except to the person who wrote it) and the advice can be extrapolated and applied to other, less salacious situations regardless.

A reader writes:

I am the manager of a customer service team of about 10-12 members. Most of the team members are right out of school and this is their first professional job and their ages range from 22-24. I am about 10 years older than all of my employees. We have a great team and great working relationships. They all do great work and we have established a great team culture.

Well, a couple of months ago, I noticed something odd that my team (and other employees in the building) started doing. They would see each other in the hallways or break room and say “quack quack” like a duck. I assumed this was an inside joke and thought nothing of it and wrote it off as playful silliness or thought I perhaps missed a moment in a recent movie or TV show to which the quacks were referring.

Fast forward a few months. I needed to do some printing and our printer is in a room that can be locked by anyone when it is in use (our team often has large volumes of printing they need to do and it helps to be able to sort things in there by yourself, as multiple people can get their pages mixed up and it turns into a mess). The door had been locked the entire day and this was around noon, and as the manager I have the key to the door in case someone forgot to unlock it when they left. I walked in, and there were two of my employees on the couch in the copier room having sex. I immediately closed the door and left.

This was last week and as you can imagine things are very awkward between the three of us. I haven’t addressed the situation yet because of a few factors: This was during both of their lunch hours. They were not doing this on the clock (they had both clocked out, I immediately checked). We have an understanding that you can go or do anything on your lunch that you want, as long as you’re back after an hour. Also, as you mentioned in your answer last week to the person who overheard their coworker involved in “adult activities,” these people are adults and old enough to make their own choices.

But that’s not the end of the story. That same day, after my team had left, I was wrapping up and putting a meeting agenda on each of their desks for our meeting the next day. Out in broad daylight on the guys desk (one of the employees I had caught in the printing room) was a piece of paper at the top that said “Duck Club.” Underneath it, it had a list of locations of places in and around the office followed by “points.” 25 points – president’s desk, 10 points – car in the parking lot, 20 points – copier room, etc.

So here is my theory about what is going on (and I think I am right). This “Duck Club” is a club people at work where people get “points” for having sex in these locations around the office. I think that is also where the quacking comes into play. Perhaps this is some weird mating call between members to let them know they want to get some “points” with the other person, and if they quack back, they meet up somewhere to “score.” The two I caught in the copier room I have heard “quacking” before.

I know this is all extremely weird. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write you because of how weird this seems (plus I was a little embarrassed). I have no idea what to do. As I mentioned above, they weren’t on the clock when this happened, they’re all adults, and technically I broke a rule by entering the copier room when it was locked, and would have never caught them if I had obeyed that rule. The only company rule I can think of that these two broke is using the copier room for other purposes, preventing someone else from using it.

I would love to know your opinion on this. I tend to want to sweep it under the rug because I’m kind of a shy person and would be extremely embarrassed to bring it up.

What?!

The bad news is that I think you’re really, really off-base in how you’re looking at this.

This is not at all like last week’s letter about the coworker who had sex in a private hotel room after work hours. This is people having sex in the office while people around them are working. It’s not okay. It doesn’t matter if they were on a break or that the door was locked and you weren’t supposed to walk in. It’s totally, utterly unacceptable, and you absolutely cannot sweep it under the rug.

You don’t need to be able to point to a specific rule in order to be able to say a particular behavior isn’t acceptable. You’ll never be able to think of everything you need a rule for, and you definitely don’t want to work somewhere that attempts that. It’s enough to say that you expect people to behave professionally and exercise common sense. And it’s perfectly acceptable to take people to task — or you know, fire them — for having sex in the office during work hours. (Or outside of work hours, for that matter, but it’s particularly egregious that it was during work hours, with people around.)

You’ve got to talk to them, and very soon. By putting it off, you’re signaling that you’re okay with it. You need to tell them in no uncertain terms that what you saw was unacceptable and never to happen again, and you need to take that sheet you found at the printer and find out what on earth is going on with that — and put a clear and direct stop to it too.

I would call them both into your office and say this: “I should have addressed this with you the day it happened, but I’ve been so shocked that this would happen in our office that I’ve been trying to think about what I can possibly say to you. What I walked in on the other day is unacceptable. You cannot under any circumstances engage in sexual behavior in this office. Doing that during that work day when coworkers are around — regardless of whether or not you were clocked in — is wildly unprofessional, and gives me serious pause about your judgment and professionalism.”

You also need to talk to your other team members, since you have reason to think that people are having sex all over your office. For points.

For points.

But before doing that — and in fact, possibly before talking to the two employees who you caught in the act — you need to talk to your own manager about all of this. This is messed up enough that any good manager would want to know about it and have input into how it’s being handled (or at least be in the loop about how it’s being handled).

I get that you’re embarrassed to have to talk to people about this at all. But you have to. It’s going to be far, far more embarrassing if your manager finds out at some point that you knew about this and said nothing. You will look complicit and you will look like you shared in your staff’s bad judgment.

You also probably need to take a look at who’s on your team, whether they belong there, and what kind of culture is in place that has allowed them to think this is (a) reasonable and (b) something that you wouldn’t notice. It is absolutely true that when you have a team of 10+ people who are all in their first professional job, weird pack behavior can develop. But part of your job as a manager is to shape your culture and your team’s understanding of professionalism. If it’s turned into a sex club, that’s a sign that you need to revisit all of this.

Read an update to this letter here.

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coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me, I don’t want my boss at my goodbye happy hour, and more

by Alison Green on October 2, 2024

I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me

I work in a fairly open plan corporate setting. A new colleague joined another team about a month ago, and passes my station daily on his way to see his boss. Every single morning he briefly stops, wait for me to make eye contact, whispers “You’re amazing” to me, and heads on his way.

It’s flattering but odd, and can take me out of my headspace. I am incredibly busy (which I don’t expect a new person on another team to appreciate), and he has probably been told that I will be a useful resource to him — which is true, if my workload allows. Some mornings I’ve turned it into a quick chat (“How are you settling in? “Plans for the weekend?”) — enough to learn he is happily married and some of his hobbies. This interaction comes across more as pleasant-but-awkward coworker rather than creepy person.

I am not aware of him doing it to others: he passes about a dozen workstations and another dozen offices on this route, and he definitely doesn’t do it to the ~one third that I can see/hear.

I’m generally cheerful and approachable, have a reputation for knowing the answer to whatever question people have, and always being busy (it’s true, and I’m addressing that with my bosses separately). I have a very prominent workstation on a corner, right outside our CEO’s office, so many infer I am somewhat important.

Am I doing any damage letting this daily affirmation continue? I think some mornings I likely haven’t looked up being buried in some task, and he hasn’t interrupted me so I appreciate that. My neighbor is utterly baffled by it, but I don’t think it’s affecting her work much. It is building an easy opportunity to talk about work but our paths won’t cross too frequently task-wise — and if they do it will be one way, generating some work for me rather than them.

This would creep me out — the whispering, ugh! — but I’m forcing myself to take you at your word that your vibe is that he’s being awkward rather than creepy. And I can actually picture this type — extremely cheerful, does things that would be smarmy from someone else but just seems … wholesomely weird from him?

I mean, who knows, maybe it’s a bizarre Machiavellian maneuver to set you up to feel a higher degree of obligation to his work requests, although it doesn’t sound like he’ll have many for you — but it could also be 100% a response to you seeming like a gatekeeper to the CEO. Either way, ew.

But I don’t think there’s any reason you have to put a stop to it. It doesn’t sound like it’s bugging you too much — it’s just a weird thing that can provide mild entertainment for you and your neighbor. That said, if you ever do want it to stop, you could always respond with cheerful briskness, “Okay, that’s enough of that!” or “You’re going to need to wait for me to actually earn that” … or begin your own whisper campaign of “you’re magnificent,” etc.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2019

2. My annoying coworker lurks near every conversation

I work in a small office, nine employees total including my manager. One staff member has a hard time separating home and work life. She has a lot of personal phone calls, with complete disregard to everyone else in the room; sings or listens to music loudly; and brings in random objects from home, including a vegetable plant, which honestly has no place in the office. This is just a list of a few things that have happened in the past month alone.

But this doesn’t describe the actual issue I have with her. She has a huge fear of missing out, so much that it has made it completely uncomfortable or awkward to have both work-related or passing conversations with others. If she sees other coworkers talking, she will just stand there/linger in the back waiting to say something, even if it makes no sense to the conversation. Sometimes people just walk away, never finishing their conversation. Finally, the part that gets me the most, is when she interjects in the middle of when someone is talking to just add something, sometimes never allowing the person to finish their statement or story. It’s gotten to the point that when I see her coming, I just leave the room. How do I get her to stop, without it seeming like we are talking about her behind her back, which would be the only way to have a full conversation?

First, I think it’s awesome that she brought in a vegetable plant and I want to know what it is. I hope it’s something enormous like a corn stalk.

The other stuff … she does sound annoying, but I’m not sure that you’re focusing on the right stuff. The singing, loud music, personal calls, interruptions and general disregard for people around her are all legitimate issues to address, because she’s disrupting other people’s ability to focus and get work done. You get to say, “Could you please turn that down?” or even “Could you take that call in the hallway? It’s making it tough to focus.” And you get to raise it to her manager if that doesn’t work.

But the lurking around other people’s conversations isn’t as clear-cut. You can’t really exclude people from social conversations being held in common areas at work, even if they involve themselves in annoying ways. Sometimes having to deal with socially annoying people is just part of the deal at work. But work conversations are different; if you’re having a work-related conversation and she’s lurking, you can pause what you’re saying and say, “Did you need one of us?” or even “Can you give me and Jane a few minutes and then I’ll come find you if you need me?” And if she’s being disruptive, you can say, “Hey, could you leave this to me and Jane to hash through on our own, since we have all the context” or “Having more cooks in the kitchen will complicate this, so I want to keep this to me and Jane” or “We have an agenda to get through, so let’s talk later.”

If none of that works and she stays disruptive, you could speak with her manager about the work impacts it’s having. But try to really separate what annoys you about her as a person from what’s impacting your work.

– 2021

3. Can I ask my boss not to come to my goodbye happy hour?

I’m leaving a small company (50 people) after two years. When someone leaves, staff usually go to happy hour as a big group (maybe 10-20 people) on the person’s last day. I’ve made a lot of great relationships at this company and I look forward to this happy hour as one last fun social occasion with them.

The reason I’m leaving is my boss, Martha, is terrible. Working for her has exacerbated my anxiety and has led to more moments crying in the bathroom than should ever happen in a workplace. I’m sad to leave this company and great coworkers but I couldn’t stand working for Martha anymore. Since I’ve given my notice, she has become even more difficult to work for (which I didn’t think was possible) as she realizes that she doesn’t know how to run the projects I’ve been in charge of.

Martha has asked about my goodbye happy hour plans. I told her I didn’t want one, in the hopes of having a private gathering with a select few coworkers that she wouldn’t know about or attend. But she was pushy about it being “tradition” (in reality, a very loose/informal tradition) and for me to choose a date and location for her to coordinate. I stalled and asked for time to think about it.

Many of the staff know my boss is difficult to work for and know she’s the reason I’m leaving the company. I think Martha wants to plan the happy hour because it makes her look like a good boss. (It’s typical at my company for a coworker to plan the happy hour instead of the manager). A coworker who I’m close with, Jane, has already started to plan the happy hour for me.

Martha and I never had a great working relationship and it feels disingenuous for her to attend, let alone plan, this after work event. She even chastised me once for drinking at an outside networking event where alcohol was served (I’m 26). Can I ask my boss not to come to my goodbye happy hour?

Nope! Not really, anyway. Not if it’s your official goodbye happy hour, and not if you’re trying to avoid burning bridges/future references/your reputation there.

But what you can do if she asks about it again is to say, “Thanks for offering to plan something, but I actually prefer not to have a formal work thing.” You can then go ahead and have a small, informal happy hour with a handful of coworkers. But it needs to be small — if it’s 20 people, you can’t credibly argue it’s not a work thing, and you can’t politely keep her from coming. Keep it under 10 people and make sure that Jane doesn’t talk about it much at work, and you should be fine.

If you want something larger or more officially associated with your office, then you can’t really ask your boss not to attend. But you can mentally reframe her presence as the thing you’re celebrating never seeing again.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2019

4. Can we leverage our coworkers’ marriage to get work done?

I have a weird one I’m not sure how to handle. I work as an admin/office manager in an office of about 15. Overall it’s one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had but sometimes there are the typical small office conflicts. Two of my coworkers are married to each other. They are very professional and it would be easy to miss.

My question is if it’s appropriate to bring in the other partner to help with an issue you are having with their spouse. For example, the husband coworker is kind of the forgetful professor type, brilliant at what he does but once a week the wife coworker must bring a large bag to office to collect all the personal belongings he leaves everywhere (commuter mugs, lunch containers, coats and scarves, etc). Recently he needed to take some equipment home and now keeps forgetting to return it. This has caused a delay in a coworker and me getting some work done, but overall its very low stakes. Our manager checked in and when we told him the reason for the delay, he suggested that we email the wife coworker to help. She has been on a conference road trip and won’t be in the office for another two weeks. If she were here, she would have noticed independently and made sure he returned everything. I said that seemed awkward and several coworkers replied they’ve done it in the past.

I feel like this is getting close to a personal boundary that shouldn’t be crossed when coworkers are married. They should be treated as coworkers at the office, right?

Yes. It’s inappropriate to bring a coworker’s spouse in to solve a work issue with their partner. That doesn’t mean people never do — apparently they do in your office — but it’s a really bad idea. It’s blurring boundaries in a way that might not be a problem this time, but could become a problem in time, or could become a problem when the answer is “I have no idea where he put that folder; we’re not speaking.”

Moreover, it’s undermining to both of them in different ways — the husband is being infantilized by people going around him to his wife, and the wife is being asked to assume professional responsibilities that aren’t hers (and to kind of mother her husband at work, which is ick). If they want to privately have systems behind the scenes where she reminds him at home to bring in the folder he left in the living room, that’s between them. But to you, they should be independent colleagues, not a unit.

– 2019

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I’m in trouble for re-sorting a coworker’s trash — and I’m enraged

by Alison Green on October 1, 2024

I’m off for a few days, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2019.

A reader writes:

I’ve worked at a medium sized tech company as a software engineer for the past two years now. Our city has an ordinance requiring all businesses to compost and recycle. I fully support this ordinance, as I’m a staunch environmentalist and care deeply about the future of our planet, for my sake and the sake of my children. I don’t want my kids growing up in a garbage covered wasteland.

For almost the entire time I’ve worked at this company, some anonymous employee(s) have been repeatedly tossing compostables and recyclables into our kitchen trash can, which sits right next to a compost bin and a recycle bin, with a giant sign posted in front of it showing what items belong in which bin.

The person/people who do this also have a nasty habit of leaving massive piles of unwashed dishes in our kitchen sink. It is not the responsibility of our coworkers or our janitorial service to clean these dishes after us and we are expected to clean after ourselves. There is even a giant sign posted over the sink requesting all employees to wash their own dishes.

I’m not the only person who is bothered by this, and several other coworkers and I have voiced our concerns to our office manager about it. Our office manager has been sympathetic and has organized numerous all-staff meetings where we went over these problems, asking everyone to be more mindful and to follow the directions posted in the kitchen.

Despite this, the people who do this continue doing it anyway. They don’t seem to care at all about the rules and they do pretty much whatever they please in our kitchen, leaving a big mess for others to clean up after them.

For the past two years, I’ve been voluntarily digging this person’s compostables and recyclables out of our trash bin and putting them in the recycling and compost. It’s pretty gross. I don’t enjoy doing it, but since no one else will do it, I do — for the sake of our planet. This issue is far bigger than the company and it has a lasting impact on the earth that will be felt by future generations long after we’re gone. It’s also against our city ordinance, and is just frankly a colossal jerk move.

I have no doubt that the person doing this is well aware of the nuisance they’re causing me and the other staff who actually care about this issue. They just don’t care.

About a year and a half ago, I decided that instead of putting their compost and recyclables into the compost or recycling bins where they probably wouldn’t even see it anyway, I’d leave them sitting on top of the bins so that the next time they step in the kitchen, they’ll be able to recognize their own trash and realize which bins it actually should have gone in. Unfortunately, they didn’t respond to that well. The very next morning after I did it the first time, I saw that this person threw all the recyclables and compostables I took out of the trash the previous day back into the trash bin, as if to say “F you.”

Well, I kept doing it anyway. A year and a half went by, we had several more all-staff meetings about the recycling and compost situation, and the problem persisted.

Then, just the other day, I was called into my manager’s office. He had our HR person on the phone, and she told me that she’d been getting complaints every day for a while now that I’d been taking recyclables and compostables out of the trash. She told me that the anonymous complainant claimed that they felt “offended” by my actions, and that they were now “scared” to use the kitchen because of me. I was astounded that anyone could be “offended” by someone trying to reduce unnecessary waste or feel “scared” because of some recyclables sitting on top of a bin. The HR person was totally unsympathetic to my situation even after i explained to her that this had gone on for almost two years, and ordered me to not touch the bins anymore.

This whole situation feels extremely bizarre to me. I never imagined that anyone would ever actually complain to HR about recyclables being taken out of a trash can and claim to feel “offended” and “scared” by it. I don’t see anything offensive or scary about what I did. I’m also pretty annoyed that someone actually went behind my back to whine to HR about what seems to me completely inoffensive and non-hostile behavior to get me in trouble instead of just confronting me directly like an adult. I find what they did to be incredibly petty and childish. I mean, really, over some garbage? If anyone should be offended, I think it should be me and all the other employees who have had to clean up after this person.

It’s also especially annoying considering I’ve done some really novel work for this company in the two years i’ve worked here. I’ve powered through an insane amount of projects that I don’t think any other developer here could have powered through at the speed that I did, while delivering on every requirement flawlessly. I haven’t been offered a single raise and am still being paid just slightly over minimum wage. I did a salary report online recently and it told me that I’m making less than 99% of the people in my field.

Am I wrong for feeling astounded and enraged by this incident? Am I really wrong for trying to protect our environment, clean up a huge mess left by some jerk who can’t follow simple directions every day, and keep our company compliant with our city ordinance?

Oh my goodness, you must let this go.

Yes, people should be putting their recyclables in the correct bin. And yes, they should be cleaning up after themselves in the kitchen. But they’re not, and it’s not your job to fix that.

You’ve gotten overly invested.

It wasn’t a great move to take it upon yourself to re-sort their garbage — that’s not your job. I understand that you’re doing it out of concern for the environment, but there are far bigger environmental crimes being committed all around you and you can’t solve all of them yourself. Moreover, I doubt your employer wants you spending your time that way while you’re at work.

But beyond that, it sounds like you got really invested in this at an emotional level that it really didn’t warrant. That report about someone being “scared” to use the kitchen sounds over the top without any more context, but your level of emotional investment/anger?/frustration over this may have legitimately rattled someone. The fact that the HR person didn’t find that claim ridiculous on its face makes me wonder if there is some context like that that makes it make more sense.

In any case, at this point your boss and HR have ordered you to stop, so you need to stop. Honestly, I’d be ordering you to stop too if I were in their shoes. This is just way more energy and drama than any employer wants on something like this. Feel free to be annoyed by how it was handled if you’d like, but being “enraged” is — again — way too strong a reaction.

There is something in your letter that you should find unacceptable though, and it has nothing to do with the recyclables. You’re being paid just slightly over minimum wage for work as a software engineer?! You’re making in the bottom 1% for your field. That’s not okay, and it’s a sign of a serious problem that you’ve been more focused on the recycling culprits than on changing your severely under-market wages.

In fact, your level of angst and agitation is so misplaced for both of these issues (way too high for the kitchen issues and way too low for the salary issue) that I’m wondering if there’s something more complicated going on … like do you feel powerless to find a better job, but the kitchen feels like something you can control so it’s getting all your energy? Something is out of whack here, and I’d take this as a nudge to figure out what’s going on — and to start looking for another job, one that will pay you what the market says your work is actually worth.

Read an update to this letter here.

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employee expects us all to attend her destination wedding

by Alison Green on October 1, 2024

A reader writes:

I’m the owner of a company. Our team is mighty, but tiny — only 10 people, three of whom are in leadership/senior positions. One employee firmly believes that since we spend most of our time at work, coworkers should function more like family than like, well, coworkers. We try to find ways to gently reinforce that we all need appropriate boundaries at work, but it comes up often enough to make it clear that she considers us to be her close friends.

She is getting married next year, in a destination wedding taking place in another part of the country. She has invited all staff and made it clear that including the whole team was a priority for her in the planning process. At this point, she fully expects that every employee will attend. It seems like she’s using the wedding as a “friendship test” of sorts, and already speaks as if we are all confirmed guests. The invitations haven’t even gone out yet!

Of course, not all of the staff are planning on attending, though my question is about myself. I know that this event is emotionally meaningful to her. As the head of the company, do I suck it up and pay to fly across the country and get a room in one of the country’s most expensive cities to attend a wedding I don’t really want to go to? On the one hand, I just don’t believe you can expect people to automatically be able come to your destination wedding. On the other, I worry about her morale if I skip out on this event. (This may be an issue anyway, given her colleagues will not all be in attendance.) What is the etiquette for bosses attending employee weddings?

I answer this question — and two 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:

  • My overworked colleague is missing deadlines
  • What’s a reasonable amount of time to respond to a reference request?
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my coworker told me to stop flirting with a student employee

by Alison Green on October 1, 2024

I’m off for a few days, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2020.

A reader writes:

I am part of the HR department at my workplace, and we hired “Andre” a few months ago as a part of our student group. He’s only 18, but he’s been a hard worker and always takes initiative around the office. I was part of Andre’s interview panel, so I’ve always been in contact with him and friendly with him since we brought him on board.

For the past month, Andre has been working in my section to help process a backlog of paperwork caused by COVID-19, so he spends a lot of time in my office where the only working scanner is. We started with small talk but learned that we share a lot of hobbies.

A week ago, a cafe near our office opened back up (take-out only), and when I told Andre about it, he suggested we go there for break. I’ve had coffee with my other coworkers before. He offered to pay, and after we chatted at a park bench by the cafe, he offered a hand to help me up from the bench and held my upper arm until we’d left the park. Since then, we’ve felt more comfortable making physical contact, but it’s been nothing inappropriate. It’s usually just a poke or bump on the shoulder or brushing up against each other in the hall.

I bring this up because one of my coworkers, “Jane,” confided in me that she’s concerned about how Andre and I interact. She said that she saw us on that outing, and she confessed that she overheard a short conversation we had while Andre was replacing toner. Andre was jamming the cartridge in aggressively, so I said, “Damn, I hope you don’t treat your dates like that.” He had replied, “Only if they ask for it.” She has also heard Andre tell me on a separate occasion, “If only I could get a girl with legs like yours, I’d be in business.”

Jane thinks this could result in sexual harassment complaints, but that wouldn’t make any sense. We thought we were alone, and since we’ve been getting more connected at work, we’ve been talking in friendly innuendo like that. Andre has never shown any discomfort when we share jokes like these, especially when he initiates them, and we never do so in front of others to make others feel uncomfortable. Nobody’s complaining. Jane, however, thinks this is unbecoming of a 40something woman like myself and could look very bad for our company if our private interactions were made public.

Jane says they’re not as private as I think and everyone else can feel the “sexual tension” between us, and she said that people sometimes refer to us as “work spouses.” I admit that interacting with Andre makes me feel more attractive than I have in years, but it’s not relevant. Jane also asked if my husband knows about Andre, but my husband doesn’t need to know about Andre since I’ve never cheated on him and never would.

Jane doesn’t seem to understand more nuanced social interactions like flirting can be harmless and common in office settings, and based on the questions above, she seems to believe it’s okay to ask about my private life because of this. Is there a tactful way I can explain to her that she shouldn’t try to police her coworkers’ social interactions, especially if they’re not meant to be public?

Whoa, no.

You need to stop flirting with Andre. Stop brushing against him in the hallway (!), stop trading sexually charged jokes and compliments, stop the whole thing.

You are in HR. He is an 18-year-old student employee. You cannot flirt with or trade sexual innuendo with a student employee.

Yes, this could be sexual harassment. It could be sexual harassment of Andre if he ever starts to feel uncomfortable or like his security in his job depends on continuing the flirtation (and just because someone seems comfortable with this kind of contact at first, that doesn’t mean they’ll continue to feel comfortable with it). It could also be a legal liability if others are forced to overhear obvious sexual remarks between the two of you (that toner comment? come on — I guarantee you that grossed out anyone who overheard).

And yes, potential harassment issues aside, this will absolutely affect the way others think of you. At a minimum, you’ll look like you have terrible judgment, and if this continues people will suspect you of more than that.

Doing this with any colleague would be inappropriate. Doing it with an 18-year-old is even more problematic. He’s on a whole different plane of maturity (and he’s not accountable in nearly the same way you are for knowing what is and isn’t acceptable at work).

Also, you’re in HR! I hope that means you’re doing benefits administration or comp analysis or similar — because if you do anything related to legal compliance or investigations or employee counseling, you’re torpedoing your credibility and trustworthiness in your job as well. You may have already forfeited your ability to be seen as fair or impartial if someone needs to report harassment or other inappropriate behavior.

If you do work in those areas of HR, your judgment here — and especially your response after a colleague pointed out the problems — is indicative of some serious deficiencies in your understanding of foundational concepts in your field, and I’d urge you to do some serious soul-searching about what’s required to make your behavior and judgment line up with what’s needed in that work. This isn’t “I occasionally have do some data entry for my job and I’m not great at it.” This is “I violate the rules I am charged with enforcing, don’t realize when I’m doing it, and may harm others who rely on me to keep their workspace safe and legal.” It’s soul-searching, “am I in the right field?” territory.

If you do that soul-searching and come out of it with an understanding of why all of this is a problem and a resolve to do better, you should be able to move forward (although you’ll need to do some reputation repair at work, as well as righting things with Andre). But you have to do that work.

Also … you didn’t write in asking for marriage advice, but the relevant question there isn’t whether your husband “needs” to know about Andre. It’s whether you’d be comfortable if he did.

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coworkers only ask me about ducks, sending flowers on someone’s first day of work, and more

by Alison Green on October 1, 2024

I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. People only ask me about the ducks I work with

I’m in the lower-middle level of food service establishment with a couple hundred employees. Last year, I started a side project where I got us a small flock of ducks for fresh eggs and general merriment.

Ever since, folks only ask me about the ducks. I have brief interactions with at least a dozen people a day and 90% of the conversations start with, or completely consist of, “how are the ducks?”

The ducks are darling and entertaining and I love working with them, but they are a small part of my job and not the only interesting thing about my role or personality. I’m getting increasingly cranky and desperate for more diverse conversations. The ducks are always fine. If anything big happened with them, I’d let folks know. They are literally out the back door and anybody could go look at them if they wanted.

Is there any way I can get out of having this same insubstantial conversation 10 times a day for the foreseeable future? Especially since any one person probably won’t ask me about them more than twice a week, so it seems unreasonable to ask an individual to stop? I want to be friendly and gracious but seriously enough with the ducks for one second.

I feel guilty because I really want to ask you for a picture of the ducks.

This is going to be tough because lots of people are going to find it amazing to have ducks at work, and they are going to think of it every time they see you and feel jealous that you work with the ducks and will want to ask about it. It’s easily the biggest conversation starter that people who don’t know you well will remember. (In fact, I bet that the people who know you really well / work with you most closely don’t do this nearly as much, right?) They’re also probably not accounting for the fact that everyone else is asking about the same thing all day long.

You could put up a sign that says, “The ducks are great! They are right out that door if you want to see them” with an arrow and a picture of the ducks … and that will probably cut down on some of the inquiries, although not all.

You could also cheerfully respond to inquiries with, “Everyone asks me about the ducks!” As long as you say it cheerfully and not resentfully, that’s a polite way to nudge more perceptive people into realizing that it’s probably too much.

But that might be the best you can do, unfortunately. You have ducks at work! It’s going to be a thing. (Although it will probably become less of a thing in time, when the novelty has worn off a little.)

Read an update to this letter here (it includes videos of the ducks!).

– 2019

2. Sending flowers on someone’s first day of work

I work at a smaller organization, and Sansa, who manages our 10-person junior staff, is leaving after working here for the better part of the last decade. She’ll be sorely missed, and the head of the organization has indicated plans to do some kind of sendoff for Sansa. Today a fellow junior staffer named Arya emailed the junior staff saying that she wants to send a flower arrangement to Sansa’s new office on the first day of her new job “instead of a parting gift.” Arya specified that each junior staffer might consider contributing $5-10, but that no one should feel pressured to contribute. Everyone else is on board with the idea.

What do you think of this? If it were me, I wouldn’t really want old coworkers sending me flowers at my new office on Day 1. I’d be nervous about meeting new people, setting the right tone, and getting set up at a new organization. I think I’d be self-conscious if a big flower arrangement from my old coworkers showed up at my desk on my first day. I also just think it would be nicer to give Sansa a gift in person when we’re still in the office together, since realistically many of us probably won’t see her again after she leaves.

If it matters, Sansa is a pretty senior-level woman. I think part of my knee-jerk unease might come from being an early-career woman in a field dominated by older men, and getting flowers at my desk on day 1 feels a bit at odds with the professional image I’d want to project during my first impression. I’m probably overthinking this though. I plan to pitch in and join the gift because it doesn’t seem worth objecting to, but I wanted to know if you have any thoughts about this gift idea.

Yeah, it’s a really nice thought, but a lot of people wouldn’t want flowers on day 1.

For one thing, some people don’t even have a desk on day 1! They’re in training, or moving from one orientation meeting to another, and may not have anywhere to put a vase of flowers. And you really don’t want the distraction on your first day of trying to figure out what to do with a big bouquet.

For another, assuming you do have a desk to put them on, you’re going to get a lot of “flowers already?” comments and will have to explain they’re from your old coworkers, and that’s sweet but also maybe a little odd, and you’d probably rather be focused on other things. It’s also … pulling you back to your old job mentally, at exactly the moment when you want to be focused on the new one.

That said, some people would love and appreciate it! It depends on the person, but it’s the kind of thing where you need to know them well enough to be sure they’d be into it. In this situation, where Arya is junior and Sansa is senior, I don’t think Arya can know, and so a gift in person before Sansa leaves is a better idea.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2019

3. Is sex a bad example in a work presentation?

I sometimes present internal “an intro to statistics” seminars at my company. Previously I have based the seminar on the fact that men say they have sex with women much more often than woman say they have sex with men, which is by far the clearest example I have of many obvious and not-so-obvious statistical issues.

No clients attend and the seminars were well received, but I am now less young (and I have read your blog more) and I think this was a bad idea. My question is how bad? Can I never mention the example at all?

Yeah, I’d steer clear of that example (unless, of course, it’s directly relevant to the organization’s work, in which case that’s entirely different). It wasn’t the worst thing in the world and you don’t need to feel mortified or anything like that, but using an example about sex in a work context risks (a) coming across as gratuitous — like you had other good examples but chose this one because Sex! or (b) making people a little uncomfortable. We’re all adults and know people have sex, obviously, but it can feel a little jarring to have it come up in a work presentation. (Plus if you have anyone creepy there, they’ll be all too happy to use it as a lead-in for inappropriate remarks to others, either in the moment or later.)

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2019

4. My coworker puts dirty tissues in my trash

My coworker often pops into my office to talk about work or whatever. I don’t mind the short conversations, but she has a habit of wiping her nose in my office and throwing out the dirty tissue in my wastebasket. I have tried to move the wastebasket, but that doesn’t seem to work. What should I say?

I am confused by this question and now wondering if I’m a filthy person and didn’t realize it. I would think the trashcan is the precise spot where she should be putting her dirty tissues. I get that it’s your trashcan and not hers, but it’s … for trash. There’s not really anything to say or do here, because she’s not doing anything inappropriate.

If you’re just really squeamish and it’s killing you, I suppose you could say, “Hey, I’m pretty germophobic and I know this might sound silly, but would you mind not throwing your tissues in my trash can?” … but be aware that it’s going to come across as a strange thing about you, not about her (which is why the language there conveys that you realize that).

– 2018

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I’m ashamed of my past behavior at work — do I need to change fields?

by Alison Green on September 30, 2024

I’m off for a few days, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2018.

A reader writes:

I have an ongoing concern that has a lot to do with mental health but also has to do with work. I am seeing a therapist regularly to deal with the mental health aspect but I’m hoping to get insight from you on the work piece of it.

I’m about seven years into my professional career and have intense anxiety daily about my performance. I was always a high performer and have been promoted many times. About two years ago, I left my previous position for a new position that was more money and allowed me to get back into a particular industry. Shortly before I started the job, I lost 160 pounds and found a new confidence I never had before. However, shortly after I started the job, things in my life took a bad turn … I had four deaths in my family, including two people who I was very close with, and my long-term relationship with my live-in SO ended. Because of splitting up our things and having to pay for the apartment myself, I also began to have significant financial issues too. The stress of all the change, especially the negative things, aggravated my already existing mental health issues, after having been relatively stable for about six years.

I’m not trying to make excuses, just trying to explain the “perfect storm” that developed that caused me to act on some of the impulsiveness that is common in those with my mental health issues. To add to all of the personal things going on, my new job had a culture that was extremely different than my previous workplace. For once, I wasn’t the youngest person — almost everyone working there was in their early 20s to mid 30s, many were “young professional” types who were unmarried and had no children. The culture ended up being one that centered around a lot of joking around, close friendships outside of work, happy hours and other alcohol fueled events, and romantic relationships. I was newly single and newly thin and confident — the environment was awesome! I was making friends, going out, having a great time!

However, as the negative things in my life started happening, I got deeper and deeper into the drinking with work friends and things quickly became unprofessional (not just for me, but for the sake of this post I’m going to focus on my behavior). I don’t want to be graphic but I think it’s important to give you an idea of exactly how inappropriate things became, because it’s necessary context. Some highlights include: giving one of the managers oral sex in the parking lot, getting black-out drunk in front of the director at a happy hour, attending my boss’s family functions, having a tumultuous and abusive five-month relationship with a different manager, making out with one of the facilities guys in a conference room at work, doing shots with my boss’s husband, sleeping with a supervisor that my best friend at work also slept with and ruining that friendship forever, getting hammered on lunch with a supervisor and returning to work drunk, heavy petting with a senior manager at a work function in front of multiple coworkers, smoking weed with coworkers and giving oral sex to another manager, who is now my current boyfriend, in my office. I became known amongst the management team as the happy hour go-to and a partier and people were constantly asking me to go out drinking with them. For additional context, I work in human resources so this kind of behavior is especially egregious.

It got to the point that I was drinking heavily 4-5 nights a week and I could no longer maintain my responsibilities. I started coming in late and skipping work frequently and became very depressed about my situation and especially guilty about my actions. Eventually, through therapy and substance abuse treatment, I was able to begin to piece things back together. It quickly became clear that I needed to get out of that work environment, both for my mental health and the sake of my career. So, I started a new job about six months ago. My behavior at my previous employer wasn’t known by those giving a reference so I didn’t have any difficultly landing a new job, even one that ended up being a promotion with more responsibility and a significant pay bump.

I’ve come far in my treatment but it’s a process. Since I’ve started this job, I haven’t done anything even remotely unprofessional. In fact, I probably come off a little cold sometimes because I’m so afraid of even making friends here at all. The worst part though is that I went from a high performer who was confident in her abilities to an average performer with crippling anxiety. Every day I wake up thinking about the horrible things I did and how I don’t deserve this job. I am so deeply ashamed of myself and feel guilty daily. I feel like I so thoroughly messed up at my last employer that I didn’t earn this. I’ve lost all confidence in my judgment and my abilities and I second-guess every single thing I do. I’m constantly worried I’ve made a mistake, even on mundane things. It’s similar to the feelings I’ve seen others describe about imposter syndrome except … maybe I really am an imposter? What kind of HR professional does the things I did? I’m considering backing out of this field all together and trying something new because I feel like I don’t deserve to do this anymore. Am I off-base or is there any coming back from this?

It sounds like you have come back from this.

Everywhere except your own mind, at least. (And to be fair, probably in the minds of people from your old job — although it’s likely that no individual person there knows the full list you presented here.)

And for what it’s worth, you must have done a good enough job there to land yourself the position you have now. I’m not saying that your extracurricular behavior there doesn’t matter. It does matter — but clearly you have enough strengths that didn’t have any trouble landing a great new job. That says something.

Everyone has a past. Some people’s pasts are weirder/more troubling/more embarrassing/harder to explain than others. We still all have them, and I suspect you’d be surprised by the weird/embarrassing stuff that people you really respect have in their pasts.

Luckily, we all have presents too, and our current-day selves have control over those.

It sounds like you’re dealing with an enormous amount of shame. Shame can be useful when it causes us to reassess our behavior and resolve to change it. But shame isn’t useful when it just hangs around making us feel horrible. It sounds like you have resolved to change your behavior — and have done that successfully — but you’re still mired in the shame and it’s paralyzing you.

If you accept that mental illnesses are diseases like any other, and I hope you do, then maybe it would help to put this in different terms. Imagine you know someone with a physical ailment that exhausted her and destroyed her focus at work, and while she fought the disease she ended up performing horribly for a year. And then she recovered, got the disease under control, started a new job, and went back to performing at her normal high level. Would you think, “She performed so badly while she was sick that she doesn’t deserve her new job and she should change fields because she can never be trusted again”? Or would you think, “She had an awful year, I’m so glad she’s recovered and is back to herself and back to being great at what she does”?

I know that when we’re talking about life choices, it can feel like the analogy doesn’t quite hold up, and that losing focus at work is different from oral sex in the parking lot. And sure, they’re different. But that difference is where so much of the shame and stigma around mental health comes from, and it’s cruel and damaging to people — as it’s currently being cruel and damaging to you.

You were sick. It affected the way you acted. You got it under control, and you’re working with a professional to keep it that way. You’re doing all the right things here (although if you haven’t yet apologized to anyone at your last job who deserves it, that might be worth doing too). You’re allowed to forgive yourself and move forward. I hope you will.

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