It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I want my coworker to stop commenting on my food
I work in a small, casual office of six people. We’re all friendly but not personally close; conversation tends to stay pretty surface-level and polite. I genuinely like our office manager, and consider her the closest to a friend I have at work. She’s very outgoing and chatty and has mentioned that she is autistic. We discuss books and movies and have a supportive and positive relationship but not one in which we discuss anything deeply personal.
Since the new year, my boss and the office manager have been vocally working on weight loss and exercise, which has created somewhat of a health focus in the office. Weight loss and dieting tend to be a popular conversation between the two of them in the open kitchen, which is always audible since our office tends to be quiet. I don’t have the healthiest past relationship with food, so having weight loss always come up at work hasn’t been super fun, but good for them and I am way more able to ground myself than I used to be so it’s not really bothersome.
But there is a dining area in the kitchen where the office manager will sit to work for most of the day (it gets much more sunlight than her desk). Almost every time I go to grab/heat up a snack, breakfast, or lunch especially, she will ask me what I’m eating or comment on it. It’s not malicious in any way (“ah, time for a Rice Krispie break!” “ooh, you made some ramen?”) but it has been making me feel increasingly self-conscious. I just want to eat whatever I’m eating in peace. Sometimes she will initiate a food-unrelated conversation, and even then I’m kinda like please just let me get my lunch and go, I want to be invisible and go back to my desk to eat! There are times I go to use the kitchen and she doesn’t look up or say anything, and it feels like a huge relief. I’m to the point where I wait for her to leave or go to the bathroom to hurry over and use the kitchen. The general office focus on food is already putting more emphasis than I’d like on what people are eating at work, and now I feel like every bite I consume is noticed.
Some of this is obviously personal and mine to work on, but I can’t find a way to say to her that I wish she would not comment on any food I retrieve from the kitchen that doesn’t feel aggressive. Every version I can think of feels very out of the blue and overblown for the type of casual comments she makes. But they just make me dread eating at work, which sucks.
The next time she comments on your food, say this: “Can I ask you a favor? I get self-conscious when people comment on my food. I would be so grateful if you didn’t mention anything about it when I’m using the kitchen!” (To be clear, you are not weird for preferring this at all! But sometimes framing this stuff as “this is just my own idiosyncrasy” can make it easier to say.)
I don’t think you can avoid her chatting with you altogether when you’re using the kitchen; that’s just a part of a shared space like that. But you can definitely address the other part.
2. Coworker used a homophobic slur about me and my partner
I (female) and my partner (non-binary) work as part-time bartenders at a venue. We don’t work there often but generally enjoy the opportunity when it presents itself. Recently, we worked a four-day event where our bar staff was the two of us and four other (male) bartenders.
On the third day, it was revealed there was some confusion and disagreement about how tips were going to be distributed. My partner and I expected to receive the tips we earned, as is standard, but the other bartenders had discussed it separately and had collectively decided they wanted to pool and split tips. We disagreed, so a meeting was held the following day by our manager to address the situation. The manager, while being a nice guy, is a bit of a pushover and, instead of making the decision, stayed quiet and deferred to the six of us to decide. The conversation was a little tense, but my partner and I successfully advocated for ourselves and received the tip situation we desired.
A few days later, we heard through the grapevine that one of the other bartenders, who works at the venue more frequently and is generally the manager’s #2, went to someone else and said, about us, “Fuck those dykes!”
Needless to say, we are shocked, hurt, and generally pretty pissed. I am fully prepared to have a direct conversation as soon as possible with my manager and let him know what happened. My plan is to be very clear and request that he address this situation and make it right or we will be resigning. My question is, what are some ways he could make this right? I’m not asking for the guy’s resignation, but I would like some accountability and consequences that will allow my partner and I to feel supported and safe to continue working at this venue.
Frankly, he should fire him — there’s no reason to accept behavior like that at work — but at a minimum, he needs to talk to the guy and tell him that what he said was unacceptable, he can’t display bigotry at work ever, he’s expected to talk to and about coworkers with respect at all times, and if he ever violates those rules again, he won’t be working there anymore.
The problem for you, I think, is whether you can be confident that a pushover of a manager will deliver that message as strongly as it needs to be delivered, and that it won’t be watered down.
3. I took a senior job at a toxic company
I worked at my previous company for over 10 years, starting right after college. I had plenty of frustrations and issues over the years, but overall it was a good job with a lot of great people.
I left that role when I received an offer to join the exec team at another organization. However, one month in and I’m very worried. The other members of the team are very difficult to work with and communicate in ways that would have required an HR meeting at my previous firm. A recent meeting had sniping and near yelling from the highest levels, over standard topics. And having gotten more insight from other colleagues, this isn’t unusual — it’s just how this group works. Every coworker seems very unhappy to be working here.
I’m having a very difficult time adjusting and figuring out how to handle this level of toxicity. I take a lot of pride in my work, and it’s been hard on me to feel torn down and sniped at when I’m still so new.
I told myself I’d stay for at least a year with this organization, but right now I’m feeling ready to get out. I know you often recommend people leave if a job is clearly not working out, but does that change at a very senior level? What other considerations should I be thinking about, and if I should wait out a year, do you have recommendations for not letting this environment get to me?
No, you should start looking now. There’s nothing magical about staying one year at a job; it’s still a short-ish stay, and staying for seven months isn’t that different than staying for a year, particularly in a senior role. Plus, if you leave fast enough, you won’t even need to put it on your resume at all. More on that here.
4. Is it weird to keep my own list of contact info for coworkers in case I’m laid off?
I’ve only ever worked at one company, and it’s been 30 years. I’ve dodged so many layoffs over those years, and lately I’m overcome with anxiety that my luck will run out. My husband was laid off in December and watching him job searching has been depressing.
When it does, I’d lose access to systems and therefore basically every business contact I’ve had in my career.
Is it a good idea to start compiling a list of names and contact info separately so I can reach out if I find myself out of work? On the one hand it feels logical but it also feels kind of creepy to keep a file of people. Even if it’s okay, is it all right to save their mobile numbers if they list them in email signatures, or is that crossing a line?
It’s very normal to keep a list of contact info for colleagues! This used to be called a Rolodex and everyone had one; no one uses those anymore because tech has made them unnecessary, but there’s nothing weird about ensuring you’d still be able to contact people if you suddenly lost your job.
LinkedIn is an easy way to do this. But not everyone is on LinkedIn and even those who are don’t always bother looking at messages there, so a separate list is useful too. If you’re not already connected to people on LinkedIn, that’s another step worth taking now.
5. Should I check back after an interview when I haven’t heard anything?
I graduated from college at the end of March and have been frantically job-hunting ever since. I applied for a job in February and got an interview in March. At the end of the interview, the hiring manager told me he wanted to move forward with my candidacy, and he would send me supplemental materials to complete. Once I received the assignment, I would have a week to finish it. I never received any further communication from this company.
I’ve been a little antsy. I’ve combed through my email and my spam filters to see if I lost it, but I haven’t found anything. I completely understand that the hiring process takes time, but it’s now going on two months of radio silence. I would be more willing to write this opportunity off except the position I landed post-graduation may not last past the summer. I would really like to have a position nailed down after. Do you think it would be wise for me to reach out to the hiring manager, or would I seem pushy? Or, at this point in time, is it too late for me to reach out but a learning experience — i.e., I should have asked sooner? Or does their silence mean they moved forward with another candidate or decided not to move forward with me after all? I am hesitant to jeopardize what seems like my only real opportunity at this point, but I don’t want to let it slip through my fingers. If I do contact them, do you have any suggestions for what I should say?
Yes, you can reach out! You could say: “When we met, you mentioned that the next step in the process would be an assignment to complete. I never received it so wanted to make sure I didn’t miss an email from you. I’d love to move forward in your process whenever you’re ready.”
That said, there is a good chance that they’re simply ghosting you, which is a thing that happens a lot in hiring, despite whatever promises get made in the interview. Still, since you haven’t checked back with them yet, it’s reasonable to make one attempt and see if that jars anything loose. It would seem pushy if you kept following up, but checking back once after you took the time to interview is completely fine.
