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“recommending a student for a job I ethically oppose, employee tells me about his dating life, and more” plus 5 more Ask a Manager

“recommending a student for a job I ethically oppose, employee tells me about his dating life, and more” plus 5 more Ask a Manager


recommending a student for a job I ethically oppose, employee tells me about his dating life, and more

Posted: 18 Dec 2018 09:03 PM PST

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

1. Do I have to recommend a student for an internship that goes against my beliefs?

I work for a Catholic university, though I am not Catholic myself. Recently I had one of my students ask me for a recommendation because she was applying for an internship. The catch is that the internship is for a pro-life organization. Though this organization isn’t Catholic, it is in-line with Catholic teachings, but it’s not in line with my personal beliefs as I’m pro-choice. She’s a great student, so I want to support her, but I don’t want to support an organization that goes against my values. Is this an acceptable reason to say no to a reference? If so, is there a good way to tell the student no?

I can understand the impulse, but I think you'd be on shaky ground since you're working for a Catholic university and her internship is aligned with Catholic teachings. Part of the gig is that you'll write recommendations for good students and not pick on choose based on what you think of the prospective employer. (Of course, there are clearly limits to that; I don't think anyone would expect you to write a recommendation to, say, a white supremacist group.) But I'd be really interested to hear from professors on this one.

2. Employee keeps telling me about his dating life

I have an employee who works for me, and has for more than eight years. Eighteen months ago, he lost his wife of several decades, after a long protracted illness. She was disabled for a good part of their long marriage as well, so he was a caretaker for her for many years. Throughout his wife's illness, as his direct supervisor, I offered a lot of support, listened, and was flexible about his hours so he could be with her as much as possible. At the time and afterward, he said it meant a lot that I was understanding throughout the difficult time.

Recently he started dating another employee – and he is coming to my office telling me all the ups and downs of how things are going. It started with his excitement that someone had asked him out, and I thought I made it very clear that I did not want to know who and that I didn't need to know anything, but I was happy for him. Then coming in to talk a few times, and saying he wasn't sure he knew how to date after being out of the dating scene, which I offered sympathy for, and as soon as possible indicated I needed to get back to work. Now I'm getting more dropping by, or ending a talk about work projects with "not sure how this all works," "she's really nice and I really like her," "health issues are coming up and I already have been there/done that," etc. I try to keep the visits short and get back to my work, but I haven't been able to not have them start up in the first place. I think it crosses the line past polite chit chat about life and family and into too much info, and makes me really uncomfortable.

How do I politely get back on track? Do I be blunt and say that it's not really appropriate and/or that it makes me really uncomfortable? Steering or shutting down the conversation isn't helping stop it, and I think it really should stop – or am I being unreasonable about that?

As it will probably come up: we're not too far apart in age, opposite sex (and he is heterosexual), I am married, and we work in a small office area (11 people).

You're not being unreasonable. Some people are more comfortable talking with employees about this kind of thing than others, but in general it's easier to manage people when you keep some boundaries in place. And regardless of where you personally draw the line, you'd hope that people would pay attention to your cues and notice that you're shutting particular topics down.

Try being more direct when it comes up in the moment by saying something like,"Let's not go too far down that path — I've got to keep my manager hat on."

But if doing that a time or two doesn't work, then address it more head-on: “I'm truly happy that you're happy, but as your manager, I want us to keep good boundaries, which for me means not getting into the intricacies of dating. I hope you understand."

3. My boss whispers my name and it gives me the heebie-jeebies

The way our office is set up is kind of unique — six of us (the entire company — it’s a start-up) are in a small office (picture the smallest conference room) within a larger office. We don’t have noise issues in our office and we don’t need to be quiet at all times (one team member is frequently on the phone for her job, but the rest of us can converse at a quieter but audible volume even when this happens). For some reason, my boss has taken to whispering my name to get my attention, even when no calls are happening or just minutes earlier, others in our office were having a conversation at a normal volume. I usually hear her, but it makes my skin crawl. Can I ask her to stop or am I being dramatic?

Ugh, whispering often makes my skin crawl too — I don't know why.

You can ask your boss not to do it! If you make it into a big thing, it'll be weird, but if you're matter-of-fact about it, it should be fine. Just say something like, "I've noticed you'll often whisper my name when you want my attention. I have a weird thing where whispering is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Could I ask you to try not to?"

4. Discussing cancer history at a new job

I faced early-stage cancer last year (at age 30) during my last year of graduate school. I managed to graduate on time and land a job, which I’m starting this week. Thankfully, I am recovered and in remission, but I have to get scans every three months for the foreseeable future to make sure the cancer doesn’t recur. This will require me to miss two full days of work, a week apart, every quarter (one day for MRIs, for which I receive medication I can’t work on, and one for an office visit with my doctor, who is a two-hour drive away from me).

I am wondering how to address this situation with my new boss at my new job. The job offers unlimited vacation, so taking PTO isn’t a problem, but I’d like to explain why I’ll randomly have to miss two days a week apart from each other every three months, and I feel like “I have a doctor’s appointment” doesn’t quite do it justice. I know that if I told her the truth, the boss would (likely) not bat an eye at me missing work for something so important, but I also don’t want anyone to worry about my possible longevity at the company (for example, pass me over for an important role because there is — God forbid — always a chance that my cancer could come back and I might lose focus or at worst, go on medical leave). There is also just the general extreme personal nature of this type of conversation and the chance that she might look at me differently. How would you advise I handle this?

You're not required to share the details of what's going on! You're right that it'll probably help to give a little more context than just "I have a doctor's appointment," but it really doesn't need to be a lot more than that. You could just say, "I want to give you a heads-up that I had a health situation a while back that is now under control, but I need to take two days off each quarter for medical stuff. I'll of course let you know ahead of time when it's scheduled."

That's really it! (And frankly, you might not even need to do that. You could just wait until the first set of appointments is coming up and say, "I'll be out on the 15th and 23rd for medical appointments. And just to flag it for you, I'll have this set of appointments quarterly for a while, to keep an eye on a health situation.")

5. We have to make up our time for attending the company Christmas party

My workplace had a company-wide Christmas party last week. A week later, the head of my department (let’s say we’re the lid-making team) invited the 100 lid-makers to an offsite holiday party. The email was titled Teapot Company Lid-Making Team Christmas party. The event began at 4:00, an hour before end of business. We received two or three reminders to attend/RSVP. It felt obligatory, so I did.

Today, the hour I put on my time sheet for attending said party was rejected by HR, as “personal time” that I have to “make up.” It’s Friday. That means I have no choice now but to work through lunch or stay till 6 to make up for attending a team party yesterday. We were not told this would count as personal time. We were not told to work eight hours and then attend. Ridiculous? Should I push back?

Yeah, that's unfair. If this wasn't going to be considered paid work time, they should have been explicit about that, especially given the official reminders they were sending.

You could say this: "Based on the reminders to attend that we received and the fact that the event was during work hours, my understanding was that this was an official work activity and that our pay wouldn't be docked for attending. Since we weren't told up-front that we'd be attending on personal time, I don't think we should need to work extra time or lose pay for participating in what seemed to be a strongly encouraged work activity.” If they don't budge, suggest that they at least make it clearer in future years that your time at the party will be unpaid.

recommending a student for a job I ethically oppose, employee tells me about his dating life, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

updates: the disruptively cheerful coworker, the work cruise, and more

Posted: 18 Dec 2018 12:45 PM PST

It's "where are you now?" month at Ask a Manager, and all December I'm running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are five updates from past letter-writers.

1. Our disruptively cheerful new coworker treats us like toddlers

My story ends with a unique twist. It turns out several people in my office, including someone in a position to speak with the employee in question, are AAM readers. Of course, they recognized the situation. Pretty much immediately after my letter was published, my distracting colleague toned it way down. She is still very much herself, for example decorating the heck out of her desk area for the holidays, but she has stopped trying to involve the whole office in her activities. We can appreciate her cheer rather than be distracted by it now. She doesn’t seem to have any hard feelings, and her work is great. So while I didn’t end up needing to follow your advice, AAM directly fixed the issue! We’re all back to enjoying our collegial office culture and being able to concentrate on our work.

Thanks, and happy holidays!

2. My boss invited our whole office on a 10-day cruise at his expense

My update isn’t particularly thrilling – I told the VP that it wouldn’t be possible for me to go on the cruise and that it just didn’t work with my vacation and financial plans. I used some of the language you and the community provided. It was somewhat awkward because he called a meeting with our small office and asked us to give him our answers (in a circle!). He said that I could change my mind at any time. I learned later that my other managers didn’t want to go on the cruise either and had similar reservations about cost and our department closing for 10 days as I, and some of the AAM community, did. I also spoke with my direct manager who confirmed that it would have been impossible for him to “gift” me vacation time.

I really appreciated the advice of you and the community and I read through the comments section several times. It really helped reinforce how I was feeling and helped me to bolster my confidence and be able to give a firm “no, thank you."

3. How do I resign when my boss is a horrible person who will yell and insult me?

Over the last four months, my boss’s treatment of me has only gotten worse, with an uptick when she found out (not from me) that I was looking for a new job. That said, I put in my two weeks notice last Friday! She had a tantrum, of course, expressing extreme sarcasm and just general unpleasantness (as always) – not even a perfunctory ‘thank you for your time here’. I’ve been in contact with HR pretty steadily over the last few months, and they’ve let me know that they’ll be doing their best to make sure she no longer gets a full time executive assistant – maybe a temp, maybe no one. Who knows if that will stick, but the attempt at least makes me feel a little better. Until I leave, my HR rep has asked me to forward her any evidence of my boss’s abuse/wrongdoing/disrespect/etc – while my boss didn’t put much in writing, I’m happy to at least be adding to a file and giving evidence for a future case.

In happier news, I was offered another position at a great company in a “rockstar” department. It’ll be a tough gig, but everyone I’ve spoken to has said that my new boss is exceedingly nice and looking to mentor someone. This is exactly the kind of position I wanted, and I’ve never been more excited! The news came last week, the morning after a particularly hard day with my boss where she made me cry three times. I told my boss nothing about this new position, though of course she has her suspicions, because she has a history of sabotage – she asked me point blank if I had another job lined up, and if I don’t why I can’t stay until she hires someone new and train them in January when she returns from her month-long vacation. I told her no, I don’t have anything lined up (a white lie endorsed by my HR rep, who knows about her history of sabotage), but unfortunately I can’t stay until January. These next two weeks will undoubtedly be terrible, but how could this get much worse? She’s going to yell at me and call me stupid and not tell me what she wants? Sounds like a Tuesday to me.

Thanks again to your advice as well as the very kind commenters. Thank you for confirming I’m not crazy!! So many people at work, especially other executives, have let me know that they’re ecstatic for me for getting out of here. It’s great to know that they’ve recognized what I’ve been doing despite my working conditions – but also, more than a little dispiriting to know that so many people saw what happened to me and made no effort to stop it.

Update to the update:

After all this, plus a hellish week one of my two-week ending, I asked my HR rep if I could use my sick time and leave a week early. She said yes, and she said she would also tell my boss for me come Monday morning. I ghosted my abuser, and am spending this extra week of paid vacation relaxing and getting a head start on PTSD coping techniques. My HR rep is firmly on my side and has said she'll escalate my issues and documentation to as high a power as necessary. I'm still doubtful anything will happen (as is she, we're at a huge corporation), but I'm happy it's finally over and I never have to see my ex-boss again.

4. HR wants our personal cell numbers in our out-of-office messages so we can always be contacted

There were two eye-openers when you shared my letter.

I talked to my boss, who was noncommittal–she was surprised by the email too and was waiting to see how it shook out. Most people took your first option–ignore it–and it didn’t come up again. As someone who always takes the bull by the horns, I hadn’t even considered a wait-and-see approach, and I should probably try it more often.

But pointing out that HR doesn’t usually set this sort of policy made me realize that the situation was abnormal. The VP HR exerted influence in areas of the company that would never have been considered an HR function anywhere else.

She left of her own accord, with an offhand insult to everyone on her way out, and is missed by no one. Because she had gotten involved in so many areas, there were vacuums everywhere, even though she hadn’t been adding anything positive. (Everyone was also relieved because she was very touchy-feely, and no one wants to tell the head of HR to please stop rubbing my back.)

5. My intern is constantly apologizing

Thanks for your help, Alison. I’m proud to say that our intern became much more confident over the course of her time here with us, and seemed to figure out that she didn’t need to apologize for all the small things on her own. We offered her a full-time position, but she ended up deciding to spend some more time in school. No hard feelings, and our facility manager is definitely going to give her a great recommendation. I have to say that your advice came in handy for me, personally. Not long after I sent this in, I got a promotion, moved to another plant and realized I was now the one apologizing too much for things. I started re-framing my responses and I’m feeling great about my new position!

updates: the disruptively cheerful coworker, the work cruise, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

updates: I got in trouble because my coworker saw maxi pads in my car, and more

Posted: 18 Dec 2018 11:30 AM PST

It's "where are you now?" month at Ask a Manager, and all December I'm running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are five updates from past letter-writers.

1. I got in trouble because my coworker saw maxi pads in my car

Thanks again for answering my question Alison. I did appreciate your insight and the nice comments from everyone.

I was laid off on Friday. The branch was closed and every single person who worked here was laid off (including our HR and managers). There was no hint of it. Hiring was still going on like normal and we got small raises at the end of last year. We were given 20 minutes to pack our personal stuff, handed checks for our outstanding pay and walked to the parking lot. The building was locked up. We were told we would each get an excellent reference from the company with the explanation the layoff was through no fault of our own. I asked the HR person from head office who was there to oversee the layoff about me getting written up and he said it was stupid and wouldn’t be mentioned in my reference and not to worry about it.

(Other than seeing the person who complained in passing I had never talked to her. She didn’t work in my area and I didn’t find out she was transgender until after I was written up and my boss told me. I am gay and I would never want a member of the LGBT+ community or any other person to be hurt. There was no past history between us. The reason for the write-up was that I made her feel uncomfortable and excluded and should be keeping “items of that nature” private. I don’t know why she was looking in my car but they were in a bag on the backseat and not out in the open.)

I have already taken note of all your great advice on cover letters and resumes. Thank you!

2. I've become the office seamstress

I informed my HR person that I couldn’t finish all the pillows before the all-hands, but I did finish a set of four so they could show off all the colours. I didn’t attend the meeting as I was away, but in absentia I was presented with a gift card as thanks, along with a few others who go above and beyond to be helpful around the office, which was nice. Something came up that put the rest of them on hold for about a month, but I’ve done and delivered more than half of the pillows by now, and have informed HR that the rest will be done by next week – a much more manageable timeline. They really do look great, and I’m glad I did them, but I definitely should have set timeline expectations a bit better during the first go-around.

As for the quilts, they were not spoken of again, and I am absolutely not bringing them up – thank goodness! I’m reserving that particular gift for immediate friends, and will avoid bringing them into the office when I gift them. In fact, I’m currently looking for a different job (for mostly unrelated reasons) and I’ll likely avoid sharing that particular hobby altogether so I don’t find myself in this position again – or at least take the advice of other commenters who suggested I point out the actual cost of such hand-made gifts if anyone so much as hints they’d like a custom piece to call their own!

Many thanks to you you and the commenters for the insights and support, and happy holidays!

3. How can I increase my chances when I'm under-qualified for a job?

You won’t be shocked to hear that I did NOT get that job — I didn’t even make it to the phone screen stage after all. It was a small government office, but that still meant they were not interested in references at the HR screening stage and I got screened out. I had much too much faith in my reference’s reassurance that he knew everyone over there!

However… my reference was not wrong that he had a large number of contacts. Months later I applied to another position that did ask for references up front, and as soon as I’d stepped through the door for the interview, the hiring manager pointed out that we “had a friend in common.” I hadn’t even realized he’d worked extensively with my reference in the past. He talked to all my references by phone immediately after my first interview and had his mind mostly made up by the second interview, which mostly turned out to be a pitch for me to accept the offer, plus an opportunity for him to feel out if my intent was to stick around for a few years. This place says they actually want someone to start at a slightly lower level and grow into a heftier role as the organization expands.

The pay here is a couple thousand dollars less than the other role’s would have been, but the work is much more related to my areas of interest, and the potential upward mobility could be much, much higher. I was able to parlay my other experiences and the reference into something I’m truly excited for, just like you and your commenters told me! I’m really pleased with how this worked out. I have much more flexibility and responsibility than I’d have had in the county government, and some of the initial bumps were smoothed by other Ask a Manager tips.

4. What do I write/say when I was referred by my late friend? (#3 at the link)

I wrote in because the woman, Leia, who had encouraged me to apply for positions at the state-runTeaching Hospital (TH) where she worked had passed away, and I was not sure how, or if, I should mention this in an interview. Thanks for your compassionate answer, and the kind comments from the readers. I replied in the original thread once or twice and wanted to give everyone a fuller update.

There is nothing really spectacular here. First, it is unlikely I will get called in for an interview there any time soon, unfortunately. In early January, around the time my question was published, TH laid off a lot of employees and decided to leave many other positions vacant and did another round of non-fills in late February, over 700 jobs total. (State is supposedly investigating how this money crisis came up so suddenly.)

Second, I was hired as a half-time library page just over a month ago. (Some people may recall seeing my open thread post under my regular username.) This is an enjoyable job; my coworkers, my boss (assistant branch manager), and grandboss (branch manager) are great. The HR rep who onboarded me told me I’m eligible, after probation, to apply for full time library assistant positions–my new longer term goal. I also emailed my interviewer for a page opening at another branch, who had decided to go with another candidate, to let her know I had been hired. She congratulated me and added, “I think [your new bosses] made a wise choice” which made me feel good all over again.

I do need to pick up a second part time job, but now I can afford to use all the AAM advice on how to make good choices about potential jobs. To be honest, when Library hired me, I was in a position, between finances and unemployment rules, where I had to take literally the first job I was offered. I was just lucky it was a job I was interested in and had great people.
Thanks again!

5. I’m a recent grad and I feel like I’m working too much

Thanks to you and all of your commenters for their advice! I ended up deciding that I mostly needed to adjust my expectations and attitude for the job, and that would probably make my experience a lot better.

It worked — for awhile. But the 24/7 demands got more and more frequent, to the point that I had to schedule more than 2 hours off WEEKS in advance, and was met with a lot of resistance to do something as simple as play a soccer game. I started tracking my time, and I went 50 days without a break, including weekends and days I officially asked off to move apartments. I would get woken up at 5:30am on the weekends to work. I worked every single day between Christmas Eve and New Years (including the holidays), when our office was supposedly closed.

It’s probably not a huge surprise that I found a new job in June. I took your advice and asked a lot of questions about the culture and out-of-office requirements. I’m so happy to say that I’ve been in my new position for about 4 months, and have never been woken up to work, and I got my weekends back! I’ve even been assured that our office is actually closed between Christmas and New Years, and I scheduled a vacation where I’ll be totally offline.

updates: I got in trouble because my coworker saw maxi pads in my car, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

update: how can I help an employee who has no attention to detail?

Posted: 18 Dec 2018 10:29 AM PST

It's "where are you now?" month at Ask a Manager, and all December I'm running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer wondering how to help an employee with no attention to detail? Here’s the update.

Happy to update everyone! And sorry that I couldn't engage in real time with the comments – I'm in Australia, so the time didn't work out.

One thing I should have clarified in my question is that while I supervise Jessie on some (but not all) of her work, I don't have firing or even discipline powers over Jessie.

I think your response really hit home to me how serious it was. I didn't want to admit it, as we are friendly.

So, I tried to adopt both your recommendations and some of the commenters'. First, I mentioned this incident with the managing partner, who does have discipline and firing powers. She said they'd take it on, but I am not subject to what, if anything, they decide to do.  

In my experience, the managing partner has in the past failed to be explicit and direct about performance issues and the seriousness of them.

So I also sat Jessie down and said this wasn't OK, it's a recurring issue with her, and it needs to be fixed for her to be a good lawyer, and that I wanted to help her. I talked about the seriousness of it and how it can affect her reputation, and if she can't improve then law might not be for her. We decided on a couple of things – she'd assume the client was lying until she checked there were documents backing them up (and would mark any facts that didn't have documents backing them up in her work), and we'd go through her work together and I'd show her how I check things, which she can learn to apply my checks to her own work.

Since then, we've sat down together about once a week, I check a substantive piece of her work and I explain what I'm doing and what I think when I check for accuracy. I don't have time to do it on everything, but I have noticed a slight improvement, especially with the easier stuff to fix (spelling and typos).

With the evidence, we had a recent matter where a client said something, she put it in a draft, but we didn't have documents to back it up. I asked her if everything was supported, she realised it wasn't and apologised for not marking it – she seemed to understand the seriousness of it this time.

I'm slightly hopeful she can improve, but I've resolved, especially with your help, to be open and honest with the managing partner about issues I see and to keep the partner in the loop, so they can take action as they see fit. 

Thank you so much for answering my question, it really helped me both practically, and to clarify a lot of things in my head.

update: how can I help an employee who has no attention to detail? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

my boss wants help with her dating app profile

Posted: 18 Dec 2018 09:15 AM PST

A reader writes:

My new boss started here in January. My coworkers and I are upset and concerned over her complete lack of boundaries. It hasn’t gotten better as time goes on.

I could write you a novel about all the stuff she does, but here are just a few examples to show what I mean:

* My boss told us she’s trying to lose weight. She said her goal is to lose over half her weight. She says my coworkers and I have to keep her accountable to make sure she stays on track. One time she was upset with the five of us for not “calling her out” when she had a doughnut with her lunch. If she strays off her diet, she expects us to say something to her. But when one of my coworkers saw her eating a chocolate bar and reminded her about her diet, she got upset with him. None of us are comfortable with this because we can’t win whether we say anything or not.

* Related to her diet, she told my coworker Jane to write down everything she eats and what she does at the gym because she wants to weigh the same as she does. Jane isn’t a dietician or personal trainer and she has no experience with this kind of thing. Jane told us she doesn’t want to do this but our boss won’t take no for an answer. She thinks it is off-putting and invasive. She’s mentioned shopping trips together when she loses weight.

* Our boss had a meeting with all of us because she wanted us to help her with her online dating profiles and wanted opinions from men on what she could do to make them more appealing. She’s asked us about this more than one time.

* Our boss, my coworkers, and I all live alone. None of us have any children or dependents. One of my coworkers, Mark, has a girlfriend, the rest of us are single. Mark is moving in with his girlfriend next month. When our boss found out, she hid in her office for the rest of the day. At one of the mandatory after-hours bar trips she puts on for us, she cried and said Mark was breaking up our “single people’s club” and said over and over that she didn’t know his relationship was serious. She talks all the time about wanting marriage and kids.

* She has all our personal phone numbers and calls us at home after work and on weekends.

She should know better because she’s the director of HR. I could make a list of all the ways she crosses the line. If anyone says anything to her or doesn’t do what she wants, she gets upset.

She calls us her family and as you can see from the examples above, she gets way too personal with us. It is way over the line. No one is sure about going over her head to her boss because she reports to our VP of Operations. I have talked to my coworkers and no one wants to get fired for standing up to her or saying no. She doesn’t like it when we don’t go along with her.

I answer this question over at New York Magazine today. You can read it here.

my boss wants help with her dating app profile was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

update: my employer requires us all to do tai chi in the office

Posted: 18 Dec 2018 07:59 AM PST

It's "where are you now?" month at Ask a Manager, and all December I'm running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer whose employer was requiring the whole company to do tai chi as a group in the office? Because the letter-writer had a medical condition that was aggravated by the first session and got a doctor’s note saying she couldn’t participate, the CEO told her she still had to sit through each session. Here’s the update.

Not long after writing AAM and before I could use a bit of the good advice offered, I was informed that I was excused from tai chi observation. My coworkers are now on week 34 of The Endless & Mandatory Tai Chi Experience, and have been told the current session will extend through the end of January. No one was willing to challenge our CEO, although there is plenty of ex camera grumbling and sighing on lesson days. One long-time employee resigned over being forced to participate.

With tai chi becoming a permanent part of our workplace, I’ve grown resentful that I’m the only employee working a 40 hour week. I recently requested flextime so that I can enjoy two hours of wellness activities on my own. I was told to develop a plan for approval, so we’ll see where this goes. I’m incorporating several of the suggestions made by commenters in framing this plan.

I can report that the two-day “Wellness Retreat” held last month was the most disgraceful use of a nonprofit’s funding I’ve ever personally encountered (and I have worked in NPOs for 18 years). Employees were given two weeks’ notice for a mandatory overnight event which was held at a resort about an hour distant from our workplace. The agenda was produced at the very last minute and the schedule offered…nothing but tai chi! I’d been told that, knowing I cannot participate in tai chi, alternative activities would be available. Guess who did not attend?

The issues raised by a mandatory wellness program–our non-existent HR, the lip service about being a “team”, an overbearing CEO who considers the employees (and the org’s finances!!) his personal property–have focused my discomfort with this organization enough to prompt a job-search. Mandatory tai chi is merely a symptom of a larger problem here, and it pains me to see an NPO operating with such a lack of integrity vis-a-vis its stated mission. I do thank all the AAM readers who offered suggestions and insights, but upper management here is dysfunctional and there is no collective will to push for change.

update: my employer requires us all to do tai chi in the office was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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