1. Leadership discussing weight loss during an accommodations meeting
I’m writing about a conversation that happened a few months ago in my workplace that is still bothering me, and I’m not sure if there’s anywhere to escalate it or if I need to keep working on letting it go.
I work in public service for a small city and am part of a union. I was in a meeting with the head of HR (who reports to the mayor), my boss (the director of our organization), and the union rep. The meeting was set up to discuss a medical accommodation I was asking for. I self-identify as a fat woman, but the accommodation in question had nothing to do with that; it was about mental health.
Everything was going fine, everyone agreed to the accommodation, we had it all in writing, etc. But towards the end of the meeting, the conversation went off the rails when somebody (I think the union rep, but I’m not sure) mentioned that they’re cold all the time because they lost 50 pounds. The conversation went on like this:
Head of HR: Congratulations, how did you do it?
Union rep: I do the shots.
Director: I am also always cold because I did the same thing and I also lost 50 pounds. I’m trying to reach my goal weight after baby and then intend to go off the meds.
Head of HR: Wow, you guys look fantastic.And so on. By this point I had tuned out.
I found this topic wildly inappropriate and kind of offensive for leadership to be talking about in front of their employee, fat or not, especially when asking for a medical accommodation. I just kind of tuned out at the time, but it’s still bothering me that someone who is leading the HR department would bring that up with their employees, and that other people in leadership would continue the conversation.
I don’t know if there’s anywhere else to escalate this or complain about it, though. The next person up from both of these people is the mayor, and I can’t complain to my boss about the union rep since my boss was part of the problem. Is there anyone else I can complain to, and is it even worth it or should I just continue to try to let it go?
I get why it bothered you but yeah, you should let it go. People should be more aware of how they talk about bodies and dieting in work situations — well, in all situations, really — and especially at meetings that are on completely different topics, but it’s a reality of our culture that it comes up in all sorts of situations anyway. To them, they were just chatting, and it’s not inherently inappropriate for them to chat at the end of a meeting where the main topic had already been taken care of. Your objection is closer to (very legitimate) personal preference than to “an obvious rule has been violated and something should be done.”
2. My boss won’t tell me how I can get a higher performance rating
At the beginning of 2025, I, along with about 200 other people at my large organization, joined a brand new team to build and implement a huge new piece of software. With the project, I also took the opportunity to join a team that has a different focus than my old team. This meant that I had to learn an additional huge piece of software, gain programming skills with very little prior programming experience, and do light project management with at least a dozen vendors. I crushed all of my deadlines, and managers on other teams regularly reached out to my boss with praise for me.
I gave myself the highest possible rating on my annual self-review (“exceeds expectations”) and laid out plenty of supporting documentation. I sat down with my boss, who enthusiastically agreed with all of my points … and bumped me down to a “meets expectations.” Because my org has forced rankings in the past, I was prepared for this possibility. He went on to clarify (without my prompting) that the org did not force rankings this year and he appreciated me meeting all of the challenging expectations for my new role. I asked him how I could have exceeded expectations for 2025, and he rambled on about “it was a hard year for everybody” and “it would have been hard for anybody to get an exceeds.” That wasn’t really an answer, so I asked how I could exceed for this year. He went on about how impressed he was that I met the high standards for my role, then asked “do you think I’m being too harsh?” I replied, “Harshness isn’t the issue, but it’s disappointing to be told I didn’t meet certain criteria without getting examples of what that criteria might be.” He then explained that he doesn’t like providing targets for exceeding expectations because then “that becomes the standard” and “people get disappointed when they don’t meet it”!
This was a week ago, and I’m having a hard time letting it go. In nearly 15 years at this org, this is the first time that a boss couldn’t either provide ideas for improvement or explain that I missed the cutoff during a forced rankings year (I’m generally a chill employee, and I think I get picked for that because my managers know it won’t make me melt down). The project lasts for at least two more years, so there are loads of objective criteria for potential goal-setting. Am I bananapants for thinking that he’s unfairly managing based on vibes instead of fair, tangible criteria? I have a great relationship with my grandboss and am considering setting up time with her to talk about it, but is that too dramatic? What else can I do here?
Final notes: I’m the only woman reporting to this guy, and the rankings are tied to our annual raises.
You’re not off-base at all. He should be able to provide you with clear examples of what “exceeds expectations” would look like and why you’re not there yet, and if he can’t do that, you’re absolutely right to conclude that he’s managing by vibes rather than clear metrics. What’s more, your company should want managers to lay out clear metrics for “exceeds expectations” for a whole bunch of reasons — first and foremost that people are less likely to knock it out of the park if they don’t know what that would look like, but also because managers who leave that hazy are leaving the door wide open for the appearance (or the reality) of a whole bunch of kinds of discrimination, and the legal liability that goes along with that.
It would not be at all too dramatic to talk to your grandboss about this, particularly since you have a strong relationship with her. Frame it as a very reasonable desire to want to understand how your performance is assessed, why you’re not at “exceeds expectations currently,” and what you need to do differently to get there.
3. My job is posted for more than I earn
I just saw a job posting for my department, the same position as mine (because someone is leaving). The amount of pay listed is more than what I make. I have been here for 20+ years. What do I do?
Talk to your boss! “I saw the opening for the new X is posted at $Y. If that’s the current starting salary, I’d like to talk about adjusting my salary, which is currently below that, so that I’m not making less than someone brand new without my experience.”
It’s also possible that you shouldn’t just get a raise to $Y but instead should get a raise to something above $Y to reflect the amount of experience you have. I say “possible” rather than “definitely” because the number of years in a job doesn’t automatically equate to doing the work better, but it’s something you should at least be thinking about.
4. Do teachers own their lesson plans?
I’ve seen in your column before that anything you create for your job belongs to your company. Does that also apply to lesson plans written by teachers?
I teach 10th grade history. As you well know, teachers are ludicrously underpaid and one of the ways I supplement my income is by selling my lesson plans on a popular site for teachers. Is what I’m doing illegal? Can I get in trouble with my school if they realize?
My name isn’t attached to my online “store” but I suppose if one of my administrators took a thorough look at the site they could connect the lessons to what I do in my classroom.
Under copyright law, your school district owns your lesson plans because they’re deemed “work for hire” (work that you create in the scope of your employment) unless it has policies to the contrary (which it might, so you should check). Interestingly, before the Copyright Act of 1976, courts had generally assigned copyright for educational materials to teachers — but when the Copyright Act of 1976 passed, it didn’t contain a teacher exception.
But that doesn’t mean that you’d get in trouble with your school if they realize you’re selling them; it’s more likely they’d just tell you to stop.
5. How should I show I’ve had the same job in multiple locations?
I’ve had the same job title at the same company for the past two years, but in three different locations. My base location has remained City A, but I’ve been assigned to plants in different states for long durations. So since 2024, I’ve spent one year split between Plant B in City B and City A, and eight months entirely at Plant C in City C. All of these are in different states.
How should I show this in my resume? Right now I’m doing this-
MegaCo | City A
Teapot Controls Engineer | City A State, City B State, City C State | 2024 – Present
– Accomplishment
– Accomplishment
It’s fine to do it that way, but you probably don’t even need the “City A State, City B State, City C State” part and could just list it like this:
MegaCo | City A
Teapot Controls Engineer, 2024 – Present
– Accomplishment
– Accomplishment
The exception to that would be if the individual locations were significant in some way, like if it would strengthen your candidacy to show that you had experience in a specific location or type of location (such as one similar in important ways to the one where you were applying).