Wednesday, 27 October 2021

coworker’s grisly Halloween decor, I don’t want to dance in my office’s TikTok videos, and more — Ask a Manager


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

1. My coworker goes overboard with grisly Halloween decorations

People in our office go bonkers over Halloween. Recently we were encouraged to decorate for Halloween. I would take that to mean a little black and orange garland, maybe a plastic pumpkin, right? Well, not hardly. People go overboard and apparently the only rule was no trip hazards in the aisle. The woman in the cubicle next to mine must have emptied out her storage area of Halloween decorations. Now there are gross bloody looking, ghoulish figures hanging from the ceiling above our desk space. There are skeletons with teeth, cobwebs strewn about, and a lifelike bloody head cut off at the neck with facial wounds and hair that appears to be matted with more blood, and a plaque with some sort of satanic looking symbol was hung up. Then she brings in a black cauldron that when plugged in emits what looks like smoke, gurgles, and has neon lighting. There is not a pumpkin in sight!

To me, it’s very dark and not the atmosphere or space that I wish to spend my day in for weeks and yet I have no choice. This is very disturbing. I complained to my manager about the dead people hanging from the ceiling and she just said they weren’t dead people! Everyone thinks this person is so cool because she has a lot of decorations and they ooh and ahhh over it all day long. What is wrong with this picture? This is a large professional corporate office — the finance office for a huge group of physicians, no less. The manager encouraged this and thinks it is just great good-spirited fun and I am looking around thinking, “What is wrong with people”? Too late now, but is this even normal?

Well, it’s pretty oblivious to the fact that not everyone is comfortable with macabre decorations, and I’m alarmed that your manager was so dismissive when she heard about your discomfort.

Do you have HR? They might be more receptive than your boss. But otherwise, next year you could try approaching your coworker ahead of time and explaining that you were creeped out by some of what she put up last time and ask if she’d be open to a different motif. If your sense is that she won’t care, you could try with your boss again, despite her lackluster response this year. I do wonder how clear you were with her; if you didn’t plainly say that you can’t comfortably work around that kind of grisly imagery, it’s worth restating it that way.

2. I don’t want to dance in my office’s TikTok videos

I work for a small medical office and three of my coworkers have really gotten into TikTok challenges and dances. They spend a lot office time practicing and filming these videos. I already don’t love it because I find it distracting and I end up picking up their slack when they are working on choreography instead of checking patients in or updating charts. They have invited me to join a few times, but I have always politely declined. Recently a few of their videos have gotten semi-popular and now my boss thinks it’s a great team-building exercise. I want nothing to with this and now I’m being treated like I am not a team player. I have several reasons I want no part in this. One, someone still has to do the work while they are off rehearsing their latest skit. Two, I dislike social media and I was not hired to be an entertainer. Three, and most importantly, I have a few toxic family members who I am no-contact with, and I have virtually no internet presence for a reason. I don’t want to do anything that might clue them in on where I work should they stumble across the videos.

When I told my boss and coworkers I would not be participating as it just wasn’t my thing, they seemed really put off. I don’t feel I should have to explain my personal family issues to my boss and I don’t think it is unreasonable to not want to dance at my non-dance-related job. Besides team-building, I know my boss also thinks it will be a good way to advertise the business so I’m not sure if I have standing to say no. They are starting to pressure me more and more and have even asked me why I hate fun. Do I have to get involved? I’ve thought about offering to be the camera person just to get them off my back, but truthfully I find the entire thing obnoxious and I would prefer to just do my job.

You’re perfectly in the right; you should not have to dance for a job where you weren’t hired to perform. It’s fine if your boss and coworkers are into it, but the pressure is unwarranted and bad management.

If you haven’t tried this yet, I’d recommend sitting down with your boss and having a serious conversation where you say something like, “I know we’ve been joking around about me not liking fun, but I’m very serious about not wanting to participate in these videos. I’ve made a point of having no internet presence for privacy reasons, and chose a job where one wasn’t required. I doubt your intent is to make me do something so uncomfortable for me if it’s intended to be fun, so can we agree that it’s okay for me not to take part and I’ll keep covering the work while the others are making videos?”

Another option is to be somewhat more explicit about those privacy reasons. You don’t need to disclose your family situation to your boss if you’d rather not, but she might be more likely to back off if you said, “Because of something that happened in my past, I have safety reasons for not having an internet presence, and putting videos of myself online could compromise the precautions I’ve taken.”

3. People don’t believe how fast I read

I have a issue/question that is super low stakes in the grand scheme of things, and honestly sounds like the setup for a humblebrag, but has been a thorn in my side for my last few jobs.

I am a fast reader. I mean, really fast. Multiple speed comprehension tests have placed me at over 1,000 words a minute (university lab-run tests that show texts at certain speeds and then ask questions to see if you really got the big picture and details). In so many ways it’s a gift — I finish multiple books a week! But there have been many times at work where I’m given papers or important documents during a meeting, told to look them over, I do … and then the other person tells me that I need to read them, not skim them. More than once, when I respond politely that I did read it, I’ve gotten skeptical looks and comments that they factored in the time to read it into the meeting.

I don’t want to sound presumptuous by saying “oh, by the way, I’m a fast reader” whenever someone hands me papers, but what’s a more professional way to navigate this kind of situation? Do I say something ahead of time? Chuckle and shrug when someone comments “oh, that was quick”? Just spend a minute in silent contemplation, pretending that I’m still reading (I’ve tried this but I never know how to gauge what an appropriate length of time would be). The last thing I want is for someone to think that I’m dismissive of what they’re giving me!

I have no doubt that it’s obnoxious to be on the receiving end of skepticism that you read something you really did read … and I have definitely handed papers to someone and seen them just skim when they needed to fully process (confirmed later by them not knowing everything that was in there), so I can see why your colleagues might worry. So you have a weird situation!

Personally, I’d just say it straight-out at the start: “You’re going to think I’m skimming, but I’m not; I’m a weirdly fast reader.” But that’s not everyone’s style and it’s also fine to just respond if asked about it — “Yep, I’m a weirdly fast reader” and if someone looks skeptical or pushes back, “I promise I processed it all and didn’t skim.” If you get pushback even after that and saying this wouldn’t be inappropriate for the relationship: “Feel free to quiz me!” On the other hand, if it’s a group meeting where everyone is reading, skip all of this and just wait an extra half-minute per page at the end.

4. Accepting a job below minimum wage

A situation came up where a remote job tried to hire me for slightly below my state’s minimum wage. Obviously I can’t accept because it would expose them to legal liability. But hypothetically speaking, if I did knowingly accept that they were paying me less than minimum wage and they could prove that I knew it was less than minimum wage, could I still sue them?

You’d generally file a wage claim with your state rather than suing, but yes. With most employment laws, workers can’t waive their legal rights by agreeing to an illegal thing (otherwise there would be a ton of pressure on employees to do that). The employer is responsible for the legal violation whether or not you knowingly accepted illegal working conditions.

5. Do married couples working for the same employer get less FMLA leave?

I thought I was pretty familiar with what FMLA was and wasn’t until HR said something curious on a call yesterday. The HR rep said that FMLA would apply to provide additional leave after the birth of a child, but if both parents work for the company, then the 12 weeks FMLA offers doesn’t apply to each person individually — it is combined. So if a couple had a child, then they could take a total of 12 weeks off vs. 12 weeks off for each of them. The same scenario would apply to care for an ailing child or parent — 12 weeks combined if both spouses work for the company. This doesn’t seem right to me, but maybe I don’t understand FMLA as well as I thought! Any insights?

Yep, that’s correct. FMLA gives you up to 12 weeks a year of protected family or medical leave … but if you and your spouse work for the same company, you get a combined 12 weeks between the two of you for the birth or adoption of a child or caring for a parent with a serious medical condition. Interestingly, you do not have to split it when the leave is to care for a child or spouse with a serious medical condition, your own medical condition, or some situations arising from having a spouse, child, or parent on active military duty. (More here.) When the law was being drafted, legislators’ concern was that employers would avoid hiring married couples if they would both be out for 12 weeks at the same time after having a kid.



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