return to the office or be fired, class aide is late every day, and more

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

1. Do we have to return to the office or be fired?

Is it always the case that workers have to decide whether to comply with return-to-office mandates, or leave or risk being fired?

My large, multinational company has instituted a return-to-office mandate, and recently released their policy regarding compliance and punishment. Some aspects seem so unreasonable and obviously intended to reduce headcount that I wonder if they are legal.

This company has many subsidiary offices across multiple countries. During the quarantine years, we hired a lot of remote workers. One subsidiary office was even officially made a 100% remote workplace. Things went well, and many products were successfully shipped. Last summer, the CEO announced that everyone who lived within a particular radius of any office — anywhere — would need to work in said office three days a week, regardless of whether that office housed the actual company they work for. If you work for Pink Teapots Inc. in Seattle but you live in Detroit close enough to the Orange Kettles office, you will go to the Orange Kettles office (to make video calls to Seattle all day, surrounded by strangers).

Here’s the thing: for “fairness,” there are no exceptions or grey areas to this “living within X radius of an office” rule. Whether you have a direct highway or open water between you and the office makes no difference. So: some people now need to take 2+ hour ferry rides each way to reach their offices. If they don’t come in three days a week, they will be put on a performance improvement plan. If they don’t shape up, they will be fired. No exceptions, no leniency — that wouldn’t be “fair,” except for medical cases. Of course, no assistance in relocating, either.

Workers have spoken up, repeatedly, and in large numbers, to no avail. This seems blatantly wrong. Would someone fired for not being able to spend 4-5 hours a day commuting have any standing to hire a lawyer?

Not unless they seemed to be being singled out for an illegal reason, like that it was based on their race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected class or that it was retaliation for reporting harassment or discrimination. But if they’re applying the policy evenly to everyone, it’s legal for them to do it.

It’s highly likely that people forced out under this policy will be eligible for unemployment benefits because it’s a material change to the location of the job, but the policy itself (including firing people who don’t comply with it) is legal.

Related:
is “return to work” a way to get people to leave?

2. My class aide is late every day — and so is her kid

I’m a high school teacher. I have an aide who is with me all day. Two of her children are in my classes during the day.

The issue is, she is consistently late, usually by five minutes but sometimes 10 or more. I’ve talked to her about this, and she tells me she cannot get her youngest out of bed and into the car every morning. I could overlook her tardiness, but the bigger issue is that her eldest is in my first period, so he is coming late every day. I can’t mark him tardy, because technically, he is with a staff member. And if I do mark him absent or tardy, she will come to me and ask me to “fix” it. But then I feel like it is unfair to mark any other students tardy until she and her son arrive.

I am not her supervisor, but we do have different job codes, if that makes a difference – I am “certificated,” meaning I have a teaching credential, and I must be in the class during class time – otherwise I would need a sub. My contract requires me to be at my job site 15 minutes before the first period. She is “classified” – she cannot be in the classroom alone with students without a certificated teacher present. I don’t know what her contract says as far as start time.

Otherwise, she and I have a great working relationship, and she is one of the best aides at my school – I’m lucky to have her. I am reluctant to address it at all, but it seems like she literally doesn’t care that she is late all the time or shrugs it off. Am I making too big a deal about this? Should I just let it go? Can you help me craft some language to use to address this? On the day I wrote this letter, they were nearly 15 minutes late!

I don’t know whether you’re making too big a deal out of her lateness — that really depends on the impact on the classroom and your work. If it’s affecting the class or your own ability to do your job, then you’d be right to raise it.

But you absolutely aren’t making too big of a deal about her kid’s lateness, because it’s unfair to the rest of your students that they’re being held to a different standard. I don’t think it’s really true that you can’t mark him tardy because he’s with a staff member — because he’s not really with someone who’s acting in their capacity as a staff member at that time; he’s with his parent, just like other kids whose parents make them late. You should be on solid ground explaining that to her; let her know that you can’t continue to excuse his tardiness because it’s not fair to the other kids. If she bristles at that, it’s worth talking to someone above you about how to navigate this in your particular school, given its own policies and politics.

3. Is it legal for a family-owned business not to pay a family member who’s working for them?

This is one of those classic “was this situation legal?” questions. It no longer matters as the situation has changed, but I was thinking about it again and wanted some outside input!

I’m in a field that requires a tertiary degree (think law, medicine, dentistry, etc.) and one of my friends from school (“Sam”) had parents who both worked in this field. As is pretty common with people in this family situation, Sam went to work for their parents’ business upon graduation. When we were in school, their parents paid for tuition, rent, and all living expenses. When Sam graduated, their parents bought them a small house near the business to live in.

For the first few years Sam was working, they did not get paid any salary. Per the parents, any money they made that would be “salary” was just going back to parents to pay off living expenses and the home purchase. They did still get some amount of spending money but basically until they had made enough money to break even, they did not have a paycheck. I think for tax purposes what likely was happening was that paychecks were being written but deposited into parents’ account and then marked off as debt payment somehow.

This went on for maybe 2-3 years. None of us really knew what to tell Sam when we found out, and they were not bothered by this arrangement. Their parents have now retired and Sam is now the owner of the business. Plus they also have no student loan debt (rare in our field to not have a huge student loan debt burden) so it did work out nicely for them in the end, but it always felt borderline illegal that they weren’t getting paid?

It might have been legal. The main federal law that governs employment — the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — doesn’t cover employers that are staffed only by the owner and their parents, spouse, children, or “other members of the immediate family (which it defines as “relationships such as brother, sister, grandchildren, grandparents, and in-laws but not distant relatives from separate households”).

If that applied to them, they were free to work out whatever payment/repayment arrangements suited them, without regard to minimum wage or overtime laws.

4. Can I reclaim custody of my jacket years later?

I had a sweatshirt jacket hanging up at work and a coworker started using it. They know it is mine because I told them and my name is on the inside tag. I told them it was okay to use it and they keep it on their office chair. It’s been going on for several years. I’m about to retire so my question is, do I take the jacket with me or just let her keep it?

Do you want the jacket back? If so, just let them know! “I’ve been happy to loan you my jacket lo these many years, but now that I’m leaving I need to grab it back.”

5. My job wants me to book future travel when I might be quitting soon

I work remotely in the midwest and travel to Current Company’s main office on the east coast quarterly, mostly for socialization, not any real business need. I’m supposed to book all travel at least six weeks prior to a trip. My next trip is meant to be in six weeks.

I’ve been interviewing at New Company and things are going well. I don’t know if I will receive an offer from New Company, but if I do, I would likely have to put my two weeks notice in before my next trip to Current Company.

Should I book my next trip now, in accordance with Current Company’s travel policy, knowing there’s a chance I may not be able to go on the trip at all, or (more awkwardly) that I would be going on the trip after I’ve already given my notice? Should I wait for New Company to make a decision and book my travel late? Should I create an excuse and tell Current Company I can’t make it this time?

You should book the travel now in accordance with your company’s policy. If you end up taking the other job and can’t go on the trip at all, that’s not a disaster — that’s a pretty normal thing that happens with company travel. It just goes this way sometimes. After all, some travel is booked months ahead of time and people aren’t expected to decline all travel whenever there’s a chance they might not be around for it. You plan as if you’ll be there until the point where you know you won’t.

And if the trip falls during your notice period and you’re not sure they’d even want you to still go, you can simply ask that once you’ve given notice: “I’m scheduled to be in Boston next week. Do you still want me to do that trip or would you rather send someone else?”

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