my coworker’s obsession with coffee is an all-day distraction

by Alison Green on April 9, 2024

A reader writes:

This is probably going to be more venting. It is bugging me, but I don’t want to risk being the office jerk.

I work in an office setting. Bill from another department is a really nice guy. Probably to an obnoxious level. I really am not big on small talk, but usually keep things to a brief, friendly conversation. I think my team is mostly the same way. We have good working relationships, just not big talkers. Bill used to be located one hallway over. I know he’s always been a talker, but we’ve had some distance so it’s usually been limited to passing in the hall or in the break room.

Our office took an old computer room and decided to convert it into two offices to make more space. Bill’s office is now on my hallway, almost directly across from me. So now, I hear every word from every conversation he has. He is very obsessed with baseball, soccer, and a few other topics. He has really long conversations several times a week on those.

He also loves coffee. He had always kept a few special blends in his office and would share them sometimes. Well, I think he really decided to lean into this. He put a sign on his door about his coffee shop and now has a stream of people coming by every day to try the cup of the day. Very nice thing to do in an office. I feel like a jerk for being bugged by this. The problem is, every one of these people stopping by is a 30-minute conversation about how he likes a Columbian vs another country, the taste notes, roasting critiques, and on and on. Multiple this same conversation by four or five times a day.

It drives me nuts for another reason too. He has absolutely terrible time management skills. He talks endlessly about how he is so loaded up and he can’t believe how is expected to handle so many things. I’ve worked on projects with him and have had to hear about it when I have a similar workload, just in a different expertise.

I’ve closed my door on a few occasions when I just had to concentrate or not snap. Generally don’t like doing that cause I’m a team lead and prefer an open door policy. His boss is a co-lead in our department, we’ve talked shop a few times just about our teams and challenges and I know he’s been working with him on some of this. I’m not sure I want to be the office jerk and bring it up with either his boss or him. I can’t really move offices because this is the hallway most of my team is on.

Do I just suck it up and listen to it? Buy some headphones? What would be likely outcome of dropping a hint to him or his boss? He seems to be a pretty sensitive guy who is a people pleaser. If I bring it up with him, I wouldn’t want him to drop it entirely. I just don’t want to hear three hours of coffee talk a day.

It’s lovely to offer a rotating selection of freshly brewed coffee to one’s office mates. It is not lovely to spend hours a day discussing coffee while other people are trying to work nearby (and that’s before we even get into Bill’s complaints about his workload, which he’s apparently trying to fit into, what, four hours of work time a day?).

If Bill were just having a typical amount of office chit chat and it bothered you because you were used to a quieter team, I’d say it was on you to learn to work around (or to try headphones some of the time). But four to five half-hour conversations about coffee per day — plus the rest of his socializing — is over the top and it’s reasonable to say something to him.

I’d say it this way: “Hey Bill, it can be hard to focus over here when the coffee talk goes so long. Could you keep it down or even close your door when people come by for coffee?”

You say you don’t want him to drop the “coffee shop” entirely but … well, that wouldn’t be the worst outcome. What he’s doing is excessive. As someone who clearly has trouble cutting conversations short, he probably should drop it entirely. But either way, the above language is reasonable to use.

If that doesn’t work, it’s reasonable to mention it to his boss. The two of you already have touched on the challenges with Bill previously, and I’d sure as hell want a fellow manager to let me know if one my employees were disrupting people like this, especially if we’d already talked in confidence about issues with them and especially if I weren’t well positioned to see the extent of it firsthand. (At some point having someone spend hours a day on coffee reflects on the manager too, which is another reason they should want to know.)

You asked what outcome is likely from that, and it depends on Bill’s manager. A decent manager would find ways to observe it themselves after you tip them off and then would talk with Bill, explaining that it’s taking up too much of his time and disturbing others working around him (without naming you). Ideally they’d take a closer look at what’s going on with Bill’s work overall, too.

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my employee quit over a misdirected email

by Alison Green on April 9, 2024

A reader writes:

I have two employees who can’t stand each other but they’ve managed to be civil and professional. Sarah is a mid-top performer with a consistently good work product. She’s not a superstar but she is dependable. Dani is temperamental, doesn’t always listen to peers, and has created problems for her teammates when her part of projects either missed the mark or missed the deadline. Dani is on a PIP for performance issues but has been making an effort to improve.

Last week, Sarah had apparently had enough and fired off an email to a friend at work listing all of Dani’s shortcomings. She intended to vent to a friend but she sent the email to Dani. Dani, understandably hurt, came in the next day and quit. While there’s a part of me that’s glad Dani is gone (she was difficult to manage and struggled to get along with anyone), she was leading a critical project with a tight deadline. And now the project will be delayed. I’m asking myself if there should be consequences for Sarah. On one hand, she was just venting and didn’t intend for Dani to see the email. But on the other, her actions have created a serious business issue. She seems to alternate between being upset that this happened and celebrating that Dani is gone.

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:

  • Chronic nail biting in meetings
  • My boss wants me to hire her friend
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how much money do you make?

by Alison Green on April 9, 2024

It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly.

So to take some of the mystery out of salaries, it’s the annual Ask a Manager salary survey.

Fill out the form below to anonymously share your salary and other relevant info. (Do not leave your info in the comments section! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.)

When you’re done, you can view all the responses in a sortable spreadsheet.

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employee writes overly casual emails, employer told me to remove TikTok from my phone, and more

by Alison Green on April 9, 2024

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

1. New employee writes overly casual emails

I’m a millennial and work for state government, where I supervise a new Gen Z employee. Their approach to email communication with members of the public is much less formal than I was taught/how I write and, in my opinion, is unprofessional in our line of work. They often respond to emails to external parties without an introduction, punctuation, capitalization, or a signature. This concerns me because all of our email communications are public records and always have the potential to be included in legal cases.

When I was a new employee, I was instructed to alter my communication style to include my full name on formal requests on behalf of the organization when it came up in a legal case a few months after I started. This isn’t always necessary for every single email, but having a basic level of professionalism when you’re interacting with the public on behalf of a governmental organization is something that was emphasized to me. Additionally, it helps maintain a certain level of respect that might otherwise be lessened based on age- or gender-discrimination.

How would you approach providing feedback to this employee on email etiquette as an employee of a public-facing organization?

Be straightforward about it! You’re approaching it as if it’s more fraught because it involves communication style — and maybe because you’re reading it as a generational difference that requires more delicate handling — but it’s no different than teaching a new employee to follow the organization’s style guide or any other standard operating procedure. The sooner you address it and the more matter-of-fact and direct you are about it, the better it will go.

It should be as simple as: “When you’re writing emails to anyone outside our team, you need to use standard punctuation and capitalization and include an opening and a sign-off with your signature. I’ll forward you a few of mine to show you what I mean. Can you make sure you’re doing that on all of them going forward?”

2. Stably employed but internally screaming

I’d like advice on how to manage a job where I like everything except the actual day-to-day tasks. I’ve been at my position for less than a year and the reality is sinking in that my work is very, very routine. I mostly compile PDFs, update templates and do mail merges, schedule internal and external meetings, prepare internal memos, and process invoices. There’s a lot of following up with people who’ve missed deadlines, wrangling a database that always acts up, and preparing for board meetings. We have busy periods where I know I’m going to be stressed getting everything done, and slow periods where I pretend to look busy. The problem is that the calendar of activities stays almost exactly the same year over year and so do the memos and documents I prepare — I literally copy the file that was used the previous year and update the dates and relevant details. Sometimes I find myself completing tasks the slow way just to make it take longer.

It’s a small company and there isn’t really room to grow (my counterpart who manages a similar portfolio has had the same job title and responsibilities for 30 years), but they offer 3-5% cost-of-living raises every year along with an extremely generous benefits package that I don’t want to give up (including a retirement contribution that would help me meet my long-term goal of retiring a little early.) Many people have been there for decades, and I know that it’s a solid, stable place to work. I just don’t know how I can keep doing such routine tasks while preserving my sanity. I’m not someone who needs a super dynamic job where every day is different — I actually prefer a predictable schedule — but I also want to take pride in my work and it’s hard to do that when it’s so rote. As a result, I find myself making basic, careless mistakes that then make me feel stupid and more disengaged when they’re pointed out to me. I don’t want to leave and I know they don’t want me to either, but I also don’t know if I’m cut out to do the same set of mundane tasks for the foreseeable future.

I don’t think you like this job.

Some people are fine with the type of work you describe, and even derive satisfaction from the roteness of it. But you don’t like it. It’s not working for you. It’s okay for that to be the answer.

Start looking around at other options. Don’t leap at the first thing you find — you want to make sure the overall package is better than your current one — but don’t assume you can’t find good benefits with more engaging work somewhere else.

3. Can my employer tell me to remove TikTok from my personal cell phone?

I got an email from my employer saying that employees who perform work under federal contracts (as subcontractors) must remove TikTok from their personal devices including cell phones, and that those of us who don’t do that type of work (I am in this second group) are still strongly urged to do so. The company did not purchase my device and does not pay for my data plan. Can they do this?

Yes. The federal government recently issued an interim rule prohibiting the use of TikTok on devices used by federal agencies and contractors, including personal devices that are used in any way in their work — including things like accessing work email, sending work texts, or taking work calls. Many employers don’t want to muck about with grey area on this (i.e., you say you never use your phone for work but then that one time while you’re out of the office you access work email from it) and so they’re directing employees to remove TikTok from their phones across the board.

4. How do I understand why I made this mistake?

I didn’t put a rental on a shared calendar for my organization, which caused lots of hassle when the renters showed up and the facilities manager wasn’t there. My supervisor asked me to consider why I made the mistake and come up with a solution. The problem is that I’m not sure why I made the mistake! A flattering answer I could give is that it’s been very, very slow here for a few months, and things haven’t required much attention. A less flattering answer would be something like just laziness on my part. This particular mistake, and one of this level at this job, is new. But I’m generally not detail-oriented. I love this job and the people I work with, and mortified that I caused such hassle.

How can I look at a big “brain fart” at work and understand why I did that so I don’t do it again?

Since you describe yourself as “not detail-oriented” and you’re not sure why you made the mistake, it’s a flag to reexamine the systems you’re using to track and organize your work. Everyone makes mistakes now and then, but the combination of those two things together says there’s room for improvement there — maybe a lot of room.

In particular, think about checklists! Checklists are a huge help with recurring tasks that have more than one step (as long as you force yourself to actually consult them each time). So for something like a space rental, you might have a checklist with steps like: confirm day/time with renter, send space usage policies, put date on shared calendar, and so forth.

In addition to being genuinely useful, it’ll help smooth over the current situation if you can explain to your boss that you’re implementing checklists going forward.

5. Can I find out if I’ve been blacklisted?

I’m slowly starting to think the primary hiring company in my industry has blacklisted me, but I can’t figure out why and want to know if there’s a professional, polite way to find out for sure.

My industry is fairly small, with a handful of companies taking up the bulk of the hiring, with one in particular as the primary employer for most people. I’ve applied there multiple times, usually without success, which is disappointing but also not too surprising since each listing is going to be flooded with qualified applicants.

However. I am much further in my career now, with multiple high-placed contacts within that company, and the lack of responses is starting to get weird. I’ve applied so many times over the last decade, always with an internal referral, and always for positions in line with my experience, not scattershot. Of the two (!) times I have been invited to interview, both were for a position directly under someone I knew personally. In the latter case, I made it to the final round and the role was given to an internal candidate, but the hiring manager (someone I trust to be honest) said he made a very pointed case to HR that I was someone who should be flagged as eligible for similar roles in the future and, in fact, there was another position that the HR rep would reach out to me about soon.

The rep never did reach out. I was disappointed but also understood that maybe something changed with the role after they initially spoke to my contact. Except it just happened again! I applied for a role within the same area of the company, one I was more than qualified for, and reached out to that same rep directly to let them know “Hi, I applied, remember how I made it to the final round already so you’re already familiar with me and my work?” Radio silence, not even an acknowledgement, and then a form rejection.

I’ve been assured my materials are good, so I can’t for the life of me understand why I’m not even making it to the HR screening process, especially when I have direct human-to-human contacts. Is there any way to even ask without coming off as pushy or naive? If the #1 employer in my industry has some sort of internal note on me (and believe me, I’ve wracked my brain, they shouldn’t!), I want to know so I can either set the record straight or stop wasting my time.

If they do have you flagged in some way, it’s very unlikely that they’d tell you. But it’s also perfectly plausible that that’s not what’s happening and they just get a ton of applicants each time so the competition is fierce.

Since you have personal contacts there, reach out to the one you have the closest relationship with — and maybe that hiring manager who pushed for you last time — and ask if they can tell you whether there’s anything about your materials or approach that’s holding you back. But my money would be on lots of applicants/stiff competition.

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the arrogant sports car driver, the wild turkeys, and other stories of workplace parking drama

by Alison Green on April 8, 2024

Last week we talked about workplace parking wars. Here are 10 fantastic stories from that discussion.

1. The parking space war

I used to work in the dorm office at a local private college. We had an enormous parking lot that encircled the entire complex. There were enough spaces for every resident and employee times four. It was ridiculously large and everyone could pretty much park within a 30-second walk to the doors. Despite that, the first rows of parking spaces were hotly contested. Employees did not like students parking in the first rows. People would threaten to call tow trucks to remove someone else’s vehicle just to have a coveted space. Someone made fake parking tickets using the official logos and passed them out.

My boss finally got fed up with this and designated the first row at the offices entrance to be employee-only parking and put up signs and labeled spaces. This … did not make things better. Apparently the location of the space within the row was now a symbol of power. Getting space 1C was better than space 1K and there were popularity contests held for the “right” to park in specific spots. Boss reiterated that the spaces didn’t matter and it was first come, first serve. Morning shift began lording their spaces over afternoon shift. Afternoon shift would put up barriers when they left in the evening to prevent morning shift from parking there.

It all came to a head one morning after I got into the office earlier than usual. While the boss and I were having our morning meeting, we looked out his office window and witnessed a morning shift employee direct four of our student residents to pick up my 1995 Geo Metro out of space 1A and carry it across the parking lot.

After that, boss assigned spaces alphabetically by last name, with a fine for violating it. My last name just happened to be at the top of the alphabet so I was assigned 1A for the duration of my employment, much to the annoyance of the parking wars participants. Several employees did attempt to bribe me into giving up my space but were unsuccessful. I didn’t really care where I parked because the lot was so huge but after all the nonsense I had to put up with from them as office admin, I was keeping my space out of spite.

2. The spite

My boss, who was awful, would spitefully deactivate people’s parking passes when she got mad at them. She was always mad at someone. I’d quietly turn the pass back on, and my boss never noticed. She was too busy with the next target of her ire.

3. The Precious

We had a surgeon who had a nice yellow Italian sports car. Ferrari or Lamborghini. Like many hospitals, parking spots were hard to come by, especially any in the garage or covered. He would put his yellow baby into last two spots by a support wall. He parking over the lines taking up both spots.

Now, I have a unique skill set. I can park. Like teleport my car into any spot. Sling it into a parallel spot, front facing, back facing, no matter. Not the most useful skill professionally, but my strange version of “I will look for you, I find you. And I will outPark you.”

I, being newly out of residency, drove a 1971 VW beetle. Stick shift and all, classic and reliable car. I magicked my bug into the spot between the post and his car (race car parked because that’s what you do with those Italian horses). He had to get in from the passenger side and scoot over the gear shift – not easy to do when you have low lying bucket seats. This repeated the next day.

I got overhead paged. It was a fun slow walk to move my car. The double parking stopped for a while. Then he did it again. I timed my parking to him coming off shift to the garage. I Tokyo Drifted my old beetle right next his Precious (on the passenger side since those spots were open). Sooooo close to the Precious. I thought he would have an aneurysm. He never took up two spots again.

We actually became good friends. An honorable battle and yes, I still have Herbie the Beetle.

4. The secret war

I apparently started a secret parking war with a coworker by parking in “his” spot unknowingly. He just kept coming earlier and earlier to beat me there to claim his spot. I didn’t care (or even notice), I was just parking in the first available spot when I entered the lot. Eventually he announced to me that he couldn’t keep coming in that early, so I had “won” the spot fair and square. I was … very confused lol.

5. The sinister saying

Not really a parking lot “war,” per se, but it’s parking lot related. You know how companies will talk about the importance of cross-training and keeping everybody in the loop in terms of what if you win the lottery or if you get really sick, etc.?

My first job out of college used the creepily specific framing of “just in case you get run over in the parking lot by someone backing out of their parking space.” And I heard that same framing from several different people over the course of my time there.

I never got the courage to ask why they used that very precise example, but you better believe I paid a lot of attention in the parking lots.

6. The consequence

Out of the professional world and into the summer camp world: We had an employee (an actual adult who didn’t have naivete as an excuse) who would drive around, parking his car in the way of maintenance vehicles and heavy equipment while he ran into a building for “just a second.” On more than one occasion, the maintenance team just towed his car out of their way. When he finally gave the edict “nobody is allowed to move my car,” the next time he disrupted maintenance operations he came out to find his car on blocks with all four tires missing and a map to where they had been taken.

7. The parking space theft

The parking lot at my old job was built for 70 cars but our building only had like 30 people, so it’s not like we were in danger of running out of space. A coworker once confronted me with way more aggression than I expected because I had “stolen her spot” — the furthest spot to the left from the building door in the front row of the lot. I made apologetic noises while she ranted about liking the walk. It apparently didn’t occur to her that if she enjoyed the walk, there was an equidistant spot at the other end of the row that she could take.

8. The chutzpah

Back in days of yore when I was young, I was given a disability parking permit for my work car park because I have Crohn’s, and that can cause mobility problems. There were three allocated disability spaces near the door, and only people with permits were allowed to park in them. In theory.

In practice, if you had a disability permit and didn’t get there early, you wouldn’t get a space, because some entitled person who was late and didn’t want to park at the back of the (admittedly large) car park and walk would always park there. The worst offender was a guy in my department who thought he was god’s gift to the world and was easily the most entitled person I’ve ever met. If someone was going to steal my space, it was him.

Now, there was a period where I was arriving a little later than I normally would due to roadworks, and Every. Single. Day. I would get in and this guy was parked in my space. Every day, I would inform facilities that someone without a permit was parked in the permit parking. They did nothing about it, so one day when it was raining, I was running late and was in pain from the beginnings of a flare up, I drove in to see That Guy in my spot … and also two other Not Disabled cars in the other two spots.

I saw red. I parked my car across all three spaces in front of the other cars, and at the time I was rocking an estate car so it was almost big enough to cover all three. As I was getting out of my car, another disabled permit parker pulled up, saw what I had done, and parked next to me. We headed into the building together, not letting on what we had done, and went about our days.

Lunchtime comes, and because it’s raining, people understandably want to use their cars to go get lunch instead of walking. That Guy leaves the office, and returns a minute later. “You’ve blocked me in,” he said. I put my pencil down and turn to face him. “Yes,” I said, “I have, but you’re in my space.” I picked my pencil back up and went back to my diagram.

That Guy stomps off, and goes to facilities. I didn’t witness the actual exchange, but I was told by a colleague that That Guy lost his mind at facilities for not doing anything about our “illegal parking” and the facilities guy informed him that he was the illegally parked one. This guy was new and the jobsworth we all needed, and he really started to enforce the parking rules.

Yes, it was petty. But it’s still one of my best memories from that job.

9. The drama

At one job I held for five years in a medium-sized city, parking was at two lots: one that was adjacent to the building and one that was about two blocks away. Assigned spaces in the adjacent lot were divided up by department and then doled out by the department head. When I started, I parked in the “far-away lot” but got bumped up to the “good lot” when someone left. Great! Until my manager decided to redo the system for assigning the parking spaces, so I got bumped from a primo spot to one in the corner. Which was fine until the snow started and it was covered for months out of the year by the plowed piles of snow. It’s been 10 years and I’m still mad about this!

When people were on vacation, there were literal bidding wars for who would be able to use their spot when they were gone. When someone would park in a spot that wasn’t theirs, the rightful owner of that spot would PARK BEHIND THEM and trap them in as punishment. And I haven’t even gotten into the building-wide emails (complete with photos) demanding that people get out of their spots.

As it turns out, the reshuffle of spots was just to keep us all distracted enough about that to not notice that the company was falling down around our ears. Suffice it to say that a few years later it got a lot easier to get a parking spot, if you get my meaning.

10. The wild turkeys

A different sort of parking lot wars, but wars all the same. Come summer, our parking lot turns into the land of the wild turkeys. There is one rafter of turkeys that calls our parking lot and surrounding area home, and they are aggressive! Just try to get past them to get to your car – they dare you! It’s like they are the bouncers of the parking lot. My company even has put up signs warning about the turkeys. The turkeys can chase people away from their cars or the building, and one time someone was even chased on their motorcycle. Most of the time, respectful distances are kept, and turkey and human go about their days. But every so often the two cross paths and chaos ensues.

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am I sabotaging my former intern’s job prospects?

by Alison Green on April 8, 2024

A reader writes:

A while back, I supervised an intern for the first time. She produced good results and was eager to learn, but she worked slowly, needed a lot of coaching, had little initiative, and there were complaints about finding her asleep or on personal calls. However, because we were close in age and she my first intern, we bonded, which led to me not being an effective manager and not addressing her performance issues. I know now that this was a great disservice to her, although at the time I thought I was being kind.

She stayed on as a volunteer after her internship ended (we’re a nonprofit, and volunteers are common in our field). I wanted to give her something she could list as an accomplishment on her resume, so I gave her some authority over a new project I was designing. (I had done something similar at an internship I had, and it really benefited me.) However, showed up three hours late to a four-hour shift, spent her time on personal calls, or just didn’t show up at all. I ended up having to end her volunteering with the organization.

Fast forward two years, and we were hiring for my replacement. She applied, but did not mention her experience as an intern with us. Based on my feedback, she was rejected without an interview. I felt some misgivings — it had been two years and she could have gotten her act together — but mostly I was glad that the organization would find a good person for my role.

Well, recently, her name came up again when a colleague at a different organization asked if I knew her. I briefly explained that she had been my intern and I wasn’t super impressed with her performance, though I stressed that she could have grown a lot since then. My colleague rejected her application without an interview.

Have I been sabotaging her chances at jobs? This is now two jobs that she has been rejected for, just based on my word. I have worked hard to become respected in my field, and I don’t want to vouch for her, but I also don’t want to keep her from jobs. Should I have not said anything?

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 organize orgies — can I talk about it in my job hunt?

by Alison Green on April 8, 2024

A reader writes:

I organized adult weekends (aka, orgies) for several years. The part I enjoyed the most turned out to be the project and event coordination: sourcing locations, keeping the books on payments, communicating with vendors, tracking the budget, managing food, etc.

I’d like to do more of that professionally, but I’m not sure how to talk about it in interviews or put it on a resume. For example, I’m applying for a job that asks to see sample curriculums I’ve developed. My examples have to do with adult topics (think consent education, not like graphic how-tos) that I think would color their perception of my candidacy.

What are your suggestions?

Ooooh. Yeah, that’s tough.

The subject matter is likely to make people uncomfortable, and for a lot of people it’ll raise questions about your judgment in using the experience at all. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t — it’s legitimate experience — but in this one, it will.

You might be able to look at jobs that intersect with the adult industry or are adjacent to it, where the subject matter is less likely to cause those issues.

Another option is to sanitize the material so that it’s not as explicitly sexual, if that’s possible with the materials you have. You’d just need to keep in mind that once you submit it, it’s fair game for questions and you may get asked about the context you were using it in.

But also, if you’re looking for jobs doing project and event coordination, curriculum design probably isn’t going to come up a ton. And it sounds like you have lots of examples  of sourcing locations, managing finances, working with vendors, and managing food — all things you can discuss in G-rated terms.

So I’m wondering if you can describe the events simply as social events (for a local “social club”?) — there was food, after all! — without specifying that clothes came off and sex was had. You’d need to think carefully about how to do that so that if you are asked questions about what sort of group it was or the purpose of the events, you’re prepared with language that finesses that … but I think “social group” could plausibly cover it, as long as the group’s name doesn’t make it really, really obvious.

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manager wants to match outfits, in trouble for a text sent outside of work, and more

by Alison Green on April 8, 2024

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

1. Does my manager want to match outfits with me?

I know this is almost definitely a joke, but it’s a reoccurring and oddly specific one.

I’ve been at my current office job for about a year and a half. When I was a few months in, I wore a red plaid dress and thought nothing of it, until the next day when my boss (who I hadn’t seen the day I wore the dress) told me she was also wearing red plaid and joked we matched. At the time I thought nothing of it, but every few weeks or months similar things happen. One day I wore what I thought was a plain black and white striped cardigan, and my boss immediately said she had to have one, and asked where and when I bought it and how much it cost. It seemed like a lot of details for a joke, then she mentioned matching again.

She’s made a few more comments and then today I was wearing a green skirt and an autumn orange shirt, and she said she loved those colors and needed to start wearing them again soon. I said something like, “I hope you’re not talking about matching again” and she started saying how funny it would be if we did match, and I said, “If you start copying my outfits, I’m going to start wearing crop tops.” My boss laughed for a good while and I left. I don’t think I’m in trouble as we work in a casual small office and joking is a quite common. I’ve also been told I’m funny and friendly, and I kept my tone friendly as I said it, so I think it was fine.

But all the comments about matching are starting to bother me and I don’t know what to do. I’m turning 30 this year and my boss is about the same age as my mother. The only explanation I can think of for this is that this is my first office job and my taste in clothes is very girly and vintage, so sometimes I’ve asked my boss if certain outfits are OK to wear to work. My boss has approved of all my outfits — again, we’re very casual — so maybe this is just her way of saying what I’m wearing to work is fine? Also, I don’t usually wear heels or make up to work or do my hair, but today when she made the comment I was wearing make up. Is she trying to tell me to dress more fancy or is she just trying to be funny? What, if anything, should I say the next time she brings up matching outfits?

You are reading way too much into it. Your boss is just joking around and maybe likes your fashion sense. You’ve talked with her about clothes before, so she might figure you have a camaraderie on the topic or that it’s a shared interest. It’s very unlikely that she actually wants to wearing matching clothes; she’s just being friendly. (It’s also not uncommon for people, usually women, in an office to joke about accidentally matching. She may have just latched on to this as a point of connection.)

Related:
is it weird to start dressing like my boss?

2. How can I tell the new owner of my company how crucial I am?

I work in an office of a family-operated business with less than 10 employees. I am the only one not related to the family. I love my job and am really good at it. I am involved in or manage all aspects of it. The owner has decided to sell the business and I am the only one that has been asked to move to the new business.

I recently met with the person who will be buying the business and, while they are in the same field, they have less experience than me. It was very apparent that I would have to train them on multiple aspects of the business, including products and systems. To say I am concerned is an understatement. While I thought it was a meet and greet, they used it more as a new employee interview. It became apparent to me while speaking that they did not understand the extent that I run the business day to day and the work that I do. To be frank, if I didn’t move to the new business, I don’t think it would stay afloat. Though comments they made, it became apparent they were trying to justify my wage.

I guess my questions is how to navigate this big change and make sure that I am not coming across as arrogant or demanding but also make sure that they know that my wage and hours are really not negotiable and that while I have no interest in purchasing the business from the owner, I basically run it. Any insights or advice would be helpful.

It makes sense that they treated the meeting more as an interview than a meet and greet; most people in their shoes would want to assess the person in your position before they start working with you. But it’s reasonable for you to assess them right back and figure out if you want to work for them and whatever their vision is for your position. If you’re getting vibes that they might be skeptical of your pay, hours, or role, that’s something you should try to explicitly hash out now — unless you’re willing to just take it as it comes after the ownership change, even you turn out to be really unaligned. (To that point: are you sure you want to stay on?)

Meanwhile, can you talk to the current owner and ask what conversations they’ve had about you, and how much the new owner has been told about what you do? They’re better positioned than you are to explain that you’re crucial — and if they don’t think the business would stay afloat without you, they should tell the incoming owner that. But it would also be smart for you to prepare a detailed description of what you handle and the amount of time involved in each piece. In other words, don’t tell the new owner that you’re crucial — show it.

3. I got in trouble for a text I sent to a coworker/friend outside of work

I was venting to a coworker who I thought was a friend and said that sometimes my other coworker made me want to high five her in the face. She took a screenshot and sent it to our manager. Can my employer write me up for something I said in text to a friend while I was off the clock and off job premises?

Yes. You were talking to a coworker (friend or not) about another coworker and you said, basically, that you wanted to slap her in the face. It doesn’t matter that it was outside of work hours or off work premises; things you say to and about coworkers are fair game for your employer to take action on if they consider it a problem for your workplace.

That said, writing you up is silly. Your manager should have just talked to you, said it’s not acceptable to talk about colleagues that way, and asked what’s going on that was behind it.

4. I don’t know whether I’m going on a trip or not

I’m trying to figure out whether to follow up on an exciting work opportunity that was hinted at and then just sort of … dropped.

In the last six months, I began a new role that I absolutely love and have gotten great feedback about my work and abilities. I feel that I’m proving myself, and when my boss suggested that the organization might like to send me on a trip to provide logistical/operational support for an upcoming event with an exciting international partner, it was validating! However, that conversation was a month ago and I have heard nothing since. One part of me wants to ask whether our shop is still in need of my help and whether I should plan my tasks and meetings around this (soon approaching) event or not. Another part of me thinks that it would be gauche and presumptuous for me, a brand-new and low-ranked employee, to follow up about participating in a glamorous international work trip. I’m still trying to establish myself as a reliable, effective, and grounded team member, so should I ask, or should I just assume that it was not a serious suggestion, and leave it alone?

It’s not gauche or presumptuous to ask about it. They mentioned it! It’s reasonable to go back to your boss now and say, “You’d mentioned last month that you might want to send me to X for Y purpose. Since the event is getting closer, I wanted to check back with you and see what you’re thinking about it.”

5. My doctor won’t sign off on an accommodation

I have chronic neck pain that I have never solved. Sitting or standing at a desk is the worst thing for it, and I have considered changing careers because of it (but this hasn’t been financially possible). My MRI shows arthritis and bulging discs, but I know some people have those and feel no or less pain (or probably more, for some). I manage it with a combination of yoga, physical therapy, muscle relaxers/painkillers and frequent medical massage. I’m probably in pain eight days out of 10. Recently I’ve decided to be more proactive and sought an accommodation from my company, who is a large employer known for being good about this. An HR person immediately set up a meeting and gave me the paperwork for my doctor to sign. Yay! Right?

Except … my doctor won’t sign it, writing me back to say she’s “not sure this qualifies.” And now I feel foolish in front of my boss, who knew I was seeking this accommodation. The accommodation is to work 1-2 days in office instead of 3+ (being able to take breaks to lie down/stretch helps me). I already have an ergonomic setup at home and at my office, so that won’t help.

I feel that the root of the problem is that I appear fit and healthy, and I’m youngish. But it’s a very real problem that often has me in tears by the end of the day. What should I do, other than changing careers or trying to find a new doctor, I guess? Am I being unreasonable in requesting this accommodation? I know a lot of people have neck pain. Is that why it isn’t seen as a condition to accommodate? I’m just so frustrated.

Your doctor’s role isn’t to say whether your condition qualifies for accommodation under the law; her role is to say what you need to perform your job safely and comfortably. If she believes that’s less in-office work, it’s appropriate for her to say that.

But is she telling you that she doesn’t believe less in-office work is necessary? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s dealing with a lot of patients seeking her sign-off on work-from-home accommodations in cases where she doesn’t actually think it’s necessary, and that might be what’s going on here. In that case, you could have a conversation with her to try to better understand her perspective and share yours (specifically, the relief you’ve found from being able to lie down and stretch throughout the day). If you’ve otherwise found her to be a caring and responsive doctor, that conversation is worth having. But if she’s not taking your pain seriously, you’re better off finding someone who will.

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weekend open thread – April 6-7, 2024

by Alison Green on April 5, 2024

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: Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer. A robot designed to be her owner’s perfect girlfriend develops her own consciousness and starts to question what she wants, and deserves, from the world.

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

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open thread – April 5-6, 2024

by Alison Green on April 5, 2024

It’s the Friday open thread!

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

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

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