1. My coworker is making me uncomfortable
A few years ago, my colleague Fergus joined the team I’m on. At that time, I was an assistant so I made myself useful by being friendly and helping him get settled. We were in different parts of the office so didn’t interact that much. I had the sense he had a little work crush on me, but it wasn’t anything crazy. He has a long-term girlfriend of nearly a decade.
Last year, he was given a new role and is now in the same communal area as me. Again, we were friendly. He didn’t like the new job and began to do lots of sighing and complaining. Over the last month or so, things got worse. He hardly spoke to anyone and seemed miserable. I saw him once with his head on his desk.
Things begins to grate on me: his attitude, the complaining, the overcomplicating of things. I withdrew somewhat but not much. Again, he wasn’t talking to people much. He asked me for an update about a project and I reminded him we’d discussed it already and gave him the same update. He emailed to apologize and came to my desk to say the same.
A week later, he asked to talk in a conference room. He wanted to apologize for being annoying and said he had a lot on his plate. I didn’t pry because I don’t need to know his business. He kept hinting at personal problems. I told him I was fine. He transitioned to his upcoming vacation plans. He’s thinking about going to Thailand for three weeks and wondered what I think about a single guy doing that — I guess suggesting people might think he was there for something sexual and inappropriate. I asked what his girlfriend thinks. He said they broke up and things have been hard. I say sorry, I hope he’s doing okay, and do my best to remove myself from the conversation.
A few weeks later, he stops by my desk. I’m working, have headphones in. I notice him out of the corner of my eye. He talks to me. I say, “Sorry?” and take my headphones out, thinking he needs something. He looks embarrassed and says, “I was coming to say hi. You’re always so busy.” He asks if I’m busy now. I say yes. He leaves.
Today, leaving a meeting, he walks out with me and starts a story about how his teenage daughter had her boyfriend over this weekend. He says they were upstairs in her room but the door was open. He then says that when the boyfriend left, he could smell the boyfriend’s perfume on his kid and teased her about it (implying she smelled like her boyfriend from making out/sex/whatever). He ends it with, “Kids, right?” I did not engage him in any way prior to this story.
I’m not quite sure what to do here. At first, I resented Fergus dumping all his emotional guts on me and his neediness. But after today, I feel like it’s beginning to take a sexual edge that I don’t like at all. What should I do? Talk to him? Talk to my manager? I don’t want to deal with any of this.
Because Fergus’s topic choices haven’t been flagrantly crossing a line — just dancing right around it — as a first step try setting boundaries with him on what kinds of interactions you’re available to have. Be too busy to talk when he tries to engage you, and if he brings up anything inappropriate, let yourself have a natural reaction of “Eeew, why are you telling me this?” or “That’s not a topic I want to discuss at work” or “I really don’t want to hear that.”
Do that a few times and ideally he’ll conclude you’re not the satisfying audience he had hoped you would be. But if he continues initiating sexually-tinged conversations with you after you’ve clearly told him to stop, then loop in your manager. She’s likely to ask if you’ve told him to stop and this way you’ll be able to say yes. Plus, there’s a decent chance he’ll actually stop on his own if you directly tell him to — and if he doesn’t, that would make this a much bigger problem. (I want to be clear: this is not to say that you always have to try to address this kind of thing yourself before going to your manager; you don’t. But with this particular set of facts I’d try setting boundaries yourself first and see if that solves it.)
2. I need private space for virtual medical appointments
I have four weekly virtual therapy/medical appointments, and some one-offs sprinkled in, ranging from 30-60 minutes. I work on a large campus where space is tight: three people to an office. Conference rooms are always booked (also, should I be booking a conference room for a non-business related call?) and there are no empty offices. I am no longer allowed to WFH and I would do the appointments outside but it is 90F+.
I have asked my boss what I should do and they said to ask my office mates to leave during my appointments. That just doesn’t sit right with me.
Other options were use my car, duck into another office when no one was in, or ask the medical office to use one of their rooms. I have some mobility issues and it’s a long walk to my car, plus gas is beyond expensive right now. I would only feel comfortable using someone else’s office with permission and finding an office where all three people are out at the same time each week doesn’t seem feasible. I could ask the medical office, but this campus has 5,000+ people and they only have a few rooms. I can’t imagine they want to start a precedent that would easily turn into a mess. Any suggestions on what can I do? Do I just suck it up and use my car or try the medical office?
Yeah, those aren’t good options, especially when you’re talking about four times a week. Can you lay out the situation for the medical office and ask for their advice? They may be able to suggest options you don’t know about (and even if they can’t, it might be useful to bring the problem to their attention; you can’t be the only person struggling with needing private space for virtual appointments).
Another option is to request formal medical accommodations to make this doable, which could be anything from permission to adjust your schedule to giving you a private space to take the calls.
3. Did I doom my career by taking lower-level jobs?
I started my career as, let’s say for anonymity’s sake, a part-time teapot maker. From there, I got a job as a teapot designer then was promoted to design team lead at that same organization. When I saw an opening for a design manager at a larger and more prestigious company, I decided to take it even though it was clear through the interview process that it was “manager” in title alone and that I would essentially be a designer again. I took it because it was a company I’d always wanted to work at with far better pay and benefits than my previous role. I was in the role for almost three years when I started looking for a more managerial role again. I did have a small team in that job, but I felt I had the experience to do my boss’s job of VP of design at a slightly smaller company.
Well, before I even started seriously looking, I was laid off. As the months passed and no offers came through, I was forced to take something to pay the bills. And this is where I think I made my career-ending mistake, though I didn’t realize it at the time: I took a job as a part-time teapot coordinator at a nonprofit, a step down from what I was doing as a teapot maker to start my career and a role typically associated with those fresh out of college with no experience. Now, in that role, I am doing the senior-level strategy and execution work of a VP of design, but due to it being a nonprofit and the pittance they are able to pay (I’m on SNAP benefits), they are not willing to change the title to reflect the type of work that I am doing because it would be hard to attract candidates with the right salary expectations in the future.
Even though I describe my high-level work accurately in my resume, I don’t think anyone reviewing resumes for a VP of design or a senior designer would ever look at someone whose most recent experience is teapot coordinator. They probably think I’m fresh out of college and deluded about what my short experience as a teapot coordinator entitles me to. Either that, or they look at my resume and see a steady decline over the years in terms of responsibility and title. While at the time I thought it was reasonable to take a slightly lesser title at a large and internationally renowned company, I am rethinking even that now. Is there any way to save my career? Or do I need to go back to school and switch to something entirely different?
No, you shouldn’t need to switch careers entirely!
On your resume, start experimenting with not including a title for your current job at all; use something descriptive like “teapot design” and clearly and accurately list your actual responsibilities and accomplishments. When you get to the reference-checking phase with a job (which is generally toward the end of a hiring process, not up-front) or if an interviewer asks directly about your title, you can explain that the organization uses non-traditional titles but can confirm you’ve been doing the work of a VP of design. (And you may not even need to get into it, because most organizations won’t, and shouldn’t, contact your current employer anyway.)
Also, this is a time to really lean into your network — people who have worked with you and know your work and what you can do.
4. How would internet age-verification requirements play out at work?
I’m wondering about how pending internet age-verification legislation might be handled in workplaces (or is being handled, in areas where such legislation has been passed). I have serious privacy and security concerns about uploading ID, biometrics etc. for age verification just to get online, and in many/most cases in my personal life I’m likely to simply not do it, even if it means really reducing my internet use.
But I have accounts for several sites that I use at work that may be affected. Some are not really essential but some I could not do my job without. Can my employer require me to upload my personal driver’s license or biometric data, however insecure it may be, to verify and maintain access to these sites? Have you heard anything about how this is playing out?
For people who don’t know what this refers to: there’s currently legislation in Congress (the KIDS Act) that would require online services to verify all users’ ages. It’s not expected to pass into law, but who knows.
Anyway, in the U.S., employers can indeed require you to upload your personal data if it’s required to maintain access to sites you need to do your job.