supplier said not to do business with them if we disagree politically, no one said anything about my anniversary, and more

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

1. Does this new job really involve this much travel?

I am considering leaving my in-office job to take a remote job working from home that has a 25% travel requirement. I’m currently interviewing with the company and asked if 25% was accurate or a worst case scenario. The response was one or two international trips a year for two to three weeks! And occasional Monday-Thursday trips throughout the year, possibly as often as monthly.

As a mom of two elementary-age kids, being gone for extended periods of time is not something I want to do, nor is it fair for my husband to have to be a single parent for three-week stretches. The level of the job and the salary also don’t seem to match up with this amount of travel. It’s a manager role but not a senior director or VP. It almost seems like the travel budget would be as much as the salary!

Could the manager be exaggerating just to cover themselves in case the travel really ramps up? Is there a way to negotiate travel? There are expenses involved with being away from home so much like nannies, dog walkers, prepared meals for the fam, etc. so I would want to understand the requirement or at least put in some guardrails before I take the leap. Do you have any suggestions on how to negotiate this or a way to feel more comfortable taking this leap?

This job is not a good match for you! It is very unlikely that they are exaggerating the travel requirement; you should take them at their word that this is indeed the amount of travel you’d need to do. It’s not a good idea to try to negotiate it down when you know you don’t want to do that much; there’s too much risk of them reluctantly agreeing and then, once you’re on the job, realizing it’s not working out and they do in fact need you to travel that much.

This is no different than applying for a job and discovering it has some other deal-breaker for you, like having to work from a location 100 miles away or doing bookkeeping when you wanted to write music. The thing to do is to be glad you got the info before things went further and accept it’s not for you.

2. When a supplier says to take your business elsewhere if you don’t agree with them politically

What if one of your suppliers makes a statement on social media saying, “If you don’t agree with me, then don’t do business with me” about a current political hot topic and you don’t agree with them?

The owner of one of my primary suppliers made this statement. They are a small business and I am one of their main customers and if I don’t do business with them, it would be a huge financial hit for them and could possibly cause them to go out of business. I picked them because I believe in supporting small businesses, but I do have a secondary supplier who would love to have all my business, so there would not be an issue if I don’t have them as my supplier.

Do I take them at their word and the most recent order I placed will be the last? Do I give them a warning and say something like, “You may want to reconsider your statement if you want my continued business”?

It depends on how strongly you feel about the topic! If their stance is one that you consider immoral or harmful, it would be extremely reasonable to choose to take them at their word and take your business elsewhere. They’re inviting you to, after all.

If it’s not in that category but you still want to address it, it would also be reasonable (and perhaps interesting to you and eye-opening to them) if you said to them, the next time you’re talking, “I saw your post telling people not to do business with you if we don’t agree about X and I want to be up-front that we do see it differently. Do you really want me to take my business somewhere else?”

3. No one said anything about my 15-year anniversary

Low stakes question but I’m having some feelings about this and would love to know if it’s just me or if this is something I shouldn’t feel bad about feeling bad about.

I just hit 15 years at my firm and, aside from a poorly written automated email from our HR system, no one has said anything, it’s been crickets. I’m not expecting anything for it (benefits here are like unicorns … beautifully described but nonexistent) but no acknowledgement from my boss or anyone on the senior team about it is, well, it’s somewhat hurtful. Especially as she is very firm about us marking birthdays, life events, and leavings for our own teams.
The petty side of me is tempted to post something on LinkedIn to jog their memory — nothing scorched earth, just a “Thanks to everyone who supported my journey here these past 15 years, how time flies!” I won’t indulge this but would appreciate some insight from you and the AAM community to help me move past it. Do I need to let this go? Or is it worth saying something?

Do they do stuff for other people’s 15-year anniversaries? If they do and they overlooked yours, then it’s reasonable to mention it to your boss — not as a super-serious thing, but something like, “I know we normally do X for people’s 15-year anniversaries, so I wanted to mention that mine was last week!”

But if you haven’t seen them do anything for other people — or if you don’t know if they do because you haven’t seen anyone else reach 15 years — then I would try to let it go. Not everywhere does observe anniversaries (or only does it for 20 years, or whatever) and it’s unlikely that it was a deliberate slight or even a significant oversight, really. The main thing to look at is how well you’re treated generally — and it sounds like the answer to that is maybe “not very well,” which might be the bigger issue underlying how you’re feeling about this.

4. Could I be fired just for asking for extended leave as a medical accommodation?

I work for a company with profits of over $75 million per year. The office I work in, however, is a small satellite office.

I have been dealing with major health issues and I have exhausted my FMLA. I continue to deal with these debilitating health issues, but my doctor believes I can return to work after my next procedure.

The company I work for states that they will not accommodate the additional leave. I believe that they will claim undo hardship because I am the only person with my role in the office I work at — the company as a whole, however, is huge and has ample resources.

I have zero energy to fight this. I just want to know if I’m right in thinking that the ADA protects me from being terminated for asking for a reasonable accommodation (extended unpaid leave).

People are telling me to speak with an attorney but I just want to understand it from an HR point of view. I don’t want to cause any stress for anyone, but I do want to make sure I’m not getting steamrolled here while I’m not firing on all cylinders.

You can’t legally be fired for asking for a reasonable accommodation. But if you tell them, “I absolutely can’t return to work until (date)” and you’ve used up all your FMLA leave, there are situations where they could legally say, “We can’t accommodate additional leave and so if you can’t return until then, we can’t continue to employ you.” Whether or not that statement would be legal depends on whether the additional unpaid leave would be considered a reasonable accommodation in your specific situation or whether it truly would constitute undue hardship for your employer.

Because of that, you should be very careful about the way you word your request for extended leave; avoid language that indicates there’s no possible way you could return before X date, even if that is in fact the case, and be clear that you are engaging in the interactive process required by the ADA when accommodations are under discussion.

A lawyer would be able to advise you on exactly how to navigate this, based on the specifics of your job, so I second the people who are suggesting you talk to one!

5. Should I reapply for the job that just rejected me?

I recently went through the Thanksgiving and winter holidays interview cycle. I did three rounds of interviews and did not get the job after what I felt were pretty good indicators I had a strong chance of getting it. I was told that the holidays were busy and thus there might be delays in hearing back, but that they planned to hire the new employee by the beginning of January. I emailed to check in the week before the holidays and received a rejection email. I asked for feedback and accepted the rejection gracefully, with no reply. I know the holiday season is busy.

Fast forward to post-holidays. I just visited the job site I found the position on, and the same job has been posted. Would be it ridiculous to follow up on feedback or reapply? The company has multiple sites so hypothetically, it could be for another location. On the contrary, I could risk appearing desperate. I feel like my time was really wasted and I am sure I am qualified, but it also seems like their hiring practices are a mess. Maybe I dodged a bullet or maybe I look crazy. Help!

I can’t quite tell why you’re concluding their hiring practices are a mess! It seems like they stuck to the timeline they gave for getting you an answer (and were even a little earlier than they’d promised). And a lot of places don’t give feedback in response to rejections, so I wouldn’t read anything into that. Reposting the position doesn’t really mean anything, either; there are lots of reasons that can happen.

If it’s that you were getting strong signals that they were interested, only to get rejected … well, those signals are notoriously hard to read accurately. Without knowing what specific signals you were picking up on, I can’t address them with anything concrete, but it’s really common for people to have a good interview and still not get the job (often because there were multiple strong candidates and they can only hire one, or because you were strong in some ways but still not as a strong of a match as the employer wanted).

In any case, they rejected you so recently that it doesn’t make sense to apply again. If months had gone by, maybe — but it’s only been a month or so. For whatever reason, they didn’t think you were the right match for this role; the best thing you can do is to move on.

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